NOTE TO A YOUNGER SELF
There is always a chance people might smirk at you the way people sometimes smirk. In the boardroom or at the dinner table they might raise their eyebrows just as you turn away, and maybe even, if they're ruthless, add a comment designed to make you feel bad and to let you know, without a doubt, that what you just proposed they found utterly infantile and not at all plausible.
Never mind.
People pass judgment based upon their bias. Depending on how they perceive you and the feelings they have towards you (envy, admiration, fondness, fear, and so on) they will value and judge the words coming out of your mouth.
Any idea presented will be accepted or rejected depending upon the flexibility of the receiving mind, how predisposed it is to grasp unfamiliar thoughts that might not fit into the framework of what it already believes to be true about the world, or about you.
People can only meet you where they're at. Meaning they will value and judge you with their unique mindset, acquired knowledge and experience, which might differ a lot from yours. People can be aware of their cultural and cognitive bias but not escape it entirely. And it might affect their willingness to hear you out.
Conclusion: Don't pay attention to people and their opinions. Pay attention to your ideas. They come from a place within you where your unique set of knowledge and experience has made you capable of seeing things beyond the rim of the box.
If your idea talks back and urges you to spend time with it, play with it, toss it around just for the pleasure of watching it become something more, it has emerged from that special place reserved for ideas worth pursuing – your gut.
The only thing that actually can, and will, measure the correct value of an idea is called the future. But there is no way of knowing what its judgement will be. And only one way to find out.
And chances are that the future will prove all them smirkers wrong.
Remember that change has never come from the rejection of ideas. No growth, no increased wealth can come from conserving the status quo, only from investment. Smirkers may very well rule the world. But they don't shape it. Innovators do.
Never mind.
People pass judgment based upon their bias. Depending on how they perceive you and the feelings they have towards you (envy, admiration, fondness, fear, and so on) they will value and judge the words coming out of your mouth.
Any idea presented will be accepted or rejected depending upon the flexibility of the receiving mind, how predisposed it is to grasp unfamiliar thoughts that might not fit into the framework of what it already believes to be true about the world, or about you.
People can only meet you where they're at. Meaning they will value and judge you with their unique mindset, acquired knowledge and experience, which might differ a lot from yours. People can be aware of their cultural and cognitive bias but not escape it entirely. And it might affect their willingness to hear you out.
Conclusion: Don't pay attention to people and their opinions. Pay attention to your ideas. They come from a place within you where your unique set of knowledge and experience has made you capable of seeing things beyond the rim of the box.
If your idea talks back and urges you to spend time with it, play with it, toss it around just for the pleasure of watching it become something more, it has emerged from that special place reserved for ideas worth pursuing – your gut.
The only thing that actually can, and will, measure the correct value of an idea is called the future. But there is no way of knowing what its judgement will be. And only one way to find out.
And chances are that the future will prove all them smirkers wrong.
Remember that change has never come from the rejection of ideas. No growth, no increased wealth can come from conserving the status quo, only from investment. Smirkers may very well rule the world. But they don't shape it. Innovators do.
So trust your gut.
