Play Your Game (and Play It Full Out)
Why Half-Measures Steal Meaning — and Commitment Creates Momentum
Principle #5 of 9 in the Art of Encore Living series.
I resisted becoming a coach for years.
Even after coaching hundreds of people inside the Akimbo Workshops, even after hearing “You should coach professionally” more times than I could count, even after feeling the unmistakable pull toward this vocation, I held back.
I told myself coaching was something I did, not who I was.
I convinced myself I needed more experience, more credentials, more clarity.
I told myself that someday the timing would “make sense.”
But the truth was simpler and less flattering:
I was afraid to go all in.
I was hedging.
I was playing small.
And then one day, after watching me spend yet another weekend writing posts, recording broadcasts, and cultivating community — none of which generated income at the time — my wife said something I couldn’t un-hear:
“This thing you’re doing… It’s becoming really expensive.
If it’s going to continue, it needs to start paying its own way.”
It hit me like a bell.
Loud.
Clear.
Undeniable.
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I had been trying to live a meaningful life without committing to the work that gave it meaning.
I wanted the vocation without the vulnerability.
The impact without the investment.
The clarity without the courage.
And that’s when I finally decided to stop vacillating.
I opened a Google Doc, drafted a simple coaching offer, added a PayPal link, and emailed it to everyone who had ever told me I was a great coach.
I told myself,
“If ten people sign up, I’ll take the hint and play my game full out.”
Eleven did.
Not because the offer was perfect.
Not because I had some secret.
Not because I had mastered the business side of coaching.
But because people can sense when you finally decide to stop holding back.
They can feel the difference between someone dabbling in their vocation and someone committing to it.
That decision — that moment of going all in — didn’t just launch my coaching business.
It changed the way I live.
The Bhagavad Gita puts it plainly:
“You should not vacillate.
Vacillation — hesitation — is one of the most reliable ways to drain purpose out of your life.
It’s what keeps capable, talented, generous people stuck in the hallway between who they’ve been and who they’re becoming.
Vacillation turns vocation into fantasy.
It turns calling into someday.
It turns potential into paralysis.
And here is the uncomfortable truth — the empathetic antagonism part:
Most people don’t struggle because they lack purpose.
They struggle because they refuse to commit to the purpose they already feel.
They’re not confused.
They’re scared.
They’re afraid to pick a path because picking a path means giving up all the other ones.
They’re afraid to go all in because “all in” means you can no longer hide behind preparation or potential.
You actually have to show up.
But here’s what midlife makes painfully and wonderfully clear:
Your life’s next chapter won’t begin until you stop hedging your bets.
Encore living requires full participation.
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That’s what this fifth principle calls you to do:
Play your game.
And play it all in and full out.
Not the game you inherited.
Not the game others expect.
Not the game you think you “should” play.
Your game.
Your way.
With your whole heart.