More Gooder Mouthwords
Short version of the blurb ⚡
We are trying to do this thing that helps us have more meaningful-y, human connection-y, conversations. I call it More Gooder Mouthwords. It’s about sharing more of our inner selves, for the sake of deeper connection and self-knowledge. Yeah, it’s a bit hippy, and a bit scary. :)
Long version of the blurb 🐢
We may have mentioned The School of Life conference (https://www.theschooloflife.com/events/the-school-of-life-conference) that we went to in Lisbon. It was really good, despite being quite odd at points.
One of the things that has stuck with me from the conference is how thin the barrier is between how we humans could be talking to each other and how we actually are. It’s a thin barrier, but it’s very stretchy, like a balloon, and hard to burst through.
A bunch of people at the conference were talking about starting franchises when they got home. That seems a bit too much like a cult to me, but stealing some of the ideas and exercises from there and using them to help people (most definitely including myself) is very appealing.
We’ll use some Know Yourself Prompt Cards. The front of the card has a short exercise / thing to think about, the back has an explanation of it or something to think a bit deeper about.
We’ve done this before and we usually do it like this:
- we grab one card from the top of the deck;
- we all think about it and scribble some notes;
- we go around the table taking turns and discussing it;
- we flip the card and discuss the back.
The event
Before
- Eat dinner
- Pick a set of cards
- Phones off table
- Chit chat, introductions
- Explain how it works
- Deploy low / no maintenance snacks
During
- Phones off the table
- Safe space, private by default
How it works
- Say if you don’t want to be interrupted
- Stay on topic; parking lot for other stuff
- We can (all) skip a card, or do a (no-one) talks card, but be brave
- Tiny breaks (only) between each round (one card)
After
- What’s one thing you learned about yourself?
- What’s one thing you’d do differently at the next MGM?
Added 2024-02-18.