Is seeing believing or do we need to delve deeper

I meet a lot of people in my line of work, some I get to know quite well and others come and go without causing a blip on my radar. No matter the situation though I work hard at eliminating pre-judgement, perception based on visual information and on criticism. I take the time to truly see and understand them.

Conversely, in my private life my wife and I tend to keep to ourselves a lot. We’re not anti-social, just selective with who we spend time with and allow into our lives. We avoid drama, gossip and don’t require validation from others to know we’ve done well. It makes sense then, that most of our friends are the same.

I recently spent some time with a good friend of mine. We were out in the countryside shooting long-range together, practicing, testing a new rifle system and just getting in some bro-time before he has to go back to work. I’ll maintain his anonymity due to the nature of his work but he is a former Operator from 2nd Commando Regiment, Australian Army. It’s a Special Operations force capable of operating across land, sea and air domains against any type of threat. They are elite, highly trained and intelligent individuals who operate in the most dangerous and volatile situations imaginable. My friend was a sniper and as such has a unique set of skills.

We were talking recently about the circumstances in which we met. I had no idea what his line of work was; He had told me he was in transport which is his standard response. It wasn’t until much later that he told me what he really did and that was only once he had actually left the Regiment. I was blown away to be honest. He’s a sub-6 foot tall guy with an athletic, not bulky, physique, is very quietly spoken and pretty-much nondescript in every way. He is polite, self-effacing and quietly confident in nature. He is not, in any way, what you would expect him to look like and he certainly doesn’t fit the stereotypical ideal of what a Special Forces guy looks like. I wonder what my perception of him would have been should he have told me at the outset what his job was?

We’re pretty good friends now and I gain a lot of value in spending time with him. The duress he operates under is colossal and I find it fascinating how he can approach a task single-mindedly with such focus and yet still be adaptable to change in an instant. In business that’s a valuable asset, as I am sure he was for the Australian Army.

My approach, not pre-judging others, has enabled me to remain impartial and open to change in business and personal life. I see many people making false perceptions of others based on limited information, or worse, the perception of someone else, and wonder what they are truly costing themselves by closing themselves off to opportunity through judgement and perception. Understanding the person prior to judging them is preferable to deferring to misconception and someone else’s opinion.

“Once in a golden hour I cast to earth a seed. Up there came a flower, the people said a weed.” – Alfred Tennyson

Design and create your ideal life, don’t live it by default
@galenkp

Photo by Daniil Avilov on Unsplash