“One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.” –Leonardo Da Vinci
Mastering the inner game is the key to sustainable personal and business success. It’s possible only by a deep understanding of what the inner game is all about and what success within it really looks like.
It’s the inner game that allowed Mozart and Elvis to create magical music from an invisible dimension. It’s the inner game that allows Elon Musk to see all the possibilities that he sees. It’s the inner game that makes Oprah Winfrey so impactful to millions.
You can be like that too (watch what your mind does with that statement!).
Why haven’t you mastered the inner game? Very few people have. When you grew up, the importance and potential in “mastering the inner game” wasn’t part of your school curriculum. It wasn’t the focus of the TV news or your dining room table conversations.
In fact society as a whole avoids and denies the inner game (after all, that’s where all of our fears reside). Instead we’re taught, implicitly or explicitly, that chasing things (grades, titles, degrees, money, relationships, good looks etc) is what it’s all about.
But when you chase something, what you’re actually after is the inner experience you think the “thing” will give you. Paradoxically, you’re more effective in getting the “thing” when the inner experience that you seek from it is already present within yourself.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with achieving things. Scoring goals and winning matches is fun. But the most successful players play for growth and the love of the game.
Where you’re coming from inside yourself—whether it’s from a place of fear or joy—creates vastly different outcomes.
Picture a person who reluctantly gives money to a homeless person. That comes from a place of “Money is scarce and hard to make but I must give or else I’m a bad person.” Then picture someone who happily gives from a place of “Money is abundant, easy to make and I enjoy sharing it.”
From the outside, these two acts may look exactly the same. Yet the end result is miles apart.
That difference is all in the inner game. Are you mastering it?
“When you get rid of your fear of failure, your tensions about succeeding… you can be yourself. Relaxed. You’ll no longer be driving with your brakes on.” – Anthony De Mello
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