The beliefs you hold are affecting what you see. The concept is called Belief Bias - or Confirmation Bias. The idea is basically this: we all look for experiences everyday that validate the beliefs we hold. We like to prove we're right about her, him, our boss, our spouse, our brother, that other department, or even our customer.
So, we go through our day looking for experiences that prove we're right about all of them.
The danger in operating that way - and we all do it - is that we tend to ignore the experiences that contradict our beliefs. We don't see them.
When Russ first heard this concept of Belief Bias he felt like a bright light bulb went off. He could see things he hadn't been seeing before in personal and professional relationships and interactions.
Google the term Confirmation Bias and you'll find more about this topic if you feel like digging into it.
In episode #12 Russ shares a story about a senior executive who made a presentation to his team showing them their performance in the first half of 2018. The numbers weren't good. At the end of the presentation the leader shared a couple PowerPoint slides that contained these statements:
We need to acknowledge what we do not control AND what we do control
Optimism is a choice even when it cannot be justified
We need to do our best to justify our optimism
Russ discusses the power of these statements in the episode. Listen to on your favorite podcast app or stream it by clicking on the audio player above.
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From Russ:
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