What adventures lie on the other side of the crossing? I am willing to be a little more adventurous than normal. Maybe. Okay, so I am not the one jumping up and down and shouting that I want to be the first one on the zip line. I barely travel out of town.
So why the sudden search for perspective? Like accountability, perception and the way we view certain things - everything - has been a common theme around me lately.
I never really paid any attention to perception or that perhaps there were different ways to look at things - different perspectives. I lived by the "what you see is what you get" mentality. In fact, there have been times in both my personal and my professional past where I have been shown, most emphatically, that "what you see is what you get" vision of life's interactions were grossly misplaced. As life continues, there have been more and more times when I have realized that it was true. What you see is NOT always what you get.
A different perspective, or point of view, provides many lessons. It could be that my view on a social matter was too narrow, and a friend or colleague provided me their perspective on the issue. Suddenly, I see both sides of the perspective bridge at the same time. This does not mean that my views have changed on the issue, necessarily. It simply means that my eyes have been opened to another point of view. I am now better equipped to discuss my perspective having seen the other side. The other point of view gave me knowledge, understanding and empathy.
There is also the perspective that I didn't want to see. Seeing things from another's perspective can serve as hard lessons. There have been times when I thought I was helping someone in the workplace; only to find out what I viewed as teaching and coaching was their point of view of me treating them poorly and with disrespect. I thought I had good teaching and leadership skills. Turns out, I was blind to the other point of view. Granted I knew the material and the skills better and genuinely wanted to help them succeed, it was my approach that slowed me down and hindered their learning. Their perspective of me was not good. It took a lot of coaching sessions with my supervisor and a lot of reading to grow out of the little singular perspective bubble I had put myself in.
I discovered the wealth of information in books, such as How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie and Personality Plus, by Florence Littauer, I was able to practice the skills taught by these revolutionaries. Amazing things started happening! My own perspective bubble got bigger and bigger. Soon, I was meeting people with a newly opened mind. Conversations went in directions I never knew possible. I was learning and discovering new things about others, the world and myself. And to this day, I am still looking to see the other perspective.
So why the sudden search for perspective? Like accountability, perception and the way we view certain things - everything - has been a common theme around me lately.
I never really paid any attention to perception or that perhaps there were different ways to look at things - different perspectives. I lived by the "what you see is what you get" mentality. In fact, there have been times in both my personal and my professional past where I have been shown, most emphatically, that "what you see is what you get" vision of life's interactions were grossly misplaced. As life continues, there have been more and more times when I have realized that it was true. What you see is NOT always what you get.
A different perspective, or point of view, provides many lessons. It could be that my view on a social matter was too narrow, and a friend or colleague provided me their perspective on the issue. Suddenly, I see both sides of the perspective bridge at the same time. This does not mean that my views have changed on the issue, necessarily. It simply means that my eyes have been opened to another point of view. I am now better equipped to discuss my perspective having seen the other side. The other point of view gave me knowledge, understanding and empathy.
There is also the perspective that I didn't want to see. Seeing things from another's perspective can serve as hard lessons. There have been times when I thought I was helping someone in the workplace; only to find out what I viewed as teaching and coaching was their point of view of me treating them poorly and with disrespect. I thought I had good teaching and leadership skills. Turns out, I was blind to the other point of view. Granted I knew the material and the skills better and genuinely wanted to help them succeed, it was my approach that slowed me down and hindered their learning. Their perspective of me was not good. It took a lot of coaching sessions with my supervisor and a lot of reading to grow out of the little singular perspective bubble I had put myself in.
I discovered the wealth of information in books, such as How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie and Personality Plus, by Florence Littauer, I was able to practice the skills taught by these revolutionaries. Amazing things started happening! My own perspective bubble got bigger and bigger. Soon, I was meeting people with a newly opened mind. Conversations went in directions I never knew possible. I was learning and discovering new things about others, the world and myself. And to this day, I am still looking to see the other perspective.
After all, a tree is still a tree whether you are looking up at it from the ground or seeing the tops of it from the sky.
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