W.I.N. Wednesday (On Thursday): The Danger of Boxes
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Conversations not Debates, I recently listened to Tim Ferriss’ June 2020 podcast interview with Coach George Raveling. George Raveling has experienced a great deal in his 82 years, is a voracious reader, a man of deep thought and deep insights, and a man of action. I wanted to share with you just a couple of the insights I took away from the interview. I was going to post this next week, but decided it worked best paired closely with yesterday’s post.
Insight: Stop putting people in boxes. The four walls restrict their ability to achieve their highest potential.
My Thoughts:
This is not, “Thinking Outside the Box”. This is about breaking down the boxes we all tend to put people in. As I thought about this it became clear that we put people into many boxes. We start with big boxes based on race. Inside those boxes are smaller boxes based on the continent you live on, your country of origin, the country you live in (if it is different from your country of origin) and where you live in that country. There are smaller boxes for each of those groups based on language and dialects, religious beliefs, political affiliation, sexual preference, occupation, income, education (including where you went to school), socioeconomic status, employment status, relationship and marital status, if you have children and if so how many, type of vehicle you drive, type of home you live in, level of physical fitness, health conditions, type of phone, and computer preference. We seem to want to squeeze people into smaller and smaller boxes until we can squeeze them into a box that ticks off all those classifications.
Instead of putting people in boxes what if we followed the advice of my friend and mentor Chip Huth who teaches that we need to see people as people. People who have their own hopes, dreams, fears and aspirations. People who have their own unique life experiences. People who have biases. People who have flaws. People who are doing the best they can.
Seeing people as people does not require that we put them in a box. It eliminates the Us vs. Them beliefs and arguments. Seeing people as people makes it easier for us the have conversations instead of debates.
Breaking down the walls of these boxes is not easy. They have been built up and fortified over our lifetime. Often our identity is based on the box we fit into. This is about me, not you. It is about I, not they. I need to start by slowing working to break down the walls of the box I have become comfortable in. It starts with me stepping back from the automatic tendency to put other people into a box. It is not about pointing fingers at anyone else and telling them to stop putting people in boxes.
When we can start to break down the walls of the box world we have created and start the conversation with one other person, who previously would have been in a different box than us, then we can start to make progress.
What’s Important Now? Start today. Be patient. Have compassion for yourself as well as others.
I would encourage you to listen to this interview with George Raveling, at https://tim.blog/2020/06/08/coach-george-raveling/ and then I would encourage you to listen to the interview Tim Ferriss did with George Raveling in 2018 as there are a lot of gems in that interview as well.
Take care.
Brian Willis
www.lifesmostpowerfulquestion.com
Maximizing human potential through Life's Most Powerful Question - What's Important Now?
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