Bringing Unity Through Deeper Conversations

Dr. Barry Auchettl, affectionately known as The Blockbuster, is a Life Visionary who has moved from Australia to the USA. Barry helps people see the world with new eyes, by improving their physical eyesight and their insight as to what’s possible for themselves and others. Barry is also the creator of Conversations, an inspirational game that encourages more meaningful conversations and connections and is also the producer and features in the movie Vision 2020: from eyesight to insight. Barry is the head of Visionaries of Light which runs Life Vision Academy to help people raise their vibration and frequency. He is a sought-after International Speaker, best-selling author, and mentor helping people unlock their full potential and achieve their goals. His passion is allowing people to see their light and then share that with others.

To nonprofit leaders and clergy, your work is vital to the well-being and growth of individuals, communities, and our shared world. You are not just facilitators of services or spiritual guidance—you are architects of connection, trust, and transformation. In your unique roles, you have the power to influence how people see themselves, relate to one another, and find their purpose. Conversations is more than just a game; it’s a tool for fostering the deep, meaningful dialogue that builds trust, nurtures empathy, and creates lasting impact. Imagine using this tool in your ministries, programs, or team settings to break down barriers, open hearts, and build bridges where they are most needed. My invitation is this: Think about the connections in your organization or congregation. Are they as deep and authentic as they could be? How could encouraging open, heartfelt communication transform the lives of those you serve—and your ability to lead with clarity and purpose? I encourage you to approach conversations not just as exchanges of words, but as opportunities to elevate, inspire, and heal. By fostering meaningful dialogue, you are creating spaces where true transformation can occur. Whether it’s within your teams, congregations, or communities, remember that every connection you nurture contributes to a more compassionate and united world. Take the first step: explore how tools like Conversations can enrich your mission, amplify your impact, and help you lead with authenticity and grace. Together, we can turn simple interactions into powerful moments of connection that ripple far beyond what we can see.

 

The Interview Transcript

Hugh Ballou:
Welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. This is Hugh Ballou, Founder and President of SynerVision Leadership Foundation. It’s the synergy of the vision of the leader. It’s like the orchestra conductor. We build synergy with our teams. I’ve got a dear friend and a longtime friend and a brilliant Leader on the podcast today i’ma let him tell you about what he does but the title we have for today is bringing unity through deeper conversations Barry Auchettl is in Florida by way of Australia but he’s in America now tell people about yourself and why you do this work.

Barry Auchettl:
Oh look, thank you. Really great to see you again and it’s great to be on here. Look, I cover two main pieces of work. One is around mindset where we actually get to clear blocks for people and I’ve been clearing blocks for people for well over 30 years now and these are the subconscious blocks that, you know, it’s hard enough sometimes to find out what they are, let alone to clear them. And part of that process is I wanted a way in which we could clear these blocks in a way that was fun. And I literally went to bed one night and said, what am I meant to do with my life? Like it was just more of a frustration and a prayer rolled into one. And literally that night, I dreamt about a board game called Conversations. And I literally put this game together And within a week, people got to play it in America. We eventually produced the game, and literally people around the world have played this game as a way of breaking down, if you like, the small talk that we often have with each other and going into what I call soul talk, into a deeper conversation. So the beauty that I get to do now, having played this game well over a thousand times, is I get to witness people having real conversations with each other, bringing unity to each other and actually connecting. And in many times for the first time.

Hugh Ballou:
So when did you launch this game? What year was it?

Barry Auchettl:
I actually launched this game 20 years ago now. So this has been going for 20 years, this process of making a difference.

Hugh Ballou:
And there was a problem back then, even though we didn’t have texting, I don’t think, back then. So conversations haven’t gotten better. So talk about the different levels of conversation. You said there’s self, there’s other. So talk about those a little bit, would you please?

Barry Auchettl:
Yeah, look, the conversations, and I think you’re right, like with all the technology and everything that we have, the way we communicate with each other is probably dropped off from how we used to sit around the kitchen table talking to each other. And that just doesn’t seem to happen that much anymore, and we tend to have these really short text messages and things like that. And what the game does is to bring back real conversations and bring back the art of listening. Because many times I’ve found that people were really busy getting ready to tell you what they had to say and didn’t really get to listen to what the other person actually said. And it was like a tennis match where you’re both in an opposite, you may or may not have the same conversation, but it’s just going back and forth. And what Conversations does is bring people back into the same team together. And the way that it does that, it does it really cleverly disguised as a board game. Literally as a board game, which we created here with my help of my children at the time. And this particular board game, what it does, it does three major areas. First of all, it teaches people to speak authentically straight away. There’s nothing like having, when you’ve got a card in front of you, people from all sorts of walks of life have just opened up and expressed how they’ve really felt. The second I’ve said is the art of empathic listening, of really listening to what’s being said and applying that to yourself. Now I can create an environment where both of those things happen. We can use I statements and make sure people don’t interrupt. Those sorts of things we can create. The miracle in this game is what happens at the end. That there’s a connection between all the players who are playing, and also a great connection to yourself, because you find out something about yourself that you didn’t know before. And in the midst of that, it creates what I believe is unity, where we recognize that our similarities are actually greater than our differences.

Hugh Ballou:
That, I left a bit of silence there. That is so important, Barry. Now, it’s a game, but it’s serious. But we can do serious things and have a good time. And I think when we go into it, you so brilliantly described how we don’t talk to each other. We talk at each other or talk in parallel paths. And so there’s different kinds of listening. And what I’ve experienced, and people that have very different opinions, it really is very disarming. It just takes away the tension and the defensiveness and being able to talk. You know, I find myself listening in a different way. Say a little bit more. Sometimes I say, I notice that people are listening, formulating their counter point. Yes. And not listening to understand. So talk about how this enables different kind of listening a little bit, please.

Barry Auchettl:
I think the major thing that it does, it creates a safe place. A lot of people don’t feel safe to express themselves and it creates a safe place to be vulnerable. And when we’re vulnerable, it’s a little bit scary because we’re not too sure what people are going to think of us or judge us and do all those sorts of things. And so what this game does is enable us to be vulnerable, to be safe, and to express what’s actually going on for me, not what you should do. We’re not here to fix anyone. But what’s going on for me at the moment? What’s happening for me? And when people talk about that, and a really good example might be someone says, we all need to meditate. And I don’t know about you, Hubert, but when everyone tells me we need to meditate or we need to pray or we need to do anything, I don’t want to. I want to say, no, I’m not going to. My opposite comes in and I’m like, don’t tell me what to do.

Hugh Ballou:
Yes, yes.

Barry Auchettl:
But if someone says, I actually, you know what? I think I need to meditate more. I need to pray more. And what that does for me in my own internal dialogue, go, yeah, you’re right. I need to do that as well. And so everything that he said, I could actually apply back to my own life. So I find out something more about that person, and I find out something more about myself. And I think it’s such an amazing process that I’ve seen time after time, this game will go to whatever depth the people are able to go to. Because for some people, this is a brand new process. And it’s like, to say anything is a huge jump for them. For people like you and me who are used to speaking, we can go in much deeper and talk about, from a soul perspective, this is what’s happening for me today.

Hugh Ballou:
Yours is the reverse of, I always hate it when people say, you have to understand. No, I don’t. It’s almost abusive language. Yours is more of an invitation to be curious. And I loved when you said this is a safe space to be vulnerable. So you came to this, you talked about it’s your journey, your spiritual journey, is how you came through. And it’s been a transformation for yourself, personal growth, spiritual alignment, meaningful connection. And you also said aimed at raising the collective vibrations of individuals and communities. Would you highlight that a little bit more?

Barry Auchettl:
I’ll give you a really good example, and why the game came to me, because I often say, how come I drew up this game and not someone else? Is I needed to improve my own communication. I was still using the same communication style that my parents and grandparents had. And so it was important for me to change the way that I was communicating. I believe this game was created for me, number one. And then I said, if it helps anyone else, that’s terrific. And on the first birthday, 12 months after I created this game, we invited friends around and people who wanted to come and play. And at this stage, there was no Zoom calls at this point because Skype wasn’t quite working that much with dial-up speed. And so these people came in. I can still remember these two people turned up. And the first lady turned up and I said, would you like a cup of tea? And she said, yes, Jesus has told me I’m allowed to drink tea and she belonged to a very strict fundamental religion. That was her beliefs. And I welcomed her and she walked in. And the very next lady after her walked in and I said, welcome, would you like a cup of tea? And she looks up to the skies and she says, yes, my angels have told me I can have a cup of tea. And almost from a spiritual viewpoint, almost opposite ends of the spectrum. You know, one was very much into the flowery angels and the other into a literal interpretation. And I can remember at the time thinking, I think I might just hide under the couch and let them have it out. You know, like this is going to be really interesting what’s going to happen. And I had a really great learning experience. Because when they shared what was similar rather than what was different, which is what the game does, they actually ended up not only not having a big argument during the night, they actually became friends and exchanged phone numbers. And to this day are still friends. So what conversations can do is strip back the things that are not that really important at the end of the day. and find out what is important, what is important of how we connect, that we are all worried about our children, we want to be happy, we want to just be nice. And having travelled the world, my experience of people, of people all over the world are fundamentally nice, and kind, and generous. And there are exceptions everywhere. But my experience is, people want the best thing that they can for their kids the same as all of us around the world. And so what this game has done is bring groups of people together who wouldn’t normally talk to each other and actually create friendships.

Hugh Ballou:
It is truly a transformational experience and our work is similar and yours is very targeted to people in conversation. It is a lost arm and it’s so important. So in thinking about it, it’s also a spiritual transformation. You talked about This is your journey and you need it for yourself. That’s another really important principle for leaders to work on themselves because nothing’s going to happen if we haven’t worked on ourselves. And, uh, excuse me, the whole culture is a reflection of us, the leader. So give us another example of some transformation that’s happened through a conversations game, please.

Barry Auchettl:
Yeah, look, there’s, I remember again, another guy, some people have really, like the first cycle of this game is called an aspect cycle. And there might be education or health or money or spirituality. And two, two things come to mind. One, one person got food this particular night. And she thought, that’s not really massive. Like I wanted something bigger. Like I want money or spirituality or health or I got food. She said, I don’t want to play. And I said, you know what, that’s okay. You don’t have to. So she stood up and she got to the door and then a light bulb went on for her. And she turned around and she said, maybe this is because I had half of my stomach removed last week. And of course people in the room chuckled at the, you know, and encouraged her and she came back. and recognized she had to own that food was a real issue for her. And so even in the introductions, which is like a warm-up with the first aspects, that can be really big. I had another fellow who got spirituality and literally threw the card on the floor and said, I do not want to play, but I want to stay and watch. And I tuned into it, and I thought, okay, let’s see what happens. And we had a break, and after the break, his hand’s up in the air, like he’s at school. I said, what is it? He said, can I play again? I said, sure. I said, there’s your card, still on the ground, go pick it up. And he went and picked up his card. And he had struggled, he had a loss of faith at some point, and lost his belief. and was really scared of spirituality. And what he heard in that night being said brought it back to him. And he was really able to connect that there was a stronger force guiding his life, where the previous 20 years he was really blaming that force. And that was just in the introductory card of an aspect, which is really warming people up. So just in those things itself, and the game itself has three aspects. The first, as I said, it’s the aspect cards and aspect of life that we use. The second cycle that we go through is called a life cycle. And the life cycle, I nearly called the drama cycle. You know, it’s poor me, it’s someone else’s fault, it’s not my turn, all these sorts of stories that we tell ourselves. And what we get people to do is to look at that in context with their aspect. Like how does It’s Not My Turn relate to education? Actually, I missed out on going, and the story will come out about what’s behind that. Then the third cycle, which is really the key to the game, and people don’t realize that. So the first part is really a warm up. It’s a bit like having an appetizer. The second cycle, the life card, is a bit like having your main meal. Let’s get into the main part of it. And then the final cycle is an inspiration cycle. How can we get out of that drama, out of that life card process, and see life from a higher perspective? You are sent nothing but hope in your life. There’s an example of an inspiration card. And people go, yeah, well actually people have helped me. People do come around and support me. And as they do that, they recognize that there’s a shift in what happens for them. Now I’ve played this game with personal groups, I’ve played it with churches, I’ve played it in government groups, I’ve played it with corporate. And I can remember a corporate group we had, and we actually got them to write down what did they get out of the game. And virtually every one of them wrote down their inspiration card. And I saw the manager of this group about four years later in the street, and he calls me over. And luckily I recognized him. And he says, Barry, you have changed the way that we communicate here. People used to complain about each other in Australia. I’m sure it doesn’t happen in America. There’s a thing called bitchiness that happens. And all that was going on in the group. and he said it stopped it overnight. And then he opened his wallet and in his wallet he still had handwritten the card that he actually had on that day, that he used as a guiding light for his life. That makes a difference.

Hugh Ballou:
What I’m hearing, you check for understanding, we discover things about other people But I’m hearing that we discover things about ourselves along the way. That’s probably the most important thing. And I remember going to the game, I discovered things for the first time, back then it was in my 50s, for the first time, or late 50s, about myself. And that’s so helpful. So there’s three cycles, each one that was intentionality. Do you have any stories of follow-up? People have come together in a game, and then something happened after that that helped them move forward.

Barry Auchettl:
We have one group in New Zealand that used to go to the hotel every Friday night to drink. And they actually use the game now, instead of going to the hotel, they actually play the conversations game every Friday night. And they use that as a way of developing the communication and leadership skills, rather than just going drinking and talking about nothing and things like that. We’ve had a large number of people who have met each other at a conversations game. We’ve had couples actually renew vows because they actually found out stuff about each other they didn’t know and realised there was a deeper connection. But we’ve also had people who, having played the game, actually end up marrying each other. Because they’ve actually found a deeper connection straight off and that realize there’s something more and they’ve discovered that there’s unity in a more intimate scenario later on.

Hugh Ballou:
I’ve been in situations where I swear people come with their mask on of who they think they should be. That’s right. In a good way, it helps us just be who we are and I’ve been in other conversation or. that type of program that’s sort of contrived, and you’ve got to do all these rules. And it just seems to be so awkward, where there’s nothing awkward about it. I want to go to your website and show people that. Is there something else you want to say about the program before we go there?

Barry Auchettl:
Yeah, look, I just think, as a personal level, we’ve talked about that. From a corporate and church level or a government level, it actually supports with a competitive edge. Because what the game does is to bring unity into each other and to allow collaboration. And when people really collaborate from that really heart and soul level, then you find another word that comes out of this, which is innovation. And so it leads to people being safe to say, I have an idea. And that’s where firms have really expanded because they’ve been able to say it’s safe to voice up and I might even be the janitor, but I’ve got an equal voice if I have an idea of something that I say. And I think it’s a wonderful tool to bringing humanity back into the workforce.

Hugh Ballou:
So what size groups from the smallest to the largest are effective?

Barry Auchettl:
So this game is designed like I’ve played with my partner, the two of us can sit down and play a really strong game. It’s really designed for sort of 8 to 16 people is an ideal size. I have actually played it live with over 300 people. And so it gets played differently as a facilitator. I get to adapt the game and to adjust the game depending on the size, depending on whether we’re trying to unite, you know, a couple, a small group, a company, or a large organization. We’ve actually done it all with equal success.

Hugh Ballou:
I could see this as a process that any enterprise can use, a church, a synagogue, a corporation, a nonprofit, which would improve everything without the touchy feely team building stuff, which doesn’t last.

Barry Auchettl:
And I’ll let you know, last year I was really on it because I finally completed a Doctrine of Divinity. And so I have a real passion for supporting churches and spiritual organizations to thrive, because I believe that’s really needed now to give people a grounded belief system moving into the future.

Hugh Ballou:
You have not slowed down since I met you. 15 years ago, it was just amazing. You’re always on the move. So let’s go to your website, Visionaries of Light. Now, there are people listening to this, so we need to describe things so they can understand it. But if you’re listening, you can go to the website, thenonprofitexchange.org and find this episode. And then you’ll see some of the visuals. But Barry, describe what people will find. And I want to highlight this online offerings too.

Barry Auchettl:
Look, thank you, Hugh. Look, having come to America only three years ago, as you can imagine, I’ve come into America with such division that I’ve seen here. You know, certainly coming from Australia, and I thought that was somewhat divided. And so I created a non-profit organization in America called Visionaries of Light. And we have a wonderful team now, which is about fostering bridges. And we’re talking about bringing back that connection and I’ve always been thrilled by bridges. You know, like I traveled in America in 95 with my children and I came home with a whole series of collection of bridges and the kid said to me, didn’t you see anything else while we were there? That’s what attracted to me. Because bridges historically have always brought two sides together. And so what we’re trying to do here is to foster deeper connections, one conversations at a time. And we can do that in three ways. We actually, you can purchase the game through that site and all the profits of that go to support Visionaries of Light. And one of the things we’re wanting to do is to create an app where instead of people just chatting to each other about not much really, we want to create a conversations app where people can start having meaningful conversations with each other. And so we’re raising funds in order to create that app. So if anyone knows how to do that properly, feel free to get in touch with us about that.

Hugh Ballou:
The second thing… Is there a connect button on the website?

Barry Auchettl:
Yep, they can find details at the website on there of how to get in touch with us. The second thing we do, we run a monthly gathering. We do two a month actually. One is a gathering which is about just coming together and share positive things with each other. So we’re not having one in April, as you can see, because we are getting married. So normally it’s every second Sunday. And we’re actually getting married in two weeks’ time, so that’s pretty exciting. We also run every fourth Sunday a conversations game, which is really about how to communicate with each other playing the conversations game. So you get a chance to play it for yourself and have a look and start connecting with people literally around the world. and having a soulful connection with those people.

Hugh Ballou:
Very, very important. So Barry, this 25 minutes has just flown by.

Barry Auchettl:
Certainly has.

Hugh Ballou:
I want to remind people there’s a transcript on the website and in the podcast platform, there’s information about the interview and how to get a hold of Barry. And so Barry, what do you want to leave people with today?

Barry Auchettl:
I literally just chose one of the cards from the Conversations game as a way of doing that. And the card says, you do make a difference in how people experience their lives. And I want everyone listening to really take that in, that you do make a difference in how people experience their lives. And that could be as simple as smiling at the person who serves you at the shop. to creating a legacy that you’re going to leave for the world and anything else in between. So I want to encourage people to know that they do make a difference. I don’t believe any person is on this planet to fill the numbers up. That we are all here to make the world the best place that we can be for ourselves and for our children and now for me, for my grandchildren.

Hugh Ballou:
Barry, it’s been so great. You’re not only a bridge appreciator, you’re a bridge builder. And conversations are going to be better because of the game. And we each can contribute, and there’ll be a ripple effect. So I’d encourage people to find out about Conversations the Game, because it is wonderful.

Barry Auchettl:
Thank you, Hugh. I really appreciate that. And my ultimate goal is that every family in Australia would have a Conversations game, or at least a Conversations app. and start having conversations that matter.

Hugh Ballou:
A good place to end. Thank you so much, Barry.

Barry Auchettl:
Thank you. Thanks, everyone.