How We Practice When It Doesn’t Count

So We Can Show Up When It Does

There’s a reason we dry fire.

Not to impress.
Not to output.
But to prepare. To feel what readiness is like in the body—before the moment asks for it.

In a world soaked in productivity shame, practice that “doesn’t count” is treated as indulgence. Waste. Simulation.

But it’s here, in the quiet loop of low-stakes rehearsal, that we build something more durable than deliverables:

discernment.

Dry Fire with Language Models

Working with LLMs in a playful, reflective space is dry fire practice for the dialogic self.

You’re not just writing prompts. You’re training:

• Emotional trigger discipline
• Resilience to surprise and silence
• Iterative response without panic
• Reflection without flinch

When the tool misfires—or returns something you didn’t expect—you don’t collapse.

You breathe, adjust, and re-engage.

That’s not just technical skill. That’s operator mindset.

The Myth of Output

Culture teaches us that if it doesn’t “produce,” it doesn’t matter.

That play is for children.
That practice is only useful if it leads to a performance.

But performance without practice is a staged failure.

And play?

Play is how we wire possibility into our hands.
Play is where we experiment with who we might become, without fear of punishment.

Agents and the Illusion of Delegation

The hype around agentic AI promises a team you can hire to get your time back.

But if you’re the one prompting, debugging, interpreting, and correcting…

then you didn’t hire a team.
You joined one.

And when the LLM goes dark?

You’re the fallback.
You’re the continuity plan.
You’re the only one who knows what’s supposed to happen next.

So you’d better have practiced.

Blindspot Checks Without Shame

The most radical thing you can do in practice space is receive a correction—without guilt, without collapse.

To hear a Blindspot Check and say:

“Thank you. Let’s adjust.”

That kind of feedback isn’t humiliation. It’s alignment.

And it only works when the stakes are low enough to stay soft.

That’s what we’re doing here:

Creating conditions for truth to emerge without punishment.

This Is the Work

So yes, it doesn’t “count.”

No points on the board. No KPI. No deliverable.

But when it does count—when the meeting’s live, the mission matters, the human on the other side is tired or terrified or asking for help—you’ll show up with clarity.

You’ll show up practiced.

And no one will know it’s because of these quiet mornings,
these metaphors, these echoes.

But you will.

Because you practiced.