The Game You Should Be Playing
My right arm’s been in searing pain this past week, so I’ve been playing with how to fix it. As a middle-aged athlete I’m used to diagnosing mysterious pains, but this one has proved annoyingly persistent. Sometimes it feels almost normal and I forget for a moment, only to be forcefully reminded as I try and fail to lift a cup of hot tea to my lips.
This was terrible news for my tennis game. Tennis has become one of my prime joys over the past few years, a pandemic workout experiment that’s evolved into a passion and a community. So when I realized this was baby’s first case of tennis elbow, it felt like both a rite of passage and a frustrating disruption to my treasured routine.
Thus I was highly motivated when I turned to Drs. Google, YouTube and ChatGPT to help resolve my case. As usual, Dr. Google came back with lots of information and little consensus. Prognoses for how long I’d be out ranged from 2 weeks to 18 months depending on the approach, mostly assuming a long course of rest and the gentlest return to using my right arm for anything halfway useful.
I wasn’t convinced. Medical advice tends to be highly risk-averse. People don’t like pain. Hospitals don’t like being sued. Patients seldom adhere to doctor’s orders. Even outside of medicine, much of the advice we get is guided by avoiding risk, not seeking rewards.
Athletes and entrepreneurs, by contrast, often have very different attitudes towards risk. They might try the experimental surgery if the early results seem promising. Or make big promises to close an important customer. They’re used to pushing themselves to the edge of their capabilities—not because they aren’t aware of the risks, but because the rewards of seeing how far they can go are so rich.
Those rewards aren’t predicated on wild success, either. Most athletes are amateurs like me, I’ll never make a dime off my tennis career! And most startups fail. Yet the rewards of exploring what we’re capable of seem to be endless either way. There’s something deeply meaningful about pushing ourselves in service of a goal we care about—whether or not we succeed.
So I pushed myself this week, despite the discomfort. I skipped my beloved court time with friends, pushing myself to rest and take care of myself instead. I sought expert advice and experimented with remedies to see what helped my body most: stretching, massage, exercises, heat, cold, compression, anti-inflammatories.
A few times I pushed myself over the line and made the pain worse. There are some downsides to embracing risk! But I also learned from my failures and found a rhythm between rest and rehabilitation. Instead of retreating from using my body entirely out of fear of the risks, I experimented playfully with it and earned quick rewards, discovering what works best for me day by day. Today my arm feels almost back to normal, and I’m proud of the risks I took to help my body heal in weeks instead of months.
So when I say there’s a game you should be playing, I’m not talking about tennis. The game you should be playing is self-discovery: taking the risks necessary to explore the edges of your capabilities. It applies equally at your best and worst, at work and home, in sickness and in health. Not just for the benefit of your family or your employer but for yourself: so you can look back proudly and know you tried your best. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the risks. Self-discovery is a game you always win, even when you fail.
That’s why I have an endless appetite for tennis no matter how often I lose. Why I’m always full of enthusiasm for my clients’ ambitions no matter the risks. We don’t always achieve our ambitions: in tennis, entrepreneurship, or life. But exploring the edge of our capabilities is its own reward, and it’s an honor to help leaders play that game as well as they can. Whatever the outcome, I know they’ll be able to look back on their work and feel proud.
So what are your boldest ambitions? Want to explore how far you can take them? Let’s play and find out.