The Looking Glass is a weekly newsletter of timeless wisdom for you to ponder on your journey of growth. I hope you find great value here.
#18 – 26 Aug 2022
Hello friends,
Thanks again for being here!
Here’s an insight, a question, and a quote I reflected on over the last week.
💡 It’s ok not to know
Not knowing the answers often freaks us out. But it doesn’t have to.
The culture puts such an emphasis on “knowing”. From an early age in school, we get graded on the correct answers, and then at work, we climb the corporate ladder sooner by having the solutions.
This conditioning shapes our reality of the world. We end up believing there are right answers for everything.
But in fact, it is not the case.
How much do we really know about anything?
Strangely, we feel guilty for not understanding it all.
Look around the room you are in now. I’m sure you can spot many things you don’t truly understand. Right now, I can hear the hum of my air conditioner, and I have no idea what’s really going on in that machine. We get by fine in life without knowing more about those things.
Then we catch ourselves pretending to know the answers. We don’t want to be seen to ‘not know’.
If someone walked into my room right now and asked, “how does the air conditioner work?”. I could probably spit out some nonsense, bluffing my way through, explaining a process I actually know nothing about.
But where is the value in that?
What if, instead, I said, “you know what, I have no idea how that works”, and then got curious instead of pretending? That opens up new possibilities.
I challenge you next time this occurs to simply admit that you do not know.
See what happens.
❔ Dancing on the edge of what’s comfortable
We all have the places where we feel most comfortable. And then we have the places that scare us a little.
What comes to mind for you in a professional sense?
Mine was getting on camera and doing video. For a while now, I have had several people say they like my writing and found it helpful, but they are not actually into reading and usually skip over blocks of text. So they asked, could you do some videos? As they like watching videos.
This got me thinking that to have a greater impact in my work, I should branch out a bit beyond my comfort zone of writing (note – that when I started my blog, publishing writing was a fear of mine! Oh, how things change over time!)
Now, this isn’t going all in on a new medium and alienating my current audience, who enjoy reading content. Instead, I think of it as ‘dancing on the edges’, experimenting with unexplored territory, throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks.
So, I built up the courage and posted a few short videos as YouTube Shorts.
I knew my early videos would most probably suck, and that’s ok. The important thing is that I start and consistently show up. I know I will get better over time. (Growth mindset)
After I get comfortable there, it will be time to find a new edge to dance on. But for now, video is my edge.
This brings me to today’s question:
What could that edge look like for you in your professional endeavours?
How can you dance on the edge of what’s comfortable?
💬A Quote to Ponder – Judging character
“You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”
Simon Sinek
Cheers!