Stay alert
How often do you rush to judge, and does this judgement serve you well or is it a hindrance when trying to reach your goals?
This question struck me both intellectually and emotionally and I started to consider why our minds are meaning-making machines, constantly making assumptions, judgements, and looking for patterns. This is not bad trait as it has kept humans safe as we evolved for a very long time. However, these internal narratives can be filled with bias, they can be self-destructive, or can also result in hurting someone else. At the end of the day, our judgments can be the lens through which we understand the world and that lens is foggy.
What can stand in the way of spotting opportunities?
I think curiosity is what really unlocks the ability to spot opportunities and it is available to every single one of us. All we have to do is ask questions and continue to believe that we can discover and probe and learn more and more every single day. The Achilles heel for many business people is that you believe you are an expert, so anyone who is already believing that they have a certain expertise in any variety of business or any part of life, stops asking questions and that’s a dangerous thing. If you want to spot opportunity and create something new or just keep up to date in a rapidly changing world then curiosity is your friend. Curiosity genuinely doesn’t know, it wants to find out more, whilst judgement already knows enough. Curiosity is a tool and goes by names like listening, appreciation and connection. Stay alert…