I have been gifted with wonderful teachers. Some of them were bosses, some colleagues, some friends, some authors. One of them, a boss, once taught me about blindspots. This is the gist of what she said…
“Jule, there are two types of blindspots. The first type is the Total Surprise blindspot. This is when someone alerts you to something about yourself and this news comes as a complete shock. You immediately make a complete correction. For example, an alert that you have a piece of red bean from lunch making a lingering appearance on your front tooth.
“The second type of blindspot is the Insufficient Correction Blindspot. This is when you have previously been alerted to something about yourself that you worked to correct. You made changes that brought you up above the line of Minimally Acceptable Behavior, but you haven’t yet progressed to the higher threshold of Excellent Behavior. You see how far you have come but you do not see that you have further to go.
“Jule, this is where you are. You are above this line (pointing to the bottom red line) but below this line (pointing to the top blue line). You have more work to do.” That was where I was in the conversation with my former boss and that’s where I am now, with something else, pointed out to me by someone else.
Now here is the mighty question: What if the arena in which one is not demonstrating Excellent Behavior is not beans between teeth but something more pervasive? Or to put it more clearly and personally, what if the Excellent Behavior requires me to chose to see the world differently?
Thank goodness I believe in neuroplasticity.