The first episode of the YOU.PRJCT+ Show. Why the name changed (coherence, significance, purpose), James Allen on why crisis gives way to clarity as long as you don't retreat, the Classics Collection and how to read a book that was written to you, and why "it's not that deep" is the wrong answer.

In this episode
00:00 · The energy of building something real
02:32 · The show becomes the YOU.PRJCT+ Show
04:03 · The most important project in the world is you
06:43 · Coherence, significance, purpose
09:01 · The War of Art: you have something real to do
11:42 · Three hours a day, and the metrics that underpin you
12:04 · The Classics Collection: the essay, the nuggets of gold, the assignment
13:32 · The jester of the culture
13:59 · James Allen: man is where he is that he may learn
15:51 · Slavery, desert, promised land: crisis gives way to clarity
17:58 · "Be present" means renewed interest: earnestness
19:43 · Schooled in the art of inevitability
20:17 · Anxious to improve their circumstances, unwilling to improve themselves
20:59 · Set the arena, not just the agent
21:42 · It is that deep
22:59 · Plants don't try to grow
27:01 · Deadly efficient
27:54 · Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results
29:15 · Write down the things you want to be true
33:01 · A to B: the gap is skills
33:57 · Easier said than done? It can only be done.
34:47 · The actions are easy; the identity crisis is the hard part
36:24 · Read a book as if it was written to you
37:09 · You can skip a meal. Never skip your reading.
38:26 · Defensive co-scaling

Read and referenced
James Allen, As a Man Thinketh · Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That · Steven Pressfield, The War of Art · Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation · Jim Rohn · Jesse Itzler · Jordan Peterson · Tom Bilyeu

As a Man Thinketh is in the Classics Collection: books printed to be written in, with an essay after every chapter, the nuggets of gold, and an assignment for your own life. youprjct.com/classics

The YOU.PRJCT+ Show, with Henry and Harrison Schertzinger. Formerly The Infinite Game Podcast.
youprjct.com · shop.youprjct.com · instagram.com/you.prjct

Do you feel older? No. Way sharper.

A birthday episode, recorded at the top of a Monday. Why "do you feel older" carries a presupposition worth refusing, the two weeks the scroll was replaced by the book, the Emerson passage from Self-Reliance read in full, and the realization that the academy is not teaching lacrosse anymore. It is trying to light the spark that makes someone want to become insanely unique, and then handing them the torch.

Chapters

00:00 It's a birthday, and the question we don't like: do you feel older?
01:17 Kempis: you must replace custom with custom. Two weeks without the scroll.
02:09 As a Man Thinketh before Mass: nobody reads these words and goes back to normal
03:28 Yesterday's wisdom to win today: a remembering, not a discovery
04:29 The biggest moat is motion
07:19 Circle of interest versus circle of influence
09:10 Emerson's Self-Reliance, read in full: the lengthened shadow of one man
12:01 We are not teaching lacrosse anymore. We are a mirror and sandpaper.
13:33 Fall in love with the lifestyle, not the place
15:09 If the effort is not there it is an insult. Hobbies don't change people.
17:57 Every minute has to count, and Kipling's unforgiving minute
19:15 Roosevelt read a book a day. Franklin read when the work was done.
21:19 Retroactive rage: what school could have taught
22:18 You.Prjct: a hundred days from now, how much time have I given to the dream?
25:17 Dads and sons on runs. You don't wait for the kid to have a dream.
27:21 If you have to earn the post, it is the most positive echo chamber in the world
29:23 Her greatest advantage is her youth
31:59 The power law, and a product so good it does not need marketing
33:43 Class is millions of brushstrokes of discipline
34:12 Inconsistency guarantees you will never be successful
35:32 Seneca: study wisdom and you are given new eyes
38:32 AI as pattern compression, and what stays uniquely human
40:43 Masterpiece, work in progress: coherence and the steps of faith
41:22 Care most for the things you will have the longest

"You cannot come in contact with these ideas, with this such empowering belief in your agency, and go back to normal."
The Infinite Game, Ep 096.

The Infinite Game is a weekly conversation between twin brothers Harrison and Henry Schertzinger on mental, spiritual, and physical health. Discipline, faith, identity, athlete mindset, and the wisdom of the greats.

If this one was worth your time, follow the show so the next one finds you.
Apple Podcasts · Spotify

youprjct.com
instagram.com/you.prjct

You First. Then everything else is possible.

A scientist once stayed in the dark long enough that his eye began to record ultraviolet, light nobody knew a human could see. Gerald Heard uses that as his picture of prayer, and this episode uses it as the picture of everything else worth training: the run at 4:30 that nobody claps for, the reading, the skill you are still bad at. What you can perceive is trained, and most people leave the room long before they find that out.

It opens cold on a line about a man who, having lifted himself, lifts the world by his example. Then Henry and Harrison start where improvement actually costs something, which is the friends you lose as you get serious. Emerson has the sentence for it. "A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends, for every friend whom he loses for truth he gains a better." Nobody is at fault. It is a fallout of frequency, and it is the shape of the thing rather than a failure inside it.

Then the long read, from Gerald Heard's Training for the Life of the Spirit. Scrape off any sense that prayer is unreal. Go back to Heraclitus and own that the senses are bad witnesses, that it is not only the will at fault but the understanding, because we do not merely fail to do the right thing, we cannot even see it. Get rid of "that scar tissue on the eye of the true mind." Build, by long and patient exercise of mind and body, the psychophysical athleticism that lets you attend steadily and long enough to apprehend reality. Then the ultraviolet.

From there it opens out. Why nobody hands you a blue check mark for running at 4:30 in the morning, and why you have to assign uniqueness to a thing that has no following yet, starting with yourself. The hype machine and the ranking accounts, and how little any of it is worth in the room you are actually working toward. Integrity as integration rather than levels. Prayer as listening rather than speaking. Divine delay. Aquinas on a thirsty man and a God who "wouldn't make him thirsty if there wasn't water." Attack your weakness. Do something new, make it your new normal. And the woman on the tee box who cannot swing correctly because she has never seen what the ideal looks like.

It lands back on Emerson. "Valor consists in the power of self-recovery, so that a man cannot have his flank turned, cannot be out-generaled. But put him where you will, he stands."

If you are doing something real that nobody has noticed yet, this one is for you. Stay in the dark long enough to see it.

In this episode
00:00 · Having Lifted Himself, He Lifts the World
00:16 · A Round of Golf and a Call to Humility
03:11 · A New Degree of Culture Would Revolutionize Everything
06:41 · Emerson: Every Friend You Lose for Truth, You Gain a Better
09:32 · Gerald Heard on Prayer: Scrape the Unreal Off It
10:37 · The Scientist Who Stayed in the Dark Long Enough to See Ultraviolet
12:48 · No Blue Check for the 4:30 Run
15:26 · The Hype Machine and the Room That Does Not Care
17:43 · Earned Attributes, and Saints Who Moved Cities
20:26 · Prayer Is Not Just Speaking, It Is Listening
23:45 · Emerson on Valor: The Power of Self Recovery
26:43 · Do Something New, Make It Your New Normal

Read, quoted or named in this episode
Gerald Heard, Training for the Life of the Spirit
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Heraclitus, by way of Heard
Thomas Aquinas
Napoleon
The Book of Job

"I don't think integrity has levels. It's more, how integrated is your life?" (The Infinite Game, Ep 095)

The Infinite Game with Harrison and Henry Schertzinger. Mental, spiritual, and physical health, and the wisdom to help you play life at a higher level.

The Infinite Game is the podcast from You. First. You First. Then everything else is possible.

youprjct.com · instagram.com/you.prjct

When you are fatigued, those thoughts are not you. They are hijacking you.

A player asked a good question after Tuesday conditioning: what am I supposed to think about when I am running? That question opens into Emerson's Circles, read out loud, and the argument that being does not expand in a straight line. The results of neglect are perfectly predictable. The results of devotion are not.

Chapters

00:07 A player asks: what do I think about when I am running?
01:09 Describe to me what you mean by "yourself"
01:46 When you are fatigued, those thoughts are hijacking you
02:15 Monday miles, the wall, and offering the suffering up
02:52 Our default mode is not excellence. Excellence is trained.
04:11 Seneca: take the empire, leave the mind, he still has the empire
05:00 North Carolina was not an affirmation, it was proved at 4:40 in the morning
05:58 Your morning is your first masterpiece
07:19 We are the results of our rituals, and why the bed still gets checked off
08:22 Maximilian Kolbe: keep order and order will keep you
09:58 Emerson: life is a series of surprises
11:36 The results of the bad are predictable. The results of the good are not.
13:38 Stop thinking in lines. Think in nested, expanding circles.
17:23 Day 37, day 42, and waiting for the miracle
19:57 The etymology of decision: to cut from
22:39 Sip on a great book. Five minutes here, five minutes here.
25:00 Information is in formation. Put yourself in formation.
27:40 You can short some stocks. Do not short yourself. Stay long.

"Truth is divine and helpful, but how it shall help me I can have no guess."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Circles, read on the show.

The Infinite Game is a weekly conversation between twin brothers Harrison and Henry Schertzinger on mental, spiritual, and physical health. Discipline, faith, identity, athlete mindset, and the wisdom of the greats.

If this one was worth your time, follow the show so the next one finds you.
Apple Podcasts · Spotify

youprjct.com
instagram.com/you.prjct

You First. Then everything else is possible.

Perception can be coached. There are no boring days, only untrained observers — boredom is a failure of perception, not a fact of the day.

We're back and going practical: identity and the finite game. Why finite players veil their own freedom and take up their role with total seriousness — "you must see yourself as it" — while still able to step back to who they really are. Long time horizons, language that codes your identity, and why no cleared Saturday is ever boring.

Chapters
0:13 Big morning: win a Monday
0:24 Making the show practical: playing life at a higher level
2:31 Going as hard as we can while everyone else watches football
3:30 If your body can continue, don't let your mind commit treason
4:27 Long time horizons: anything you want in five years (Jordan Peterson)
5:02 Gaining days back for your dream
6:22 Finite players veil their own freedom (Carse)
6:49 You must see yourself as it, and the game begins
7:41 "Ophelia is this woman": adopting the identity (Shaw)
9:40 Nested identities: the lacrosse player and the son of God
11:34 Language codes your identity: bound the negative in time
13:45 The mission keeps you company; the books are always there
17:01 Winning keeps its hands in its pockets until it sees someone worthy
18:06 The batter's box: it is now
19:10 There are no boring days, only untrained observers
20:35 The journey is looking through new eyes (Proust)
24:00 Impersonal questions: what would greatness do here?
25:21 There's no failure, only iteration

"There are no boring days, only untrained observers. Boredom is a failure of perception, and perception can be coached." (The Infinite Game, Ep 093)

The Infinite Game with Harrison and Henry Schertzinger. Mental, spiritual, and physical health, and the wisdom to help you play life at a higher level.

youprjct.com · instagram.com/you.prjct
You First. Then everything else is possible.

If this one was worth your time, follow the show so the next one finds you.
Apple Podcasts · Spotify

You cannot play a game you are forced to play. The moment training, work, or faith becomes a "must," the life goes out of it.

We read James Carse's Finite and Infinite Games through sport, discipline, and the year ahead. The through-line: choose it freely, play for love, and failure disappears. There is only the next moment of a game that never has to end.

Chapters
0:00 No bad days: the gift of being on mission
3:56 The AI age raises the standard
6:51 The lost year: 4.5 hours a day from 13 to 18
8:15 The book: finite games and the infinite game
9:37 School vs. life: whoever must play, cannot play
11:10 Play for the love of it, not to reach Carolina
14:02 No failure, only moments
14:59 The outcome does not get negotiated, the system does
18:35 The rules make the game: Chesterton's tiger
19:43 Discipline in bouts
22:57 Discipline as a gift: carrying what persists
24:28 Close

"The outcome does not get negotiated. The system does." (The Infinite Game, Ep 092)

The Infinite Game with Harrison and Henry Schertzinger. Mental, spiritual, and physical health, and the wisdom to help you play life at a higher level.

youprjct.com · instagram.com/you.prjct
You First. Then everything else is possible.

If this one was worth your time, follow the show so the next one finds you.
Apple Podcasts · Spotify

Things do not happen. They're forced into reality.

Progress is not guaranteed. You can drive across this country and see the towns where it stopped. Nothing in the world improves on its own schedule, and everything you are standing on was forced into existence by somebody who decided to.

We get into Jim Rohn's four questions and the two nobody answers, the email Steve Jobs sent himself a year before he died, why the constraint you resent is the one that would have made you dangerous, and the first thing the two of us have genuinely disagreed about on this show: whether AI belongs anywhere near the work of deciding who you want to become.

Chapters

• 00:00 Progress is not guaranteed
• 00:36 The towns that got hollowed out
• 01:33 The sun causes nothing, and everything
• 02:18 The email Steve Jobs sent himself
• 02:59 Human agency and divine providence
• 03:53 Start the session flooded with gratitude
• 04:15 Where words come from
• 05:29 Useful, effective, impactful, transformative
• 06:10 The greatest gift is a pattern of action
• 07:07 Everyone looks the same for the first 500 yards
• 08:16 Jim Rohn's four questions
• 11:19 The unfair hand
• 13:05 Day 13 of 180
• 14:16 I wish, versus I will
• 15:16 Define greatness first
• 16:40 Where we disagree: AI as a mirror
• 22:06 Silence needs something to work with
• 22:54 Every morning is your Gettysburg

The four questions

You only have to answer them properly once. Most people never get past the second, because the last two ask something of you.

From the episode

Mentioned

• Jim Rohn, and the four questions
• Peter Thiel, Zero to One
• The email Steve Jobs sent himself in September 2010
• William James, on altering your life by altering your attitude
• The Liturgy of the Hours

The Infinite Game is Harrison and Henry Schertzinger on mental, spiritual, and physical health, and the wisdom to play life at a higher level. Becoming over winning.

If this one was worth your time, follow the show so the next one finds you.
Apple Podcasts · Spotify

youprjct.com
instagram.com/you.prjct

Grateful to walk this road with you. Get after it.

A definite person determines the one best thing to do, and does it.

Harrison brought Peter Thiel's Zero to One back off the shelf, Henry brought a summer of notes from the Academy floor, and they landed in the same place from opposite directions: most of what gets called well-roundedness is an unwillingness to choose. We talk about what clarity does to a person's energy, the player who was afraid to name her dream school, what it actually costs a young athlete to keep every option open, and the thing neither of us expected to be the summer's biggest win.

Chapters

• 00:00 Back to the rhythm
• 00:57 Clarity releases energy
• 02:22 Architect greatness, train to thrive, sincere pursuit
• 05:07 Zero to One, and the definite future
• 06:23 Shallow men believe in luck
• 08:55 The monopoly of one
• 09:39 The choice you don't know you are making
• 13:54 The best thing we give is the chance to lead
• 16:14 Progress media, not social media
• 19:17 A fire to be lit
• 21:08 The days you separate
• 24:12 It is not winter that defeats you

From the episode

Mentioned

• Peter Thiel, Zero to One
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, on luck and cause and effect, from The Conduct of Life
• Roald Amundsen: victory awaits the one who has everything in order
• Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning (the book we could not name on air)
• Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

The Infinite Game is Harrison and Henry Schertzinger on mental, spiritual, and physical health, and the wisdom that helps you play life at a higher level. Becoming over winning.

youprjct.com
instagram.com/you.prjct

If this one was worth your time, follow the show so the next one finds you.
Apple Podcasts · Spotify

Grateful to walk this road with you. Get after it.