Gee, it’s cold here – 1 degree celcius – brrr…. Here to go through Debbie Battersby’s eMMatrix certification program and moulding it to a focussed tool to help men and women eXperiencing their core! Look forward to that. The hotel is only 5 minutes walk from the venue – I think I am opting for the free shuttle though:-)
This weekend I attended Clinton Swaine’s Play to Win in Melbourne. This free seminar focuses on building confidence and certainty in developing businesses and business ideas, using experiential learning and personal development that enables financial growth and success. Very different in many ways to what I have attended so far. You play all kinds of games with very strictly timed rounds, each of which is set in a specific background.
For instance, you play a game where you have to monitor your business accounts carefully as you balance between surviving and thriving. And a game where an autocratic king demands that you build and expand his realm quickly. You have to commit to certain specific outcomes, for which he is sure to hold you 100% accountable. Or working together as a Formula One Racing Team, assembling a mini car as fast as possible.
The timed rounds draw up a high-pressure-cooker around the participants. Within each game it is key to quickly get a grip on team dynamics, use them to your advantage, and think up creative ways to move forward. You get a good look at your mindset in the heat of the moment. No matter how “cooperative” you think you are, when the going gets tough, are you choosing the teams actions from a place of survival, or do you even in those moments stick to your ideals and look for a way to create a win-win outcome, for the greater good of every one. Having that put to the test can be – and is – very confronting!
For me, having been out of such a demanding environment for years, it was very interesting to be part of “the floor” again for 3 full days. I used it to put my growth over the past 5 years to the test, and I am very proud of the results! One of the results is being totally certain that I will never create that amount of pressure in my life again. I now choose to do it differently.
One of my “things” was letting go of my creativity under stress and fall back on the certainty of facts and systems. Being immersed in this high-pressure environment, I watched myself doing exactly that. I fell back to the familiar way of taking control of the situation, quickly establishing a system for myself, and watched the dynamics around me unfolding like a hawk. And realized that is was no wonder I was so tired and burned down after 15 years…
WHAT I LEARNED
Over the course of the weekend, constantly applying the learnings, I gradually shifted away from that. Building the race car on the last day, I quickly came up with ideas on how to improve our system had fun and felt relaxed during all rounds. Every so often during the actual assembly process, nervousness would creep in. With taking a deep breath I was able to let it go and relax and smile. Our team came in fourth in 30.7 seconds.
During the games, I kept coming from the team-perspective, playing full-out to make it the best experience for everyone involved. It wasn’t untill the debrief that I realized that “every one” should consiously included the other teams as well. There certainly is the intent on my part, how about coming from that perspective as a given. Something to think about!
Over all, the biggest outcome of the weekend is this: I have always believed that being relaxed would compromise my performance. I now have a fresh reference that doing things in a relaxed way actually IMPROVES MY PERFORMANCE. And I have picked up a lot of new ideas on how to run a business. If you get a chance to attend, I can really recommend it. It’s worth the time and effort!
