385 | The Art of Gaining Good Perspective

Welcome to the show, folks. Joining me on the show today is Brian Alex. Welcome back to the to the show, Brian. It's been a while. I'm happy to be here. It has been a while.

What are we talking about today? We are talking about the art of gaining great perspective. Why in the world Let me gain some perspective. Brian, demonstrate for us. Let me demonstrate that, right? Why in the world are we talking about that?

Because I don't know some of these terms and I've been here a year. You've been here, you hear us talk about this, you see it in action, but there's times that you've done a great job of going, hey, help me to understand that. Because sometimes that I've done that.

There are times because sometimes we talk it's inner speak. We talk about it so much. But we decided because it's so good, you ask such great questions on help me to understand what the thing is you're talking about.

I'm learning to do that. You're learning to do that. That's a learned skill. It is. We'll soon find out. Yes, it is. It is definitely a learned skill. So today we are talk about gaining perspective or the art of gaining perspective. So here's the thing, folks. Let's start by defining what perspective is. Now for me, what I say all the time, I say is especially we do this as we're getting together with leaders.

Let me explain to you what perspective gathering is or people through next level life. It just doesn't matter. Perspective merely means a point of view. Everybody has a point of view, Everybody has a perspective. But quality perspective is gaining all of the perspective that's available at the time. So for me, if you're going to gain quality perspective, it's finding out the other points of view that are available.

I feel like we're gathering information. We're like, I don't know, an inspector or some kind of a detective and we're gathering clues before we use that information. So what you just said is one of the most, what I say is one of the most profound pieces to this is what's the point? The point is, is that when we make decisions based on just our perspective, that's all we've got.

And what we tend to find out is there were, there was more information that we could have used, we could have made better decisions, we could have made wiser decisions. And that's, that's a big key. We're going to talk about that a little bit. We'll talk about what is it like to surround yourself with wise people or wisdom. So these are the things that we're going to be talking about when we come back right after this.

Welcome to the Chris Locurdo show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. All right, we're back and reading Proverbs 4, 5 through 7. It says this. Get wisdom, get understanding. Don't forget or turn away from the words from my mouth. Don't abandon wisdom and she will watch over you. Love her and she will guard you. Wisdom is supreme.

So get wisdom and whatever else you get, get understanding. So we are talking about that today. I just, as we went into the break, I was talking about what is it like to surround yourself with wise people. I think we struggle so much in this world to have the right answers, to not sound stupid, to be smart, to want to look smart, sound intellectual. And there's so many times we're not seeking out wisdom.

We're not looking to people who are further down the road from us or have more information. And obviously the folks listening to this show, you guys are listening to the show because you're seeking wisdom. But in the perspective gathering world, I don't know if I should say world process, not whatever microverse. The microverse. Those of us that actually do care, you have a need to gain more wisdom.

Well, I would also say we don't know our own deficits, we don't know our own blind spots. And so I think a lot of us maturing and coming to better perspective on ourselves and being more self aware is understanding our own limitations by the experiences we've had and our personality and how these create gaps in our understanding that we're not always aware of. And so what we're learning here and what I've been learning over the last year is the art of asking great questions because I'm starting to understand I don't know it all.

That's really tough for me to process. Why is that tough, Brian? I don't know. Do we have to get into that show? Let's do next level life right here. Why do you struggle with that? Is it control? Yes, it's control. Dang it. I didn't see that coming. But seriously, why do you struggle? Like so, like I was sharing on the wisdom side, so many people now, the great thing is, is that people that are coming to us, they want wisdom, they want growth.

They very rarely, once in a great while we'll have that person who knows everything and doesn't want to receive any Information and everything's falling apart, right? Their business is falling apart, their life is falling apart, but they're right about everything. So that's the rare occurrence. Everybody who's coming to see us for the most part, is, I don't know what I don't know or I need to know why I'm not making the right decision or how many times is that struggle.

The I want to have the right answer. I want to be right. I don't want to be wrong. I don't want to, you know, I'm not going to look for more perspective because I need to be right. How. Like, what is that experience for you? Well, it reminds me of something you said in a strap Plan not long ago. You. You were talking to the team that was in about how most of the time our communication is about us offering our own opinions and.

And our own perspective and just making statements. But we're not trying to gain any information before coming to a judgment or before coming to a decision on something or before laying actions and plans down to. To act on. And so we. We limit much because we think. And I. I don't know, I'm inside my own head here, but we think, okay, I've already got a good perspective. But as we'll find out in a minute, and my perspective is the right one.

Reading it, well, that's personality. We'll get to that in a minute too. But reading a little bit ahead, also from Proverbs, a fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion. Ouch. So powerful. So powerful. One of the things that I will ask people during Strap plan and this, that ruins it for people that are coming in soon. As we're talking through stuff like you just mentioned you may have seen me talk about, I usually have a coffee thermos, a big stainless steel coffee thermos on the table at the time.

And I. What color is that? That's a great question. That is a great question, Brian. And so I'll ask the. That was a freebie for anybody coming in for Strat plan. That is the right question. Boom. That's the question. Welcome. Because I'm at the end of the table, we're all around the table. You know, it can be 2, 3 liters to up to 10 liters. It just depends on, you know, how many people come in from.

From the business. And I'll ask the question as we're walking through this and people are making statements and giving opinions, they'll say, hey, what color is this thermos? And every Time they'll go silver. And then I'll say, what if I said it was blue? And probably 75% of the time somebody will go, I'd say, you're stupid. Yep. Because it's obviously silver. Obviously, obviously it's silver. And then I say from my point of view, and then I say, if I turned it around and my side was so my side was blue, what would you think?

And everybody goes that I didn't, I didn't gain enough perspective, didn't have the whole picture. That's exactly it. And I think that's the big key is when we're talking about this and I know you've got a bunch of great questions that you ask, you always have phenomenal questions of gaining perspective for understanding as we talk about this, the key is not. I'm right with my answer. The key is not.

I can see it's silver. And if I say it's blue, the next thing that should happen is I think Kris is a little crazy. I'm looking at the thing, it's silver. I see that it's silver. I'm struggling with this. I want to say, Chris, you're a lunatic because it's obviously silver. Holding all of that back and going, hey, help me to understand how you see it as being blue.

Show me why you think it's blue. And gaining further perspective. And so this is one of the things we teach leaders all the time is, or even parents. We teach parents to say, even if you know the answer and you're struggling with your child or you're in debate with that child, still keep gaining perspective to find out why do you think that's the answer? Because you may hear a perspective that makes you go, ah, now I can understand why you're thinking that way.

You're still wrong. Let's not do that. But now I can see why you think that way. Let me speak to it from my perspective and let's kind of, you know, get to a great wise answer at the end of this. It feels like we don't come out of the womb so narrow minded. We're asking all the why questions at 3 to 5 and then after that I got it.

We've got all the information done. I've been on the planet six years, I've learned to talk and walk, therefore I am. Is it, I wonder if it's because when we learn why the sky is blue from our parents and then we find out from a teacher, the answer is wrong. Dang it. It's all lies. How are my Parents. So wrong. Yeah. So I think. I think what we're.

Learn it. What I'm seeing, what I'm hearing you say is we. We have a very narrow field of vision, that if we want to succeed in life and business and everything, that's what we teach here on the show. We have to open up that field of vision and bring in and learn to be curators or gatherers of information. I mean, this whole perspective gathering thing is a critical thinking process that we have to learn how to do.

But to do that, we've got get past ourselves and be willing to ask questions, which means somebody may think, oh, you don't know that already, you know, and that may put us in a bad light. So we have to have a little bit of humility, I think. Right. Yeah. Let me. So I agree with what you're saying on the narrow view, but let me say it a different way.

Okay. We have only our view. Right. So there are some people who have a wide view and are still missing lots of information. Right. It's. We have the view that we have because of the experiences that we've experienced, because of the things that we've been taught, because of the personality style that we have, the way that we give information and receive information, the way that we act and react.

All of those things build our perspective. And so even if the thing is right dead in front of us, we're only seeing 25% of the picture. Right. Feels complete. It feels complete because we know all of the things that we know. We know our experiences. We know our past. We know what's happened when this has happened to us before. We know how people have reacted when we said this thing.

We know that when we look at it, it looks like this. Those are the pieces that even if you are the most learned person, you're still stuck at that place. And what we tend to believe is if I'm the smartest person in the room, which you should never be thinking that you know, because it's you. It has. No, it doesn't. What do you base it on? How am I smarter?

Well, if somebody has more information on something else that I don't have, how does that make me smarter than them? Right. It just means I'm smarter on the things that I know that they don't. Maybe you need new friends. You probably need. You want to learn. Yeah. If you're. If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Yes. Oh, my gosh, that's so funny.

I was interviewing John Maxwell, probably 15 years ago, we were talking about that. It's like if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Get in a different room where you're not right. So that you can gain and grow. But let's say you are the smartest person in the room. It doesn't change the fact that somebody's got a different perspective than you have. Right.

That you can grow from learning somebody else's perspective. In our big fear is, is that I have to be right. I have to know this thing. I already have the answer. There's no point in debating this so that I don't. Then I don't spend time learning somebody else's perspective. And we'll probably get into this in a minute about where this intersects with the disc and personality styles. But I think maybe some of the fear that I have is if I give up my perspective and bring in some other perspective, it means I was wrong, I believed a lie.

I based all my my on lies. Right. What am I even doing? I'm a failure. I mean, all of that fear comes in, and so it seems like we've got to discard some baggage in order to put ourselves in the right frame of reference to be able to accept. Yeah. And bring in and gather this information. One of the things you just said that is key is giving up my perspective.

And I think that's what so many people do believe. They believe that if I gain perspective from you, if I. If I learn what you think about this, then I'm giving up my own perspective. There's no giving up perspective. What if your perspective is wrong? Do you not want right perspective? Do you not want greater information? That is a great question, Right. Don't you want to grow? So there may be a point where you want to discard the information that you have because it's not accurate, it's not right, it's not good, it's not whatever.

But it doesn't mean that you have to. Right? So if I see that the canister is silver from my point of view, and you say it's blue from your point of view, then I don't give up my perspective. My perspective says it's silver. Right. I just need to move over to your side and find out why you think it's blue. Look at it from the other person's point of view.

That's exactly it. So if I'm looking at a discussion and let's say, you know, we're arguing with a spouse about something Or a child. This, I think this is probably even a better version. As an adult, you have all of these experiences in life and you're arguing with your child about why they shouldn't hang out with a specific friend or something like that. Right? And I don't know, I'm just spitballing here.

And you're talking about how this person is making bad choices, this, this, this, this. And then if you stop there, then you don't understand why your child wants to hang out with that friend. You're just telling them you're not doing it. I'm smarter than you. I'm the adult here, I'm your authority, yada yada, yada. What does it hurt to say hey little Johnny, why? I don't know why the child's little Johnny.

Why do you want to go hang out with that friend and then draw out not just one answer? Because children usually don't have their, their true answer on the first animal crud. Adults usually don't have the true answer on the first answer. But digging in and finding out what is it about this person that you want to go hang out with. You might discover your own child saying, because his parents are never home and I know that it's a struggle, you know, he doesn't have any friends and blah, blah, blah.

You know, you might get this, this amazing responsible answer and, and altruistic type answer. And then all of a sudden you have a new perspective and it changes the way you think, oh my gosh, my child is wanting to. So that's such a big key. It doesn't mean that you give up your perspective. I still want you to watch out for the fact that this kid is, you know, going and throwing, you know, firecrackers at, at people or you know, they're doing something, you know, throwing rocks or doing something stupid.

We're going to stay away from this, but maybe, maybe I'll go with you and maybe we can, you know, help this child to see better decision making process. I think it sets you up using that example, that sets you up as the parent who's speaking into that situation to make a better determination, a better decision or make things more set up for that situation, contextualize for that situation, which is going to be a better outcome at the end.

And we're get to why we want to ask better questions in a minute. We're going to do that when we come back right after this. Hey folks, here's the deal. Every business has a culture, but are you leading yours intentionally or settling for whatever comes in the door. If you're finally ready to create the company culture you've always wanted, then you're going to want to sign up for my free digital video series, Creating a Culture of Champions.

I will personally guide you for 10 days to get clarity on the culture you desire and lead your team to embrace it. You can sign [email protected] Culturelesson Again, if you're ready to make a change, sign up for my free digital video series, Creating a Culture of champions@ Crystal kurtle.com slash culture lesson. All right, we are back and gaining more perspective. So every question. Every question. So, Brian, one of the things that, the reason why we're doing this is because we talk about this thing gaining perspective all the time.

But you've had some great questions of what does that look like? And so while we teach it in events, I don't, I really don't know. We may have. We, we talk about it, we teach to it, but there's still pieces on the show. But there's still some great pieces that people need to learn about gaining some perspective. I've got gaps there. I mean, I was here seven, eight years ago, but then I was away.

Right. And so not plugged in to what we were continuing to do. And so coming back a year ago, a lot of this feels very familiar. But even sitting at the table the other day, I remember you and Joel talking and, you know, you're asking perspective gathering questions. And in my head I'm thinking, what does he mean when he says perspective gathering question? And so I asked, what is a perspective gathering question so hard to do?

Because, you know, you don't want to look silly or foolish and you're, you know, around it, and things are so familiar. And you also take things for granted. Yeah. But with those assumptions and making those judgments, you come to a wrong conclusion sometimes. And so this is where we wanted to kind of back the boat up to, to Louis Falsetti from way back in the day. I'm sure he's listening to the show.

We want to back things up a little bit and go, okay, let's unpack that. Because maybe there are other people out there just like me. Maybe you're new to the show, maybe you've been around, but we haven't unpacked it while you've been tuned in, so help us understand. Okay. So first thing, so we should, for perspective's sake, we should say Louis Falsetti is a phenomenal guy that we used to work with years ago back at Dave Ramsey.

So there we go. So my qu. My first question is, what is the difference? Or is there a different. Maybe that's a better question. Is there no assumptions? Is there a difference between just asking questions and asking for persistent perspective's sake? Yeah. So here's the. The difference is your attitude, your motivation toward the question. I. I think everybody understands this when I say there is a difference of asking leading questions.

There's a difference of asking emotional questions. There's a difference of asking accusatory questions. How. Well, how can you be accusing of the question? You know exactly what I'm talking about always. But yes, yes, there is a difference of asking questions and then asking questions for perspective sake. So if I truly want to gain your perspective, if I'm just asking questions, I could just be asking questions. Why do you think that light does that?

Now, I'm sure I'm looking for your perspective, but I may really be going, isn't it strange that that light does that? That light flashes in that way? I don't know, whatever. And it could be a rhetorical question. If I am threatened, I might ask questions to try and make you look stupid in the moment of. Well, Brian, I don't understand why you did that. Why, why did you make that decision?

There could be all kinds of things that are. That are wrapped up in emotions. When it comes to the perspective gathering question, it is a legit. I really want to know your opinion on this. I already know mine. Or I might not even be able to formalize mine. Maybe I don't even really have my opinion on this situation. Great. In my head right now. What do you think?

So there are hard times that depending upon the personality style of the person I'm speaking to, sometimes I can get in a task mode. And the way I ask the question is very direct. Why'd you do that? And somebody could go like, oh my gosh, did I do something wrong? And I'm going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not your intention. I literally want to know, why did you do that?

Because that's going to feed me person who's constantly gaining perspective. I'm always sucking in information to learn and to grow and to understand and to know people. So the reason why I know people so well is because I've been gaining perspective on people my whole life. What did that person do that. How come that happened over there? Why did he act that way? Why did she just look that way?

What did that. You know, it's constantly noticing people, and that feeds me Information that helps me to then help people. And I think that that is great for you and people that know you, that know you're not attacking with your questions. Well, some. Sometimes I have to say, I'm sorry, this is a perspective gamut. I'll set it up, the disclaimer there so that they don't feel like I'm attacking.

I think in the day and age in which we live, right. If you are on Facebook or Twitter or whatever, why are you? Why what? Get off. Get off. Rats fleeing the ship. What's so funny is the other day I saw a post and I had to read a full paragraph disclaimer before the person offered their opinion. And at the end they were like, this is not even really my opinion.

I'm just putting this out there to see what you think. But the hoops that we have to jump through right now, especially with the climate in our country, nobody's asking good perspective gathering questions and they're even holding back on offering their opinion and everything. And because there's such a clash going on, because there is this sense of I'm going to be attacked or really I'm venting and I'm attacking somebody else.

So somehow we have to move all of that dross off of the top and get down to, okay, if I really want to understand another person, know their heart about something, know what they really think about something, even enlarge my vision of something, I've got to be willing to lay those things aside and start asking really good questions. Better questions than I've been. Right. Man, you just opened up Pandora's box there.

How much time do we have? How much time? Yes, let's see. How long can we go on this? There are. So this is my perspective because I have experienced this. There are so many people today that are making statements and giving opinions about stuff that's not well researched. I've done it multiple times myself throughout my life. Right. But right now, because of the volatility of what's going on, people are responding out of emotion, not necessarily out of intellect.

I've even experienced accusations myself from people who didn't gain any perspective on a situation, but just went, this is my feeling and this is what I'm going to say. But when talking with those people and explaining perspective, hey, do you want to know what I'm thinking here or what I truly believe or what, you know, any of this? Then it's like, oh, okay, so right now what we're seeing on a grand scale is that there is so much Emotion that's happening, that instead of gaining perspective, we're super quick to respond with attack.

I think that's why they call it jumping to conclusion. Right. Jump over a critical thinking process where we actually gather information and find out other people's points of view. We jump over all of that and we label something, we judge it, we, we make with our assumptions. And are we going to be right? Yeah, most of the time, probably not. Yeah. We just came from a friend's house whose daughter loves the movie Leap.

And it's this, this movie about this dancer. I have not seen it, but we saw like a short clip of her jumping and it was like 40ft. And I was like, that's impressive. That's the picture I have in my mind right now. We jump 40ft, our hands are out in the air, we're super excited to get to land on the other side and accuse you of something or tell you how stupid you are or throw in our own opinion and then it just becomes this monstrous, ridiculous debate.

Not even debate, it just really becomes an argument. Right. And for those of us that are Christians, Paul talks about, don't get caught up in that stuff. Right. That is a very difficult thing to do when people want to just argue and banter because they're losing worth or they feel like they need to gain worth by trying to take you down a notch, back out, don't involve yourself in the conversation.

That's something that I have had to learn is to just go, this isn't something I need to be in now. If somebody legitimately wants to know from me, great, I will jump in and discuss it. And that's the difference when you're asking the thing of asking questions. Many times people will ask a question to try and look smart. Many times they'll ask a question to try and default the thing that you're saying or deflect from the thing that you're discussing with them instead of asking that perspective gathering question.

So it sounds like we've got to ask ourselves, what's my motivation? What's my motivation? Right. Internal, I mean internal dialogue is. Okay, is this kind of a dead end question or is this going to help me understand? I mean it's, you know, Cubby's seven habits where seek to understand, not to be understood. Exactly. And so from that disposition, I'm more in a, I'm leaning towards gathering and gaining information rather than just giving it.

Yeah, you, you have to start with the question, what's my intention here? What, you know, again, what is my motivation? Why am I asking this question and what I tell people a lot is when you notice that your, your attitude is changing, when you notice that you're frustrated, you're upset, you're whatever, if that's happening in the moment, then you're probably not really asking a perspective gaining question. You're probably asking a question to deflect or to push on somebody or yeah, you're in a defensive posture.

So always start with if it's an emotional situation. So let me separate those out. If you feel emotional, stop, back up. Why, why do I want to ask this question? Why is it, why am I asking this question? And get through the, am I just trying to sound smart, make somebody sound stupid, any of that stuff the rest of the time, if it's not an emotional situation, then ask yourself the question, what gets me the best information?

What gets me the best perspective? And, and then I think there's a second layer, a second filter here that we have to have of what are my assumptions? And maybe I can put those assumptions aside for a minute. And like you were saying, getting down on little Johnny's level to really figure out what, why is he thinking in this way, what is he seeing, what is he hearing?

Exactly. And I see you do that a lot around the office. And I think for most of us who are newer to this, the initial gut reaction is defense. Defense. Because outside of this, you know, concentrated culture that we have here, we, we're geared towards that. That's the gut level response. And if again, looking at anything on social media, you understand why. Yeah, because we're so, they were just in a firefight the whole time.

So coming back to reality where we live with other humans that we have to get along with and that we want to have rich, deep relationships with, learning to do some of these things is tough. We have to have this inner dialogue of, okay, what is my motivation here? What are the assumptions? I'm coming in with? But help, help unpack that a little bit. How, how can I know?

Okay, this is a dead end line of questioning. And, and I've got assumptions and I've already got judgments going into this. And so I'm not going to ask good perspective questions. Yeah. So there's a couple of pieces you have to think about. You first. Start with you first. Right. What am I experiencing if I already have assumption, if I already know the answer and I'm not asking questions to gain more perspective, I'm setting myself up for failure.

I think I'm glad my dad, who lives in another country is not listening to this podcast because I'm going to throw him under the bus because I inherited the same thinking. And so it's me, too. But I used to tell my kids, because my dad told me, I never ask a question that I don't already know the answer to. Yeah. This is how I was raised. And so coming from that, there's so much baggage to discard first.

If. What if we want to gain something? Yeah. And what's the purpose of that comment? If I ask a question I already know the answer to, I look stupid, right? Well, I already know the answer. Why am I asking the question? It's pride. It's. It's ego. It's in every single week you talk about your dad. We all. That's my root system. Right. We all deal with that. Every single one of us has not wanted to ask a question so that we don't sound stupid.

Right. The key is what if you do? Yeah. What. So what if somebody's going to judge you and go, well, that's a really stupid question, Brian. They're the ones struggling. They're struggling. They're the ones. We don't process it like that in the moment. And zooming out a little bit and gaining some perspective really helps us to understand, wow, they are struggling right now. How can I help? Right?

And. But that doesn't normally happen. What happens is somebody starts being defensive, and so we become defensive, and now it becomes this ridiculous, stupid battle between, you know, two people or more. Over nothing. Over nothing. So the key is we have to ask ourselves the question, do I feel like I know everything? And if the answer is yes, am I struggling with pride? Am I struggling with worth issues?

Am I worried about losing worth? Am I worried about trying to gain worth? If any of that is involved, you're already screwed. Right. Because every step you take going forward from this point on is going to be about gaining worth or protecting yourself. I call it putting a brick in the wall, building up that wall so that you don't lose worth. Right? That's. You're already in trouble. So the key is, if I'm dealing with that emotional thing, then I've got to go and use, like, next level life tools.

What's happening? Why am I here? What do I know about my root system? What is my surface level responses? What's the lie that I'm telling myself and solve all those pieces. Because you can actually get through that with practice. You could get through that in 30 seconds and be okay. And that's where you see the People apologizing, hey, I'm so sorry. This is what I was struggling with.

Let me ask you some good perspective gathering questions sometimes. Yes. Or you see people just struggle for 30 minutes. Right. So the difference is if I start with myself, I can solve me right early on. If I see that in this discussion, this is not about anything that's profound. This isn't something that's going to help. This is just two people bantering ideas and opinions. Why be in it?

What's your goal? I, the guy who teaches this stuff for a living, me, ends up in these situations and I have to back myself out. I'll find myself going, what are you doing, man? This is not, that doesn't help. That's not helping anything. Don't spend time, don't waste time on this. Right. And then the great thing is, is that when I find that I don't need to lose worth or gain worth in a situation, then instead I can approach the subject differently.

So if somebody is trying to attack or somebody's trying to guilt or somebody's trying to do something, then I can think with a clear mind and go, hey, let me ask you, what's your intention there? Yeah, what's your purpose with that? What is your goal there? And now it becomes a. Let me gain perspective on why you're struggling with this process. So one of the funniest things, so let me just help everybody who's going to come to next level life or strapline.

One of the funniest things is many times people will try and out question me on stuff and they think that the question is going to be the thing that throws me off, that they're going to ask this question. And Chris is just going to be stuck in this place because they have a pattern of being able to knock people down with, overpowering them with, with questions. Right. And being able to hit them with stuff.

And then they learn very quickly, oh, wait a second. The folks that do this here, I'm not getting away with this. I'm not able to knock them down with my questions and in their mind, be over them and it causes them to really question, what am I doing? Because now I'm looking really silly by trying to make somebody else look stupid. Well, why are they doing that? Like what, what's at the heart of when they're trying to ask all those questions?

What are they protecting or trying not to reveal or open what's going on? What's the struggle? You, you revealed a piece there, so it could be multiple. It depends on the Personality, style, and it depends on the situation. It can be because they feel so out of control that their goal is to gain control. And in their mind, they can control a person. What we say all the time is, you can't control something.

You can't make somebody do something. You can only highly suggest it. The moment they receive it, now it's theirs, right? So that's one of the pieces that they try and control something. The other piece is what you just said is that sometimes they see that you're going somewhere and they're afraid that you're gonna find something or reveal something, and they're not ready for it. And so that's where you have to care.

Like, for us, what we do in next level life is we always put the other person first. It's more about. It's never about us. We always tell people, hey, if this ever becomes about us, just leave right the moment it does leave, because it should never be about us. That's when you have to care and understand that somebody's struggling in the moment. And just pounding them with information doesn't actually help them.

Helping them to understand why they're struggling really does. I think that's the only way to approach it. And I. I hear that all the time. Just for those listening it. That is not something Chris just says on the show. That's something we talk about behind the scenes all the time. And Chris and Joel are constantly talking about that struggle of I've got to constantly remove myself from the picture so that I am fully disposed to helping and loving this other person.

And it reminds me of. And we've mentioned scripture, obviously we believe the Bible around here, and we practice, try to practice it. And it reminds me of when Jesus talks about getting rid of the timber or the log in your own eye. So that. And, and that's the interesting thing. There's a. There's an objective there so that you can help the other person. And so there is motivation here now for being selfless so that we can really help and love other people.

That's part of our mission statement, that we're loving other people and worshiping God through this act of helping them gain some perspective. So let's get into some of that element. What. What can be gained then? What happens in our relationships as a leader, as a business? What. What do we have to contend for and go after getting ourselves out of the way and asking good questions? I, I think one of the things that we miss on that scripture is when we hear that scripture, like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, it's always usually in a point where it's like, well, yeah, but that person still has this splinter in their eye though. Yeah, but they, and, but you had the law. One of the things we miss is we say it all the time around here. We hate the things and other people that we hate in ourselves. We love the things and other people that we love in ourselves.

Right. When we see that somebody has that splinter in our eye and we have a log in our eye, what tends to be the situation is I'm struggling so much with whatever I'm struggling with. Pain, loss of worth, not feeling good enough, not feeling worthy, feeling like the one who screws everything up, feeling like I'm never going to be a good person, feeling like I'm never going to be attractive enough, feeling whatever the thing is that I'm experiencing.

That's that log, right? That's that thing. I may be doing something sinful, I may be doing something that's bad decision making. I may be doing something that's hurting other people. It could be any of those things. Whatever that thing is, I hate it. And what we talk about a lot in next level life is people really kind of already know the what. We help them to get to the why.

Like some people come in and go, well, yeah, I know that. Yes. But let me show you why that exists. And that's the power. That's where people go, oh my gosh, how have I gotten my whole life and I have not known that? Because people think the what is the thing and it's really not. So for an example, you might self assess a little bit and go, what am I feeling?

And that's helpful. Yeah, but don't stop there, right? Well, yeah, we want to then go, okay, but why am I feeling that? And we kind of dig down to another level, right? Is that what you're saying? Yes. The, the difficulty is knowing how to get to the why. Like we use, we talk about the root system all the time. People can see what's there, they just don't know why it's there.

And so really having a guide to get you to that why is super important. This is why that exists. But in the moment, even if you can't get to the why, here's the big key. You can see the what. I'm struggling with this, you know, and if you have those next level live tools, it's powerful. You can work through that. If you don't, then the key is I'm struggling.

Call that out. Yeah, I see that I'm struggling knowledge that I have to own that that's what's happening. Yeah, Own the struggle and then really own what you're trying to do to somebody else in the moment. By berating, by belittling, by protecting, by being self defensive, by whatever the thing is. There's your log. I want to point out that you have this splinter in your eye because I'm struggling with something that I absolutely hate about myself.

The crazy thing is there's a high probability it's the same thing. I'm struggling with it. So I'm going to call you out because I gain worth in that. I gain worth by saying, oh, Brian, you're struggling with this situation. Look at you, you bad person. And then I'm not focusing on how much of a bad person I am. Yeah. So the big key is if, if you can't get to the why, recognize the what and back out.

Okay, this is a problem. Let me go get help with the what. Let me go discover the why. Why does this exist? Why do I make these decisions? Why do I have these surface level responses? Why does this exist in my past? How come I keep making decisions the way that I am? What is my future going to look like? All that kind of stuff. So again, the context here being with gaining perspective, we see that such a big hurdle to getting better perspective is we are in our own way.

You talk about that a lot. You got to get out of your own head or get out of your own way so that, so let's talk about the. So that. Where are we going with this? How is this going to help us with our, our own selves, our own emotions, our own heart issues, our own thought processes, all the lies that we can get into. All of that is kind of internal.

But with the externals, how is perspective going to help us as a leader, as a parent, as whatever role that we're in at the time? So the key is as long as we stay with only our perspective, we stay in that same bubble that includes all those problems, all those surface level responses, all that decision making, you know, like we use the. Why would I ask a question if I already know the answer?

We limit ourselves to our own beliefs. It's what we call a limiting belief. Right. This is. I'm going to keep myself here, here's one of the biggest issues. I will keep myself in this place for 20 years because of my struggle, because of my worth issues, because of not understanding my root system, because of not being willing to be vulnerable, because of looking at asking Perspectives as a possible way of losing worth.

Because looking at, you know, asking questions that make somebody look stupid as a possible way of gaining worth. All of the. Right, right. All of these things keep us stuck in this ridiculous place, this terrible place of no freedom, of not being able to get beyond this, of not being able to make better decisions, of not being able to be in a better place, and most importantly, of not having joy.

Right. Because we live our moment. As I say this, some people are like, wow, that's not true. Oh my gosh. We live moment to moment in self protection. How do I protect myself from. And the crazy thing is there is so much better life when we can get to a better place, when we can ask better questions, when we can understand. It changes the way you lead people.

You, you get to experience that here in our concentrated culture, which again, you coined that phrase and I love it that we have this concentrated culture. You get to see it all the time and then you leave the building and then you see where it's not happening and you see relationships where it's not happening and you see the people at the grocery store where it's not happening and you see all this stuff and you're like, if you just knew, if you just had the tools, it would change the way you relate to everybody.

Right? Yeah. And so we look at the writer of Hebrews, we look at Paul, we look at so many. I'm pretty much from the beginning of the book to the end of the book, you know, what does Jesus say? The greatest commands are? Love your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Actually they added mind because they, the Greeks needed that. Love your God with all your heart, soul and strength.

Right. Your resources, essentially love your neighbor as yourself. If you do those things that summarizes the Torah and the prophets, right? The writings and the prophets and all of that. So the key is if I will focus on loving you better, you know, as I love myself, or putting you first or being selfless, then I can back out of those pieces. I think that's great. I, I think what we're hearing is I'm going to be more content and joyful with who I am, less of a jerk to others and able to actually get out outside of myself and outside of just my own motives and desires and see somebody else's point of view.

I'm also going to be enriched by that and my relationships are going to go deeper. Yeah, right. I mean, this is, this is what we're contending for here. This is why this kind of thing matters. And it's not just something that we can go, oh, well, that's a handy tool. When I'm leading an employee or when I'm, you know, with a spouse or child and I'm trying to lead in that certain direction or whatever.

It's not just a handy tool. It is a tool and it's a skill set that we have to learn. But it also means that we're going to be enriched and grow in the process. And like you said earlier, if we don't do this, we risk being stuck in a certain place with a certain point of view, that 25% view for the rest of our lives or the next 20 years, or what have you.

But that means if we've only got 25%, we're blind to the 75% that other people have, but not by our assumptions because we assume we know, we know. The other 75% think that's what's happening, but that's what's happening. Exactly. So absolutely, that's so correct and that's so important for us to understand. The reason why we're doing this show is to help people to learn how to gain perspective.

What does it look like? Why is it important? What's usually holding me back? How powerful is it when I do it? When you know, you're listening to the show because you believe that you're gaining quality information from what we teach. And here's the key. I am somebody. We. This building, this group of people, the people that have gone through our programs, these are people who have come to understand the power.

If I will gain perspective, I have better knowledge. Even. Even if, if 50% of the time the perspective I'm gaining is crap. Okay, but what about the other? Even if it's 75% of the time, it's crap, great, then still gaining 25% of the time, I'm gaining a greater perspective. And for me, that is huge in my decision making process. Can I gain the best perspective? You know, it's, it, it changes the way that I look at making decisions.

All right, so I don't know how much time we've got left. Probably not. We've been going. You and I have no problem going really long. So. But I'm, I'm chomping at the bit here to, to hear how does this really intersect with the disc? We talk a lot about personality styles. You can go to the website, you can find out where you are on the disc. Risk, take the test.

But for those that know where we are, like myself, And I, I feel caged by that and limited by that a lot. And we're seeing in this discussion today that in fact we can really be limited by our experiences and our personality size. Okay, so unpack a little bit. Disc, both sides, though, give us, give us how, how can we be better at asking questions and at receiving.

Right? That as well. So I'm going to throw you a curveball here. For us, we do the disc plus, which is the disc and the values, what we would also call the motivators. Right. This is a combination. How, how we gain perspective is, believe it or not, a combination of what our personality style is and what we value in life, what motivates us in life. So so much of our question asking or not is based in what we value or what motivates us.

So let me just kind of hit the disk side. You hear me say all the time, discs, disk helps us to understand how we give information, how we receive information, how we act, how we react. So if you're, and we're just going to hit the four different areas, you know, if you're the high D, then really you are, you're. If you're being, you know, we talk about it being immature or mature.

So everything we're going to kind of talk about is more in the immaturity side, on the negative side of not understanding yourself really well. But this is a great contrast. So I can see if I do this and I can go, okay, that's some inventory that I need to grow. So if I don't understand my personality style really well, how I act, react, give information, receive information, then if I'm a high D, what's normally going to happen when it comes to gathering perspectives?

I don't care about your perspective. If I'm a high D, I, I just want to get the thing done. I just want to make the thing happen. I, I can do this. You're holding me up. Why aren't you getting this? How come you don't understand this? Let's go, let's go, let's go. And you're frustrated a lot of times with other people not oh my go that decision. Yeah, absolutely.

Especially the, the, those that procrastinate. Those. Okay. Who can't speak English well, those that procrastinate. You know, if you look at the, the D, looking at the S and the C, then they're going, you take way too long. Just get the thing done, make the thing happen. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Right, so you're a business leader and you feel this way. If you, if you have been this person, then understand that you're operating out of immaturity because you do not understand that you.

You are limiting yourself to your perspective. And by the way, if you're a high D, you limit yourself to your perspective a ton, right? So in if I'm the high D, I have to understand I am limiting myself. And there are the high C. So the, the high D is the fastest processor nanoseconds. When you go D I s C, it gets longer in the processing. By the time you get to the high C, they're 20 minutes.

What's the difference? The high D has almost no information. They just have enough information to get. They have enough. They have enough. That's all I need. 1%. Right? The high C has rewritten Google because they've got so many. They've corrected Google. You're wrong with the information that you have. Here's all the information you need on this one subject. And it's like 10 times more than actually is needed.

And the reason why is because for them to understand and make good decisions, they have to gain all this information and still they don't know what to do with it. All right? But they have it all in case. So the D looks at the other personality styles as they go slower and goes, I don't need that. They make the decision and then end up missing out on things.

They're missing parts. You know, as we talk through the personality styles lesson that we teach, understanding personality styles, I talk through making a bridge, building a bridge. The high D goes out, builds the bridge fastest. There's people are upset, kids are crying on the side of the road. There's explosions. The bridge is built. It's the ugliest thing you've ever seen, but you could drive a tank on it.

Let's. What's next? Let's go. You know, we walked through this whole process in that video of, of the different personality styles and how they pursue that, how they go after that kind of stuff. Maturity would be the opposite. Right. Understanding I don't have all the information. Let me gain the greatest perspective I can. I might need to push some of the other personality styles off of running into rabbit trails.

And that goes for every personality style. Right? Get to the information, make it the best informed decision from the information. The high I. Yes, finally you stepped on my toes as a D. And so I'm a primarily a C in the workplace. A D when I walk out the doors. But I want the Eyes and S's to be under the bus with me. You always want them to hurt just like you do.

Yes. So the key with the eyes in immature now, the eyes are the one personality style that cannot stand to hear negative stuff about themselves. So eyes just suck it up. Buttercup. It's got to happen, right? We all have to learn if we're going to grow, we have to take the pain. For the eyes, usually the information is, what does this have to do with me? Now the eye goes, that's not true.

I care so greatly about other people. Yes, usually you care about other people because of how it affects you. So the way you gain perspective is how is this going to benefit me? You know, how is this going to make me look smarter, better, whatever. How is this going to help me impress this person? So in immaturity, that's how an eye gains perspective. It's how does this benefit me look good in the other person's eye.

Right? We have a funny old saying, that's enough about me. Let's talk about you. What do you think about me? Right? It's that concept of how can I get you to think better of me? So a mature eye recognizes that gaining perspective isn't about me. It's about helping me understand more. It's not about me gaining. Asking questions that make you think better of me. Like, you can. You can see the high.

I ask the questions that sound really smart or they'll have the information. They're the first person information. And a lot of times they're wrong because they, they want to answer so fast that they haven't thought through it. And then they throw it out there. And somebody's like, yeah, okay. However, and they're like, dang it, I suck. And it's like, no, it's not about you. Right. Gaining perspective is learning more about another person.

So when they're mature, they recognize that the highest, the highest is usually the big issues when it comes to highest is the fear of gaining perspective. What is this going to do? How's this going to affect people? How's this going to affect me? This is conflict. I don't want to ask questions. Ss and Cs do not want to look stupid. Cs really don't want to look stupid. So the S doesn't want to look stupid.

They don't want to create conflict. They don't want to create a problem. They don't want to be a problem. So a lot of times they won't gain perspective when you do see them Asking a lot of questions. It's usually very leading questions because they're in conflict. Why would we do that? That doesn't sound like a good idea. I don't think we should do that's going to affect things.

And all of a sudden they're trying to control the situation through questioning because they feel out of control. So immaturity is how can I continue to procrastinate by not asking questions? How can I shut something down by asking questions and mature scs? I have to have perspective. I will always say for the highest, you know, for every personality style but especially the highest perspective is your friend gain perspective because the more information the easier it is for you to make better, more informed decisions.

So when it comes to the high C, high Cs you, you mentioned, I'm going to assume your dad has a lot of C in him because high Cs don't want to sound stupid. Ds and Cs are always right and they're never wrong. The difference is when a D discovers they're wrong, they're like oh okay, whatever the sea goes, I still don't think I'm wrong. There's so much worth to battle for.

Right? Yes, absolutely. So for the high C on the immature side it is I cannot be wrong. I can't sound stupid. In maturity they recognize I'm not losing worth by being wrong. It's okay to be wrong. It's okay to ask questions. I don't know everything. The C because they are such a great researcher. This is a funny thing I always say when it comes to C's C's will give D's, I's and S's 17,000 pages of information.

But other sees a paragraph because they're like no, these people who don't research, they need all, they need all this information. The other C now you probably already know, you already know this stuff. I'm like me. Yeah. And so they end up not giving good information to another scene when they're mature they recognize my worth is not tied to what I know. My worth is not tied to sounding smart, looking smart.

So, so that's the disc. Now when we look at values and I can't. We just don't have time to go through all the values. But if we look at the values then we look at. Let's just take two. Let's take the high economic. Their perspective gathering is based on return on investment. So a high economic. The higher they get, they will base whether or not they're going to ask questions on whether or not they feel like they're going to get a return if I spent, Do I, if I have to spend 20 minutes asking you questions, well, that's, that's not a great return.

So I'm just not going to do it. I'm just going to go do the thing and then find out later. I now have to spend an hour fixing the thing that if I'd have spent 20 minutes I could have actually done it really well. You know, that's the thing. I could think, well, I just don't care. Yes, but I'm shooting myself in the foot because my relationship with you doesn't go deeper.

I can't lead well if we're in that kind of a relationship. And, and I end up, even as an economic, I end up investing so much more on the back end because I didn't sharpen the ax on the front. So I was just gonna say, look at you. It's great minds think alike. I think it was Lincoln who said, if you give me eight hours to chop down a tree, I'm gonna spend six of it sharpening my ax.

Why the sharpest ax I can possibly have will get me through that tree faster perspective gathering. Right, right, Absolutely. So that would be the high economic thought process return on high economics. Hate to hear they disagree with me on this until I point out a couple of things and they're like, oh, you're right. High economics are short term thinkers. They are not long term thinkers. Now every high economic listen to this goes, no, that's not true.

Look at how you base decisions. Everything is on. What's the return on investment? If you have $10,000, do you take it and go do something with it to try and make a quick turn? If you were going to make $1,000 by turning it in a week, but you could wait a few months and make another 10,000, what are you going to do? I'll go after that thousand dollars because then I can try it again.

You know, it's just, it happens all the time. They base their decisions on what's the fastest, fastest return on my investment. If we go to the other end of, well, not the other end but on the page. If you go to like the high theoretical. The high theoretical is so has such a wide berth of knowledge. They receipt the higher they are. They love receiving information. So for me, I'm about in the 60s.

I love information that I can use. You get up in the 80s, shoot. You get up in the, you know, 85 or 90s. You love learning Period. So you have a wide berth of knowledge, but it's only about 3 inches deep. The things that are super deep are the things you greatly care about. And so here's what gets confusing for the high theoretical because I know so much about this subject, I believe I know the same amount on all subjects.

And so the, the perspective gathering isn't. I'm going to ask you questions, I'm going to tell you, here's what you need to know about this thing because I know so much about it. And then what happens is after a comment or two, what's discovered is that's as far as they can go. And so when it goes to a deeper thing, they don't really have the answer. And then they struggle, well, how do I not have this answer?

So the values is a very important piece of understanding, how I gain perspective and how I may not gain perspective. So that's kind of a quick look at it. That is a crash course on that right there. So I, I think this, I just want to, before we close out, I want to reiterate what you opened with because I think this is going to make so much more sense now.

Get wisdom. Get wisdom, get understanding. Don't forget, don't turn away from the words of my mouth. Don't abandon it. She's going to watch over you, love her. She will guard you. Wisdom is supreme. Get wisdom. And whatever else you get, get understanding. Yeah, I can't say it enough. I can't say it enough. We miss out. We are, we now have a generation that thinks that the young people have all the wisdom.

I mean, it's been growing that direction for a long period of time. Right. It's not, it's not brand spanking new. It's just there is a, there is a, we're moving in the direction where older folks know nothing. They're just, you don't want to listen to them. They can't be smart, they can't understand. And I'm not saying that there isn't a whole lot of older folks that really don't know a lot.

Right. Because they may have struggled through their life and they didn't go after wisdom as well. But there are people who spend their life, we, this group, this, this building. We have people in this building from young, your daughter, 19 years old. From young people to old people. That'd be me. That would be you? Yes. And you're so much older than me. Yes. I would actually be older than you.

That we are focused on truly understanding. Wisdom is of God and Man, is she beautiful? Is she amazing? It is. It is so great having great wisdom because your decision making processes change and this is the piece that people don't understand. How are you basing your decisions? What is your decision making process based on? If it's your great knowledge that you have in your head, guess what, you're stuck.

Yeah. For those of us that are spending a life growing in wisdom, we spend our lives, you know, in God's word, spending time growing from mentors. I have plenty of mentors in my life. I have people that I turn to, to grow from and, and glean from and, and gain more wisdom. I spend so much time in prayer, I, I realized this years ago that I've read 17 billion times in the Bible.

Ask for wisdom. Ask for wisdom. Ask. Hey, ask for wisdom. Hey, if you want wisdom, ask for wisdom. Hey, ask for, ask God for wisdom. Ask for wisdom. And finally one day I went, hey, I guess I'll do that. I guess I'll do this. And it's amazing the growth that I've had in wisdom. There are times in my life that I'm going, something pops through my head and I'm like, I never learned that.

I didn't know that. I didn't have that information before, but now I do. I've grown in that. So seek wisdom. We talked about this in our ecclesia last night about how you should be seeking the people that are further down the road than you are in the area that you're looking to grow and find the person. Do not try and know everything. Don't try and have all the answers.

Go after that. If you're struggling, if you're struggling with the things that we've talked about today, get your next level life done. Just do it. Don't waste time being self protective or, you know, trying to make sure that you're not vulnerable in a situation. It's. Those are the very things holding you back when you don't have the wisdom. You're stuck with just you. So seek people who have great wisdom.

So I believe what God said, it was finally in life. I believe that God knows what he's talking about, does. Well, brother, thank you so much for joining me on the show. A blast. We only got the surface. I know we, I know. An hour later, I'm sure, yeah, we just touched the tip of the iceberg. So good stuff, folks. Hopefully this is helping you today. We would love to hear from you if this is, if this is helpful, if you want more information about this, if there's questions that you have, shoot us an [email protected]

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They need to get some wisdom and I'm going to help people with the sliver in their eyes. They've got to listen to this. I made a list. So get this information to them. Share it with them. As always, we hope this has helped you today. Take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life and join us on the next episode.