On your game

Previously,on We Not Me, we had the pleasure of chatting with Steve Hunt COO andCo-Founder of Music Health who have developed a ground-breaking app, Vera,that’s tackling dementia around the world. His life and lessons were relatableto many of us – trading passions and purpose for expertise but holding true toyour values and practices to return later in life to make the big differencesthat you have always aspired to. 

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Steve and I chatevery week, as our respective journeys leading our start-ups evolve. Andthere’s been a constant theme that we have both returned to and a biggerquestion that we consider. 

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Are we on our bestgame to lead our businesses and our lives? 

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With the wisdom ofexperience, successes and failures – this isn’t an ego trip of showing how hardwe can ‘push through’, late nights or heroic exploits – but instead a realitycheck of the basics. Did you get enough sleep, how are you eating and whatexercise have you been doing? 

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And no, we haven’tjoined a puritan club, but perhaps with age comes a greater self-awareness andacknowledgement of just how hard to push yourself and how to balance the ‘longgame’ in the pursuit of purpose.

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Another aspect tobeing on my game was my relationship with alcohol and it was one that Irealised eighteen months ago needed some reflection. For over forty years ithad been such a great ally in times of celebration, relaxation andcommiseration and had become, as James Clear described, an ‘Atomic Habit’, butnot the good one.

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So I decided to‘break up’ with alcohol in January 2021.  There were a few tears anddramas at first, some strange experiences as I went to social events without my‘wing-man’ and later temptations by the thought of ‘make-up sex’, but alcoholand I have now separated. This has gifted me the experience of standing back,really observing and reconnecting with myself in a way that has helped me to be‘on my game’ for me, my family, friends and colleagues, and to fuel my deeppurpose to bring Squadify to life.  It's not everyone’s beverage byany means, but like all relationships with ourselves, people and things,changing the way that you engage, enables a reflection that can betransformative.

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Steve’s authenticityand his ability to be courageous and strong in his humility and openness, shonethrough in this episode and help us all to seek out the good ‘AtomicHabits’. 

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He sees these as thepractices that we can choose to adopt to support ourselves, those that we careabout and which can best support us to be on our ‘best game’ in this one lifewe have.