It must be true that when the student is ready the teacher appears. This is a message I’m hearing over and over, and maybe it is sinking in.
The message is simple: Be curious not judgmental. Many of you will remember that excellent scene in the TV series Ted Lasso when Ted attributes that quote to Walt Whitman, as he proceeds to humiliate his opponent at a game of darts. Ted reminds his opponent that he never asked him if he had ever played darts which was a big mistake.
And even though Whitman did not write those words, the message was clear. You better ask more questions of your adversary. Today, several of my favorite teachers
and mentors are focused on this topic because it is a great way to deal with conflict, and there is a lot of that around these days.
This pearl of wisdom gives us an important tool to use in our daily lives. Research tells us that humans make somewhere around 35,000 judgments a day. As I write this article, I’m making hundreds of judgments about word choice and punctuation, what the reader will identify with, etc. We wake up in the morning, and our judgments start before we’re out of bed. We’re not even aware of the internal conversation that’s going on.
Since you’re the only one involved in those decisions, you’re a one-man judgeBut then you interact with another person, or you interact with a news report in the paper or on TV, and without hesitation, you continue to judge — is it bad or is it good? Soon you’re judging ideas, political positions, worldviews and people that you’ve never even met. Even though you may have limited knowledge of the person, position or idea, you still make judgments that are firmly held.
Why do we do that? I assume it makes us feel safe and secure.Age is not necessarily our friend in this area. We may become more set in our ways and resistant to change. We have all met people whose door to change is sealed shut.
What would the dynamic be if we could just remain curious about the idea, political position, worldview or person? Let’s say you’re involved in a conversation with someone who holds a position that you disagree with. What if, instead of becoming defensive or agitated, you simply decide to be curious about why this person believes what they do? What if you asked, “Tell me more about how you came to this conclusion.”
Or what if you said: I’ve never considered that. Tell me more or I’ve never thought of it that way. What if you said, “I’m curious about your thoughts. It’s always good to agree where you can and search for similarities that build bridges instead of walls. Leave space in your mind for new ideas.
I absolutely agree with Monica Guzman in her new book I Never Thought of It That Way, when she writes: I’m not saying that we let go of our convictions in conversation. Not at all. Only that we let them breathe. We let gaps appear around their edges without freaking out. Then we build the traction in conversation to present them and explore them setting out not to prove something but to learn something.
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