To Find Yourself - Let Go

There's times in life which come as wake up calls. Moments to step back and ask yourself some of those deeper questions (that got mispelt as deerer, and I almost wanted to leave it like that......seemed to be as right a fit :).

I was reading this post from Seth: 'Anchoring Can Sink You' and the title really caught my attention, as it's like an antithesis of a lot that we hear. And it so resonated, as it right away took me back to those turning points in life when unanchoring becomes a pre-requisite. And it's such a struggle........ because you're wanting change and you're also holding on to your anchor. It's the mistaken belief that your identity at that point, is 'absolute'  that totally anchors you.

While sounding simple enough, anchoring is something we slip into by default, we have a 'being' zone, and most of our beliefs and thinking keeps us in that anchored zone. 

And worse, it not just holds us in, it also influences how we listen to others. Our anchor has decided what's right and what not, what's good and what's not, what's worth aspiring for and what not, what makes us happy and what not. 

Watch for those wake up calls....they are not normally the most pleasant of times, but they are your rites of passage to potentially connect to your core. Seth of course says it so much more beautifully...........

From Seth: Anchoring Can Sink You

Canny negotiators know that people respond to anchors. If you tell me that your baseball card is for sale for $18, I'm unlikely to offer you $3. Your offering price anchored the conversation.

The thing is, we do this outside of negotiation, whenever we ask for insight.

If someone says, "can you review this slide deck?" there are a bunch of anchors already built in. Anchor: there are slides. Anchor: there are six slides. Anchor: the slides have text on them.

Before we can even have a conversation about whether or not there should even be a presentation, or whether the content is worth presenting, we're already anchored into slides and text and length. The right feedback might be: Do a presentation, but no slides. It might be: Use 100 slides. But these things rarely come up because the entire discussion was anchored at the start.

Great editors, great strategy consultants, great friends--they're generous enough and bold enough to unanchor the conversation and get to the original why at the beginning of a string of decisions.

Once in a while, start with zero, not with what might be the standard right now.