The Unspoken Playbook: Life’s Hidden Tests and the Truth They Reveal
Every week, my boy Paul and I have virtual coffee. It’s a standing appointment—one of those rituals you don’t really realize how much you value until you think about it. We talk about everything: politics, sports, dating, that one time in Puerto Rico…you name it. But every now and then, in between all the stories and updates, we come up with frameworks. You know, ways to apply what we’ve learned to different situations in life.
About Puerto Rico—Paul and I once found ourselves stuck in the middle of a one-way road with no cell service, on the side of what felt like the largest mountain on the enchanted island (it wasn’t), a few miles from Puerto Rico’s infamous dressage communities. Thanks to Apple Maps leading us astray (Steve Jobs would never), we missed the correct turn on our way to an organic farm. Before we knew it—wham!—we collided with a Suburban more concerned with Daddy Yankee than the road. I can still hear the driver screeching, “O yeee, Tigre! Lo siento hermanos,” while we were only able to watch these talented horses crip walk around our Prius. Stranded, we had time to think, to reflect. It’s funny how those moments stick with you. Game within a game, I guess.
One of the most recent frameworks came up when we were talking about my birthday dinner at this hot little sushi spot in DC. I spilled an entire bowl of soy sauce (which I never use, because, let’s be real, I’m a purist) all over my brand-new Marist blue blazer. Fresh out of the tags.
But the conversation wasn’t about the ruined blazer. It was about how the server commented on my lack of reaction. No freak out, no drama. Just…acceptance. Paul asked why I didn’t flip out. Why didn’t I have a full meltdown over my brand-new outfit being ruined?
Glenn in college would have been hella mad. I would have been livid. But instead, I just shrugged and sarcastically told Paul, “I was born cool.” He laughed, but we both knew that wasn’t the whole story. Paul noted how much more cool-headed I’ve become over the years, and he’s right. I’ve mellowed a lot. Part of it is just life experience, but a huge part of it is the time I spent in Asia—surrounded by spirit men and monks. It shifted something in me. I reminded Paul that my guru is Yoda, and if there’s one thing I picked up during my time with monks in Thailand, it’s this: “Emotions happen to you, yes, but your emotions, you are not.” Life is an experience—a moment-to-moment series of events—and our consciousness isn’t shackled to any one feeling or incident. So yeah, soy sauce happened to my jacket, but that was just it: soy sauce happening. I didn’t have to let it become my entire experience. I let it pass through, detached, as just another moment.
Paul, being the pragmatic guy he is, didn’t just leave it at that. He took this mindfulness lesson and shaped it into something more tangible, something you could use “in the field.” We ended up building a simple but surprisingly insightful framework: You can tell a lot about a person based on how one handles three distinct situations:
1. Shock — like spilling soy sauce all over your clothes at a fancy restaurant.
2. Winning — how they react when they’ve succeeded, especially in a big way.
3. Ambiguity — what they do when they’re unsure whether an interaction or situation is positive or negative.
These three moments? They reveal just about everything you need to know about someone’s temperament, mindset...character. How they react when things fall apart, when they go right, and when uncertainty creeps in—those are the tells.
But here’s the thing—reflecting on your own past responses to these situations is just as important. How do you react when the tables are turned on you? When things don’t go as planned, or when you face uncertainty, do you rise above or get stuck in frustration? And even more crucially, when you’re in a position of power and the other party is vulnerable, how do you treat them? Do you twist the knife, or show mercy?
This reminded me of a lesson I learned in baseball. One time, my coach gave me the wrong sign to steal a base when we were already up by 10 runs. This is a cardinal sin in baseball. You’re supposed to show mercy when you’re that far ahead. When the inning was over, my coach made me apologize to the other team’s coach. That moment stuck with me. In a position of power, I hadn’t even realized the consequences of that stolen base. Mercy wasn’t just about letting up; it was about understanding the impact of my actions, even when I had the upper hand.
(For the record: we were playing Lovett, and I was a home run shy of hitting for the cycle. But, I digress.)
These moments—when you have the chance to twist the knife or show compassion—are critical in defining who you are. Observing how you’ve handled them in the past offers a roadmap for personal growth—highlighting where you can improve, where you’ve shown grace, and where there’s room to recalibrate.
And here’s something practical—if you take a step back and look at your own life, you can use this framework as a self-check. How do you handle shocks? Do you recover quickly or let them take over? When you win, are you gracious or do you gloat? And when faced with uncertainty, are you calm or do you panic? These are the questions we should all ask ourselves. It’s about developing that self-awareness, learning from past mistakes, and adjusting where necessary.
Then we took it a step further, as we always do. How could you simulate these situations? Could you pay a waiter to spill something on your potential business partner? Could you engineer a scenario where the outcome is ambiguous, just to see how they process the unknown? It made us wonder: How often have we been within a game, within a game?
Shit. It’s a wild thought. How many times have we been part of these subtle social experiments without even realizing it? We started reflecting on moments in our own lives—how often has someone tested us without our knowledge? Life, it seems, is full of these hidden trials, these little games people play to gauge who we are when we don’t realize we’re being observed.
Looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing about the framework. It’s simple, sure. But, sometimes, the simplest frameworks are the most profound. Life’s surprises, wins, and uncertainties will always be there. The question is, how will you react? What does your response reveal about who you are?
Maybe the game within the game is just life itself—always testing, always observing. And maybe the real takeaway is that we’re all constantly refining our own frameworks, learning from the spillages, the triumphs, and ambiguities along the way.
