What Got Me Back in the Game
Part Two of the “Right Game, Wrong Playbook” Series
The winning didn’t come all at once, but the moment I stopped running someone else’s plays, everything started to come together. I gave myself permission to slow down. I stopped watching someone else’s scoreboard. I stopped following advice that didn’t match my instincts. I found the right team. We launched my book with structure, standards, and a system that worked, and not just on paper. #1 on the Bestseller list and still there today.
The same thing happened with my speaking. I stopped trying to memorize a script and delivered it the same way I once did as a successful sales executive. I understood the content, and I knew how to relate it to the listener. Two awards in Canada followed and we had a winning streak.
In triathlon, I used a process that took me far beyond the goals I had set. I knew how to create results if I followed my system. I knew what I had to do.
There is a suffering that comes with losing the big game when you didn’t use the playbook that got you there. And I felt that.
A new season has begun. One where I’m calling the plays using a familiar system, one that works for me.
Most people think reinvention means torching it all and starting from scratch. It’s either stay in the job or leave it. Follow your calling or let it go. Play it safe or burn it down.
But winning at reinvention doesn’t have to mean destruction to the old systems.
Most of the time, it’s not either/or. It’s both/and.
You don’t have to abandon everything you’ve built. You just have to start noticing what feels right.
There’s a moment, and I’ve lived it, when the stirring inside of you finally starts screaming for your attention. You stop chasing surface-level answers. You stop living into the labels that were handed to you. And you give yourself permission to return to what’s always worked or what’s trying to emerge now.
Most of us are searching for something. We just don’t always know what it is. So we follow someone else’s playbook. We listen to the advice that keeps us going a little longer in the wrong direction, thinking if we just run the plays better, we’ll eventually feel it or finally execute.
But what if you’ve already built a life of achievement? What if you’ve already proven your success? And what if the fulfillment you’re searching for isn’t going to come from faster race times, more efficient ranching, or a flawless business plan execution?
What if what you’re searching for is already within you?
We think if we follow the playbook just a little bit longer, we’ll finally begin to execute. But sometimes the most audacious thing you can do is just stop, not quit, and not go sit on the bench. Pause and notice what feels right for you.
That’s when the momentum begins to shift. That’s when the crowd quiets and your rhythm comes back. You stop playing someone else’s game and start playing your own.
And what happens on your own scoreboard when you start calling the plays from your own playbook?
You start winning again, game after game.
The wins don’t come easy following someone else’s playbook.
But when you follow your own, you can mount your own comeback.
And you’ll do it by recognizing you are your own most valuable player.
Andrea Leigh
By the way, if you smiled at the football theme, you’re going to love my memoir, Do You Still Like Football. It’s not just the title. It was a question. An important one. The question changed everything. The game was won before it ever started.
It’s a story of reinvention, disruption, and finding your way to the real you. Want to go deeper?
Purchase Do You Still Like Football
