Playing the Game Without Losing Yourself

There’s a sacred tension in building something real inside systems that were never built for you.

In this episode, I explore what it means to stay in the game. Not to conform, but to quietly transform it from within. Not to opt out entirely, but to create meaningful change.

This isn’t about rejecting business, success, or structure altogether. It’s about reclaiming your voice, your strategy, and your truth without abandoning your soul to do it.

I speak about my own evolution, and why entrepreneurs often feel torn between visibility and integrity.

If you’ve ever felt like you can’t win playing by the rules, but don’t want to burn it all down, this one’s for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Hey friends, I'm so excited to be here with you again. This has already been such an amazing experience creating this podcast and sharing these insights with you. And this is only just the second episode. I don't know if I mentioned it last time, but I'm committing to showing up here weekly. And sometimes that's going to continue to be by myself. And sometimes that's going to be with other friends or colleagues or people that I haven't even met yet, because there's so many beautiful things to share with you. And I want weekly for you to have windows into new ways of becoming and new versions of yourself, because I feel like you deserve that. And I want to be able to gift you with that as much as I have the energy for. And so, I'm just so excited to have you here again. I've been thinking a lot about playing the game. This was something that I struggled with until very recently. And I think for anyone that really might identify as a compassionate or empathetic person, you find it difficult as well. you find it difficult to understand what does it look like to be in the game but not having the game play me? What does it look like to be in the game and to actually maybe change the game or change the structure of the game or change the rules of the game but to not lose myself within that? Is it right to just opt out of the game completely or is there something wrong with that? Am I leaving other people behind if I just completely opt out? And so in many ways, I'm talking about our corporate systems and the culture of work, but that could be anything. It could even be the algorithms on social media. It could be your identity. It could be almost anything you can think of. And so I spent the first 28 years of my life playing the game in a big way. Really, really the first 25. For sure, I played the game up until I started to realize who I am and I started my transition. But there were even a few years before where I started to really question things a lot more. I grew up in a very conservative home. Somewhat religious, not religious. overly bearing in any way, but my parents, especially my mom, were very straightforward, very rigid. They kind of looked at life one way. They didn't really tend to think about things very differently. They just really did what they were told or did what they thought they had to do. So I grew up having... All of this desire in me to be different and to change things and to really do meaningful work in the world, but yet competing with the fact that I was told and I was socialized to just fit in and to just play the game. It didn't help that I played it really well in school. I did really well kind of easily. Early on, that made it that much more difficult for me to even consider being different because I was sort of falling in line and it wasn't difficult. It didn't seem weird. I wasn't having a ton of resistance with it. And it was hard because I assumed I would have resistance to playing the game if I was meant to not play it or to change it or whatever. But I really wasn't having a lot of resistance for a long time. And then when it did start, I really didn't comprehend how to do that. I didn't even comprehend how to have the courage to change my major in school, to choose a path that was different than one of the ones that was sort of laid out by my parents. I almost chose to start my life off with accounting because I had multiple family members that did that. And it just seemed easy because they knew exactly how to tell me what to do. They knew the best decisions that I could make to do well in that realm. And so when I all of a sudden wanted to change my major, or I wanted to move out of the state I grew up in, or I wanted to... you know, find my new identity. That was all really hard because that wasn't the way that I grew up and that wasn't what I was taught. I didn't have anyone around me showing me what it was like to opt out or to do things differently. Everyone around me was really playing the game almost just as much as I was, if not more so. And so it wasn't like I had this uncle or I had this person to look to and be like, what does this actually look like to live differently? What does this actually look like to thoroughly enjoy my life or to create a life that's very different than what I'm aware of, what I know is possible? So I had these beliefs in my head kind of Almost always percolating. Sometimes they would go away for a little while, but they would always come back. I wanted something so much different. I wanted a life that was so much more meaningful, but I really had no clue how to do that because the way I grew up in school and work and everything was beating into me. To just fall in line, to just follow the rules, to just show up every day and do what you're told, and to also be okay with it when you show up tomorrow and maybe you're paid a little bit differently, commissions and bonuses are different, or now I want you to focus on this thing instead of this. And it was just... I wasn't supposed to be myself. I wasn't supposed to have agency. I wasn't taught what these things actually look like. And so as you often do, when you're trying to make changes and you're already on one extreme, you have this giant pendulum swing to the other extreme. And so now all of a sudden I'm like, I was following the system. I was playing the game as well as anyone. And then all of a sudden, I was like, screw the game. I don't want to have anything to do with that at all. I'm just going to find the ways to just pretend the game doesn't exist. to just be whoever I want, especially as I started my transition. It was like, I'm nothing like so many of the people around me. I don't fit in these structures. I don't fit in this binary gender bullshit. So why do I even care? I'm just going to basically just opt out of the game. I'm just going to... I talk to clients differently at work just to do it, just because I can, because this is who I am and I'm authentic. And so now instead of being rigid in these weird systems, I was all of a sudden rigid in this version of myself. Now I was this person who's different and unique. And who just like rebels just to do it, not in a way that was necessarily changing anything or helping anyone, but just to do it. And I made that an identity. So now, like when I send emails at work, or when I call clients, or the way I interact with people, whether or not I choose to go to the bar, the food that I eat, everything is just like, this is what I want to do. I don't care what you want. I don't really care what you think the world is or what you think it should be like, this is what I want. So I'm just going to do this. So I was over here, and now I'm over here. There's no balance whatsoever. I'm at the complete other extreme. I'm saying the systems suck. I don't want to have anything to do with them. I was having some slight guilt for the amount of privilege I have and the fact that I was starting to change. And I felt like I had a voice, but I was like, I don't really know how I want to use that. And I'm simultaneously watching all of these things happen in the world last year. I'm, you know, watching this, you know, presidency unfold. I'm seeing all of these things happening and I'm like, not speaking about any of it. I'm not saying anything. I'm not speaking up politically or socially. I'm not really doing much with business. I'm just kind of over here wanting to just be this weird, like little guru or something. I'm, I don't really want to just go to the mountaintop and be a monk, but in a sense, I kind of do. I'm like, can I just leave all of this shit, and can I just go over here and do this instead, and can I just act like all of this isn't happening? Not because I don't care, but because I'm just trying to find myself, and I'm so over all of the ways that I've been held down, and I haven't been seen, and I haven't been heard, and I'm just over it, and I don't want to have anything to do with any of this anymore. Not in a way of like, I want it to end my life, but just like, how much can I opt out? So that's so much of what I did, especially last year. And even kind of earlier this year, like I was on social media, not all that consistently, consistently on LinkedIn to an extent more than most, but I was on there just doing whatever I wanted to do. And it was never working. I wasn't like getting more followers. I wasn't really connecting with people more meaningfully. I mean, a little bit here and there, but nothing was really working. I was essentially closing myself off because I was saying, I don't really care about any of the rules or anything. I'm just going to pretend it doesn't exist and I'm just going to go over here and do me. So everyone didn't really know what to do with that. The universe didn't even know what to do with that. How was I supposed to call in any sort of abundance or like real connections or anything else when I'm in this weird place where I'm kind of just like, fuck it all. Like who even cares? And then I realized very recently that I feel like I was in the systems for such a long time for a reason. Maybe it doesn't mean anything at all. And maybe that's just the meaning that I'm putting on it in the story that I'm choosing to tell. But if so, then that's the story that I'm choosing. And the story that I'm choosing is I had to be a part of these things to understand them and to understand what it really looks like for change to happen. And so I all of a sudden stopped looking at this as I have to opt out and I have to not care about any of it. I don't have to prop it up. I don't have to be okay with the status quo, but I have to figure out how to play the game until the game changes because I can't help do anything If I don't play it to some extent and by play it to some extent, I don't mean like, okay, I'm not going to be the worst person ever, but I'm going to go over here and I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. And these things are a lot less harmful to other people. So that's fine. I'm not talking about being less harmful. I'm talking about genuinely doing things like looking at social media and saying, okay, pretending the algorithm doesn't exist and just trying to do my own thing isn't working. So how can I use the algorithm but make it meaningful? So for example, on LinkedIn, I started trying to do shorter posts and shorter insights but still do like really meaningful things that hit. Not just like bro-y business things or like fun quotes just to say them. But how do I condense and put more clarity around my message instead of just saying, screw the algorithm. I don't feel like trying to learn this. I don't feel like trying to cope with it. I don't want to do any of that. And I've already started to see it get a little bit better because I'm playing the game in such a way that I can alter it. I may give someone else permission to post a little bit differently or to share more of their story. I'm not just falling in line with what everybody else is doing, but I'm also not doing things that the algorithm hates to where it's not going to push out my message. Because I just kept telling myself, oh, my message will just get pushed out anyway. If it's just meant to be, it's meant to be. And that was BS. That's not how that works. That was me in some ways avoiding being more miserable, sorry, more visible and trying to do meaningful things because if I was playing small, I could just blame the algorithm and pretend that wasn't happening. This happened for me with relationships as well. I sort of learned this in intimate relationships and it kind of just, became my understanding for the rest of the interactions and relationships that I have. I used to be really hard on the people that were in my life, especially in romantic relationships. And the sad part is it almost never came across as the fact that I cared. Like that still pains me to this day because what they felt was not only shitty, but they felt that I didn't actually care about them. And I really did. But the problem is, is my intent doesn't matter because I hurt them really bad. And I have to have compassion for myself with that because I grew up being taught tough love. And so that's what I thought it was. That's just what I thought you did for people that you cared about. And so I did that for a long time. And then all of a sudden it was like, well, that didn't work. And this is annoying. So maybe I just won't give advice. Maybe I just won't tell people exactly how I feel. Maybe I'll share a little bit less. I'll just kind of opt out of this. And I'll just be there. If somebody wants me to listen, great. But I'm not sharing advice. I'm not telling them anything about what I think they should do. I'm not necessarily even sharing with what I would do if it were me. None of that. I'm just going to leave it all alone. Because clearly, I'm just incapable of... being compassionate and empathetic with people. And I'm just going to be too hard on them, especially in an intimate relationship where I can see it, especially when they're sad or miserable or whatever. And I, and I love them and I so badly want more for them, but, but I'm just going to opt out. And so again, massive pendulum swing, just pretending like that's not my role. I don't have to do that. I'm not here to give any advice. I'm not even really here to share a whole lot of my wisdom. I'm just going to leave that alone. And then last summer, I started to realize something. And I don't remember where I first heard this, where I first learned it, but I started to realize there's a little bit more to it than when we say, listening to someone and just like being there for them whole has power that like sometimes like in the intimate relationship that's all we need to do we just need to sit there and listen we don't necessarily need to give advice that used to frustrate me because i was like that doesn't really make sense i don't i don't feel like i'm doing anything and then i started to learn more about what it really meant to just kind of show up with presence and what it meant to just be And to not necessarily try to do something or direct someone in a certain way or tell them they have to believe a certain thing, but just to kind of show up. And then it started to click for me because if I were to show up like this at the grocery store, at least depending on which state I'm in, That might affect someone in a big way. It might give someone permission to be more themselves. It might cause someone to think more about how they see someone like me. Who knows? But me just showing up might affect the way that someone else feels about the world or sees the world. And that became something that I love so much about who I am to the point where I'm actually not sure that I want some of the changes I originally wanted. I originally wanted to change my voice and I also wanted my face to change. I don't know if I want that anymore because there's something so cool and fun and beautiful about about being able to show up and everyone has this power, but this is just the example that I'm using because it's, I guess in a sense, a little bit easier for me to see how capable I am of doing that. It doesn't mean I have more power than you do just because of how I look and how like the mix of identities and things, but I just find it so cool that I can show up in a space and I might be really change something for someone just by being myself, especially when I show up in a space with joy or confidence or courage or whatever. That might really do something for someone. And I'm not just talking about someone else that's like me. I'm not even suggesting just someone else that's maybe queer or doesn't know it. I'm talking about the difference that it can make for anyone. I'm talking about how that could touch anyone's life. And so now all of a sudden I'm realizing I do want to play the game. I just want to play it differently. I don't want to stop showing up, but I want to find a way to show up more fully and show up with so much power that it changes things. And that's exactly what I'm doing here with this podcast. I'm not trying to give you a specific message. Sure, like a couple minutes before I hit record, I decide what the theme is. But when I say a couple minutes, I mean a couple minutes. This is actually my second recording. I already had like a 15-minute recording or something like that. And I felt like I was performing. It didn't feel like I was just letting the words come through. It didn't feel like I was truly enjoying it. So I just stopped it and scrapped it because that wasn't what this is supposed to be. This is absolutely meant to be me sharing very genuine and authentic things with you as they're coming through, not as I decided I should say them or as I tried to perform or I tried to perfect it. That's not, that's not what this podcast is. And it's not what I'm ever going to allow it to be because that's not who I am. And I don't mean that in a way of like, I'm never willing to change. I mean that in a way that's very genuine. Like I am always going to be finding ways to do things differently, to share things differently, to show up a little bit differently. And so I, I'm not saying there's necessarily one right way to think about this, but this is now how I feel about playing the game. This is how I feel about how I show up politically, socially, in business, you name it. This is essentially my activism. This is one of my biggest gifts and my biggest ways of changing the world is how do I show up in a way that is going to affect someone else, regardless of whether or not I say words at all. Whether that's in person, whether that's on social media, whether that's on this podcast, like that's what it's like for me now. And so I wanted to share this because it took me so long to understand that power. And it's still hard. Sometimes I want to do more and I want to say so much more, but I have to stop myself and I have to remind myself that my responsibility isn't to be the loudest voice in the room. My responsibility is to be one of the strongest presences, one of the strongest frequencies in the room, so much that it affects people without me doing or saying anything specifically. And I share this with you for so many reasons. I share this with you because I know people who care about change in the world and activism, other queer people are going to listen to this and they're going to be wondering, How do I really make a difference? I know there's people out there feeling guilty about it, especially politically and activism-wise. I know there's people feeling guilty about it because I've been there. But I no longer feel guilty about it because I can see how what I'm doing is rippling out. And it's even doing it in ways that I can't completely imagine. And that doesn't mean I should never show up to the protests. That doesn't mean I don't need to rewrite the book on doing business differently, that doesn't mean I don't actually do something within the game as well. It just means that... the way that I'm showing up is powerful enough that it can in many ways speak for itself. And I don't necessarily have to try above and beyond that. I can kind of allow different ideas and ways of this to come to me. I don't have to always actively go out and think, what's the next thing that I can do to make an impact on the world? It's how can I show up fully and how do I become the version of myself that is even more powerful than I am right now, that can have even more of an impact on the world than I'm having right now. And so regardless of what that's like for you, whether you just want to be a leader in your own life or whether or not you have your own business and you're trying to figure out like, how do I become the version of myself that has the courage to do something differently? How do I become the version of myself that has the courage to build the business or even like blow everything up and rebuild the business? That's really what I want to build the life that makes a difference for other people around me. The life that actually like changes the world for the better. And what that looks like is so insanely counterintuitive. What that looks like is literally doing less and less. And it's learning to be more, learning to just listen, learning to just show up. Because think about it like this. How many people do you know that have shown up fully maybe ever? you probably know at least a few people who have never shown up fully or who you at least can reasonably perceive to have never shown up fully a day in their life. So when that's the normal way of living, not showing up fully, being a victim, life is done to me, Everything happens to me. Life doesn't happen for me. I'm not capable. I can't do these things. I can't have what I want. When that's the way that so many people are living, can't you see how you showing up fully, no matter what that is, is already shifting the game, is already shifting the world? without you even saying or doing anything else, because your presence alone is disruptive. Because people are going to notice when you show up authentically and vulnerably and compassionately and empathetically, they can't not notice it. They might pretend not to, but they can't not notice it if it's powerful enough. If you're really that present, people know. People will know. And so that's how this has evolved for me. It's honestly evolved in a really beautiful way where I'm no longer thinking about how am I going to just like opt out of the game? Like I'm actually working on my own chat GPT right now. Not like, AI program. But if you don't know, you can actually create your own like version of chat GPT where it does specific things or prompts the user in certain ways. I'm creating something where it's encouraging people to use it as a co-creation tool to no longer like for social media and business messaging and all of these things to no longer just like Hey, tell me what to post today. Or, hey, here's this idea I have, do it for me. You can still use it for that if you want to, but the whole purpose is for it to get to know you a little bit, for it to understand your business a little bit, for it to understand your voice, maybe some of your past posts or other things you've written. And for you to be able to then say, hey, here's what I wrote that I think I want to post for tomorrow. It feels a little bit off. Can you just help me adjust it a little bit so it's a little bit more clear or a little bit more powerful or whatever? And then when it does that, I'm also telling it to help you reflect on that because it's not just meant to be. Hey, do it for me. It also might make you a better writer or it might help you hone your voice or your message a little bit more because it might ask you, you know, okay, here's what I'm thinking. How does this feel? You might have an aha moment in working with that. And so this is what I'm talking about. It would be so easy to just opt out of something like AI completely and say like, Hey, Here's the level of consciousness that I have. Here's the spiritual beliefs that I have. And this is going to potentially go wrong in so many ways. Let me just not use it. But especially if how it works is based off of what we're feeding it. then why wouldn't I jump in the game? Why wouldn't I try to feed it better things? Why wouldn't I try to feed it more conscious things? Why wouldn't I teach it to speak to us a little bit differently, to help us reflect, to help us become better, to help us clarify our voice? That's certainly not going to have a net impact. bad benefit, like a net negative benefit for us. I don't know how much good it will cause. Maybe it'll just bring everything back to zero in a sense. Maybe it'll just cancel out some of the bad, but it's certainly not going to cause things to go more wrong in the AI space. It's not going to create more abuse of it. It's going to potentially change the way that at least a few people are using it, potentially for the better, potentially to do something meaningful in the world. So again, I'm never here to tell you there's one right answer. I'm not even really here to tell you that you absolutely have to play the game. Maybe you have a different way of viewing this than I do, and your perspective is valid. And it's either valid for the part of your journey that you're on, or potentially there's wisdom in your perspective that's wisdom that I don't have. And maybe there's still something I'm not seeing, but I feel very aligned in the way that I've chosen to play the game and the ways that I've started to see how I can use the systems to try to do some good. And that's not me saying they don't still need to be dismantled or whatever, but it is me saying that I'm not going to opt out while waiting for certain things to happen or certain things to change just to be able to do things vastly differently. I'm going to figure out how do we get from point A to B. If this is the systems that we want right now, and this is the systems that we wish we had, then somebody needs to help get it to what we wish we had first. Opting out of it, in my opinion, isn't going to do that. And I don't really feel like I did my, I feel like I did a disservice both to myself and to you when I was opting out. I don't think that was doing anything for anyone. Sure, maybe there were small moments where it was good. Maybe I needed to opt out for my mental health or I needed to put things down for a second. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how you're making a difference right where you're at, even when it's hard, because maybe the system is set up to try to not allow you to make a difference or the system is set up to try to get you to fail. So if I were to leave you with this, if I were to leave you with anything, ask yourself over the next week or even over the next month, but we're going to have new insights next week. Ask yourself over the next week, how could I play the game a little bit differently? How could I show up more fully? How could I look at something differently, like AI, to where maybe I could change that for the better? Just consider that. Just think about it and see what comes up for you. Don't beat yourself up if you don't come up with an answer. Just throw it out there. journal on it, meditate on it, think about it in the shower, and just see what comes up for you. Because I bet there's one small way that you can make a difference. I bet there's something like the way I'm seeing AI. I know for a fact most people are not seeing that. I'm literally creating my own GPT because when I talk to other people about it, they were like, I didn't know you could get it to do that. Can you please share that with us? I didn't do it because I'm like some kind of AI like junkie or like tech, like insanely tech savvy person. And I was just like, oh my God, how do I, you know, add one more offer to my business? And, you know, how do I get into the AI, you know, how do I jump on the AI train? It literally came organically because when I talked about the way that I was viewing this, other people weren't viewing it the same way and I saw how I could help them. You might find the same thing if you just sit with it, or even if you just talk to other people about it, normalize sharing your experience. You would be surprised how many times you learn something cool about the way that someone else views the world, or you would be surprised how many times you find out that you're not alone. Because so many of us have all of these weird thoughts, and we're keeping them to ourselves, and we're not sharing them with anybody else, but everybody else is having the weird thoughts too. So how are you going to play the game? How are you going to share some weird thoughts? And I'll leave you with that. And again, I appreciate you so much if you stayed here until the end. I love every minute of this. And I trust that you got exactly what you needed today. I'll look forward to connecting with you again next week.