About a month ago, when I attended my last mastermind retreat, we took a trip to an escape room. I had never heard of these before and I didn’t know anything about it until we got there. They had a number of themed rooms, and we split up into three groups.

We got locked inside of a small room (I think our theme was Inverse World) with a couple of flashlights and some light from a very dim bulb. We got very brief instructions. We read an introductory story on the wall. There were some posters on the wall, some other strange items on the wall, markings, a mirror, a lamp and a chess table hanging upside down from the ceiling, and then there were some chess pieces and a locked box. All we knew is that we had to find and solve clues to unlock the door to the next room, and altogether we had an hour to find our way out. We could only ask for three clues during that time.

Image from: http://www.lostcityescape.com

We had no idea where to start or what we were looking for, except that because of our theme, we couldn’t believe anything we saw or read, because it could be the opposite or backwards. We tried lots of different things. We all came up with ideas that we tossed around, discussed and tried. We struggled for a while without making any progress before we finally asked for our first clue. Then we struggled some more before we finally started to make progress.

We worked together to try to remember the different number sequences we were using, at one point standing in a line, each of us responsible for a different chess piece and number while one of our group members tried number combinations on the locked box. I think we asked for two clues in this first room.

Eventually, we got the door open and headed into the next room, where once again we were totally confused! We tried our best, but when we got stuck and just didn’t know how to proceed, we had to ask for another clue. Once we had a basic understanding of what we were supposed to be doing, it didn’t take us long to figure out the big contraption on the ceiling of the second room. That one is a bit hard to describe in a blog post. The last challenge we got stuck on and couldn’t solve, and we ran out of time. One of us had actually come up with the idea that would have solved it, but the idea was dismissed.

What do I know for sure? If I had gone in there alone, I never would have made it out of the first room and I probably would have cried! If there was no time limit, I would probably still be in there! I would have had to figure it all out myself and do it all myself. I would have become overwhelmed and stuck, unable to move forward and unable to see even the most obvious solutions that may be in front of me.

See where I’m going with this? Have you found yourself in a similar situation with your coaching business, either right now or in the past?

However, as a team, together we were stronger. We were forced to think outside of the box. We were able to lean on each other’s strengths, share different perspectives, strategize with each other, come up with different ideas to try and make progress toward our goal.

When we later discussed our fun and challenging experiences with the other two groups, we all came to the same conclusion. Together we’re stronger, and even if we didn’t get to the end result we were hoping for, it’s okay. We still made achievements to celebrate, and we learned a lot about working together as a team.

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