Tool of the Month - Play Without Permission
Don’t wait to be invited. Start playing now.
CUE: You feel a spark of inspiration to switch careers, start a hobby, develop a new habit, finish a project, or begin a new relationship, but it falls out of reach. The odds seem stacked against you. The goal lies behind a wall too high to climb. The door guarded by gargoyles and gatekeepers.
RESPONSE: Play without permission.
Step #1: REFRAME your goal as a game.
If your goal was to publish a novel, reframe your goal as “playing author” If your goal is to fall in love and start a family, the game becomes “playing house”.
Step #2: COMMIT to playing your game regularly.
Every day if possible. Once every week at minimum. Play a humble version of this game in your own backyard. Play it until you feel it in your muscles and joints. Get it out of your head and into your body.
Step #3: CONTRIBUTE.
Take every opportunity to play your game (or share the results of your game) with other people, even if you’re not good at it yet. If no one will play this game with you, then turn this problem into your new game: I will make my game so good, others will beg to play it with me.
Let me add some detail about each of these steps:
Step #1 - Reframing your goal as a game. Some goals require multiple games. If you wanted to become a licensed mental health counselor, for example, the goal explodes into The Rapport Building Game, The Disciple of Jung Game, The Priestly Confession Game. At various points in such a journey you pass through phases you hope are temporary, because they’re pretty lame as far as games go. The Exam Taking Game, The Job Interviewing Game, The Watching People Pee In A Cup Game. If you’re lucky, you’re promoted to The State License Form Filling Game, which for me looked like a dozen fruitless trips to a downtown homeless shelter to get a signature from a supervisor who has 6 weeks of PTO and no time for email.
Here is the key. The best games (like the best music and the best art) have no point and no purpose beyond the game itself. Even winning and losing take a back seat to the ultimate object of the game… which is to KEEP PLAYING THE GAME. The universe itself seems to be playing this sort of game. Of course, not all games are so good that people want to play them all the way into the grave. Your job is to discover just such a game. And if you can’t find this game, create it. And if you don’t know what sort of game to create, emulate the games your heroes are playing. And if you have no heroes (you’re kind of fucked if you have no heroes… let’s talk about that), play the game your neighbor is playing. And if your neighbor plays horrible games, move away from that neighborhood as soon as possible. Don’t give yourself the option not to play.
If you need help reframing your specific goals into a playable game, see my personal examples below in the Parade of Shadows, or hit reply now and tell me your goal. I’ll guide you through the process (which is another one of my favorite games).
Step #2 - Play your game regularly.
Inscribe your game-play-actions into your Procedural Memory. This is treasure from heaven, where neither rust nor moth (nor Alzheimer’s) can consume it. Repeated game-play makes you decisive and action-oriented. You can’t always control the results of your actions. But taking ownership of your ability to act is always within your power. Actions themselves are genuine. You couldn’t really fake an action if you tried. Actions are never delusional. Even a lying puppet like Pinocchio, given the right actions, the right game, becomes a real boy.
Step #3 - Contribute.
Post your song. Read your poem at an open mic. Bring your cookies to market. Advertise your business. Try out for the team. You can’t predict with any certainty how others will respond to your contribution. Might be a smash hit. Might flop. At worst (and this is highly likely), you will be ignored. So Before, During, and After every attempt you make to contribute, practice Inner Authority. Simply close your eyes for 10 seconds and summon the worst possible version of yourself attempting to play the game. Make this version of you either cringey due to failing so hard, or revolting due to playing dirty and ruthlessly competitive. Imagine yourself extending a warm invitation to this version of yourself; your shadow. “Thank you for your willingness to just play.” “I wouldn’t dream of playing without you.”. “I’m sorry for all the times I tried to work it on my own.” “What’s next for you and me?” “What game do you want to play next?”
Testify!
This edition of Testify! is brought to us by a shadow cast in the light of a bully’s unwanted attention. The crucial think to remember about shadows is that they aren’t JUST the one thing that makes us want to hide them. This writer finds much to admire in what started as an easy target.
I’m so grateful to the client who shared this personal and painful story. If you are feeling a brave as “Kat-ass”… please let me know you want to make a contribution to our therapeutic community here in this newsletter.
Kat-ass
Back in middle school, there was this kid—a total dickhead. The kind who called you his friend, but only so he could make you the punchline. Insecure. Always needed an audience. From seventh grade home room on, he gave me the nickname Kat-ass—a twist on my name. He was relentless whenever he had his audience. It wasn’t just the nickname. It was the way he used it. The tone, the timing, the laughs—always crafted to land just right in front of a few other d-bags who thought it was hilarious. There were rumors, too. He told everyone I was always jerking off. I don’t think he cared if people believed him—it was just another tool in the box, another way to make me feel exposed and ashamed.
It evolved into high school. There was the time he got another kid, who got dumped by my sister, to kick and scratch my car with his dirty post-football-practice cleats in the school parking lot to retaliate. Then the time I got word that he and some of his recruits were planning to vandalize my family’s new home while it was still under construction. I remember racing over with a friend, in a panic to protect it, feeling like the walls were barely standing and I had to hold them up with just my presence. I never told my parents. Back then, fear was something I carried in private and I didn’t want my parents to worry about me. I didn’t know how to talk about it. I didn’t have the words. I certainly didn’t have the clarity or confidence to ask him why, or what he was going through, that made him act this way. That version of me just wasn’t capable of navigating it. Maybe he was dealing with his own chaos. Maybe he thought it was harmless, or funny, or a way to survive, himself. I don’t know. What I do know is that it marked me—and I carried those marks longer than I realized. It was difficult. But it built me. I learned to ignore it. He wasn’t worth my energy. I stayed chill around him—never gave him the fight or the satisfaction. Just kept it copacetic.
Looking back, the nickname was… kind of clever. I can admit that now. But at the time, I hated that MFer. I was smaller in middle school—and he was much bigger. Always pushing, but just short of a fight. Like he was testing the boundaries but too scared to cross them. I was already a good wrestler. I could protect myself and most certainly humiliate him or seriously injure him in an altercation, especially as I got tall and stronger. He knew better than to go too far, especially around the best wrestler in the state.
Fast-forward many years. He had become buddies with one of my friends so we’d see each other during college breaks and post college—parties, hangouts. He was better, a little more grown-up, but still a dick. I never let it get under my skin and I think he let it go or the audience wasn’t interested anymore.
Then we both ended up in grad school—different schools, different paths—but in the same city. Both trying to save money, and somehow, we wound up living together for a year. I suppose I was more tolerant and more secure. It was strange, but it worked. For a while.
He was deep into supplements—early Amazon stuff, powders and pills with mystery ingredients that triggered rapid weight loss and muscle building. Never asked questions. He was obsessed with getting shredded. He’d eat three chicken breasts a day, no carbs, creatine everywhere. Wanted to be jacked and lean with zero body fat.
Then things got real.
One day, near the end of our lease, I came home from class and found him bleeding—badly. Blood on the couch, on the carpet. He was pale, fading in and out, barely holding on to consciousness. He said he had “walked” into some open scissors, but there were two or more puncture wounds in very different spots on his legs. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to think at the time, I assumed he was self-harming. But the truth is—I don’t know what really happened. I never asked. I wasn’t equipped back then to deal with something like that. I did what I could: got him in the car, drove him to the ER, called his sister who lived nearby. Thankfully, he got help. And over time, he seemed to get himself together.
We lost touch, but a few years after “the couch incident,” we ran into each other at the mutual friend’s wedding. He was with a long time girlfriend and discussing marriage. He seemed happy. We talked a bit, even laughed. I remember he even reached out to me once or twice afterward, asking about advice on a service I provided. If I saw him now and he called me Kat-ass, I honestly think I’d laugh. We made it through all that shit. Came out the other side—not friends, not enemies—just… two people who’d matured enough to be decent to each other. I don’t know where he is now or what his life looks like. I hope he’s well. I still carry that image of him in pain, and even though I can’t say for sure what he was going through, I know it was real.
This story reemerged as a result of a group text exchange, with friends, about undesirable nicknames. I was reminded of a strength I once had—one I often forget is still there. That quiet composure. That unshakable center of self. That part of me that has stayed intact, even when everything around me is bending. As I unpacked who I was, he didn't haunt me, he highlighted me. And as I sat with him, I felt a wave of gratitude. Embracing the pain, the shame and the nickname. It feels less like I’ve been taught something, and more like I’ve been reacquainted with something I’ve always known. Clear eyes, full heart, can’t lose.
Parade of Shadows
Behind the curtain, I see the many versions of me that have existed from the beginning; over half a century. Surprisingly few of these fellows would you trust to be a mental health counselor. So it’s with surprising delight that I get to reveal this one guy to you. He’s the part of me that wants to get the feel of playing a new role. Like trying on a Halloween costume. He wastes no time between wishing he was someone else and becoming that someone else. He jumps in with no qualifications other than his enthusiasm. The fondest memories I have in life are the moments when this part of me took over; key phases of my personal and professional development. I’m bragging on this part because I want to brag on this part of YOU, too; your spirit of play. The part Piaget discovered in all children, with the power to dominate a chaotic and indifferent universe by pulling it through the child’s mind of creative play. If you’re asking yourself, “where the hell did my confidence go?”, the answer lies in the willingness we all had, between ages 2 and 7, to just play. This part of you still exists and still has the power to help you assimilate the intimidating capriciousness of reality into something not only fun, but maturing. But we’ve abandoned this part of is, because of its seeming inelegance, its unconvincing makeup and costume, its naive faith so easily dismissed by doubt.
Here are some examples of the games the playful part of me created over the years that allowed me to gain experience, open doors, and attract other “players” into my life.
When I was 7, I saw a TV show on how stop-motion films were made. I immediately ran down to the basement where my sister’s Playskool Puzzletown was setup and made my first animation of Farmer Alfalfa buzzing around the corn fields mowing down corn and cows. The entire experience was there. I moved the tractor an inch around the cornfield maze, snapped a frame of film, moved the tractor another inch, snapped the next frame, over and and over and on and on for frame after frame. It occupied me for hours. I could feel the life I was breathing, god-like, into inanimate toys. Only thing missing, really, was the film. And did I mention there was no camera either. I just made a clicking noise with my tongue and cheek to indicate I was exposing the next frame.
As adults we become fixated on “making things count” and “doing what matters.” If you view my so called “movie making” as a 7 year old through an adult’s “get worthy results” lens, you’d be disgusted by the sheer wastefulness and futility of it. No audience. No camera. No film. Nothing to show for it but the previous paragraph I just wrote. But not so fast. That kid unlocked doors for me. I eventually traveled the world with a video camera strapped to my shoulder, met incredibly special people, got a degree in media, won some awards for videos I produced while witnessing first-hand the fall of Soviet Union. All of these were amazing games I was grateful to play. All of it was the game that kid started in my basement with an imaginary non-existent camera. I dare say he had more fun playing that game with a fake camera than I ever did with a real one.
When I failed to turn my film career into something I could support a family with, I decided to do what all my friends were doing at the time (when in doubt, follow the herd) and I got a masters degree in education. Librarians at that time had media centers with video cameras and film projectors. So I became a librarian. Here’s a paradox… Even though you’d think that my Master’s degree in Library Science should have proven I was legit, I knew I was a fraud. I simply couldn’t figure out a way to have fun playing “library.” I avoided learning much about books, authors, writing, research, nor did I find any spark in “playing school” or “playing teacher.” Oddly enough the most fun I had was playing “detention monitor” where my inner sadistic prison guard was allowed to make a contribution of sorts. Yikes! (I love how these trips down memory lane reveal colorful new shadows for me to potentially collaborate with).
I limped along for a few years in various school libraries phoning in the library game. I’m just now realizing why this game never captured me. I had no heroes in this space. My actual heroes were Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Dean Kamen, Ray Kurzweil, and Kevin Kelly. I also hero-worshipped some of my personal friends who were electrical engineers and computer scientists. At the same time it was painfully obvious to me that these heroes were vastly more intelligent and academically disciplined than I’d ever be. So I’d settled for this library-media game that seemed to be the best compromise of merging my interests with a paycheck. Luckily, in 1995, seemingly overnight, the demand for skills in computer networking, website building, and databases flooded into the library field (and everywhere else too). My genuine heroes beckoned to me, and I spent every spare hour I could “playing” as a computer builder, network admin, webmaster, and database programmer. Without any formal training or degree in computer science, I just started to alleviate whatever pain points came up for my employer. I did the same after-hours with any friends or family struggling to make data serve their business. After a few years of “playing around” with this technology… and playing A LOT… numerous all nighters… tirelessly debugging, pouring over one thousand page How To books, I just decided (somewhere around page 500), “When I turn this page, I’m going to be a software developer.” And that was it. I answered a want ad in the newspaper for a web developer position, showed them what I had been “playing” with, and they hired me on the spot. They regretted their decision a month or two later when they looked at the spaghetti-ass code I was writing for them. But I’d written far too much of it, and got it working on too many crucial systems for them to fire me right away. And I did get better at it. So twenty years later I was still writing software without formal training or degree while my “librarian” identity remained in mothballs like an ill-fitting and out-of-style halloween costume.
Here’s my favorite example of how the spirit-of-play haunted me again… this time in my mid-forties. I read The Tools in 2014. It changed my life. I suddenly had weapons against despair. Phil and Barry taught me how to recover quickly from setbacks that would normally trigger me into explosions of rage or pull me into hopeless jags of withdrawal. I was so impressed I decided on the spot to become a psychotherapist like Phil and Barry. Again with the hero worship. This is a KEY factor in choosing what game you want to play. Follow your heroes. Your heroes become your heroes for a damn good reason. There is something resonating within that 2-7 year old part of you that is aligned and bonded to that hero.
I reckoned that the road to playing anything close to Phil and Barry’s game would take around five years. It finally took seven years to hear a non-imaginary person call me “counselor.” But the truth is, I would have been completely unprepared to hear one moment sooner. The paradox of formal training and gate-keeping, is that it did NOTHING to prepare me for counseling in the real world. Schools, at best, pour a few experiences into your Episodic Memory. And studying books, podcasts, videos, facts and figures fill in the Semantic Memory. But PLAYING THE GAME is what inscribes the true spirit of the role you’re playing into your Procedural Memory. This is place where riding a bike, skiing, dribbling a basketball, and flashing a warm genuine smile come from. Research shows that procedural memory is incorruptible by dementia, and can even continue to develop and learn in Alzheimer’s patients (they just don’t remember learning).
So if school and internship didn’t provide me with the procedural memory required to feel like a confident mental health counselor, where did it come from? Within six months of reading The Tools, I started a Tools Book group at my local library (of all places). Total strangers came in and we built rapport quickly and tried our best to practice some tools and unravel some of the mysterious questions they raised within us. To be completely honest, these were incredibly frustrating experiences. It just didn’t go a “cool” as I though it would. People brought in a bunch of attitudes and quirks that was entirely unprepared to improvise around. I made lots of mistakes in keeping the time of the groups productive and evenly shared. I hit dead ends in my own ability to articulate ideas and hold people’s interest. I really sucked at it. Later when I graduated with a masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, I was shocked to realize that I hadn’t yet simply sat down across the room from another human being and just… talked! All my training up till then was power-points, essays, exams, and student exercises, followed by an internship at the local homeless shelter helping folks navigate various social services. In the three years it took me to get this far, I never even “played the game”. So I created one. I “softened the target” a bit and started a podcast and invited people in my community, some of whom were strangers to me, to just sit and talk. It was an incredibly fun and helpful game, even though it was also stressful and made me nervous (or what game-players call, ‘exciting’).
Here’s a startling discovery. If you start playing a game, you can have a completely different life in about five years. I don’t have anything to add to that. It’s just a fact. Please run the experiment yourself if you want to invite that kind of change into your life.
What’s my next game? I’m playing with stones in my backyard, pretending to be an architect of a grand sanctuary. I just had t-shirts printed up with the name of my new Rock Opera inscribed on the back. I’ll wear that shirt next Monday night at the local songwriters open-mic. To the casual observer who has “outgrown” such games since they were seven years old, I’m just wasting time pretending to be something I’m not. But I have heroes. And the games they play have no winners or losers, just folks who get to keep playing. I will play these games happily all the way to my grave.
May you play the game of heroes. May you start playing now.
Don’t stop,
