What’s interesting to me is what you didn’t say

"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth."

Marcus Aurelius

Time is one of the powerful perspectives that allows you and others to see possibilities and impact.

Time can be viewed through the lens of the past, present and future. Yet within each of these components, there are scales to help broaden, deepen and enable the importance of perspective.

When you think about the past, do you think about an hour ago, a day, week, month, year, decade, century or multiple millenniums?

The perspective of millions of years is a good one to consider when thinking about the development of the human brain. The human brain has developed layers via lessons through the history of human existence. The components and interacting systems in the human brain were created so long ago that modern people tend to hold the perspective that the mind is something that is easy to evolve and adapt to modern circumstances.

Yet time doesn’t have to be across many centuries to provide us with a useful perspective.

Take the concept of sleeping on it: allowing 24 hours to pass to put an issue into perspective. This is an opportunity to allow time to provide another perspective.

Equally compelling is a perspective by David Rock in his book Quiet Leadership: Six steps to transforming performance at work, where the simple act of asking, how long have you been thinking about this issue? may create sufficient perspective.

Time creates a powerful perspective whether the perspective of time is the distant past or the distant future.

I always begin a meeting by explaining to my clients that they are not rewarded for the speed of their answers. I actively encourage them to pause and reflect, rather than reply with impulse as they would in their workplace where they equate speed of response with expertise or competency. My role is to create space in time for them to reflect and consider, and to help them press the pause button on the movie of their life.

No matter what length of time they use to create perspective for themselves, I always ask them,

‘ Now you have said that aloud, what you are thinking?’

That space in time provides them an opportunity to reflect on what they were thinking rather than what they were saying. Some will rush to respond, others will be careful and considerate in their response. Either way, their response about what they are thinking now is usually substantially different and more compelling due to the perspective of time.

Asking a client to reflect in this way, creates a deeper, more powerful insight into themselves.

At this point, I offer the following,

‘What’s interesting to me is what you didn’t say’.

This statement is designed to allow them the widest perspective of time. It is about creating another perspective in time to consider what they may have omitted.

Allowing this perspective of time during a discussion helps them explore new perspectives, which they normally haven’t had the time to consider.

A guide to help you notice what level you are listening

If you want a totally different perspective on listening, watch percussionist Evelyn Glennie illustrates how listening to music involves much more than simply letting sound waves hit your eardrums, she shows how to listen with body.

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About Oscar Trimboli

Oscar Trimboli is a Speaker, Author and Mentor helping people to explore how clarity creates change and challenging their assumptions about what is possible.

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