Empathy
Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible
Comfort of feeling safe with a person,
Having neither to weight thoughts,
Nor measure words–but pouring them
All right out–just as they are
Chaff and grain together,
Certain that a faithful hand will
Take and sift them,
Keep what is worth keeping,
And with the breath of kindness
Blow the rest away.
Author: George Eliot
(English novelist)
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Alan Wick
Our team was created on the principle that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it, so the idea is to focus much more on our responses than on the events in our lives.
Our intention is to be a world-class support team, so that each of us reaches our goals. Each of us has set goals and a deadline. We all win if one of us wins. We do an excellent job of listening to each other. We go deep with what we hear and we try to identify what kind of support is effective for each teammate.
We make decisions based on unanimous agreement and we have a system of fines that supports our agreements. Possibly the best agreement we have is to check in with each other between meetings; that has helped a lot to keep our connection strong.
We have a variety of support techniques and are open to new ideas. When Robert was team captain, he introduced a technique called ‘Polar Exploration’, which yielded much fruit. The idea was to identify your M.O., then identify its opposite and choose a positive way to explore that opposite.
One of our team goals is to go ‘beyond butt hurt’, which means that we don’t let the fear of rejection or hurting another man’s feelings stop us from giving each other our very best. This is a work in progress for us. It’s not a requirement to like each other in order to get a lot of value from a team, but on this team we do like each other a lot and usually hang out for a while after our meetings enjoying each others’ company … this has the flavor of a mini-team away and is the occasion for some of our best conversations.
Robert Martin
10/90 is where I go polar. It is where I challenge myself to take on an opposite action or direction. The structure and support of the team and the hearts of the men instill in me the courage to explore my edge as an ongoing expedition..
Peter Davis
I joined 10-90 to be on a team that delves deeply into each individual man’s issues, especially my own and to learn from it!
Will Scott
Having been a member of various teams in EBNOM for almost 20 years and one of the founders of 10/90 I can say that this team holds the ideal of supporting each man to do his best in a more strongly supportive manner than most. As with any team there is an ebb and flow to the energy but we never let it slide to long before bringing ourselves back on task. I like that. I also like that we can have fun together even as we delve deeper into our purpose. This is a good team, a strong team, a team made up of men who have played big rolls in EBNOM over the years.