The 100% Solution

This feels like a pivotal time in our national and personal stories.? We just launched our 11th Decade Game Master Class and are preparing for the Decade Game for Couples at the Modern Elder Academy whilst closely monitoring the polarized national conversation about the upcoming elections. I am struck by a through line that runs through all these stories.?? They are built on the stories we tell, or our told, about our lives, our relationships and our body politic.? However, these stories are only half-truths.? They arose as a way to make sense of the world around us.? They are inspired by firmly held beliefs, points of view, assumptions, opinions, and positions. ?

My experience has taught me that most of our positions and points of view are 100% half right. These points of view get us into the conversation, but don’t transform the conversation. In fact, they can often lead to feeling stuck in a stalemate in the relationship. Or even worse, spark a trigger from past experiences that can cause a relationship to deteriorate.

Another pitfall of positions and points of view is that they tend to center around the “how” – the best way to achieve a longed-for outcome.? For example, right now in our national discourse, we can probably all agree that a strong America, with a vibrant economy, and a celebration of individual freedoms is a desired outcome.? Our disagreements come from our different perspectives on how best to define and achieve that.? (Forgive the oversimplification -but hopefully you get my larger point).

A more generative approach is to detach from a specific outcome achieved in a specific way - and attach to possibilities.? Wouldn’t it be amazing if…

By now you know that I love words.? The word “conversation” means to turn towards or with.? Once real 2-way conversations happen, the possibility of community is formed.?Community means “to come into oneness”.?The deeper the conversations, the greater the possibility is for community.? And the stronger the community, the deeper the conversations can go. Therein lies group genius.

This leads us to our next EPIC! Rule of the Game:

EPIC! Rule #29: You might be 100% Half Right! To get to 100%, listen differently.

The power of the Decade Game is to enter the world of “not knowing”.? This week our participants need to write a journal entry dated ten years in the future describing the most EPIC, magical day they just had – personally and professionally – that took place in a transformed world that they contributed to, even in the smallest of ways.? They are instructed to dream big – and paint a picture of a day that would have needed every one of the 3600 days to achieve.

This is always a hard assignment, because we are so conditioned to need to know HOW we can achieve it, before we are able to fully believe our dreams can come true.? Our minds are super ready to jump in and give us all the reasons why it can’t be achieved.? Except our minds live in the present and near future.? They only know what they have already experienced.? Our minds function to cater to our fears and concerns, not our dreams. Our imaginations and dreams know what we truly wish for.

The magic of the Game is to lean into what is longing to happen – a state and place of grace where our relationship with ourselves, our loved ones and our community have attained a new equilibrium. It’s about getting beyond the “How?”and “What Ifs” and “Yes Buts” and listen deeply for the longed-for shift that you can contribute to.??

The objective of the game is to never live in a world of “If Only…”. ?Instead, inhabit the world of “Imagine If”.? And it’s a multiplayer game.? Allow your conversations over the next weeks and months to engender community – listening for what is longing to happen for all of us.?

Love and light,

Carolyn