Yes, human know-how is essential to positive external mobility, and lack of it, will continue to create the problems that threaten the very systems of excellence in performance and ultimately to economic sustainability. What has been missing is a recognition of priorities. The human being cannot be satisfied by external success alone, nor should he have to fail by the inevitable ups and downs of external results. The inner game can be won independent of the outer game. It is not a means alone; humans have always longed for what is real and what is changeless in their quest to satisfy their inherent need for happiness, peace, fulfillment, whatever names are given to winning the inner game while. We want to be at peace, we want to be content, irrespective of the changes in our external circumstances. Ultimately we want to win the inner game, and learn from both the successes and failures, inevitable in the outer, out of our control.

In short the outer endeavors play a great role in our evolution. But as we come to recognize who and what we are at the core, we seek to connect with the changeless element that has always been very present within us, waiting to be recognized and valued. I give one one example, how valuable at our birth was our first breath, and how valuable towards our last of moments again is that same force that has been keeping us alive all life long? Is it a gift of love? Is it from the changeless in life? Is it not responsible for everything beautiful and precious in our limited years on the planet. Does it have something to do with Winning the inner game, available to each of us. Can this simple force of life itself, recognized for what it is give us more appreciation and gratitude in our existence than we can imagine. IF the definition of wealth, it having something extremely precious and lots of it, is our life itself that source of all inner prosperity without limit?

Once the door was opened the progress in the inner game of tennis was immediate and ongoing. In three months, students were telling me what was already realizing, that performance, learning, and enjoyment were part of one things, could be “coached” with reliable results,and applied to almost any external endeavor with success. Some leading executives who took lessons realized that this was a different and effective way of bringing about desire change and the corporate level. When asked, by one of them “what does the inner game actually do.” I didn’t have a ready answered, but reflected on my experience and replied: it consistently does three things simultaneously, increases performance, accelerates learning, and greatly enriches enjoyment of the activity. And during this discovery I was participating in all those results; I was the one that needed them most.

I found something in me I could trust, and then when I did all three of those results occurred at once. I even felt guilty that while using this approach, I was learning more even than my students about learning, was enjoying the process even more than they, and at the end they were paying me happily and with gratitude even though it was they who did the learning, and I just created the environment which sought to eliminate judgment,, fear, and doubt my own nemesis. A foundation was being built in me that had me recognize the forces of good were fundamental in a human being, if you ignored what got in the way of them. I was coaching students and learning from my experience what worked and what interfered. I came back to life in a few months. What came to called the inner game was a gift to students, but primarily a gift to me that I committed to take care of and develop it’s potential.