Day 2 in Charlotte. To start out the day we had an interesting informative bus tour of the city. It’s a beautiful city and in a future blog, I’ll be comparing Charlotte to Dublin. After the tour, we did an escape room called Breakout Charlotte.

I’ve only done one escape room before so I’ve been wanting to see if I would improve if I did it again. In Breakout Charlotte we were split into groups of five and had one hour to escape. Chad, Maddie, Lacey and Torrey were in my group and we were assigned to Mystery Mansion. When we first walked in it was very dark with spiders all over the room.

Before we started at Breakout we were told by our mentor, Liz to think about our StrengthsFinder strengths and see how they are used during this difficult activity. My strengths from StrengthsFinder include relator, includer, adaptability, developer and empathy.

My strength of adaptability was very useful in this environment. StrengthsFinder explains adaptability saying, “unlike some, you don’t resent sudden requests or unforeseen detours. You are at heart, a very flexible person who can stay productive when the demands of work are pulling you in many different directions at once.” Breakout was extremely unpredictable. We thought there was only one room that we had to break out of, instead there ended up being three. Each time my group got to another room we were surprised, but it actually got me excited to work even faster against the clock. After the second room, we thought we were done but the closet actually had another room through it. We had to get a hint to push through the closet doors to get to another room. At this point, we thought we were done but there ended up being three locks left. This was surprising, but once I learned we had more clues to get through I worked harder to escape.

Another strength that was beneficial in this activity was empathy. StrengthsFinder states empathy as, “You sense the emotions of those around you. You can feel what they are feeling as though their feelings are your own.” I could sense the group giving up when we only had a couple minutes left. So towards the end, I tried to motivate everyone to keep working because we were so close to finishing. I did not want to give up until time was up. We ended up not getting out in time, but we did get very close! I’m proud that my group kept going even though we were running out of time.

My teammates all contributed to different things that led us to get so far in the escape room. I think we really worked well together and if we did not spend so much time at the beginning of the hour, I believe we could have escaped in time.

One of Chad’s strengths include focus. He showed a lot of focus in any clue that we had. We had to figure out how old people were which required a lot of math and focus. He was able to focus and get the answers even when time was running out. This helped us to complete another key at the very end.

Torrey has the strength of woo. Which is described as winning others over. StrengthFinder explains that people that posses woo, “enjoy the challenge of meeting new people and getting them to like you.” I saw this as he was able to bring the group together. He was always talking to everyone to get the most out of everyone. It was like he already knew everyone in our group extremely well. He was able to delegate tasks by knowing something about each of us. At one point we were all scared someone or something walked into our room because of the sound effects. Torrey saw everyone was scared and opened the door to see if anyone was there, which we all appreciated.

Lacey has a strength of restorative. People with this trait are explained as, “You love to solve problems. Whereas some are dismayed when they encounter yet another breakdown, you can be energized by it. You enjoy the challenge of analyzing the symptoms, identifying what is wrong, and finding the solution.” Lacey always was thinking of different solutions. She thought of the idea to get into the closet, which I would have never thought to do. Every time we had another clue she was eager to think through it.

Maddie’s strengths include positivity. StrengthFinder says a person with this strength as, “You are generous with praise, quick to smile, and always on the lookout for the positive in the situation.” No matter how stressed everyone else got towards the end, she was always smiling with a positive, productive attitude. She made all the tasks more of a game and a more enjoyable fun experience.

Everyone’s different strengths came together for a really effective team. I know if we would have had a chance to do it again we’d definitely win! This was a fun experience, I learned a lot about my personality and different strengths. It was also great to work together with my teammate solving puzzles together towards a common goal. We did not escape Breakout Charlotte, but I am writing this at the airport in Charlotte and tonight we will hopefully break out of Charlotte and be on our way to Dublin!