Mystic Cab: the JOurneY Method between two people

 

What does the JOurneY Method look like when two individuals are involved?

Watch Grover and Dick. They arrive with different models, try out each other's perspectives, and create something neither brought into the car. The integrated model between them is mystic cab.

An email exchange with Steve Golab brought this into focus for me. The steps to achieve a converged model between two people are the same as they are for one person:

1. Each person independently articulates their model.
2. Each person tries out the other person's model.
3. With mutual experience, models are compared.
4. An integrated model is created and individual models updated. 

The sequence matters. Especially the two steps we are most tempted to skip: articulating independently and actually trying out the other person's model.

1. Articulate independently

Before we can have a dialogue between two models, we need two models to bring to the conversation. Each person's articulation needs to stand on its own.

I recently got this wrong in a conversation about tennis. I introduced my singles tennis model to the group before the others had articulated theirs. Their articulations got swayed by mine. We no longer had independent starting points.

We should have worked on our models separately, then revealed them all at once. The aim is to see what each person actually brings, before one person's way of seeing becomes the frame for everyone else.

In Mystic Cab, Grover and Dick bring different perspectives into Grover's car. That difference is the material of the journey, not an obstacle to get rid of.

2. Try out the other's model

This is the key: each person tries out the other's model before the integration step.

Listening to a model and experiencing it are different things. If I only evaluate your model from inside mine, I haven't yet made the journey into yours. We need to take each other's perspectives, rather than rush to defend our own or negotiate an agreement.

Grover and Dick become Arjuna and Krishna to each other at different points in the story. Neither has a permanent assignment as the all-knowing guru or the disciple who needs instruction. The roles can reverse because each has something to experience from the other's point of view.

In the tennis conversation, I suggested that we spend a week swapping models before comparing notes. That was a way to give the experience its own time, rather than collapse all four steps into one discussion.

3. Compare with mutual experience

Now we can compare. Each person has their original model and experience of the other's. The conversation has changed: we are comparing from mutual experience, rather than only from our separate starting positions.

This is the dance in Mystic Cab. The other person can hold a mirror, but the dance itself is between models. Grover and Dick explore their dualities with each other's help. Both sides have to be experienced before the possibility of integration opens.

4. Create an integrated model

The outcome is a third model. Neither person simply wins the argument, and neither has to disappear into the other's way of seeing.

As I wrote to Steve, this is the sequence Grover and Dick followed to create "mystic cab," the integrated model between them. In our own conversations, the outcome can include a shared model and new individual models too. We each leave changed, as well as creating something together.

Separately, and very importantly, each person updates their own personal model using what they've learned from the process. This is distinct from the new integrated model path both parties have created for joint action. This gives us a double payoff from the process. 

Two individuals, a dialogue between models

In the Trifecta post, I traced the arc from the Gita through Godot to Mystic Cab. Here is the method inside that arc.

With one person, a new model challenges and dialogues with an existing model. With two people, the dance partner is the person in front of you. The JOurneY Method gives us a sequence for making that dance deliberate: articulate, try out, compare, integrate.

Guru or Disciple? YES!

Watch the film with those four steps in mind. Where does each person enter the other's model? What becomes possible when the roles reverse? What do they create between them?