I was learning that sharing in a responsive way had a deeper power than delivering in an authoritative way. I want this book to have an interactive responsiveness like that. Here is one way we can do it. Later in the book, I will discuss something called the Hand Game. If you play it with someone before you get to that part of the book, you will get a lot more out of that section than if you haven’t. Playing the game will probably take ten to fifteen minutes. It makes no difference when you do it as long as you do it before that section. It’s a long way off, so if there is no one else around, you can wait, but if there is someone with you now, you can play it now. I will put in several reminders throughout the book to play the Hand Game.
The game looks like Rock, Paper, Scissor except there are only two choices and instead of win/lose, you get points. You can play either Closed Hand or Open Hand. The other person also only has two choices: either Closed Hand or Open Hand. Together, they create four possible outcomes as shown in the table below. Each person uses the same chart and interprets it from their point of view. So both players see themselves as the “I play” and see the person they are playing with as the “Other player.”
The four different outcomes lead to different amounts of points.
| . | I play Closed Hand | I play Open Hand |
| Other player plays Closed Hand | I score 1 point | I score 0 points |
| Other player plays Open Hand | I score 5 points | I score 3 points |
Play the game until you feel like you understand the chart and the game. When you both feel like you basically have it, then play ten rounds and record each person’s score. If you want, you can talk about the results and then play another ten rounds and record the results again. Now you’ve played the Hand Game. Record the scores you and your friend had and I’ll return to this game later in the book.
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