In the late 90s Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons produced a video of two teams passing a basketball around and most viewers failed to spot a gorilla with a walk on part. Now Simons has produced a sequel in which the gorilla makes an appearance but a number of other events take place too. Most people (who knew about the original video!) are looking out for the gorilla now but, even though they know there are some other occurrences, fail to spot them.

How do you do?

I spotted the gorilla but totally missed the other changes. I’m guessing that I would have missed the gorilla in the original….

Interestingly enough, in tests with this new video, about half of those who didn’t know about the gorilla failed to see it. Only 17% of people familiar with the gorilla thing noticed any of the other changes.

This is a great quote from Simons, which I believe has meaning in our lives way beyond videos about basketball and gorillas:

“… knowing that unexpected events might occur doesn’t prevent you from missing unexpected events.”

So I liked that and it prompted me to look for more examples (on YouTube of course, where else?). I found another video by Daniel Simons, this time with Daniel Levin. In this video the participant fails to notice that the person he is talking to is replaced by someone else (uh?) – watch it, it’s true!

A great example of change blindness in action.

Or, you could think of it a SEP (Somebody Else’s Problem) a phenomenon skillfully described by Douglas Adams in “Life, the Universe & Everything”, if you like that sort of thing

“An SEP is something we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem…. the brain just edits it out, it’s like a blind spot. If you look at it directly you won’t see it unless you know precisely what it is. Your only hope is to catch it by surprise out of the corner of your eye.

….. this is because it relies on people’s natural predisposition not to see anything they don’t want to, weren’t expecting or can’t explain.”

Tracy

The book is called “The Fast Growth Fieldbook: how leaders in the most successful high growth businesses think, act and behave” – all useful stuff. Cheers once again!

It was a good read and some useful things in there to learn from and to share with clients. However, my favourite bit was a quote about mindset. The quote says the story is about a Navajo Indian.  I’ve looked for corroboration on the internet and find several references to Cherokee Indians. I don’t know which one is correct but I will go with the Navajos. Apologies to the Cherokees if I’m wrong.

An old Navajo Indian teaching his grandson about life stated the following:

“Within me there is a fight going on… It is a dreadful fight between two wolves. The one wolf is bad – made up of anger, complacency, regret, anxiety, greed and ego. The other wolf is good – he is joy, learning, compassion, truth, humility and love… Within you the same fight rages – and the same applies to all people.”

The grandson reflected on all of this for a while and asked, “Which one will win?”

The old Navajo replied, “The one that you feed.”

Perhaps it’s worth reflecting on which wolf you feed on a regular basis?

Tracy

PS the image is called Fighting Wolves by Lucilla Butler – click here to visit her online gallery

Autobiography in Five Short Steps

by Portia Nelson

Chapter 1

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost….
I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter 2

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I’m in the same place
but it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter 3

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it there.
I still fall in.
It’s a habit.
My eyes are wide open,
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter 4

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter 5

I walk down another street.

It’s always worth taking a moment to stop and think about which chapter you are on – and it might be that for different situations you are at different chapters – and what you need to do to move on to the next chapter.

Let go of the things that are beyond your control but know that you can change 100% of the things that are in your control.

Tracy

At the time of this very first blog post the contents of the site is unfinished but this is something that we will be working on over the next few days so please keep checking back.

We welcome any comments about the website and it’s content.

Back soon!

Tracy