Blind Spots – We All Have Them

I received touching comments from Episode 4 where I focused on Carol Dweck's book, “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success." Here are a few: "If you ever wanted to make a difference in the world, you certainly did change my world with this podcast." "What a great topic, Ana. I've read Dr. Dweck's book and it really had a positive impact in my life." "I started believing something very different, that this is a skill set that I can build with practice and intention." Learning about Growth and Fixed Mindset makes a difference, mainly when we realize that we have a growth mindset overall, yet a fixed mindset in certain critical areas. These fixed mindsets, of which we are usually unaware, stop us from being “So Good They Can't Ignore You" (could not resist the plug to Episode 5 about this other wonderful book ;). All of us have these blind spots. That’s normal. We are not aware of them until someone, or something forces us to see what we don’t see them. Did you know that you have a visual blind spot in your eye? To experience this is powerful. Look at the image below (on the screen or print it out). You can also draw it on a piece of paper: a small dot on the left side separated by about 6-8 inches from a small + on the right side. Then: 1. Close your right eye (you can cover it with your hand.) 2. Look at the small dot and small + (about 20 inches away from the image.) 3. Without moving your head, look at the + with your left eye. 4. Slowly move your head closer while looking at the +. At a certain point, the dot will disappear from your eyesight. Amazing! This is where you blind spot is. You can reverse the process. Close your left eye and look at the dot with your right eye. Adjust your distance until the + disappears. You can find different variations of this experiment at https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/chvision.html The blind spot is the area on the retina without receptors. Therefore, we can not see any images that fall on that spot. We are not aware of this phenomenon because: 1- We usually view with both eyes (so one eye sees the information that falls into to the other eye's blind spot) 2- Even when we look at something only with one eye, our brain fills in the missing information – our brain tricks us to see what is supposed to be there. In other words, we are able to see things that are not really there. [Tweet "We are able to see things that are not really there."] Think of the implications of this for our fixed mindset blind spots. A fixed mindset is the belief that certain talents or skills are set, and cannot be changed. Holding this fixed mindset leads our brain to interpret certain experiences to support that belief - therefore, we are not aware of that blind spot. So, what does this imply for a Self-Employed Professional? Most Self-Employed work alone, at least most of the time, so they cannot rely on the other eye – another person – to see what falls within their blind spots. So it becomes, even more essential to become ware of our blind spots and understand how we fill the missing information in with our own beliefs. Probably you never thought about this before. I hope that you start to look for situations that challenge you, to become aware of your own bias. This is the first step in the process to move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. Love to hear your comments about this :)