Are We Having Fun Yet?

Don’t Think. Have Fun.

Curtis Granderson was a 16 year major leaguer and 3x all-star. Drafted in the 3rd round in 2002, Granderson spent the bulk of his career playing for the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees. In the peak of his career he was one of the most dangerous hitting outfielders in the league.

And like many elite performers, Granderson wrestled with the tension between pursuing peak performance and holding the game too tightly.

His solution was deceptively simple:

“Don’t think. Have fun.”

Granderson famously wrote the phrase underneath his game cap, not his batting practice hat. The hat he wore when the lights were on and it mattered most.

“It’s a reminder to go out there and play the same way I’ve been playing since I was six years old. Don’t try to overanalyze it. If you do that, you get yourself in too much trouble. Hey, it’s still a fun game. There are a few more people watching. That’s all.”

This edition of How To Flourish is all about “Having Fun”

What “Fun” Is Not

I have to be honest I’ve spent most of my life in performance NOT having fun. 

As a college pitcher, I can remember my Dad handing me a Gatorade over the fence as I walked from the bullpen to the dugout in big games. He’d smile, and often say “Have fun.”

In my competitive athlete brain I struggled with the mantra “Have fun.”

In my mind, the pursuit I was on was “serious business.” 

I’d trained.

I’d sacrificed. 

I had a lot riding on my performance in terms of goals and future possibilities. 

Toeing the rubber in a big game was not the time for fun. It was the time for execution, peak performance, and most importantly - winning.

After my playing career ended and I got into college coaching I had an even worse relationship with “having fun.”

As a coach, I often interpreted fun as a lack of focus. A reduction in effort. A sign everybody wasn’t locked in.

I hated it when things seemed too loose around the dugout.

“We’re not here to have fun.”

Same logic as before only this time in the collective. 

We’ve trained. 

We’ve sacrificed. 

We have a lot riding on the performance in terms of goals and future possibilities. 

Something about being the leader frames fun as the enemy of seriousness.

But does it really?

Fun Is A Sign of Full Immersion

It wasn’t until I went much deeper into performance psychology that I realized something uncomfortable to my original thinking:

Having fun is not a reduction of effort, or a reduction of intention and focus.

It may actually be one of the clearest indicators that an athlete or leader is operating at their best.

Joy, love and fun aren’t whimsical distractions that deny pressure or stakes. They’re signals of full immersion.

And full immersion is where peak performance lives.  

The only thing better than confidence is being fully present. 

And when you’re genuinely having fun, you tend to be more present.  

Flow Looks Like Fun

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience 

describes flow as “The state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost.”

There’s a key word in there.

Enjoyable.

Many coaches and leaders shy away from the word fun because it sounds like screwing around. 

So we swap it out for language that feels more intense, sciency, and respectable - “Flow”, “Optimal experience”, “Intrinsic motivation.”

The experience is the same. Deep enjoyment. Total engagement. A felt sense of “I want to be here doing exactly this.”

What “Having Fun” Actually Sounds Like

“I love this. I love being in this arena right now.”

“I really enjoy this training and what it’s doing to me.”

“There is nowhere else I’d rather be in this moment, than right here.”

“This is going to be really difficult, and I love it.”

There are not the thoughts of someone who isn’t locked in. They are the signs of full immersion. 

How Can You Have More Fun?

If everything is a grind - you will not sustain high performance

If it’s all stress and strain - you will not sustain high performance

If it’s heavy on overanalyzing, serious, and militaristic execution - you will not sustain high performance.

Having more fun may be the reminder we all need heading into 2026.

When talent and ability is relatively even, the person who is genuinely enjoying themselves will win every time against the person who is gritting their teeth to do the work.

Not because of an absence of focus.

But because they are playing freely.

Don’t think. Have fun.

Stay The Course,