your mark in life and are happy with how your contribution will measure up in history; if you have made all the big plays, participated in the biggest games and are satisfied with the outcomes, then give this book to a friend or colleague or someone that needs it more than you. If, on the other hand, you still have a desire to do things, go places, make a difference and realise your maximum potential; if you are prepared to push the envelope, squeeze every last drop out of the game of life; if you truly want to play a much, much bigger game, then read on.
And you have permission to be confused at times. In fact, confusion is the highest state of learning. If at any stage in the book you find yourself thinking, ‘I just don't get it!', that's good because something in your mind is vibrating around the problem, ‘How do I get it? How do I sort this out for myself?' It means you will actually be learning as you read. So feel free to be confused sometimes. I guarantee all the pieces of the puzzle will come together long before the end of the book.
Who wants to be average? Definitely not you or you would not have picked up this book in the first place. I have written Play a Bigger Game knowing you will not want to settle for less than what is truly possible in your life. After lots of mistakes and some not so good experiences in my life, I now know the rules to playing a bigger game, and this book has given me an opportunity to share them with you.
Playing a bigger game means continually looking for the very best version of you in everything you do. It's looking for opportunities, developing your potential and growing in awesome ways you never imagined possible. It's taking every aspect of your existence and refining, reviewing and reinventing it. It's not sitting on the sidelines wishing you were in the game. It's getting on the team and being the most valuable player and creating an end game that will make you proud of the score line.
So come with me as I show you how to play a bigger game in your life and how to achieve more, be more, do more and have more.
Chapter 1
Break out of the cotton wool society
Today we live in a cotton wool society and I am over it! There are so many rules, so many regulations and so many people telling us what we can and can't do. You go to the beach and there are signs telling you don't run, don't rollerblade, don't fish, don't skate, no bikes, no phones, no cars, no alcohol – essentially no fun! Don't swim, don't run, don't walk, don't talk, don't eat, don't drink. There are all these things you can't do. You go to work and you've got occupational health and safety rules, all these human resource regulations, risk management. Stop doing this, start doing that, don't go here, don't go there. All the things we can't do, but not much about what we can do. We get caught up in all the cant's and it stops us from stepping out and stepping up. We get so used to constantly being told where to be and what to do that we lose the ability to take charge of our own lives, to be responsible for our own behaviours, results and outcomes.
It seems to me the world has gone crazy! We create more rules to protect people from harm and try to influence their behaviour. Some of these things border on the ridiculous: schools ban kids from turning cartwheels; proposed laws require you to walk your dog; teeth cleaning is mandated in daycare centres; licences are required for just about everything from fishing to busking.
Within this cotton wool protection, we are too afraid to take up the adventure of life because we have all these people telling us we can't go there, we shouldn't do it, we shouldn't try it, we shouldn't give it a go.
More and more people are living their lives vicariously through watching reality television shows. We watch MasterChef but eat fast food. We watch The Biggest Loser rather than go to the gym. We would rather watch Survivor than set out on our own adventure, and rather watch The Apprentice than start a business ourselves. Then we get nice and comfy on the lounge and we watch Jerry Springer just to prove to ourselves that, compared with others, our lives aren't really that stuffed up.
We have become a nation of watchers, not doers.
The cotton wool society holds us back, putting us in boxes and applying labels that define us by our actions. From the day we're born we are labelled: he cries a lot, she sleeps a lot, so there we are in our first box. Then we go to school and we get put in more boxes: she is good at sport; he is disruptive; she can dance. Then we go to work and get put in another box: he is not a team player; she doesn't write good reports; he is not dedicated. Throughout life we are given more and more labels and are put into more and more boxes. The cotton wool society shapes the way we live. Everyone is expected to do things the same way and we get caught in this system and pattern.
The great achievers in life don't fit into the boxes. They won't accept being put inside a box or accept being labelled. They shrug it off. They create their own path and take responsibility for their own lives and results.
Are you living in a system of same old, same old, doing what everyone else does? It goes something like this: I'm born. I live in a family in a certain degree of financial security. I grow up in that family. I go to school. I go out into the wide world and look for a job. I find a partner. Everyone asks me when I'm going to have kids, so I have kids, and everyone wants to know when we are having another. Then everyone asks when I'm going to get a new job. The family is on my back about when we're going to get a bigger house, a better car. Living life in this cotton wool society, you grow to believe that you need to do all these things in this way, following the same pattern.
Then you get to the stage when life is starting to run out, and you ask yourself, ‘What am I going to do when I retire?' Then you retire, get a watch in a gift box, and do very little until you are put in your final box – and that's the end of it. I don't know about you but I refuse to live in these boxes. I refuse to accept the labels. I refuse to do the things that average people do. I refuse to participate in a world that has decided to watch rather than do.
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