Barry Auchettl (ock-er-tell) is a world leader in communications from the Gold Coast, Australia. Barry is the creator of Conversations: an inspirational game, which transforms ordinary talk into meaningful connections. Having a Masters of Education, he is also trained facilitator of The Virtues Project and The Blue Wren project for the prevention of domestic violence.  He is currently working towards being a Non-Violent Communication facilitator. Barry is an author, international keynote speaker and runs a six month Life Vision Mentoring program, that specializes in clearing sabotages and creating authentic communication. He is also the founder of Eye Power vision improvement services.
Interview Transcript
Hugh Ballou: Greetings, it’s Hugh Ballou and Russell Dennis again for The Nonprofit Exchange. As usual, we have a very intriguing guest on this episode. Barry Auchettl from just south of Brisbane, Australia. It’s called the Gold Coast, Barry.
Barry Auchettl: It’s called the Gold Coast here.
Hugh: Oh yeah. Russell is in Denver, and we are having a good time. We are having to accommodate the time because our normal time for Barry would be in the middle of the night. He likes us, but he doesn’t like us that well. We are accommodating. Barry, I put a little dangler out there about Barry Auchettl. We are talking about Conversations today. We will leave that hanging for a minute. Tell people who Barry is.
Barry: Hi, Hugh. Hi, Russell. Great to meet you guys again. My background is quite varied. I have a varied background. I started off as an accountant for Pricewaterhouse. I worked through the lines of there for a few years and recognized that accounting really wasn’t my thing. It gave me a great background into business and how businesses work. I decided then I was going to go teaching. I had a calling to teach. Ended up teaching for about 15 years. My areas of expertise were accounting, computers, and religious education, of all things. I have a theology degree as well. I have a business degree, a theology degree, and a Masters in Education. It keeps me busy. About 1997, it actually happened, I left teaching in ’97 to start up my own business called Eye Power, which has now been operating for 21 years. Eye Power is about improving people’s physical eyesight, but it also looks at people’s vision of life and how the two are connected. That’s really what I have been working with in a whole variety of fashions since ’97.
Hugh: Now Conversations is the topic of this interview. Conversations is technically a game, but it’s a game with a purpose. What was the inspiration for developing it? It’s pretty intricate and complex. It’s easy to play, but you can tell there is a lot of psychology, philosophy, thought underneath the principles here. What was your inspiration for creating this tool?
Barry: It’s really a communication tool for connecting people. That’s what it is, and transforming relationships. The origin of this game is fascinating. As much as I have a teaching background and I was helping groups, by that stage, I was helping and supporting adults. I was recognizing that people weren’t communicating properly. But I had no intention. This was way back in 2001. All I did was I went to bed one night really frustrated because my work wasn’t taking off like I wanted it to. When you are a start-up business sand things are really slow, I was frustrated one night. I went, “What is going on here?” I went to sleep that night, and I literally had a dream about the Conversations game that night. I had all these things I had to get done. In the next three days, I put together the Conversations game. I don’t know how, but all the other things got done as well. I don’t remember doing anything else. I just remember working on doing the very basics of the Conversations game. Within two weeks, Neale Donald Walsch, whose Conversations with Godand founders of Humanity’s Team, a nonprofit organization, played the game and really endorsed it. He said