Are you playing for yourself or your team?

"All I cared about was beating them," my dad said. "I was just thinking, 'Screw those guys. I can beat those guys.'"

It was 1989, he was playing for Team Canada at the World University Games in Germany, and something had just clicked. Last week, when my mom sent our family group chat a photo of him from that tournament, it sparked a cool conversation. We were meeting by the water in Sidney when the message came through, and the story he told me perfectly illustrated something I've been thinking about a lot lately, especially since I started reading Tim Gallwey's The Inner Game of Tennis.

The Two Selves at War

Gallwey describes what he calls Self 1 versus Self 2. Self 1 is the ego, the critic, the part of us worried about looking good and avoiding mistakes. Self 2 is our natural ability: the part that already knows what to do if we just get out of its way. Both my dad's story and my own experience with basketball seem to illustrate this dynamic in action but in different ways. 

My dad had been playing professional basketball in Germany's second division when the World University Games came to town. Back then, German teams were limited in their number of foreign players, so he was part of a small minority of international players in the league. When the opportunity came to suit up for Team Canada at the Games, he was a fringe player on the team, fighting to earn his place in the rotation.

"I got in my head about it," he told me. "I was so worried about not screwing up that I couldn't get into flow. I was so concerned about my performance that my confidence was shot."

Classic Self 1 behavior: the internal critic running the show, focused on protection rather than performance.

But something shifted when they played Germany. Suddenly, he was facing guys he recognized from his league in Germany and the division above. Players he knew, his peers. Against any other opponent, his focus would have been on himself: protecting his position, not making mistakes, proving he belonged on the team. But facing these specific players, he wanted to beat them so badly that his sole focus became the team's purpose: winning the game. He forgot about protecting his reputation and focused on what mattered.

Self 2 took over.

It became his best performance of the tournament, and they nearly upset the German team. When he played for something greater than himself (even though he still wanted to prove he belonged), he found his flow.

My Own Battle with Self 1

I experienced a similar dynamic during my time on UVic's varsity team, but with an added twist that I think some people might recognize.

By my third year, after red-shirting my first season and struggling to find my role, I'd lost confidence. My motivation was fading, and I'd developed a rebellious streak that wasn't helping anyone. I had this weird psychological response where if I was told I had to work out or do something, my immediate reaction was to want to do it less. I don't know where that comes from, but it was definitely working against me.

This resistance to being told what to do is fascinating when you think about it through Gallwey's framework. It's Self 1 in overdrive, so focused on autonomy and control that it sabotages the very thing Self 2 wants to do. My natural self wanted to improve and compete, but my ego was more concerned with not being controlled than with actually getting better.

We had structured workout programs, individual training sessions, and weekly shot quotas. The equation of energy invested versus what I was getting out of it wasn't balancing, so I decided to quit after the season.

The moment I made that decision, something remarkable happened: I started playing the best basketball of my entire time there.

I was having fun again, playing loose, making more noise than I had in years. I simply allowed myself to play. I wasn't worried about minutes, wasn't comparing myself to others, didn't care about the coach's assessment. I just got to play basketball.

The shift was noticeable, and it was a confidence-building way to finish. I knew I could hang with these guys. The rebellious part of me had finally gotten what it wanted (freedom from obligation), which paradoxically freed up my natural ability to do what it did best.

The Leadership Connection

These stories illustrate something crucial about performance and leadership: which "self" is in charge determines a lot, and there are different paths to letting Self 2 perform.

When Self 1 runs the show (when we're focused on looking good, needing approval, or having to be right), our performance suffers. We play not to lose instead of playing to win. We protect instead of pursue. And sometimes, like in my case, we rebel against the very things that could help us succeed.

But when Self 2 takes over, performance improves. My dad's story shows one powerful route: connecting with a bigger "why" that transcends ego. His desire to beat his peers shifted his focus from self-protection to team purpose. My story shows a different path: removing the psychological barriers that were blocking natural ability. Sometimes it's about finding purpose, sometimes it's about eliminating what's in the way.

Either way, when Self 2 is running the show, we're willing to take the back seat, to look foolish, to have our ideas challenged by better ones. We attack problems objectively because we understand that drama just slows us down.

As leaders, recognizing this dynamic in ourselves and our teams is crucial. How often do we see talented people underperform because they're more focused on not looking bad than on achieving the goal? How often do we encounter that rebellious resistance to being told what to do, even when the direction makes perfect sense?

Questions for Reflection

Think about your own leadership moments:

• Can you recall times when urgency got so high or stakes got so clear that you just figured it out? Where you weren't worried about who got credit or whose idea you went with?

• Who do you know that operates from this place consistently? How can you tell? What results are their teams getting?

• What was your team assembled to do? Could you execute more effectively if you got present and engaged from a place of openness, willingness to learn, and genuine curiosity?

• When do you notice your own Self 1 taking over? What triggers your protective or rebellious responses?

The next time you find yourself playing not to lose (protecting your reputation, avoiding mistakes, focusing on how you look, or resisting direction just because it's direction), remember these stories. Sometimes the best performance comes when we connect with something bigger than ourselves, like my dad did. Other times it comes from removing what's blocking us, like in my experience.

The key, I think, is recognizing when Self 1 has taken control and finding your own way to letting Self 2 do its thing.

- Dom

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