We can perceive the same thing differently
We share with you three stories that support your understanding of perception. You will see that two persons may see the same thing differently.
The “color” story
There is nothing more annoying than not being understood, right?
Let me please take you through a little story.
Hey, the fruit in the photo is red. What do you think?
You: “Orange. It’s orange!”
Me: “No. It’s red. Can’t you see it? It’s really red. It’s not orange.”
Remember arguing with a friend about the color of an object? You see it orange. Your friend sees it red. You guys are both correct but none of you understand why the other person doesn’t see the same color as you do. You guys feel frustrated. We won’t say it out loud but many of us would think “What an idiot! Red?? It’s definitely orange!”.
Both of you are in a frustrated state and it may be hard to get out of this frustration even if there is no point making a drama out of this. That’s the power of perception. The color code is unique but People can see the same color differently.
Acknowledge that you guys can have two very different views of the same thing
You do not have to agree with each other but as humans with common sense and People respectful of each other, you should recognize that it is possible that two people can have a different view on the same thing. Do you seeing the fruit as orange and me seeing it as red stop us from moving forward? I don’t think so, right? That’s no big deal. Let’s have a good laugh about it and move on!
So remember, you can see it one way, I can see it another way. The most important is that we acknowledge that there is one thing and we see it differently.
The “Chicken can fly” story
Hey, chicken can fly! What do you think?
You: “Yes. They can mate!”
Me: “No, they can’t, they are too fat to fly!”
Before I even asked you the question, you had an opinion on it, right? Your intuition told you “Yes, they can”. Where does your intuition come from? It comes from you, from what you know, from what you have experienced before. You saw a chicken fly once. You saw it fly to the top of a barn. A 6 to 7 meters flight. From your point of view, with what you know and with what you have experienced before, you are totally right, chicken can fly.
Now let’s imagine I tell you “No mate, I’m sure, the chicken can’t fly!”. Yes, I never saw a chicken fly. They are pretty heavy with small wings. Plus my cousin Bob has a farm so I know that well. Again, what happened here? Well, I did the same as you did. I called my intuition based on my experience because I never saw a chicken flying, because they are pretty heavy with short wings, and because my cousin Bob has a farm, chickens cannot fly. From my viewpoint, I am correct.
Here we go again, this time not a color but a chicken. When will we start to agree mate? Let’s imagine we are frustrated about the “chicken can fly” story. What do you think we can do?
Acknowledge we see the same thing differently. Acknowledge that we are both correct from our own point of view.
Yes, that is exactly what we should do. Good job mate. You get it! (applause)
Now, it’s just a chicken. Do we care to have different viewpoints on a chicken? No, they can fly or not, we don’t care, they will finish in our stomach.
Well, wait a minute. Did I tell you about our plan mate? We are going to start a chicken business. We will raise 3000 chickens on the plot of land overlooking the Midzig highway. There is a little river surrounding that plot of land. Wait a minute, should we put a fence or not? Chicken can’t swim but if they can fly then we potentially have a big problem. They could end up on the Midzig highway and cause car crashes.
We have agreed we have different views on the chicken. What can we do?
Well, we could check if they can fly or not, right? Alright, we are on our way to a local farm where we have seen some chickens venturing around. The car is parked and one chicken is in sight. Slow approach and at the very moment you jumped to catch it, it… starts a run, spans his little wings, runs more, shakes his head, and takes off for a very short flight of 5 good meters. Damn, I was wrong. I really thought that chickens could not fly. I can still argue that 5 meters is not really flying but would that be relevant? No, it’s enough distance to cross the small river.
Well, do we need to go further? No, we’ve got our answer. Chicken can fly over very short distances and that is enough knowledge we need to make our decision: we’ve got to install a fence around our 3000 chickens otherwise we may cause car crashes and end up with lawsuits.
What did we just do? We had a different opinion on the same thing, a chicken. We agreed that we had a different opinion. Then because our opinion could potentially impact what we were going to do next we decided to check whether they could fly or not. We checked by ourselves, in real life, and we reached the same conclusion, chickens can fly very short distances.
Well, that’s a big achievement mate. Ok, I was wrong but at least we checked and none of us will get a lawsuit thanks to the fence we are going to install.
You and I will have our point of view on any object, topic, or statement. Our point of view makes use of our intuition. Sometimes, our intuition will tell us yeah, that makes sense; sometimes, it will say to us, no, that’s not right, and sometimes our intuition will tell us nothing because we don’t know.
My intuition told me chicken can’t flag, and that intuition was damn wrong. The chicken can fly short distances! Next time someone tells me chicken can fly, what do you think? I know my intuition will be correct because we tried and we saw it flying.
Intuition is great BUT we’ve got to double-check it, especially if we are going to make a move (our chicken business) that can potentially impact us significantly.
How did we double-check? Well, we found a way to check the thing. In our case, we went to see a chicken. That wasn’t too hard. But let’s imagine you come to me and tell me, “Hey mate, forget about the chicken, let’s get rich faster: Bitcoin!”
The “getting rich with Bitcoin” story
You: “Let’s invest in bitcoin! I heard that expert last night on the telly. He said Bitcoin will do +30% over the next six months.”
Me: “Digital currency? Sounds risky, mate.”
Again, your intuition is telling you to follow what that expert said. My intuition is telling me that Bitcoin is risky. It’s telling me it’s risky because I don’t like risk and my sister lost quite some money buying stocks. Same thing, bitcoin, different viewpoints. What do we do? We acknowledge we have a different viewpoint on the same thing: bitcoin.
What can we do? Well, investing half our salary without checking could have a significant impact. We have to check it! It seems that our difference of viewpoint is around the risk of Bitcoin. Why don’t we check that? Hmm damn checking that a chicken can fly isn’t too complicated, right? But checking whether a Bitcoin is risky?!? Where do we start? Well, lucky us, your cousin Murphy is teaching finance at the uni; let’s talk to him.
You: “Hey, Murphy, do you know Bitcoin well?”
Murphy: “Pretty well. I have invested in it for the past five years.”
You: “Cool. Hey, investing half our wage in Bitcoin, risky or not?”
Murphy: “Pretty risky unless you’re ready to potentially lose 50% of it.”
You: “So what do you recommend?”
Murphy: “Just invest money that you don’t need. It has increased a lot, but it’s volatile and risky. Well, there is this crypto guy Ivan something; you can check his videos online; he has pretty good advice on Bitcoin.”
What did we do? Well, we went to search for information. Based on what you heard from the expert on TV you could have decided to invest half your salary in Bitcoin directly. But you didn’t. You agreed that we have a different view on Bitcoin and that we needed to check the risk first because our decision to invest could have a significant impact. We went to check with People who are more experienced than us about it, and we got more information. Ultimately, we decided to invest 5% of our wage because we agreed it was pretty risky.
What’s the takeaway?
As the color story teaches us, having different views on the same thing is fine. We see the same thing from different viewpoints. We need to agree that we have different views.
As the chicken can fly story and the getting rich with Bitcoin stories teach us, if we are going to use our intuition to make a decision that can significantly impact our future, then we have to double-check that our intuition is correct. How can we check that?
by ourselves if this is possible (remember us testing if the chicken can fly)
by searching for information
Find experts and ask them the right questions
Get different viewpoints
How do we move forward?
Well, I think you have already achieved a lot for today. If you have already managed to read all of the above and understand it, your progress is already impressive (applause). But if something does not make sense to you, please tell us. We will listen to you and see what we can do.
As you can realize, there are multiple things People in society see differently right now. I don’t need to list these things; you know them well. People have gotten very frustrated about these things. Did we get frustrated when we discussed the color of the fruit, the chicken, or the Bitcoin? A little bit at the beginning, but we managed to agree and have constructive discussions. Can you do the same regarding the topics that frustrate you or your friend right now? Maybe send this page to your friend if you feel uncomfortable discussing the topic directly. Ask them what they think about this article. Start with baby steps if you have to.
We have shared with you suggestions. It’s for you to use a bit of courage and engage in constructive discussions like we did together. We trust you to do this. It will benefit yourself and the People around you.
