What drives you? Process, Pressure, Perfection, or PLAY? (Part 4)

We're all driven by different things. My teammates motivated by a sense of PLAY are action-orientated, stay in the present moment, and are the hands-down the most fun.

Drive. Motivation. Inspiration.

We all find it in different things. Some of my closest friends and favourite people are driven by a sense of play. They are fun, immersed in the present moment, straightforward, and find joy in many things. 

Figuring out your drive - and the drives of people in your life - helps you design your career, relationships and life in a way that lights you up.  

This is the final part of a 4 part series on what drives us:

• Process

• Pressure

• Perfection

• Play

Let’s dive into Play.

Driven by PLAY

‘Please play with me’ I sounded desperate.

Let’s be real, I was desperate. Entries to the Hermosa Open, the biggest event on the USA National Volleyball League Calendar closed tomorrow.

‘I’m not sure…’ Iwona said. Polish originally, she’d come to college in the USA and made her home in California afterwards. She was a free spirit. A gypsy. And a very, very good beach volleyball player.

‘Please. I’d love to play with you.’ I’d been asking her for days now. Begging honestly.

‘I’ll let you know tonight.’ Down to the wire.

Somehow, I talked her into it. I had no ranking points, so we found ourselves in the qualifier event – the tournament to get into the real tournament. With hardly anyone watching, no one cares about the qualifier event, we barely scraped through with a 15-13 win in the third set. I was just happy to make it into the main event.

We won our first match the next day. Beating the #4 seeds and taking their place in the draw. We won our second match. And our third. Sometimes, things just go right for you in sport. When that happens, you want to ride that feeling as long as possible.

We made it to day 2. Super Sunday. The quarter-finals.

At 8am, Iwona wasn’t at the beach. Our game started in 30 minutes. I had already been stretching for half an hour.

At 8:10, still no sign of my partner. I’d left 8 text messages for her already.

At 8:20… where was she? I had no one to warmup with on the court. I was serving the ball, running under the next and collecting it myself.

At 8:25, I thought we were going to have to forfeit. The other team was looking over, disbelief that someone would just not show up for a quarter final on their face. I kept my face expressionless.

At 8:27… she arrived. In true gypsy style Iwona wasn’t the most reliable with things like time. She had a smile on her face and dance in her step. ‘Ready to play?’ she asked with pure joy. ‘I can’t wait.’

And the whistle blew.

After a disastrous first set (I was a bundle of stress and she wasn’t warmed up), we won that game in 3 sets.

Then we won the semi.

Now the final. The first set had been point for point. 10 all. 12 all. 15 all. 18 all. Until right at the end they’d made a small mistake, and we’d won the set 21-19. 

The second set started even better for us. We were up by 4 points early on. But now… it was slipping away from us. Somehow, we’d lost a string of points in a row. And we were tied - 17 all. On the wrong side of the momentum shift. We called a time out. It felt like our dream run, in the biggest tournament I’d ever played in, was over. We didn’t have our mojo anymore. 

‘Let’s get excited,’ Iwona said to me

I replied with something lame like ‘You’re playing great, you’re setting really well.’

‘That’s not excitement.’ And she pulled me to my feet, held my hands, and we jumped up and down and screamed and laughed together.

What a magical moment.

I hit a pretty cut shot to win the next point. 18-17. Iwona went back, lined up for a jump serve, and let it rip. ‘The Polish Hammer’ the commentators had been calling her all day. The ball hit the top of the net, paused, and trickled over. I yelled in excitement. Her smile radiated across her face. 

19-17.

She lined up for another serve. Tossed the ball, connected with a grunt, and the ball… hit the top of the net again. Impossible. It hung there, I saw the other team scrambling to get it, disbelief on their faces. And it dropped in.

20-17.

They won the next point.

‘One more side-out’ I told myself. I knew the ball would come to me, it had all day.

Pass, set, and swing.

The ball hit the sand in between both players.

Set. Match. And championship.

And my first giant check.

With only 2 years of training, I had no right to win that tournament. Everyone we beat was better than me. But sometimes the stars align, a gypsy with an arm swing like a hammer agrees to a partnership, a little luck goes your way, and you play in the zone - in a state of absolute presence in the moment - for 2 days straight.

Iwona passed away a couple of years later due to complications from a minor surgery. In the years she had, she showed up filled with joy, and completely immersed in the present moment. 

She is a reminder that while sport means so much, the people will always mean more.

Driven by play. 

What matters to PLAY driven people 

For a Play driven person, these things light them up. For someone not driven by Play these things may make you feel disorganised, unstructured, wondering what the goal is, or like you are wasting time.

1) Love of the craft

• Joy from being immersed in a task

• A fun or game like approach 

• Working alongside others

• Lives in the presence moment

• Making beautifully simple things

‘I want everything we do to be beautiful. I don't give a damn whether the client understands that that's worth anything, or that the client thinks it's worth anything, or whether it is worth anything. It's worth it to me. It's the way I want to live my life. I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.’ ~ Saul Bass

2) Activity focused

• Doing over talking

• Practical and action orientated - just get started

• Love to help others solve problems

• The time between decision and action is almost zero

• Wanting to be productive and useful

‘You don’t have to be great to start, but you do have to start to be great’ ~ Zig Ziglar

3) Clarity

• Being able to pull out the core essence of a problem or discussion

• Wants to understand how something works

• The best decision can seem obvious

• No need for long term planning and goals, the first step is obvious

• Often use visuals to make things clear

‘If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.’ ~ Albert Einstein

4) Words are literal

• A verbal commitment is like a contract

• Taking people at their word - not assuming there is something below the surface

• Being explicit, literal and very transparent

• Saying what everyone is thinking, but maybe not saying

‘There is no greater fraud than a promise not kept.’ ~ Gaelic Proverb

Designing your life for more drive

Think of a coder with a drive for play. She’ll be most successful in a team of other highly skilled coders who immerse themselves in their work each day. She absolutely loves the craft of what she does, can lose herself in work for hours, and makes progress predominantly because she is consistent in showing up and matching her work to the standards of the team. She can be a ton of fun to work alongside. 

You can absolutely count on what she tells you. ‘I’ll call you in 20 minutes’ - it’ll be exactly 20 minutes. I’ll have that for you by close of business - you will 100% get it by close of business. ‘I’m fine’ - she actually means it. 

She always wants to get started and jump into the action. She’s not a big one for meetings, or talking things through, or spending time on the 3 year strategic plan! Although when discussion is required she has the ability to pull out the core idea quickly, and play it back simply. To her it’s obvious what the most important thing is. 

She absolutely lights up when you ask for help, and will be by your side helping to solve problems. So works best in a team that’s not hierarchical and everyone can support each other. 

You don’t need to be driven by Play to make a good coder. But she’s designed her role to work for her Play drive. Can you do the same?

Ask yourself…

• Do I have big chunks of time to immerse myself in my work?

• Can I get rid of notifications and interruptions to spend even more time in the present moment?

• How can I make this more fun - by adding people I love working together with, or by structuring it like a game?

• Is the culture of my team to communicate in a candid and straightforward way? 

• Can I own the ‘getting started’ part of new projects so I’m in the action?

• Am I proud of creating high quality and beautiful things?

Ultimately, PLAY driven people love to be immersed in things. In the action. Spending hours on the activities they love, doing that with other people, and doing it all with a sense of joy and presence in the moment. 

Drive. Motivation. Inspiration. 

We all want more of it. And if you’re driven by PLAY, this blog is your cheat sheet to having it.

And if PLAY is definitely not what drives you, go back and deep dive into the other 3 drives: PROCESS, PRESSURE, PERFECTION.

A big shoutout to my beach volleyball partners who patiently taught me that we aren’t all driven in the same ways. That our differences can lead to both beautiful partnerships, and lots of gold medals!