Just a few weeks ago, while in Amsterdam, I had my daughter over for an afternoon while she was working on formulating a pitch for a National Geographic article. She had spent hours researching the ins and outs of the destination of focus, ending up with several unrelated topics. Every topic felt isolated from the rest, missing a red thread to hold them together. She found herself in the ubiquitous writer’s block.
I decided to try out a game. The “Yes… And…” game. Stimulating the Innovate Sage Power. The Sage Power of Innovation, as described in Dr. Shirzad Chamine’s Positive Intelligence methodology is all about channeling your positive emotions in service to your greatest possible creativity. So often, we are held back by boundaries that we set for ourselves, or we feel others have placed onto us, and playing this game is a great way to expand on and unleash the unknown potential and uniqueness in your ideas, all the while withholding any limiting judgement. It is about cultivating creative flow.
Before playing this game it’s important to broadly identify the challenge or opportunity at hand to ensure you and whoever else is participating are on the same wavelength, working towards a shared outcome. Now, to start off, the first person will state an idea that could address the defined challenge or opportunity. Then, the other person states an aspect of that idea that they appreciate in the following format: “Yes, what I like about that idea is…” and following it with another idea of their own that is inspired by the first idea: “…and that makes me think of…”. This format can then be continued back and forth to build an exchange based on open-mindedness and unbridled creativity.
Sometimes we have the answers all along and this game just helps us see more clearly, and other times it brings you places you couldn’t have even imagined – cultivating entirely new ideas and solutions.
In no time, we had managed to create a powerful pitch that tied together what seemed like abstract ideas into a complete whole. I urge you to give this game a try the next time you feel stuck, whether you do it with someone else or on your own, it’s an excellent way to open up your mind to new insights and ideas, without the heavy weight of criticism or judgement.
