Have you ever met someone for the very first time and thought “what a dink”? And I don’t mean Double Income No Kids. There was just something about them that you didn’t like. I thought that when I first met Morris – Laura’s cat. As a kid growing up I never hung around with cats. We were dog people. All of my friends were dog people. So I never had much use for cats. We all have built-in biases based on our own experiences. We are influenced by what we read, hear and see. So it’s no wonder I never got to know cats. After taking the time to get to know someone have you ever changed your opinion about them? Meeting and getting to know Morris helped me change my opinion about cats.

Worth Remembering … There are things known and there are things unknown. And in between are the doors of perception. – Aldous Huxley.

Perception is your reality. It is whatever you think it is. What you know won’t hurt you. However, the elephant in the room are the things you don’t know. Don’t let your preconceived notions get in the way of the decisions you make. Don’t believe everything you think. Question the status quo. Continue to seek out others who have a different point of view. Empathy, trying to see things from someone else’s point of view will never go out of style. Ask the right questions and really listen to the answers before you act. Have you ever made a decision only to find out that you didn’t have all the facts? Had you had all the facts, you would have made a different decision.

Worth Remembering … One of the biggest problems with the world today is that we have large groups of people who will accept whatever they hear on the grapevine, just because it suits their worldview – not because it is actually true or because they have evidence to support it. – Neil deGrasse Tyson

I’m a huge fan of the hit musical TV show “The Voice”. I think there is a lesson here that you could use the next time you hire or promote someone. They pick singers from a blind audition. They don’t pick a singer based on their perception of what they think a singer should look like, they pick a singer based on the quality of their voice. The next time you need to hire or promote someone, hire or promote them based on their qualifications not by the colour of their skin or gender. We like what we like and we are more than likely to hire or promote someone who has the same qualities as the kind of person we like. But we know from experience that they don’t always turn out to be the right person for the job we hired them for. The next time you have to make a decision don’t believe everything you think.

Copyright (c) 2018. Brian Smith-PLD. Not to be reproduced without permission. Are you looking for a keynote speaker or seminar leader who can deliver an informative and entertaining session on a variety of soft skills topics? Give Brian a call. You won’t be disappointed. To find out more about Brian visit https://briansmithpld.com