I have found that if you go every summer to the same place, whether it’s the mountains, a lake, or the beach, every summer feels the same. They all bleed into one another, and when you sit around trying to remember what you did, you can’t tell the difference between 1994 and 2012. 18 summers, all indistinguishable.
Familiarity may not breed contempt, but it sure breeds blindness. You don’t see what you take for granted.
For instance, I spend at least eight hours in my office every week day. By Friday, I can’t tell you without looking at my calendar what I did on the previous four days. They’re all a blur.
But, if on one of those days I went to a Starbucks to read and write, I can tell you not only what I wrote, but what I ate. I got outside my habitual environment, and the newness made me notice things.
Here’s my point. I have developed a certain reservoir of knowledge about one particular thing: persuasive speaking. I think about it, talk about it, write about it, and dream about it all the time. If I were a fish, it would be my water.
And the problem with fish is that they don’t see the water. They don’t appreciate the wonderful qualities of their aqueous home. They’re blind to it, take it for granted, and if asked to speak about its wonders, they would tell you to go jump in a lake—because they wouldn’t know what to say.
It is hard to see the old and the familiar with new eyes. Hard to see and express the mystery and wonder of what we know and do everyday. Much easier to feel awed by new landscapes, until, of course, you spend too much time in them, when they somehow become old, familiar and mundane.
I read somewhere that the curse of the advice giver is that he will find himself saying the same thing over and over throughout his career. It’s new and wonderful to the client, and sour—like bad breath—to the one who has to say it so many times.
To serve my clients well, and to renew myself, I am trying to find a way to see the little corner of the world I occupy as new and brimming with possibilities.
Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.