Aims of The Game

The Game is a microcosm of life itself, inherently self-selecting, self-correcting, and self-replicating. By saying YES to The Game, you are opening the door to a new way of living and becoming a Player within ONE|Boulder. You are choosing to practice (through play) how to make conscious the unconscious, and the implicit, explicit. This is Transformation in Action.

Every experience within The Game is an opportunity to explore yourself within the context of a whole system. It is an opportunity to explore and redefine some challenging stories we've learned and assumptions we've made that can prevent community coherence and make it unnecessarily difficult to live well. Rather than holding on to things, The Game is all about increasing flow, developing leadership, and ultimately designing yourself out of any dependencies - freeing you up to contribute to ONE|Boulder in new ways and return to expanding the infinite game. We start with redefining our relationships to money, power, and love and by learning how to balance compassionate care & consideration (unity) with 100% responsibility (sovereignty). Below is a deeper dive into the Aims of The Game.

1. We aim to balance giving and receiving.

The story of compromise is broken. A mutual win-win is always possible when we dive deep enough into our genuine needs and desires. We've all had experiences of aligned giving that feels extremely satisfying and aligned receiving that is deeply nourishing. What if all agreements we made came from this place of being aligned and balanced?

In any healthy ecosystem there is balance between the giving and receiving. Each Player, in each niche, is in relationship to the ecosystem as a whole. We've all learned to make concessions in our lives, to compromise, to take what we can get. Others have been taught that they should support others above all else and do whatever it takes to make others feel good, even when it might go against their own needs. These are deep and often invisible programs operating within us and it takes a deep willingness for self-reflection to discover where they are still running us. Learning how to give and receive in ways that are in full integrity with yourself is actually the greatest service. This regenerates the whole and creates abundance and well-being for ourselves, each other and all life.

Many communities have tried to collapse multiple forms of value (money, social capital (points), and service) and create mixed agreements. We have seen that mixed agreements often end up sticky, unclear, or unbalanced. Think of work-trade situations motived by a lack of funds rather than a genuine desire to serve. Think of the investment of energy or social capital turning into justification for entitled actions.

We practice the art of making clear agreements here, owning our self-worth and communicating our needs, requests and offers. We honor each form of capital distinctly, coming into right relationship with all areas in each agreement that we make. This is the gateway to abundance, where both giving and receiving are wholly generative experiences. This is the practice of deepening inner integrity so we can show up more clearly and congruently in community.

By saying yes to The Game, you are committing to taking full responsibility for creating all of your agreements and learning to balance giving and receiving.

2. We aim to learn from each other.

Learning is a continual cycle of increasing ability through application of new ways of being. By remaining open to the teachings that are available in each moment, you are playing a role in the consistent growth and evolution of not only yourself, but the whole community. Everyone in this game has many things to teach and many things to learn. There is no "better than" as an identity here. Instead of being in comparison, we focus on developing compassion for ourselves and each other while playing with our superpowers and with the power of vulnerability. Rather than hiding behind what we do well, we lay down our egos and embrace our curiosity as we learn new things. This builds up our strengths and versatility, which in turn makes us a diverse and well-rounded community.

We've been taught that the best position to be in is the "leader" or the "expert" and to attach our identities to roles. The problem with that is it puts us on the defensive and keeps us from being fully open to learning new things. If we are afraid to look bad or need to prove that we DO know best, we block our own development and often judge others in theirs. Life is constantly teaching us and every experience has a lesson if you look long enough.

By saying yes to The Game, you are committing to the path of being both student and teacher. You are saying yes to putting down positional power, your "expert" mode, and showing up with vulnerability, humility, and wholeness to learn or share whatever has greatest value in the moment.

3. We aim to evolve in our leadership.

By serving as both student and teacher, we open the space for genuine, inspired service from a place beyond ego.

If we wish to thrive in community, we must leave entitlements at the door. The first question must be; "What can I give to ONE|Boulder?" - coming from a balanced and inspired place, rather than "What can I get from ONE|Boulder? - coming from a place of lack/scarcity or desperation. All of these deeply engrained thought patterns around personal interest and scarcity are what got us to where we currently are. ONE|Boulder is about healing our relationships to money and power, learning to balance giving and receiving, and choosing opportunities to serve as both student and teacher in equal measure.

We envision "for-purpose agents" contributing across multiple domains in this "for-purpose ecosystem." Rather than stagnating into traditional "positions" and reducing our service down into hourly or equity-based means of compensation, we serve from a place of inspiration beyond these constructs. Positions are filled by many, all co-evolving in their leadership and building a robust network of interconnected activities that transition away from dependency on any particular individual. Compensation is based first and foremost on levels of engagement, in the form of a fixed stipend which becomes available as a % of overall overhead met.

As we transition into ever greater levels of internal sourcing and the points-based economy, these stipends will prove more than generous. If additional income is ever needed, this can be requested and will be assessed based on level of engagement, other creative ways to address the underlying need beyond money (money as a means to an end and not the need itself), and availability of funds within the ONE|Boulder ecosystem.

We practice direct communication and feedback as a culture and embrace our own ongoing development and support others in theirs.

Life leads by example. This world needs leaders who are willing to get real. This world needs leaders committed to refining their gifts, skills, knowledge and wisdom, devoted to their growth and development. This world needs leaders who are willing to make mistakes, get messy and be transparent in their process of becoming. To become the greatest leaders we know to be possible, we must be willing to get vulnerable and train together. When we have each other's backs, we can more courageously face and embrace our learning edges. This is a Culture of Surrendered Leadership.

By saying yes to The Game, you are committing to the development of your own leadership and supporting other Players in their leadership development.

4. We aim to steward our homebase and our collective commons.

Living systems are self-regulating, meaning they ensure their own longevity by operating in balance. All species within a living system contribute back to the whole, they fill a particular niche. These niches develop over time, based on environmental factors to develop a robust and thriving ecosystem.

As we develop the ONE|Boulder ecosystem, our culture, and our niches, we request that all players show up willing to fulfill any necessary roles. Before we can specialize and pursue our own passions and desires within the ecosystem, we must first come into connection with what the underlying infrastructure requires to operate. If we aren't willing to participate in doing whatever it takes in the moment and carrying a part of the collective responsibilities, we cannot expect to benefit from the underlying infrastructure. We must all understand what allows this community and the physical spaces we are Stewarding to survive and thrive before we can take from it.

One of the ways we pattern our ability to serve together is during Homebase Care. Every Friday at 1pm we come together and sign up for different tasks to clean and care for our homebase, ONE|Riverside. Afterwards, we celebrate with a BBQ and potluck from 2pm-5pm. Caring for our physical space together is a core part of being in community. It redefines our economy (which actually means "how we care for our home" in Greek) and helps us feel more grounded and connected. This is a Culture of Stewardship.

By saying yes to this game, you are saying yes to contributing to taking care of the Riverside as our private homebase and also to the unique projects you choose to play in within this ecosystem.

5. We aim to live regeneratively & localize our Essentials For Thriving (EFTs)

We live in a time of unprecedented change. How we choose to move forward from here will have lasting impacts and will either regenerate and repair the ability for humans to survive on this planet or further compromise our existence. We need to do better together and we need to take action NOW!

The global supply chains that have supported us for so long are doing damage to this planet and we are endangering our ability to survive. It also has led us to feel more isolated and less connected. We must reshape our lifestyles in a way that feels exciting and meaningful. Part of that is taking back our power to survive and thrive by meeting our needs locally. If we cannot survive off what we are producing locally, we will inherently continue to participate in the deterioration of living systems.

We only have one Earth.

By saying yes to The Game, you are saying yes to living a regenerative lifestyle, seeing the earth as a living system and exploring ways to meet your living essentials locally.

6. We aim to grow our community.

The intention of infinite games is to continue playing and to grow the game. We do this by sharing our inspiration, embodying the ways of being we are practicing together, and spreading the word about what is happening within ONE|Boulder. We invite our friends to play on Fridays at our Potlucks or Saturdays at our Block Parties and Action Days. We invite them to become Members or Explorers. The more friends we have in our community, the more access we have to each other's unique gifts and superpowers. If we invest in our community and our relationships, we will be more resilient and thriving, not to mention more sourced to succeed in our personal projects.

By saying yes to The Game, you are saying yes to being an embodied ambassador, sharing your excitement about ONE|Boulder with your extended network, and inviting your friends to play too!

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By choosing to play this game you are choosing to participate in a new way of living and being within your local community. You are choosing to lean in to what is possible when we collectively work together to take better care of our needs, each other and our home (which includes the whole planet). You are choosing to play a role in stewarding the more beautiful world you know is possible.