Are you one of these people who received or sent mind puzzles or brain teasers some weeks ago (I am!)?

Did you notice how enticing it is to solve these challenges?  The juice that we get when we think we got it right and the complete disbelief when we realize that we got it wrong 😊

And we buy into the excitement, into the challenge, into the confusion. We buy into the reward of getting it right, and the excuses of getting it wrong. And we have a good laugh out of it!

Or not…depending on how serious we became.

Did you notice? the more you get exposed to these, the easier it gets?

You get it! You realize that:

1. It’s not about how good you are in math or how clever you are. It’s about mere observation. And then you get more confident.

2. There are many layers to what you can observe. Never be deceived by your first assessment.

The more you get exposed to these, the more you notice things you didn’t see before. You "update your filters".

And you might say: “Oh yes! I didn’t pay attention”, “Now, I will observe things better!”, “Nothing will pass by my awareness anymore!”.

Let me stretch your thinking further.

Let’s transition from the world of game and illusion to your day-to-day reality. Let’s check how these insights can help you in your real life.

Are you sure that you know what you think you know?

Are you sure that your filters are updated for your reality? Are you paying attention? Are you seeing the opportunities that are there?

Are you sure that, you hear, you understand and you interpret your interactions with other people "correctly"?

Did this happen to you before? You start an argument with your spouse or a friend because they insist you've been disrespectful to them. And you don't understand. You know you never said or acted in that way!

Or have you known this person that is [too lazy-too rigid-boring]? And then they would do something out of the blue that proved you got them completely wrong?

Isn't it amazing how people can have drastically divergent assessments of the same situation?

Does it puzzle you that some people seem to be able to see opportunities everywhere? Even in the most stagnant, recessing markets?

How different would it be for you to do that too?

Why is our perception different?

Let’s talk numbers here:

The brain processes:      400 billion bits of information a second

You are aware of : 2000 bits a second

Quite a lot of deletion going on there! (precisely 99.9999995% that just goes puff!)

That’s what happens when you look for your car keys or your phone and you can’t find them! What do you do then? You may ask for help. And then you (or they) will look in the exact same spots you already checked.

Why would you do that? It doesn’t make any sense! Because you know that sometimes your mind just deletes things!

And then, can you remember how many Toyota or VW cars have you seen on your way to work? Unless you have the same car or you are thinking about buying one, chances are that you don’t know! All
the cars have been generalized into categories in your mind (“cars”, “fancy cars”, “dirty cars”, or whatever car specificities you cared about then).

So, your mind can delete data and generalize information. And it doesn’t stop there. It can also distort what you see.

I can’t resist sharing these two examples here as testimonials of how deceiving our perception can be:

The filters that you have depend on your past experiences, what you value, what you believe in. They change based on your current state and your current focus.

That’s why some people would love fish and others would hate it. That’s why your spouse can delete, generalize or even distort what you say to her/him. That’s why you may get offended by a behavior from your client while your colleague will give it a completely different meaning.

So, is there no way to perceive an objective reality?

As true as it is that no two persons are exactly the same (even twins don’t have the exact same experiences), there are as many reality perceptions as there are people.

Let me correct that, there are even more! You know that you can have different perceptions about the same situation depending on your state of mind.

And that’s a tremendous amount of power that you have there!

As you realize that your perception is not an absolute truth, you can change it and choose to adopt one that is more useful to you.

How to upgrade your reality?

1.Don’t take things personally

Be aware that what you perceive as reality is subjective to YOU at any specific moment. When someone has a different perception, it’s THEIR reality. They have theirs as you have yours. Respect that.

What that person says, thinks or perceives is never about you. It's about their perception of you. A perception that is deleted, generalized and distorted based on their filters.

Why would you then, take things personally? It’s not about you.

When you understand this, you reach a new level of communication and of ease.

When your kid is doing something you don’t agree upon, understand they are doing it from their own perception. It's not to bother you or because they don't love you. It's not about you, remember? In their perception, it can be for the fun of it. It can be to get attention. It can be to assert their identity. Reach to them from that space, not from resisting and imposing your point of view.

During meetings, interactions or negotiations, remember it's not about you. There’s always a higher common purpose (the profit, the aspired results, the recognition, the safety…whatever that is). And talk from that perspective. Accept the differences, stress on the commonalities. Find the intersections between the different perceptions.

2. Change your perspective- Change your state. From nervous to excited

I’m going to be very specific here on how to use this understanding to overcome nervousness.

I learned this hack from Simon Sinek, the author of “Start with Why”.

During the London Olympics, journalists were asking the athletes this same question:" Were you nervous?". And the systematic answer they were getting was this:" No. I was excited!”

When you feel nervous your heart races, you might over sweat, you start visualizing the future.

Do you know that these body stimuli are the same for nervousness and for excitement?

Now, these elite athletes chose what serves them better. They chose to interpret these body stimuli as those of excitement rather than nervousness.

This is also backed up by a 2014 study by Harvard professor Alisson Brooks that looked at ways to cope with pre-performance anxiety. They found that it goes down on how you choose to interpret your body signals.

So, whenever you have these body signs, practice saying: “Wow this is exciting!”. You can even remind yourself of why this is an exciting opportunity for you.

Meeting important people? “This is so exciting, it’s a great opportunity to show them my work “

Changing jobs? “This is so exciting, I can finally work with this company..., have my own team, have more flexibility….”

At any point of time you are the writer, the producer and the director of any movie you run in your head. So be clever with it, choose the one with the happy ending.

Realize this is not about deceiving yourself or sheer positive thinking. This is smart and effective because:

1. The main chemicals your body releases for anxiety and excitement are the same. So, your body is supporting you.

2. Any scenario you run is a fiction for now. Whether you choose the exciting one or the frightening one, it’s not real. So why not watch the one you prefer?

The subject of perception and reality has so many layers. Getting this level of awareness is a good start for tremendous changes.

Imagine what you can achieve for yourself, for you family and for your business when you open your mind to different perspectives.

Expanding outside any current limiting perceptions to create new options that you didn't know, even existed.

That would be quite a journey!

Your expansion catalyst

Jihen Gatti