I’m a practical person.
And I looooooooove ideas.
I love to examine how things work, how they interact, how they fit together.
This is relevant because this is how a person’s belief systems work. They’re a patchwork quilt of interacting ideas, working theories, and unconsciously learned ingrained habits. This is what I call your personal framework: the mental model of how you interact with and consciously understand life and it’s ‘rules’.
I can interact with these ideas without judgement because I’m simply interested in their mechanics. If they work, they work, and they get a pass. Effectiveness is nothing to sniff at, even if it’s not how you would do it. If it doesn’t work, I figure out where the process failed, and figure out how to change it so it does work. It’s not usually that hard. People want things to work. They adopt things that work better than what they’re currently using.
Innovation isn’t threatening if it isn’t tied to a judgement over the old way of doing things.
As I said, I’m a practical person. It overrides even my ego, even my fascination with elegant ideas. I want to make things work better. That means “work better for YOU”. That means I work with you; I don’t impose my ideas.
This means that we cooperate to build a more effective mental model. Efficacy is king.
Two Processes for Two Needs
There are two ways the framework goes wrong for people.
Some people are very framework-focused, black and white, uber analytical. These people often construct frameworks that are simple at their base, but have evolved a complexity that seeks to mirror reality. However, it generally fails, because reality is even MORE complex than that, and that person’s emphasis on the framework they’ve created obscures their superior instincts for what is actually happening. For these people, I draw them OUT of their framework, so that they can see they have the skills to handle reality.
The other thing that happens is that a person has evolved a high specific framework; they are generally self-aware, confident and secure. Their framework (remember a framework is the frame of reference you use to orient yourself in the world) works very, very well. Until it doesn’t. These people, through no fault of their own, generally, have found themselves in a situation or circumstance that they have no framework for. For them, I help them draw that experience INTO their framework so that they can see they have the skills to handle it.
In both cases IT’S NOT ABOUT THE FRAMEWORK. It’s not about being right or wrong, or about the Truth of the situation. It’s about handling it. Handling it in the most efficient manner, the one that works best for you, and that utilizes the skills that you have, and have lost touch with. The process empowers you. It grounds you. You have the ability to do whatever needs doing. I just gave you the magic feather to hold for a while.
[ssbp]
