I’ve played my entire life. I’ve also competed my entire life.

Playing is better.

Here is the difference.

True play never allows fear to be a factor. Competing does.

Across all sports you will see a similar thread. Good players and teams compete hard against others, but great players and teams compete against themselves. “Be 1% percent better than you were the day before.” All the greatest players in every sport talk about this, but even though this has proven to win, I’m going to argue that this is not the ideal mindset (or at least not the ideal words to use.)

To begin with, competing against yourself by definition isn’t actually possible since competition requires at least 2 people, but let’s just say it is.

There was a time when Michael Jordan had zero interest in beating someone else. That era of his life might’ve ended much sooner than the rest of us, but it existed. He wasn’t concerned about anything except the pure joy of playing basketball. He didn’t need to win anything, beat anyone, or perform better than he did the day before. He simply loved the existence of that ball and his part he got to play with it.

The same goes for all of us. There was a time in all of our lives when we naturally gravitated towards things that brought us so much joy and we didn’t need any other incentive to play other than the activity itself.

Then, at some point, we got introduced to competition and our play was put in major jeopardy because another incentive was introduced. Instead of finding our enjoyment entirely in the process of our play, there was a option to find it in the result of our play.

Result-based action is NOT play. Process-driven action is.

When I look back at my athletic career, I can tell you without hesitation that the absolute best I ever performed was when I wasn’t concerned about the results, but instead entirely present in the moment.

I always find it a laughable question when a reporter asks a player, “what was going through your head?” after catching the touchdown with seconds left when the game was on the line. I’ve had a handful of those in my career and I can confidently say I wasn’t thinking, at least not consciously. If you analyzed my brain and could translate the signals into english, it would probably sound like this. “Where’s the ball? There’s the ball. Grab the ball. Hold the ball.” …then, a conscious, “LET’S GOOOOOOO!!!”

If you want a different answer to that question, then ask the player who dropped the game-winning ball. His answer would probably be more along the lines of, “I knew I needed to catch the ball for us to win” or “if I didn’t catch the ball, we don’t make it to the playoffs” or “if I drop this, everyone’s going to be so disappointed in me.”

Your BEST shot at catching the ball is being fully present in the moment, embracing every moment of the process.

The difference between those who rise to the occasion under pressure and those who tremble is this:

Pressure increases the enjoyment for those who are truly playing, but increases the fear of those who aren’t.

One final clarification: I’m not saying that you shouldn’t try to win. My first question with any game I play is, “how do I win?” What I’m saying is that your best shot at winning anything is to find the highest level of enjoyment in the process.

That is what it means to play.

It (emphasize it) responded: Cancer is when cells grow out of control and damage the body.

I’ve never had cancer (in the physical sense), nor have I really walked alongside someone who has really suffered from it, so I never felt the need to research it.

I do, however, suffer from selfish-ambition and walk alongside many who do as well. It is a topic that I have studied extensively and have ideated countless ways on how to be cured from it.

I define selfish-ambition as growth without concern for others.

It is an infinite game of achieving more to be more.

I’m 32. Relatively new to my “career” and in the last 6 years of building it, I feel like I’ve had to invest thousands of hours fighting against this mindset. It’s literally everywhere. Grow, grow, grow. Scale, scale scale. More, more, more. That seems to be the definition of success all over the place (at least in America.)

This messaging has wearied my spirit so much over the years. I have to put signs all over my office to remind me not to get caught in the cycle. One of those signs says “Growth for the sake of growth is cancer,” an abridged version of this one:

“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”
-Edward Abbey

The other day I was pondering this and decided to learn about cancer. Here are my most interesting findings:

Cancer cells are cells that show up to the scene as bad guys. They don’t want to follow the rules. They really don’t give an f about anyone else but themselves.

They have one goal: grow.

DNA repair systems come in and try to change their mind. “Join us and operate in a way that benefits us all or die.”

If they refuse, they die. This is called Apoptosis.

There’s this other thing called contact inhibition and it’s entire purpose is to STOP growth. If cells bump into each other, this process alerts everyone to stop the growth. “We have enough for now. More growth would actually be very bad for us.”

When these built in defenses don’t work, the cancer cells grow uncontrollably and thats when cancer lumps start to form.

Cancer is uncontrolled growth that does not care for the body as a whole.

Selfish-ambition is uncontrolled growth that that does not care for the body as a whole.

Throughout history, the “Church” aka the people who are trying to submit to the design that God set for them are referred to as the “body.”

12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.

13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

1 Corinthians 12:12-13

The “body” can be applied to any group of people. The one that hits closest to home (no pun intended) is family.

My dad left me when I was 2. He was in and out of my life until he died when I was 16. I didn’t know him super well, but I took a trip to the Philippines in 2024 and traveled around meeting people who knew him. I’m going to make a documentary, but spoiler alert selfish-ambition killed him. He couldn’t let go of the growth mindset. He wasn’t satisfied with just living a life with his wife and 4 kids, so he left the US and went back to the Philippines. He needed to keep growing, start new business ideas, make more money, find more opportunity. After 3 islands, 3 cities, a village, countless Habal-Habal taxi rides and a boat across the sea, I met Rudy, an 83 year old Filipino Mr. Miyagi.

I asked him question after question for over an hour, but I’ll always remember one specific quote.

“Your dad had this hole in him. It was never enough. He always needed more. I told him, ‘Ransom, settle down. Stay with your family,’ but he didn’t listen.”

My dad ultimately died contracting a disease while pursuing one final business endeavor.

He chased growth at the cost of others that ended in death.

Selfish ambition is cancer.

Top: My uncle handing my father’s urn to me. Bottom: placing my dad’s ashes in a tree.