For this 12th edition of the Joyful Sovereignty Weekly, my intention is to bring to your awareness a perspective of the Joyful Sovereignty Infinite Game Playbook. So you can play a more beautiful game of life (if you choose).
Read the Previous Edition Here
Imagine you’ve been a professional treasure hunter for decades.
Your own version of Indiana Jones.
Ever since you were a kid, you loved the thrill of finding treasure and hidden secrets.
For most of your treasure hunts, they were solo adventures.
No one really understood the game you were playing.
Until one day, you met someone who played a similar game of treasure hunt than you. But somehow their version was slightly deeper.
You converse with this other treasure hunter.
You pick their brain.
You eventually find yourself on a “mini treasure hunt” with them.
They ask you a lot of questions on how your treasure hunts in the past have gone.
They ask of your motivations behind your adventures.
At the end of the mini treasure hunt, they hand you an envelope with a symbol on the outside.
They invite you to take “treasure hunting” to the next level. If interested, open it and follow the instructions.
What do you do?
[the story continues…]
Most people in the world are playing someone else’s game.
Even worse, most are playing a game that actually takes away from their natural state.
The typical go to school, get a degree, get a job…
This path (game) robs us of our innate creativity and vibrancy of life.
Some people make good money and then find the things that bring them joy because of the resources they have.
Most aren’t that “lucky”.
Most aren’t aware of the game they’re playing.
What’s sad, is they don’t even know how much they’ve given their power away.
I know, I’m speaking from experience.
I’ve played a disempowering game in the past. And I’m still playing my way out of that old game and into a “new” game in some ways.
The first step in being able to play a more infinite game, is to identify that you’ve been playing a more finite game.
Bring it to your awareness.
Appreciate it for what it is.
Decide that you’ll play a more infinite game from here on out.
You don’t need to know how to play in the beginning. All that’s needed is you deciding that you want to play.
The HOW emerges as you take each step.
The Joyful Sovereignty Infinite Game has a playbook, sort of.
Imagine you could see every playbook from every NFL, NBA and pro sports team.
Every foundation, principle, trick play, formation and guideline at your disposal.
With so many resources and options, you’d need something to know how to pull from what team and playbook.
You’d need a Golden Thread to weave the perfect combination.
This combination of plays, foundations, principles, guidelines and even trick plays all fit together harmoniously.
Here’s the secret.
YOU are the Golden Thread.
The authenticity of who you are will automatically attract the right components of each of the playbooks.
Your curiosity will drive this.
Your excitement will drive this.
Your fun will drive this.
“Playbooks” are all around. Lots of people want to give them to you for free.
Some people want to sell you their playbook.
What most are missing, is they think their exact playbook will be perfect for you.
But it won’t be.
It’s true, there are some universal "plays" that will support.
Your curated playbook will begin to emerge as you expose yourself to other peoples intentions, actions, question and approaches to life.
In addition to welcoming inspiration from other peoples playbooks, you will also look within.
Solitude and stillness will be containers for you to receive plays from a source you may not be able to explain.
Having a bunch of plays you think are for you is good, but you’ll need to test them out.
As you test them out, you’ll find out which ones resonate with you.
All the ones that don’t, discard them and appreciate the wisdom it brought you.
This infinite game is full spectrum.
It includes your Mind, Body and Soul.
Your Body is the vehicle.
Your Soul is in the drivers seat.
Having your mind (and what it thinks) is only part of the picture.
Over time, you’ll develop a custom playbook, fully verified and vetted by yourself.
It’ll be in alignment with your Mind, Body and Soul.
Each aspect of you will give it the thumbs up.
It’ll make sense to you mentally.
It’ll feel good in your Body.
And a deep knowing in your Soul will seal the deal.
This is what is meant by integration.
If life is an infinite game, let’s dive into what the “plays” might look like.
Plays are something you decidedly do.
These come in the form of the following:
Just like in any game, if you run a single play, it may work once.
Then as you continue to play the game, you run a complementary play (for you). Rinse and repeat.
These different “plays” all complement each other.
Let’s break each of these kinds of “plays” down.
Getting clear on your intentions are one of the most powerful ways to play.
Intentions are the spark of how you play the game.
Intentions often bring the long-term to the game.
Here are a few examples:
There are so many potent intentions you can bring into your life.
Over time, you’ll embody these intentions and then can bring new ones into your life.
Don’t rush it, have fun with them.
Great questions lead to great answers.
Asking yourself “keystone” questions will lead to profound answers that will support your journey.
A few questions that can be “plays” for you are:
There are so many great questions out there. As you dedicate time to form great questions for yourself, you’ll be rewarded with great answers.
Those answers will lead you to people, actions, ideas and so much more.
Actions are pretty straightforward.
Yet sometimes we don’t take them.
Knowing what to do, and actually doing them are sometimes difficult to connect.
You take action every day. Taking intentional action is where the good stuff happens.
Especially the stuff where you know you should take action, but don’t want to.
These moments will unlock a beautiful aspect of the game of life.
Some actions you take are:
These examples are meant to be more open-ended for you.
As action is easily understood and done on a daily basis.
Action is WHAT you do, the approach is HOW you do it.
In sports, some focus on the offensive side of the game. While others focus more on the defensive side.
Most have a combination of both, but in a unique mix.
Your approach to the game of life will be unique to you.
You may have moments (chapters) where you work hard.
Some chapters of life will be more smooth.
Over time, you will know what approach to life best suits you for the moment.
Some examples of approaches might be:
Understand that life is dynamic. The approach you had early in life may not be as applicable today.
The great thing: because you lived through it, it’s within you.
It’s within your experience and can be pulled from as needed.
I was a Green Beret. Sometimes I need to harness that grit and mission focused energy. I have it when I need it.
Yet now, I’ve harmonized my approach to life.
It’s still intense in some ways, but it’s also deeply integrated with the flow of life.
Setting the intention of having all your plays complement and align can be powerful. If you need to ask yourself how they complement, do so!
Align intentions with your actions.
Align your questions with your approaches.
With your action, you’ll solidify your approach of the game.
You get the idea.
You don’t want aspects of your life to be at odds with each other.
That’ll only bring suffering.
If you need more inspiration on your “plays”, look above to the previous section (The Playbook).
Noticing how others play the game can help you point yourself in the right direction.
Note: You aren't copying other people. You're simply allowing others to be a mirror for you.
Who you are is seen in others.
Ensure you discern what’s right for you, right now.
Experiment and validate your own playbook.
The secret to playing this game isn’t how you play with others, but the game you play within yourself.
This is the tiny part of the game that pretty much no one else on the planet will quite understand it like you do.
It's so nuanced and subtlety different, they would have to walk in your shoes your entire life to “get it”.
References from when you were 12 years old would give it a tiny bit different meaning.
That experience you had when you visited that one place refined your approach.
An influential person who shaped you in a specific way.
No one in the world could quite get how you play.
This is the game within the game.
It’s almost like an inside joke between you and the Universe.
Reference humor to the max lol.
You can remember watching a show when you were younger with someone. Something so hilarious happened and you both laughed so hard.
For the next few weeks and even to this day, you laugh at it.
But for some reason, no one else seems to laugh quite as hard as you and your friend do.
This is kind of like that, but except it’s all within yourself.
Why within yourself?
Because a lot of people on the planet are playing to please others.
Even worse, they don’t even know it.
It’s been hard-wired in their brain.
Maybe you can look back to a game you played as a kid.
You got so lost in the game, you didn’t even think about other people.
You were in deep flow (even though you didn’t know that’s what you were doing) with your game.
I remember doing this with basketball growing up.
I played for hours every single day.
I played at the park with friends.
But I really enjoyed playing in my backyard.
I could adjust the rim to like 8-9 feet and dunk for hours.
I’d practice different dunks I saw from NBA players.
I’d perfect it.
I broke down every tiny movement.
I’d slow down time to understand how I could do it.
It was a game I played within myself.
I had all the time in the world to do the same thing over and over.
If I was playing with someone else, they’d probably get tired of it. They wouldn’t have the same internal game within to shift the nuances of how to do it just how I wanted.
This one example is part of this inner game.
How could you extend this concept into multiple aspects of life?
This is definitely a deeper topic, but we’ll worth digging into.
Spark a conversation with someone about this to help extract some insight for you.
Do you remember the moment you learned how to play the game of tag?
Do you remember how you first understood it?
Probably not exactly.
Maybe you saw some kids playing on the playground when you were a tiny human.
Then you saw and felt how much fun these kids were having.
You were so excited, it didn’t even matter if you didn’t understand how to play.
You jumped in.
You DECIDED.
You probably didn’t get it the first try, but you still went for it.
As you played more, you got better at it.
Today, you know how to play. You understand it. It’s part of you.
You may not play tag as much these days (lol), but you have that within you.
Work can be a game.
Fun can be a game.
Hobbies can be a game.
Family time can be a game.
Just because you view things MORE like a game, doesn’t mean that you don’t take it sincerely.
It’s a game that deeply matters to you, but you don’t have to take it all seriously.
It’ll be a mix (your mix) of purposeful play.
Just like playing tag for the first time, just jump right in.
I’ve done my best to present this article to your mind to give it a try.
I’ve done my best to provide enough “strategy”.
You have the opportunity to decide a more playful approach to the infinite game of life.
Upon following the instructions in the envelope, you are set on a path of discovery.
You eventually connect with other treasure hunters. These treasure hunters not only find treasure from around the world, they actually leave treasure for others to find.
Your experience in finding treasure from secret clues, ancient texts and hidden puzzles is not a gift. You know how to lead someone else to find treasure.
And not just any treasure.
But treasure of ancient wisdom that will unlock an even deeper game.
Only the intrigued will find this game fun.
It requires depth, wisdom and play.
This game reveals secrets that will unlock human potential.
But it can only be found by those who want to play this particular infinite game.
You’ve mastered the intentions of your game.
You’ve mastered the actions you take.
You’ve mastered the questions you ask yourself.
You’ve mastered your approach.
You’ve define the game within the game.
You’ve decided to play a Joyful Sovereign Infinite Game of your choosing.
And it results in something profound
You continually feel satisfied with each unfolding step, because you feel like you’ve hit the sweet spot of existence.
Here we are with the action steps for this edition.
Because you are reading this, you likely already have a significant list of “plays” for your own version of the infinite game.
Depending on where you are, take the next step that feels right for you based on the following:
If you’re interested in sharing or even brainstorming, you can connect with me over zoom.
I’d love to hear about your approach.
That’s it for this edition of the Joyful Sovereignty Weekly!
Wish you a great rest of your day!
Best,
Lane
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