Think differently.
Whenever I make updates to my presentation, capturing insights from Synchronicity by Joseph Jaworski, I always discover something that really gets my attention and touches me deeply.
This past week, it came in the form of a quote from David Bohm:
The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.
⏤ David Bohm
Ten years ago, Bohm’s words probably would not have been as meaningful to me as today.
Perceiving with New Eyes
I sometimes mention how much I was impacted by the view from above when I started flying general aviation airplanes.
But what I don’t mention very often is the experience that really clicked for me. This singular event caused me to start bringing a higher perspective to all areas of my life and work.
Early in my career, I was a sales and support rep for a software system for the manufacturing industry. This work required me to make many road trips from Northern Virginia throughout Southern Virginia.
In particular, I made countless trips to or through the Charlottesville, VA area. While it was mostly a pleasant drive at first though the countryside, it began to annoy me because it took so long to drive just 90 miles ⏤nearly always 3 hours!
There were so many traffic lights and frequent traffic backups to contend with along the way.
Then in 2003, I made my first cross-country flight with my instructor that overflew the same route. It was such a remarkable difference!
No traffic. No traffic lights. And just absolutely stunning views while overflying the beautiful Shenandoah Mountains almost the entire trip!
When driving this same trip, you didn’t even know the mountains existed!
It was indeed a wow experience that caused me to take many thousands of pictures from the air that I shared with others.
Insights Beyond the Mind’s Reach
When you want some reflective time, you can’t always go jump in a plane and view the world from 3,000 feet. I needed a new way to build that reflective time into my day.
Perhaps by accident, I found myself taking many more short walks throughout the day wherever I was. If I were at the office, I would go outside and walk to a nearby wooded area or even around the parking lot.
Or if the weather was terrible or I didn’t have much time, I started taking intentional walks around the inside of the office building.
But what I really noticed were the ideas and events that just started to happen as a result.
When I mentioned this experience to Joseph Jaworski when I met him in 2014, he said to me, “Bill, if business people started doing this one simple practice throughout the day, it would completely revolutionize the business world.”
Interestingly, I encountered these words from Joseph in my recent reading:
I found that I needed to have plenty of reflective time in order to allow the principles to operate. I did this by running early in the morning and taking time during the day, whenever I could, to reflect and listen. When I did, I found the attractiveness principle starting to operate on a regular basis in my life.
⏤ Joseph Jaworski
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As always, to your great work life & success!
Bill Fox
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