There are always two games — yours and theirs.

There are a few things that I love intensely, apart from my family, friends and the startup life.

Ultimate Frisbee is one of them.

I sometimes wonder if I’m playing hard enough. Because often when I’m on the field, I walk away with lessons for life and work.

And so, I’ve decided to record all those lessons — to maximise the time I now spend every week, on my one indulgence.

Lesson #1: There are always two games — yours and theirs.

When I moved to Palo Alto a month ago, I started joining the regular pick-up games at Stanford.

It is intense.

The players are significantly fitter and more skilled than those I played with back in Singapore. It doesn’t help that I’m still adjusting to a dryer, colder climate that causes my lungs to choke up mid-game.

In the first two weeks, I found myself running endlessly — just to keep up with everyone. I was completely ineffective.

Ultimate players will know that it was a newbie mistake. In trying to keep up, I completely lost control of the game — my game.

It was then that I realised— that on every field, there are actually two games taking place… “Yours” and “Theirs”.

Since then, I’ve stopped trying to match the speed and agility of every player that I come up against. I stopped running to where they were running, at the speed at which they were going.

Instead, I picked my battles. I chose to intercept only after assessing the success rate. I looked out for opportune moments to make and receive passes… giving up some of them — instead of going for all of them.

Since then, I’ve played significantly better. Scored a couple more points. And I enjoyed the game a lot more.

This was a valuable reminder to me. And not just for Ultimate Frisbee.

Being in startup mode, is like being on the field.

Chances are — there are players out there who are doing some amazing things . And you think you’re all playing the same game.

Someone’s just raised loads of money. Someone’s going after a bigger market. Someone’s adding feature X. Someone’s going after 50% growth. Let’s do ALL of that. Now.

And so the game is lost, even before it begins.

So — here’s a reminder that I hope other founders will find useful…

Despite what you experience in bringing your product/company/brand to market — there is always more than one game in play. But there’s only one game that matters. Yours.