Playing your own game
Find others who want to play and make your own game together.
Many midlife professionals want to start their own business.
They just don’t want to become “entrepreneurs”.
They don’t want to hustle endlessly.
They don’t want to dominate rooms.
They don’t want to become louder, sharper, more aggressive than they naturally are.
And yet, when they look at the world of business, that’s often what they see.
Scale faster.
Push harder.
Optimise everything.
Win.
If you’re wired a little differently, it can feel like playing basketball on a football pitch. You’re not bad at the game. You just feel like you’re running through treacle. The rules don’t quite match how you naturally move.
This week I noticed something in myself.
In a conversation, the tone suddenly shifted. What had been a dialogue became a pitch. Nothing wrong with that. Clear offer. Strong positioning. Perfectly legitimate.
But my body contracted.
A younger part of me felt steamrolled. As if I was being pushed down a path I hadn’t chosen. As if my agency had been taken away. The story that flickered into life was familiar: You’re doing it wrong. You’re about to be overpowered.
That reaction tells me something important.
I am wired relationally in a transactional world.
I value autonomy.
I value being heard.
I value shared power and mutual respect.
I want business to feel like conversation, not coercion.
And that wiring has served me well. It’s a strength as a coach, teacher, and community builder. It allows me to listen deeply. To hold nuance. To guide rather than dictate.
But it has also cost me.
In sales conversations, I can over-explain. I argue both sides before anyone has asked me to. I hesitate to promote myself because I don’t want to become “one of those people”. I shy away from hard edges, even when clarity is needed.
For a long time I thought the solution was better tactics.
Better scripts.
Better positioning.
Better systems.
But increasingly I’m realising that building a business is not primarily a skills game.
It’s a nervous system game.
The work beneath the work is learning how to stay yourself when the world is telling you differently.
Can you stay open when someone goes into pitch mode?
Can you hold your boundaries without collapsing or attacking?
Can you express anger without becoming aggressive?
Can you promote your work without abandoning your values?
If business is a dojo, this is what I’m training.
Presence.
Grounding.
Self-reference.
Courage.
The ability to be with conflict without shutting down.
The deeper journey of building something for yourself is not just about finding a niche or designing an offer. It’s about understanding who you are, what you truly want, and what parts of you get activated when you step into visibility.
It’s about noticing the younger part that equates being unheard with being unsafe. And gently letting the adult part take the wheel.
Because here’s the thing.
There is nothing inherently wrong with transactions.
We all need to exchange value. We all need to earn money. We all need structure.
But transactional does not have to mean dehumanising.
And relational does not have to mean fragile.
The mature move is not to reject the system. It’s to work with it without losing yourself inside it.
Every system (family, culture, platform, market) has rules. Acting in certain ways creates benefits or disadvantages. The trick is not to pretend those systems don’t exist.
The trick is to ask:
Where do I align with this system?
Where do I want to challenge it?
And where might I choose to leave it altogether?
That requires nuance.
And courage.
For those of us who don’t naturally identify as entrepreneurs, this is the quiet work. We’re not trying to dominate the game. We’re trying to find a way to participate in it without betraying ourselves.
The real skill is not to win the game and dominate it.
The real skill is to play your own game and find others who want to play together and make your own game together.
That starts with a different set of questions.
Not:
How do I grow faster?
How do I optimise this funnel?
How do I compete?
But:
What do I actually want?
What do I need?
What is non-negotiable for me?
What am I willing to grieve in order to move forward?
If you’re considering starting something of your own, don’t begin by copying someone else’s playbook.
Begin by understanding your wiring.
Understand the parts of you that need reassurance.
Understand the values you refuse to compromise.
Understand the kind of people you want around you.
Then design a game that fits that.
You may not move as fast as the loudest voices online.
But you’ll move in alignment.
And for some of us, that’s the only game worth playing.