My college football coach used to shout as we boarded the team bus for an away game: “Put your game face on!”
To him, that meant no smiling and no joking around. The game started the moment our feet hit that bus aisle; it was serious business. There is a strange irony in that, of course. It completely contradicts the very definition of a “game”—but then again, college football is hardly just a game anymore. It is an industry of intense focus and manufactured grit.
I found myself thinking of Coach Johnson and his demand for a “game face” when I recently stumbled across a phrase that refused to leave my mind: “Setting one’s heart right every morning and evening.”
It struck me as something far deeper than mere self-help advice. The author wasn’t just suggesting we adopt a temporary mindset to survive the daily grind, nor was he telling us to prime our bodies for a chaotic day. He was suggesting a structural realignment of the heart, to be executed twice a day—at the opening and the closing of the light.
It echoes another piece of ancient wisdom: “Lead with your heart every day, not your mind.” It forced me to pause and consider: what would my life actually look like if I consciously reset my heart twice a day, ensuring it remained my primary compass?
This contrast reveals a truth about how we navigate existence. The “game face” is an act of armor. It is the mind commanding the ego to harden, to narrow its focus, and to view the world as a battlefield where something must be won or defended. It is undeniably effective for a three-hour football game, but it is a exhausting, unsustainable way to live a human life. When we treat every day like a business trip into hostile territory, we end up winning the “game” but losing our peace.
“Setting the heart right,” by contrast, is not about putting on armor; it is about tuning an instrument.
Unlike the mind, which thrives on strategy, defense, and division, the heart operates on connection, resonance, and presence. To reset the heart in the morning is to decide how we want to be in the world before the world tells us who we have to be. To reset it at night is an act of spiritual hygiene—clearing away the dust, resentments, and anxieties of the day so they do not take root.
Ultimately, Coach Johnson and the ancient sages were both talking about preparation, but for entirely different realms. The mind puts on a face to confront the world; the heart aligns itself to experience it. By prioritizing the heart twice a day, we shift from a life of defensive reaction to one of intentional action. We realize that the ultimate goal of life isn’t to win the game, but to remain deeply, authentically awake to the playing field.
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