Games are fun; I love games. Quiddler and chess are two favorites.
Then there are sports, which are games of a different sort. While I enjoy teamwork, I’ve never rated particularly high on the physical prowess scale. Swimming and volleyball suited me well growing up. Basketball? As much as I love the sport, let’s just say I’m convinced I don’t own a single fast-twitch muscle. Haha. Likely why watching elite athletes like Michael Jordan, Alysa Liu, LaDainian Tomlinson, Serena Williams and Lionel Messi absolutely blows my mind.
That said, I don’t watch sports all that much. I keep loosely informed, mostly so I can have semi-intelligent conversations with family members. Lately, however, I’ve found myself paying a bit more attention. Enter fútbol.
I’ve become interested partly because I recently watched Ted Lasso. Partly because my beloved nephew writes a wonderful soccer-focused blog (his writing is beautiful!) to his three-year-old nephew (my godson). And partly because, as I write this, World Cup matches are taking place just 4.1 miles from my home while Boston and Providence have been joyfully transformed by Scotland’s Tartan Army.
Against all odds, the world’s biggest sport has finally captured a bit of my attention. And while physical prowess is clearly important, I became quite interested in various players talking about their INNER game, or internal conditions, during interviews.
Conditions shape experience
Years ago, while reading Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind, I learned about the importance of set and setting in psychedelic therapy:
“Set” refers to our inner landscape—our mood, expectations, physical state, mindset, and intentions.
“Setting” refers to the external environment—our surroundings, the people we’re with, the physical space, lighting, comfort, privacy, and countless other environmental influences.
The same person, taking the same psychedelic substance, can have profoundly different experiences depending upon their set and setting. The old “good trip v. bad trip” consideration.
That idea fascinated me. Not simply because of psychedelics, but because it seemed to describe something much larger about being human. Ideas often develop what I call a “holographic lens,” in my mind. I’ll encounter a concept in one context; it really hits home; and suddenly I begin seeing it everywhere.
Psychologists call this the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, the frequency illusion, or more commonly the red Volkswagen Beetle Phenomenon. Once our attention is drawn to something—a specific red car, for example—we begin noticing it everywhere. Our awareness has been primed.
And once mine was primed for set and setting, I couldn’t stop seeing it.
Setting: More than décor
I recently finished reading The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker and thoroughly enjoyed it. Parker helps leaders, organizations, educators, activists, and executive teams design gatherings that serve a clear purpose. Reading her book reminded me again that setting quietly shapes experience.
- How is the room arranged?
- What food is served?
- Do guests choose their seats?
- What’s the agenda?
- When are the breaks?
- What music is playing?
Each seemingly small decision contributes to the experience people ultimately have. Parker encourages readers to “let purpose be your bouncer.” I love that! (And it’s a likely candidate for a future blog exploration.)
If you’re hosting a lively FIFA World Cup watch party, you probably aren’t setting the table with white linens and crystal champagne flutes, with Beethoven playing softly in the background. The setting would work against the very experience you’re hoping to create.
Likewise, if you’re planning a deeply personal conversation with your teenage daughter about depression, the crowded high school parking lot at dismissal time probably isn’t the best setting.
Setting matters. Far more than we often realize.
Set: The inner game
The more I’ve explored human capacity, the more convinced I’ve become that this same principle applies to our inner lives. Much of my work through Reclaiming Capacity centers on helping people intentionally cultivate their set—their internal conditions — using The Map to consider the terrain.
The Map isn’t about fixing people. It’s about tending the conditions from which our experience emerges. Conditions like…
- Our physical health.
- Our inner dialogue.
- Our relationships.
- Our nervous system.
- Our habits.
- Our perspectives.
Over time, these conditions become the architecture of our lives. One recent coaching conversation comes to mind…
My client Catherine was deeply hurt because her twenty-four-year-old son, Chris, spent Mother’s Day at the beach with friends instead of celebrating with her. Catherine reported having a great relationship with Chris. “No complaints from me,” as she put it. But this one day had really set her off into a mental-emotional maelstrom.
As we explored the situation together, one question kept surfacing:
“What do you actually have influence over?”
Not Chris. Not Mother’s Day marketing. Not the four beach friends whose mothers lived in other states. Instead, her influence lay in:
Her own perspective.
Her expectations.
Her inner dialogue.
Her half of her relationship with her son.
As she reflected, something shifted. Instead of allowing one holiday to overshadow how she feels about her son, she chose to appreciate the other 364 days each year of their great mother-son relationship.
Nothing about the external situation changed.
Her set did. And with it, her experience.
The Red Volkswagen Beetle
The more I pay attention, the more convinced I become that life is largely an exercise in tending conditions.
We tend to focus almost entirely on changing our circumstances, when what most often needs tending is our inner landscape. Other times we underestimate how our environment shapes our thinking, our relationships, and our experience.
Set and setting.
Whether we’re hosting a World Cup watch party, leading a team, raising children, navigating a difficult conversation, or simply moving through an ordinary Tuesday…
The question is remarkably similar:
What conditions am I creating?
Because conditions create experiences. And experiences create our lives. I encourage you to try your own version of the red Volkswagen Beetle experiment this week. Notice where set and setting are architecting your experience.
My guess is you’ll begin seeing their influence almost everywhere.
To your capacity & alignment,
Laurie
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