rethink PERFECT

It would be nice to work in a place where we had a whole team of leaders.
Where, in each department, everyone felt it their duty to step up when necessary.

Being a leader, to me, is not a label as much as an action that is required by us all at different times of the day, week, month and year.

“We are all leaders–whether we want to be or not.  There is always someone we are influencing–either leading them to good–or away from good.”
                        Lief Erickson

It is so funny the nuance of using these two words.

If we have humility that does not mean that we need to humiliate ourselves.

If we humiliate someone there is no humility in such an action.

I think, as humans, we need to be careful how we use or abuse these words.

The Have Your Cake and Eat it Agreement is where you get someone to make an agreement with you and then you change or end it when it suits you.

Basically the standard “forever” agreement that most guys make with women and then most women file for divorce. One born every minute!

No, this is not as sexist a statement as you may think. The statistics bear this out that more men ask women to marry them and more women ask men for the divorce!

Evidence:  Towards understanding the reasons for divorce
“Nearly two-thirds (64%) of women compared with one-fifth (21%) of men indicated that it was mostly themselves who had made the decision to separate.”

The perfect agreement, in my view is:

Where each person feels confident that they can change or end it at any time (providing the other person agrees).

AND

Where both feel confident the other person can’t change or end it unless the both agree.

I call it the glass half full AND half empty agreement.

As we are not perfect, well I’m not, it is not likely that me and you are going to make the perfect agreement.

So what do we do? Well my suggestion is that we use the Rethink Perfect Agreement to form all of our agreements.

And what is the Rethink Perfect Agreement? Simply put, that whatever agreement we make stands and can’t be changed or ended unless we both agree to the new agreement.

PS. My definition of agreement is the thing that joins at least two promises.

My definition of a promise is what we say is true for now.

Imagine if we made an agreement where we agreed that we could change or end it only if we agreed to. This would mean that it is a Perpetual Agreement in my view and could change the world as we know it.

Would you be willing to make a Perpetual Agreement?

Latest thought on agreements are;

No-blame Agreements, ie. Make or start an agreement only when we can agree how to change or end it.

For example my business partner and me have agreed, around when we started Tripcover, that we can only change an agreement or end it if we both agree.

So in effect it is not an agreement that necessarily lasts forever but can’t be changed or ended unless we both agree.

So we could be in a state of constant negotiations or flux, which I think we are, so I guess it is a very agile thought and agreement.

Maybe it is an Agile Agreement 🙂

Once made the Singularity Agreement (SA) might be close to impossible to break or get out of and could be the most powerful agreement we can ever make!

Simply put, the SA states that 

“We can’t change an agreement that we have made together unless we both agree to do so”.

Once you have entered into the SA you will see why it is so powerful and why it could be nearly impossible to break. As it seems to allow for, ever-improving agreements to be made and flawed agreements to be discarded.

It’s impossible to break because you simply won’t want to break it and either will the person that you have formed the SA with, in my view.

So instead of saying “all you need is love”, I say “all we need is the Singularity Agreement”.

Have you ever made a Singularity Agreement? Worth a try.

Summary below email to my brother Steve and Andrew Blake for their confirmation or feedback.

It is derived from these 2 posts:
Same Page Agreements
Excerpt 
So, here is my latest definition of what an Agreement is:

What is an agreement?
Making separate “promises” TOGETHER.
*The agreement joins the promises.

Then what is a promise?
What ONE person says is true from start & end time.
*A promise only needs one person to make it.

A Promise for Now or a Compromise Forever
Excerpt
How long should a promise last?

The answer depends on who you ask. A woman may say forever and a man may not.

I asked a woman recently this question and she instantly replied “forever!” I countered that I could promise to buy her drinks but not forever. She conceded and said that the promise is for as long as we both agree.

Final Summary for 2015
Agreements are made up of our individual promises, which consist of an action and start/end time.

Ask someone what a promise is and they will forget to include the time (my prediction) in the definition because it is a given, to them, it is forever or basically unbreakable.

How long should a promise last?

The answer depends on who you ask. A woman may say forever and a man may not.

I asked a woman recently this question and she instantly replied “forever!”. I countered that I could promise to buy her drinks but not forever.
She conceded and said that the promise is for as long as we both agree.

Great, so if this is true that a promise is flexible and can start and end when we both agree then what is this forever thing.

What is forever and where did this come from? Well we all know it is this age old and tired statement from a bygone era when marriages were supposed to last forever. But now we all should know that the average length of a marriage is 8.7 years until separation and 12 before divorce.

So why not simply be more honest in our promises and say that we will try it out for 9 years and see how we go?

Or better still why not live each day as it comes and promise for now to keep working at it. A promise for now is better than a compromise forever, in my view.