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Show Notes
What do you say when two people walk into the same room? One sees opportunity. One sees risk. One sees problems. One sees possibility or solutions. Who is right? Who is wrong? Neither of them are right or wrong. They are both right and wrong. It is all about what we see. We often call that confirmation bias. We look for evidence to support our hypothesis, to support what we believe in.
Stephen Covey calls it the map. The map is not the territory. It is all about where you have been, what you have done, who you have talked to, and what you have in your background. This explains why you can have two children grow up in exactly the same environment, with exactly the same opportunities, and one will flourish and do amazing things, and the other may not.
It is not that one is right or one is wrong. They are both right and wrong. It is about what we see.
The Red Car Effect
Tony Robbins does an exercise where he sends people out to find brown things. He gives them ten minutes to find as many brown things as they can. Then they come back and he asks, what red things did you see? Most people did not see any red things because they were looking for the brown things. I am sure you have had this happen yourself. You have been on Facebook scrolling around, or you walk into a shop and suddenly all these things keep appearing.
It happened to me when I was on holidays. I was in a wetsuit shop at a surf shop, and I did not even say anything. I just walked in. I had my phone on me, and suddenly I started getting all these ads for wetsuits. I did not look at one. I did not touch one. I did not say anything. But there they were.
Did I see them? Yes, absolutely. Was Facebook’s algorithm following me? Yes, probably. But it happens all the time, does it not?
There is actually a name for it. It is called the Baader-Meinhof effect, or more commonly, the red car effect.
How often do we think about buying a red car, and suddenly all over the road all we see are red cars? It is that cognitive bias. It is that frequency recognition that we have. Frequency illusion is what they call it. We suddenly see evidence for the red cars that we may never have noticed before.
It happens so often. If you are a parent, suddenly all you see are people who are pregnant. Then when you have your babies, all you see are babies.
Perception in Coaching and Business
That happens in coaching as well.
You see people walk into networking events and one person says, “This is the best networking event ever. I get all my clients here.” Another person says, “This is a waste of time. I hate networking.” See, it is all about perception.
Quite often it starts with how we wake up in the morning. My back is a bit sore. I am feeling a bit tired from yesterday’s workout. Therefore, I am going to have a bad day and I will find evidence to prove that.
Or…
I did an amazing workout yesterday. Yes, my back is a bit sore. Maybe I overdid it a little. But now I am going to find evidence for being healthier and having a great day. It is definitely about the way we think, and it is definitely about what we are putting out there.
I had a call with a lady yesterday and she told me the coaching market was saturated. I had spoken to somebody with her exact same niche the week before, and she said there were so many opportunities and the market had opened up this huge space for growth.
Same market. Same style of coaching. Different people. Different perceptions.
So what is it that you are saying? Are you saying people cannot afford coaching? Or are you saying, I have not spoken to enough people yet. I just need to get out and talk to more people.
Marketing Mindset
Marketing is one of those things as well. You can follow exactly the same strategy as somebody else. You can put out three posts on Facebook every week and have nothing happen.
Or you can do exactly the same thing and, after eight weeks, review what worked and what did not work. Which posts resonated? How can you tweak them? How can you improve them?
And suddenly you get a completely different result. The map is not the territory.
Think about a fly in summertime. A fly keeps banging against a closed window or the flyscreen trying to get out. What it does not realise is that just metres away, the door is open. That is probably how it came in. But that is perception.
We can only see what is in front of us. That fly is finding all the evidence that it cannot get through that window. But it is not stepping back. It is not looking at the opportunities around it. That is what we do with our marketing. We follow one specific course and it does not work. So therefore, marketing does not work.
Step back. Have a look. See what is working and what is not. Do it with fresh eyes, not with confirmation bias.
What is it that you can do? Sometimes it is simply about calming the system and looking for evidence that supports a new hypothesis. What are you good at? If you are good at talking to people then what opportunities so you can talk to people. Can you be a podcast guest or you need attend networking events?
Catching Your Self Talk
I noticed myself saying to a coach the other day that I do better in person than I do online. But I do a lot of things online. So I had to stop and catch that thought.
That came up last week at an International Coaching Federation event about self awareness and catching those thoughts. One of the things we talked about was naming that self-talk. One of the ladies gave hers a name. She called it Gary. She said Gary gave her some interesting advice sometimes, and sometimes he did not.
It is about catching that self talk and working out what it is doing.Be aware.
We did an exercise at that event where we looked at five different images and immediately noticed what we felt about them. We started with a child who was clearly crying and upset. Then we moved through to a political figure. One of the ladies became very upset and said we should not be bringing politics into it. But it was simply a photo of a person. There was no political message. Her map immediately said it was political. That is how our filters work.
Different Ways of Seeing
We all look at things differently. It is raining here in Australia at the moment. It is winter, it is cold, and we have just passed the shortest day. If you think about rain, farmers love it except when they are trying to bring crops in.
Think about rain on a wedding day. Some people say it is good luck. Others think it means the wedding will not go well.
It is all about the way you think about it. I choose to believe rain on a wedding day is good luck.
Links
Contacts
What Do You See?
We all have filters. We all have ways we look at things.
You have got this. You can do this. Stop chasing shiny objects. Narrow down to the rule of one. You will be amazed at what you can achieve. You can go to networking events. You can market in many different ways. It is all about getting out, having conversations, telling people you are a coach and showing them how you can help.
Listen to the full episode of Small Business Talk episode 354.
You can also find the video versions of the Small Business Talk Episodes on YouTube.
