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We have a card game available that is based on MindSonar. It has cards for each of the Meta Programs and Graves Drives that are measured in MindSonar. Designed by Jaap Hollander, produced by Tomek Zawadzki and styled by Dorian Denes.

MindGames is a great tool for MindSonar professionals. You can enhance your training and coaching with it. The simple fact that all the meta programs and Graves drives are on separate cards, can make working with them more spatial and tactile. And the deck comes with 17 pre-structured games that you can use out-of-the-box. Please note that MindGames is not intended as a board game for the general public. You need a basic understanding of MindSonar to play the games.

Creating your Own Games
The cards are  useful for making up your own games in coaching, training and team building. To give an example: say a team has just produced an integrated mission statement, or an elevator pitch for a product. You can have each member select a Graves Drive card that shows which motivational drive the statement is expressing most for them.

It's interesting to see whether they show similar cards or different ones.

In a second round, you can have them each select the Graves Drive card that the mission statement or the pitch is expressing least for them and practice how to present the statement in a way that resonates with that drive too.

We did this in our own NLP-trainers team at the IEP institute. This game, created on the spot, produced interesting results. We did some spontaneous 'belief bridges' in our minds, linking our own statement to the 'unfamiliar' Graves Drives...

NLP-trainers at the IEP playing MindGames
Left to right: Anneke Durlinger, Anneke Meijer, Jaap Hollander, Judith Warmerdam and Koos Wolcken

Ready Made Games
Here's an example of an out-of-the box game:

MINDSONAR PEACE PROMOTION 

  • Players form groups of 3.

  • Playlist: 2 Conflicting Parties, 1 Peace Promoter.

  • Meta Program cards are sorted in stacks of 2 or 3, face down, one stack per Meta Program. Graves Drive Cards are put in 1 separate stack, also face down.

  • Conflicting Parties each take 1 card each from the same 2 Meta Program stacks. Plus 1 Graves Drive Card. 
  • Peace Promotor looks at the list 'Peace Promotion Contexts’ (next page) and chooses 1 context. They tell the conficteers what the context is.

  • Conflicting Parties take a few minutes to step into their roles, mentally and emotionally.

  • How will I, being this person, express these 2 Meta Programs plus this Graves Drive?

  • Conflicting Parties talk about their conflict.

  • Peace Promotor identifies the conflicting Meta Programs and the Graves Drives. They explain this to the Conflicting Parties and give them instructions for better understanding and better matching of each other’s thinking style and values.

  • When Peace Promoter is right, Conflicting Parties respond happily.

  • If Peace Promoter gets it wrong, Conflicting Parties respond by fighting even harder. 

  • Competition - 3 rounds. All three Players get the chance to be the Peace Promoter. Time the Peace Promotion session. Peace Promoter who brings peace fastest is the winner.

Languages
The game is produced in professional quality and available in 4 language versions:

  1. English (with Spanish as a second language)
  2. Spanish (with English as a second language)
  3. Dutch (with English as a second language)
  4. Polish (with English as a second language)

We added the second language especially for international groups where not everybody speaks the same language.

MindGames tips from Jaime Leal
Based on a workshop for 90 people

  1. Multiple decks
    If you are planning to buy MindGames and you deliver workshops or corporate trainings, I would highly recommend to buy more than one set of MindGames. In this workshop for 90 people I used 9 MindGames.

  2. Give instructions before cards
    Give the directions before delivering the cards. MindGames cards are so appealing that they could attract the attention of the attendees and they could miss the directions or instructions for the game if you give them the cards before the instructions.

  3. Get your decks back
    On a massive event like this, make sure you include an instruction at the end of the training to have attendees collect all the cards and give them back (this saves time and reduces the chance of loosing cards).

  4. Plan time
    MindGames can spark conversation, make sure you allow time for longer more powerful conversations amongst the attendees.