Thread by @itsmeardenleigh

This has been a lesson for me too. I had a habit in the past of competing in my immediate environment - and often succeeding - without thinking to myself that the immediate environment had nothing to do with my overall goals if I even had any. I defined success by context.

https://twitter.com/theannagat/status/1349325371305553920

I have actually been meaning to write something about this in the vein of how meaningless it is to talk about “playing small” - there is ALWAYS a greater context for your environment that makes ideas of “playing small/big” virtually useless marketing rhetoric

I thought I was “not playing small” when I started my band.

Then I moved to LA and realized I had started a band mostly to impress a shitty NYC rock scene full of loud coked up men in leather, and that “not playing small” meant making my music bigger than their opinions of me.

The context I have most often heard “playing small” used is in sales attempts by business coaches, and it always means nothing except “not signing up for their five-figure program.” There is no other “playing small” and there is no “playing large” without spending money on them.

Returning to the original idea:

I blame much of this on the fact that for the first 18 formative years of our lives we are stuck in one game: our parents’ house.

Being stuck playing a game is literally coded into us for 18 years. We cannot say “I’m in the wrong house.”

Believe me, I tried.

As a result, the only available coping mechanism for playing the wrong game becomes “play it better.”

(cc: @TheAnnaGat)

I’ve said this before but: