How the Divine Designer and the GAME Plan™ complete the same circle
Over a decade ago, Richard Barrett described the five steps of soul activation — the journey from ego to purpose, culminating in surrender to the soul.
Now, he describes another step: surrender to the One Mind — the field of unity beyond even the identity of “a soul.”
In Barrett’s language, these are two stages of surrender:
- The inner surrender — releasing control to the soul’s guidance.
- The outer surrender — dissolving even the idea of a separate self into pure awareness.
For us at the Academy of Life Planning, this mirrors the same movement encoded in the Tree of Life and lived through the GAME Plan™ — a structured, secular map for the same spiritual reality.
🕊 The First Surrender — Be Who You Were Born to Be
In The Divine Designer, this corresponds to lifting the first veil — the move from the outer persona to the true self.
In GAME Plan terms:
- Goals = Listening to the soul’s desire.
- Actions = Aligning behaviour with values.
- Means = Channeling talent and resources through integrity.
- Execution = Living your purpose in service.
This is the stage where we stop striving for success and start living from soul-alignment — from design, not reaction.
Barrett calls it “surrendering to the soul.” We call it “remembering who you were born to be.”
It’s the moment the inner temple begins to build itself in silence — no iron tools, only awareness.
🌌 The Second Surrender — Becoming the Builder and the Temple
Beyond that alignment lies the Abyss — the threshold the mystics called Daath, where knowledge becomes wisdom.
Here the planner dissolves into the plan.
Personal purpose gives way to participation in the larger design.
Barrett calls this the surrender to the One Mind.
In The Divine Designer, it’s the passage from the Still Small Voice to the Crown — the realisation that life is designing through you.
There is no longer “my plan” or “my service.” There is only life, flowing as design itself.
“First surrender inward — become fully you.
Then surrender outward — release even the ‘you’ into the infinite.”
— Richard Barrett, The Two Stages of Surrender (Dec 2025)
In the GAME Plan™, this is the final movement of Execution: from doing to being.
It’s what Paul the Apostle, also known as Saul of Tarsus, described as the third heaven, and what the mystics knew as the Crown of the Tree — unity, illumination, co-creation.
💠 Completing the Circle
Barrett’s discovery of the further surrender completes the same circle your GAME Plan teaches:
- Ego → Soul → Source
- Personality → Purpose → Presence
- Iron Tools → Silent Temple → Limitless Light
The first surrender gives you integrity — the whole self.
The second gives you infinity — the whole of life.
Together, they form the spiritual geometry behind every conscious plan.
First, be who you were born to be.
Then, let life itself live through you.
🌿 Closing Reflection
The Divine Designer and the GAME Plan™ are not systems for control.
They are invitations to surrender intelligently — first to the truth within, then to the unity beyond.
In silence, the temple is still being built.
And every act of surrender lays one more stone.
Academy of Life Planning 