Fun – A Golden Key to Success?

Last weekend I spent time with a beautiful group of likeminded people. The proposal had been put forward by a couple of the participants to bring together a group of Three Principle facilitators in a retreat like situation and see what happens.
And that was it. No agenda. No outcome. No goals. Just a space and time together to see what unfolded.
It was fabulous.
There was no pressure to come up with answers to a problem, or discuss a particular issue – not to say that we didn’t discuss ideas and challenges – but because it was an open forum and no one was there to walk away with anything specific, it was all so effortless. And one of the natural bi-products was lots and lots of laughter! I loved it!
The principal organizer, who made it very clear there was no leader, did point us in the direction of it could be more like having really long breaks where we could get to know each other better, with short spates of “meeting” time – the exact opposite of typical events and conferences – and because nobody was clock watching or in charge, that is exactly what happened.
We naturally spent a long time over coffee chatting to various people, finding out about what they were up to and getting to know them better. And we moved into lunch with no “meeting” time in between, but it was all so rich and empowering, and best of all, effortless.
The stage had been set if you like for us to play. Play and see what happens. And while we were playing we naturally supported one another, naturally flowed from one person to the next, naturally congregated into groups for lunch, and naturally spawned new ideas for spreading the word and growing our businesses.
It was quite new for me to be part of something so “not organized”, and yet I loved every moment of it. It was a bit like being a child again, no expectations, just happy to be there with new friends and old, and having fun.
Playing and having fun – a golden key to success?
When we are in this relaxed, calm, natural state, all sorts of new ideas are born as well as problems solved, though this is not the traditional way of getting things done of course. We have been taught that if we try harder, if we just think about an idea or a challenge some more and keep talking about it, going over it, that we will come up with the answer. The exact opposite is the truth.
The more relaxed we are, the more calm we are, the more clear we are, the more chance there is of new thinking coming in and the solution or the new way forward “popping in”.
When our minds are busy and full of thought, there is no space for new thought to come in. That’s why playing and having fun, can be a golden key to success in business – who’d have thought?!!
Results of a study of top CEO’s showed that most of them had their best ideas either in the shower, on the golf course or while driving – not while they were sitting at their desk or in the board room hashing out new strategies and solutions.
And please don’t take this as you must have fun and play to get good results in your business. This is not a prescription for success.
All I am pointing to here is that a very busy thinking mind is never the best resource for creating the best solution. As Einstein so famously said “problems cannot be solved by thinking within the framework in which the problems were created”
To me now, the simplest way of solving problems is by doing nothing. And by that, I mean do nothing in the sense of don’t go on a hunt for the answer. The more thinking we do about a situation, the less likely we are going to see the solution.
The clearer our mind is, the more room there is for new thinking to come in. But don’t try and clear it because that becomes a “doing” again. That would be like a dog chasing it’s own tail.
The very awareness that more thinking is not the answer, and that you don’t actually have to do anything to find a solution, is enough. Knowing that when you stop hunting for the answer, and allow yourself to be in a space of “not knowing” for a while, is all that is required for the solution to appear, you will be surprised just how quickly it “pops in”.
In fact, what quite often happens is that we don’t see “the problem” as that big of a deal any more! And that is what I would call a good result. How about you?
If you are ready for some good results in your business or life, please drop me a line at Sheela@sheelamasand.com and we can explore the possibilities of us working together to achieve just that.