Every week I offer up a word for you to play with.

The word is POKER.

This is a weird choice for a North Star Word but stay with me.

I’ve been playing a lot of Poker lately – but not your garden variety Poker, it’s a wild video game called Balatro. It mixes Poker with some other card game dynamics that makes every hand completely unpredictable and presents me with endlessly difficult choices.

Sounds a lot like life, doesn’t it?

The basic game of Poker is one of chance. You get dealt a certain number of cards and you attempt to create ‘Hands’ that score high. You can discard some cards you don’t like and aim to keep the right cards. The thing is, you have no idea if you’ll get better cards to replace them with – so it’s all a calculated risk.

What I find so interesting about Balatro is that they give you Jokers and other special cards with special multipliers and powers that work with some hands better than others. Every single time I start a new game, I get a different combination of these cards and the way I play basic Poker has to adjust to leverage them.

Life IS the same. We get the same basic 24 hours every day – but how we spend them will be influenced, hindered or boosted by any variety of life events.

I love and hate that Balatro is unpredictable.

I love and hate that Life is unpredictable.

I can’t control anything about Balatro – I can only play the cards I have and aim for the best possible result.

I can’t control anything about Life – I can bring the best I have to any given moment and aim for the best possible result.

The most valuable mindset for me in Balatro and in Life is to remind myself that it’s NOT personal.

Balatro is not working against me.

It’s all random game generation. Sometimes I leverage my available options successfully and sometimes I just can’t.

Life is also not working against me.

Maybe it’s not entirely random – who knows for sure – but it often FEELS that way. Sometimes I can leverage my available options and make a day great – and sometimes I can’t.

Every new hand of Balatro is a fresh deal. New challenges. New possibilities. I learn as much from the hands I lose as the hands I win.

So is every new day of my Life. I learn from my difficulties as much as I learn from my wins.

If I lose at something and make it personal – I might think ‘Well, I’m a loser!’ and stop trying.

But if I lose at something and shrug it off, learn what I can and try again – I have potential to win!

Shadow Journaling Prompt

Every week I’m providing a Shadow Journaling Prompt that you can use to bring a little more of your shadow out into the light.

This week’s prompt is: Do I live like today is full of possibility? (Am I playing the hand I’ve been dealt?)

It is so easy to lose sight of the wonder and awe of every single freaking day we breathe.

What ways are you living TODAY like it has potential for happiness and purpose?

Note: Some journal prompts will tickle you and some won’t – it’s ok to cherry pick what you play with.

Abundance

I bought a new car last week.

My choices came down to two vehicles. One would be a step down and one would be a step up.

Financially I was frustrated because fender bender was hurting my trade in value. I was going to have to come up off of cash to ‘step up’ or I could keep my cash and take the ‘step down’.

I looked back and forth between the two cars and imagined how it would FEEL to drive them around for the next few years and no doubt about it – I did not want to drive the ‘step down’ option!

I looked at the nicer car and decided to honor the experience I wanted over the bank account balance.

It’s easy to make more money after all.

And I felt the waves of that choice over the next few days – Abundance definitely flowed!!

I have a theory that if I had ‘stepped down’ – it wouldn’t have.

Use These Ideas:

I invite you to keep this email in your inbox for a day or two.

• Play with the word POKER.
• Play with the Shadow Journaling Prompt.
• Play with noticing what sort of experience you want and let that guide your next big choice.

And if you crave conversation around it – come talk to me about coaching.