Play To Win: Choosing Growth Over Fear in Work and Life
Packed with time-tested techniques and real-life case studies, this work and life field guide is based on the famous training program of the same name.
It doesn't matter whether you are a new graduate just entering the working world, a young professional, contemplating tough career and family life decisions, or one of the millions trapped in midlife and wondering, "Is that all there is?" Anyone—anywhere—can use the insights and inspiration in Play to Win! to live a more successful fulfilled life.
Excerpt, Chapter 1
In their book Play to Win, Larry Wilson and Hersch Wilson share the following story:
IF YOU COULD DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN
Our friend and colleague Dick Leider's primary mission in life is helping people plan and live careers that are successful and meaningful. For his remarkable book The Power of Purpose, Dick interviewed hundreds of people in their seventies and eighties. (He initially interviewed two hundred couples in the late 1970s and has followed up with approximately thirty interviews every year thereafter.) He asked these simple questions: If you could live your life over again, what would you change? What is the wisdom that you would pass on? Although he got many different and specific responses, most fell into three categories.
I would see the big picture
Dick's subjects often said they were so busy living day to day that they missed truly living their lives - all of a sudden they were sixty-five. The only time they reflected on who they were and why they were here was in times of crisis. They wished they hadn't relied on crisis to inform their decision making and their life's direction. They wished they had taken more time to reflect on the big picture, the spiritual aspect of their lives.
I would be more courageous
The second pattern Dick heard was the wish to have been more courageous, to have taken more risks, especially at work and in relationships. At work his subjects would have risked being more creative and finding work that was meaningful to them. In relationships, they would have focused on having the courage to be better friends, parents, sons, or daughters.
I would make a difference
They also wished they had understood earlier that the essence of living is to make a positive difference. No matter how successful or unsuccessful people were, they expressed a hunger to leave a legacy. Reflecting back, they wished they could have made more of a difference.