In the game of life, what role do you play? Are you the pawn, the thimble, or a domino falling to the whims of chance? Or do you consider yourself the dealer, controlling which cards are dealt?

Strangely, no one ever thinks about being the board.

According to The Art of Possibility by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander, when we look at ourselves as the framework upon which events play out, we gain a more conscious, constructive, and objective view. We let go of being the victim and stop playing God. We remove assumptions and look at things as they are instead of as we are.

Say you have a client who keeps shooting down your ideas with flimsy excuses. You feel like the deck is stacked against you and it’s not fair.  Now you are looking for someone to blame for not getting your ideas across and getting nowhere. But, if you can get over yourself and be the board, you might see what’s really keeping you from passing go and collecting $200 dollars.

You may realize that your client is ignorant because you didn’t share the rules of the game. You failed to fully enroll them in your logic, your research, and your understanding of their target market. Since you didn’t share the rules, you can’t be too mad when they don’t play the game correctly.

Now that you’ve come to a better conclusion of events, you can take responsibility for what needs to be done. You can share your logic with the client and get him on board, not only selling your ideas, but repairing the relationship.

Being the board and accepting responsibility is not about blame. It is about finding solutions that are constructive. It’s less shoulda, coulda, woulda, and more about moving forward. It’s saying this is this, so we’re going to do that, and I hope you’ll come along with me.