Are you too close to see the truth?

Most of us think we know what we are doing, know how our actions affect others and are aware of both our strengths and weaknesses.  Or…we lack the confidence to really know the truth about ourselves. Both are dangerous situations.

We are often too close to a situation to really understand exactly what is going on.  That is where a coach or mentor is absolutely critical.  We all need someone who can tell us when we are doing something stupid…something that could derail us at work, hurt us in our private lives or get us killed. Things we just don’t see on our own.  Dangers we didn’t even notice.

The photo that goes along with this blog is a pretty good reminder of the need to have someone who can tell you…”Hey, you are well inside the danger zone now…time to back off.”  When I got back home from my early Spring 2010 trip to Yellowstone, I processed my photos and came across the one in this blog.  The photo is of the eye of a buffalo.  I remember shooting it with my 200 mm lens.  And when I looked into the center of that eye…I found a clear image of my car.  Should I have really been all alone standing near enough to a 1000 pound buffalo to get a picture of his eye with my car clearly reflected in it?  Probably not.  Had my wife been with me she could have given me some coaching…like “Don…get the heck out of there before you get stomped to death.” or something subtle like that. I could have used either good sense or a good coach or both.

You’ve done things this stupid at work…you just didn’t even notice it.  Get a coach and let someone else take the stomping.