It happened to me twice in my previous life as a hockey player: once as a 19-year-old junior with the Vernon Vipers and once as an NCAA player a couple years later.
A coach would call me into his office and, almost sheepishly, ask that I turn up the dial on being my typically unserious self in the dressing room. One of them may or may not have asked me to, “Y’know, be your usual clown self.” Both times it happened, our team was in a crisis, as all hockey teams are at some point every season, and I was never exactly sure how to handle the request.
Walk in the room and juggle?
Truth is, I was perceived as someone who played hard but didn’t see the game as life or death, and held himself accordingly. I made small…