Are You Playing Not To Lose Or Are You Playing To Win?

Last year at the Thai Retreat, Mizo said something really powerful: "Black women know how to hold each other in pain but we don't know how to hold each other in expansion and joy."

I felt that.

We had a deep conversation about this in the #MoneyMagic student group and we were all triggered by the insights we got as we delved deeper on this topic of expansion and being alone at the top.

We spend so much energy holding ourselves back so we can be loved.

This energy we use to keep ourselves small is exhausting, this exhaustion of limiting ourselves is showing up in our bodies and causing physical energy blocks and it’s affecting our health.

The exhaustion shows up as deep anger and frustration about money.

It shows up as resentment in families, especially where money is concerned.

No one teaches us how to play to win because we haven’t learned how to hold each other in pleasure and joy

When we're playing not to lose, especially in our personal finances, we're just doing what's expected to keep ourselves alive and to keep ourselves afloat.

The idea of dreaming bigger and going for the financial dream that we truly want and desire, isn’t something we consider or think about.

When we play not to lose, we play it safe, our focus is on survival, not expansion.

Playing not to lose is about maintaining the financial position we have and it works. People will praise us for being financially practical and doing the expected, even as our souls cry out for change.

When we're playing not to lose, our relationship with money is fear-based but it comes across as being practical.

And often practical means fitting our lives into a budget, when what we should be aiming for is to create a budget that suits our lives.

Expansion requires us to start thinking bigger, dreaming bigger and to start playing to win.

Playing to win means giving ourselves permission to want the things we want and putting everything that we've got on the table as we work to make it happen.

No one teaches us that there’s a difference between playing to win and playing not to lose

No one tells us that it’s okay to go all out and expand and that it’s okay to evolve and change and that sometimes this evolution will mean embracing joy and letting go of our old identity of pain and struggle.

No one tells us that radical expansion will require us to let go of the things that no longer serve us.

No one tells us that to become the beautiful new version of ourselves, we have to be willing to let go of the old version of ourselves.

No one tells us that radical expansion will require us to play to win and that playing to win means choosing ourselves, betting on ourselves, believing in ourselves and trusting ourselves.

Everybody is scared that expansion will change us and we are taught to fear change

Having money can cause the people around us to treat us differently and see us differently.

And worse – it can change us.

But that’s a lie - money doesn’t change us, it just magnifies the parts of ourselves we kept hidden or reveals parts of us we didn’t know.

For us to change our external environment, we often have to change our view of the world, change ourselves and change the way we see ourselves.

So yes!

This financial journey will change us.

It will change how we see money and how we approach financial challenges.

We’ll develop new interests, learn new skills, learn a new financial language, which can make some of the people close to us feel abandoned and lost.

But life is about constant evolution.

We have to give ourselves permission to expand and know that it’s okay to play big and ask the universe for more.

Click play on the video below to learn more

Are you playing to win or are you playing not to lose?

What do you need to change in order to start playing to win?

Share your insights in the comments section below.