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Focus on the Overlap · The Search

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Focus on the overlap.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the overlap is all we need to coordinate.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I recently had a conversation with my mum that caught me off guard.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: She wanted to get a copy of my book into someone's hands.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: At first I assumed we were aiming for the same thing,
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: get the book in front of someone, hope they read it, hope they like it.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Then, as we kept talking, I realised something.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't doing it for the same reason.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: For her, it was about her relationship with that person.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: A thoughtful gesture.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: A little maternal pride.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: The book was just a way of doing something nice for someone she knew.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it was about the book itself.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Getting it into someone's hands was part of what I was trying to accomplish.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: For a second, that difference bothered me.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, we're not on the same page.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Then I thought about it a little more.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't need to be.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: She got something she wanted, I got something I wanted.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow those things happened to overlap.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: That got me thinking about pickleball.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Four people can walk onto a public court having never met.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a good chance none of them are there for the same reason.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: One person wants exercise.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Another wants to win.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Someone else is trying to work on their third shot drop.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Someone else is mostly there to socialise.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Those goals can be completely different.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yet the game still works.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's already a shared structure.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's a court, a net, rules and a score.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: There is a basic agreement about what happens next.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody has to know why anyone else is there.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: There just has to be enough overlap to play the point.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Relationships are harder because the lines aren't painted for us.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we're not even playing the same sport.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: A friendship might work one way, a romantic relationship another.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: A relationship with a parent might be different again.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And even within the same relationship, the game can change.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: What someone needs today might not be what they need tomorrow.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: What I need can change too, sometimes in a matter of hours.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the question isn't always, are we on the same page?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's, where do our pages overlap?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that overlap is obvious.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it has to be defined.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you have to infer it because neither person has a clean explanation
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: for what they're actually trying to accomplish.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes there just isn't enough overlap.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's useful to know too.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because maybe I spend too much time trying to get people onto the same page
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: when I don't actually need the whole page.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I just need to find the part where we can play together.