When was the last time you had a weekend to get away and play with your friends? This weekend my Eastside CEO group worked and played together at South Lake Tahoe.

We booked an escape room adventure for Saturday afternoon. The picture is of part of the group after successfully solving the puzzles – just a few minutes past the time we would have been blown up in our bunker! Of course CEO’s need a mental, not just a physical challenge. And, we actually asked for help (clues) when we got stuck. Most of us have had to learn to ask for help so we were quite proud of ourselves for doing so. In reflection, if we had asked 2 minutes earlier for each of 4 clues, we might have made it out before the time was up.

Like most meetings we attend, we were not clear on the purpose and walked in unprepared. Luckily, the monitor lit up with our “supervisor” giving us our objective and due date. We had one hour to find the clues to solve an unnamed number of puzzles, to find the money and the code for the door lock. We were told we could use the walkie-talkie to ask for up to 3 clues. Surprisingly, when someone suggested we see if we can get just one more, we were given another clue.

Isn’t that just like real life? We ASSUME we can’t ask for more clarity, or our team does and we/they go off track or don’t complete the assignment on time.

The room manager remarked that we got along remarkably well for such a large group. She had a team of 8 that broke down into shouting at each other and had to be let out. We know that children learn from active play, we may forget that adults do too. Go play something you don’t normally do. It is even more fun when you are not the expert!

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