We entered the secret location of the evil General under the cover of being pest control technicians. We weren’t aware of what our cover would be before we arrived at the location, so we were scrambling to sound like we knew what we were talking about when we met the guard who would escort us throughout the building. It was an awkward conversation as one of us would take turns attempting to distract the guard while the other would search the room for clues. We were after the blueprints of the secret location so we could scan them, send them back to HQ, and then get out of there before our cover was blown.

We finally got rid of the guard for 30 minutes or so, allowing us to explore the facility further, and we found a missile ready to launch, with its destination being our HQ. After a few failed attempts at disarming it, we successfully disarmed it and fled the location before being captured. While we felt we weren’t being the most effective spies, we still got the job done. This parallels life when there are times when we don’t feel like we’re being successful at whatever we’re attempting, but as long as we get the job done, we should be proud that we persevered and finished.

We found ourselves in another asylum. This was different because they were experimenting on how willing people were to electrocute a test subject in the other room to escape. We worked through various challenges and found ourselves in an electrocution chamber. We realized that we were now part of the experiment and had to find a way out before the next group electrocuted one of us.

The atmosphere was intense as we could see the other people working their way through the challenges we had just completed and were attempting to complete our own before they succeeded in throwing the final switch, which would electrocute one of us currently strapped into a chair. To make matters worse, there was an urgent whispering voice telling us what needed to be done, loud music, and lights flashing. All of these were cultivated by the experimenters to create anxiety, taking away from the ability to focus and work through the tasks at hand.

Being experienced escapeletes, we knew that we needed to stay calm, shut out the distractions, and take the time to think through what needed to be done to escape. We succeeded just minutes before one of us met our untimely doom! We realized this was yet another reminder to stay calm and focused when there appears to be chaos around us, perhaps a looming deadline, an overwhelming task list, or whatever else a typical day throws at us. When we can take a moment to step out of the chaos and change our mindset, it is amazing how the clarity and focus gained can help us accomplish what we need.

We received information that the dark wizard was back, and we had to act fast to contain him before he could wreak havoc on the world again. To access his secret lair, we had to work through a series of challenges concerning the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water. We took a while to search through the room and identify the tools we would need for each of the elemental puzzles and quickly worked through those related to fire, earth, and water. We were stumped when it came to air, though. We had no idea what we needed to do to work through it. We started trying different things, experimenting with ways we thought could solve the challenge. After a few attempts, the element suddenly activated, and a secret door began opening in the middle of the main table in the room.

Rather than pausing to figure out how we overcame the challenge, we decided to move on and went down a set of stairs that appeared after the secret door opened. We worked our way into a final room and were able to trap the wizard to keep him from further harming the magical community. Sometimes in life, we can make something happen without understanding how we did it. Of course, sometimes it helps to figure out what we did to be able to replicate it in the future. But other times, we must shrug, be grateful it worked out, and move on.

This was a magical mission. We each entered the forest with special tools: a magical wand, a sword, a crystal ball, and a magic book. We spent the first few minutes greeting the forest fairies and helping them get magical berries so that they would be helpful to us on the rest of our journey. They did end up assisting us quite a bit, between cracking jokes at our expense when we bumbled through a few challenges that came our way. At one point, we were trying to open a door into a house owned by dwarves to gather supplies for the next part of our journey. We struggled until one of the fairies suggested we use the sword as a door handle. Wow! It worked!

Once in the tiny house, we gathered most of the supplies. We struggled to figure out how to get to the final needed element to fully restore the magic in the forest well before the magic ran out and all the magical creatures in the surrounding forest died. Thankfully, a fairy popped in to make fun of us for not considering hoisting the crystal ball through a tunnel in the wall and using the sword as a crank. You’d think we learned that we needed to look at the tools in our hands differently and get creative from the first struggle we faced.

We did end up restoring the magic in the forest that day. And we walked away with another important lesson—our brains will look at a tool and think of using it in the way it was intended. But there are so many other ways to use the tools in our lives that can benefit us. In what way are you limiting yourself?

Our mission was to find our way deep into a subway system as we’d received an anonymous tip that a terrorist had rigged a bomb to go off in just 60 minutes. We rode a subway car to an abandoned station, where we found a homeless person had set up camp. He was very helpful in pointing the way to a back tunnel where he had recently seen someone pass through with suspicious equipment. We were able to make our way through the tunnel and found the bomb! Unfortunately, it turns out that the homeless person was the terrorist who then trapped us with the bomb. We were down to eight minutes left on the countdown and scrambling to find clues for how to cut the wires to the bomb to disable it.

As we were focusing on disarming the bomb, we were finding it hard to concentrate as the terrorist was spouting nonsense as he waited for his creation to explode and obliterate all of us, along with half the city. We then turned our attention to the terrorist to negotiate a less violent end for us all and realized he was saying one word repeatedly. This one word was a clue for how to cut the wires best, which we then did successfully. The terrorist was taken away in handcuffs, and we were left to reflect on how often we tune out the very thing that could help us. What are you currently tuning out as noise? Is that a message that could help you move forward?

We had been battling a particularly nasty demon for almost 90 minutes. Our first task was to gain access to the church he possessed. Then, after cleansing the church, we crawled through a tunnel and found his inner lair. In this secret cave deep below the church, we had to organize lasers in a certain way to activate a portal to send him back to hell – or so we thought. We found the perfect configuration for the lasers, started them, and then… nothing! Yikes – he was close to breaking through the bonds we had created and taking our souls. This was too much pressure, and nothing was working. We couldn’t understand as we’d banished several other demons before, and those lasers worked immediately.

Remembering lessons learned from past escape experiences, we realized that this was another time our experience was probably getting in the way. We had to step back and open our minds, pretending we had never sent a demon through a portal to hell. We then realized that we had to perform a series of four laser configurations before banishing the demon forever. We did so just before he broke his bonds, saving the world from his wrath.  Upon reflecting on the experience and how it related to our lives, we identified several times we had made assumptions at work and home based on our expertise in various areas and how that previous experience got in our way rather than helping us. Lesson learned – when feeling stuck, attempt a “beginner’s mind,” where you look at something with fresh eyes and break through the assumptions that keep you from progressing.

We found yet another deranged serial killer’s cabin in the woods (this is probably the 30^th or 40^th cabin we’ve found in our almost 1,000 adventures). This time, however, we would be the heroes if we succeeded as we discovered that he had kidnapped and trapped a few campers, and we were there to save them. We started going through the cabin to look for clues on where each camper was imprisoned and ways we could liberate them when we realized that the cabin had no air conditioning. It was getting more difficult as time ticked on to focus as we were hot and sweating. Since we were extremely uncomfortable, managing our emotions became difficult, and frustration levels ran high.

We successfully liberated the kidnapped campers; however, it was no easy task. We had to handle our own discomfort while also managing our emotions so we didn’t take our distress out on each other. In addition, while being uncomfortable and frustrated, we had to be patient with each other and not take things personally when one of us overshared our frustration with the situation. Yet another parallel with life is how important (and challenging) it is to manage ourselves internally and externally when we are emotionally charged and attempting to collaborate effectively with others. What are some ways that you manage your frustration when interacting with others?

On another adventure, we unexpectedly found ourselves in the dark. The experience started out exciting enough as we were in a tunnel excavating beautiful jewels before the dwarves returned. We were able to grab a few before we heard several dwarves approaching, and we had to exit by crawling through a newly opened side tunnel. Then, we found ourselves in complete darkness and with several challenges we needed to overcome before safely exiting the tunnel system. We became increasingly frustrated as we completed each challenge because they were tedious and sometimes outside our strongest skill sets. At one point, we had to mimic the sounds of a song by pulling on musical ropes to recreate the song. Neither team member is musically inclined, so this challenge was tiresome and infuriating.

Thankfully, we could overcome our frustration to accomplish the tasks and break free of the tunnels before the dwarves caught us. Upon review, we identified several parallels between our escape experience and life. Our experiences will not always be pleasant, sometimes leading to extreme frustration. Still, we must focus on moving through it, and things will eventually brighten up (sometimes literally as you leave the tunnel of frustration)!

It finally happened – something we have been warned about for years – the robots took control of humans. We were tasked on a secret mission to sneak into their headquarters, a company that started it all, and shut them down from the source. This was no small feat, as it became evident when we had trouble getting close to the building. Small and large drones patrolled around the entrance, and we found ourselves huddled in an abandoned van, trying to figure out how we could best get past them and onto the next challenge awaiting us. It appeared that the only way to distract the drones so we could reprogram them to patrol elsewhere was to get a device out in the open. When they spotlighted and scanned the device, it would reset their search parameters.

Time was ticking, so one team member decided to go for it and ran out into the open. They deftly dodged the spotlight while attempting to estimate where it would land next and rolled the device to several places until the spotlight finally hit it. The drones left, and we were able to turn our attention to breaching the door. We successfully thwarted the robots that day, but who knows what would have happened if our team continued to play it safe. Sometimes, we must take risks to accomplish our goals more quickly. What areas of your life are you playing it too safe?

We found ourselves in yet another serial killer’s lair. We started in a seemingly innocuous maintenance office, soon finding out that there was a secret entrance into the actual lair where the serial killer played out his sick fantasies. He wasn’t a very organized offender, as various bodies and body parts were strewn about the secret room. The atmosphere was quite immersive – we felt like we were in a movie. At one point, we encountered some bathroom stalls, one containing a chained-up body and the other filled to the brim with very realistic poop. Thankfully the immersive experience did not include smell. One partner is exceptional at yelling “not it” when these challenges present themselves, so the other was forced to dig through the poop to find a much-needed clue to help the team escape the lair unscathed.

Once the clue was located, the partner digging through the poop felt it was appropriate to throw some of it at the other, and a short poop fight ensued. Thankfully, the team could refocus after some laughs and escape with evidence before the serial killer returned. Escape rooms teach us so much about life. While this one, at least we hope, doesn’t get translated to literally throwing poop at those in your life during tense situations, it demonstrates how important a little humor and fun is when you are collaborating on a challenge in work or life.