We found ourselves in the lair of an evil genius for the first time. It looked pretty much what one would think of for a hideout for an evil genius, except for missing sharks with lasers on their heads. We spent a little time looking around, getting to know this particular evil genius so we could further infiltrate his lair and shut down a missile set to launch, causing, of course, cataclysmic destruction in 60 minutes.

Unfortunately, as we searched the main room, one of us tripped the security system, and an alarm started blaring. Thankfully it seemed like this happened a lot as a video projected on the wall featuring the evil genius reminding himself that he needed to push all of the buttons to deactivate the alarm. We looked around and noticed that there were indeed a few buttons on the walls and started pushing them. They activated a set of ten lights on the wall, and as we pushed each button, one of the lights lit up. This led us to believe that there were ten buttons around the room. We started circling the room, pushing every button we could find and realized that the lights would go out after a certain amount of time, leading us to the conclusion that we had to press all ten within a certain amount of time. Even with the alarm blaring and lights flashing, we decided to stop what we were doing and strategize how to move forward. First, we decided to locate all of the buttons before pushing them. Then, we divided up the room and pushed our “assigned” buttons. Success!

We ended up thwarting the evil genius that day, and we would not have been successful if we hadn’t taken the time to strategize on how to do so with the alarm blaring and lights flashing. Too often in life, we get caught up in the moment and find ourselves rushing to solve a problem when if we stop and take the time to think it through, it will save us a lot of time (and stress). It’s hard to conceive that sometimes we have to slow down to speed up, but it’s an excellent strategy learned time and time again by the escapeletes.