When you don't start off strong -

The Power of A Good Ending

Basketball fans were glued to their TV's all weekend for the first week of the NCAA Tournament known as March Madness.

As I watched bits and pieces of the games, there were two things that really stood out.

1). It's such a beautiful thing to watch teams that are in flow (that state of being fulled involved in an activity and making it seem effortless at the same time). And it hurts a bit to see teams that aren't.

and

2) Nothing beats a good ending (we all love a good buzzer beater)

In the middle of all these basketball games, we were also completing Round 2 of a 4-part series of online play therapy trainings called "The Global Family" which is the lead-up to our in-person training in Nairobi, Kenya this summer.

"We" being the board of the Association for Play Therapy Kenya, Dr. Janet Courtney, me and 50 play therapists from Kenya, Nigeria, the United States and Canada.
I was co-presenting with an amazing therapist from Kenya named Orpah Apola about play therapy with school age-children.

Orpah was in flow. She was captivating and relaxed and fully engaged. Me - I felt more like the basketball teams that were just one second off the mark - the free throw bounces off the rim, or the pass that was slightly too high, the dunk where the ball didn't quite make it into your hands.

It wasn't BAD - but I wasn't 100%. I felt like I was a step off the beat the entire two hours of the training - little hiccups with the slides and the mute button and the transitions. Overall, the content is amazing, but like some of the basketball players this weekend, I could've played better.

It happens. You keep moving. You shoot again. You take a break and then get back in the game.

But even teams that have really off-beat wonky not-in-flow games sometimes pull it together towards the end. Suddenly things start to click a bit and then there's a last second shot for the win
And the ending is all that people remember.

Whoosh.

In our training, we had a last second win.
A closing activity that was a team effort -
A collaborative story that flowed so wonderfully from one person to the next that people didn't want to leave.

And that's what I remember.

This is a lesson I learned from Priya Parker - a master organizer of people and events and a brilliant presenter.
She writes in The Art of Gathering.

"Great hosts, like great actors, understand that how you end things, like how you begin them, shapes people’s experience, sense of meaning, and memory."

"A gathering is a moment of time that has the potential to alter many other moments of time. And for it to have the best chance of doing so, engaging in some meaning-making at the end is crucial. What transpired here? And why does that matter?"

The ending of this training was a symbol of what is to come. Two groups of strangers becoming friends and colleagues - a cultural immersion based on storytelling.

We will be creating stories in Kenya - literally, as part of the training - and through our experiences together.

I don't know if we will be in flow or if we will be wonky and wobbly all week. But what I do know is that we're gonna have one heck of a meaningful ending.