Alone or not alone.

How is this for an interesting observation.

Because I don’t know how to do things together I do them alone.
As a result I get exhausted and I don’t do half the things that I want to do.

Why is it that most of us refuse to learn to play team and rather stick to our own.
It is not that it is not heralded by successful people.

Craig Harper says; “I have come to understand and appreciate the value of great ‘team mates’ as we move towards a common goal. In fact, I’ve come to trust and rely on them. In fact, if it wasn’t for my team, I wouldn’t be doing the majority of the fun stuff that now constitutes my day to day life.
I refer to ‘team mates’ as those people that I surround myself with, or use as a resource as I move towards achieving my goals, realizing my potential. I actually need to be part of a team to fulfill my potential.
And I am not just aiming at achieving my results, I am aiming to grow the people who are making the results happen.”

Margaret Mead said;“ Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Quote by Nick Hanauer;
“I totally believe what Margaret Mead says. You could do almost anything with just five people. With only one person, it’s hard – but when you put that one person with four or five more, you have a force to contend with. All of a sudden you have a momentum to make almost anything that’s immanent actually real.
That is what life is about – creating that compelling vision and force.”

So despite all the evidence that team play is good for us, most of us think otherwise.

Is that because we mostly are still living in a hierarchy where so called team play is hiding the ultimate “Thou shall do as I tell you or else?”

If you look at team play under hierarchy in the current ‘I’ paradigm it goes like this:

• Control at all cost
• Learn to do as you are told/obey, we feel disempowered and stuck
• Members compete
• Pay a price for leaving
• Based on the emotion of ‘fear’

Team play in the ‘WE’ paradigm looks like this;

• Flexibility
• We want to do our best/ownership, we feel empowered to contribute and improve
• Members cooperate
• No consequence for leaving – stay friends
• Based on ‘Love‘

But mainly most of us are still playing busy people living together under the ‘I’ paradigm.

Let’s look at a few.

• Control at all costs versus flexibility.
  Are you being judged as lazy when you want to take the Sunday afternoon off and not complete your weekend chores?
• Members compete versus members cooperate.
  Do you have clear common goals or do you feel that the other thinks their project is more important than yours? Even secretly?
  Are you sharing your bank accounts?
• Pay a price for leaving versus no consequence for leaving?
  How often can people separate amicably and complete the relationship with good will and acceptance?
• Based on the emotion of ‘fear’ or based on ‘love’.
  Even when you live together because you love each other are you able to talk openly about anything without fear of reprisal?

Even if our heart is in the right place we have to unlearn a whole lot of consequential behavior from our longterm imprisonment in hierarchies.

Most of us are dynamic individuals doing couples and living parallel lives in the ‘I’ paradigm.

But when we can become dynamic individuals doing couples or partnerships living in the ‘WE’ paradigm, we create a force to be reckoned with.