Why is one businessman more successful than another? What makes one artist move your soul and another leave you cold? How can you feel wonderful in the presence of one person and lifeless with another? There are a number of factors but the distinguishing ability of those who make a difference is that they 'see what is there'. The successful businessman sees the world in a different way to the confluent pack. The artist touching your soul shows you something magical you never saw before. Once you see it you can no longer not see it. The person who makes you feel good connects you with the world in a special way. She shows you something you like.
Seeing what is there is the most important skill you need to develop to be successful and get the best out of life for you. At first this sounds easy to do and in reality it is. But there is a catch. The problem is that it is much easier to ignore most of what is there and that is what your brain is designed to do. Your brain is only interested in quickly seeking out the biggest threat to you and making you act to avert it. In the jungle and now this is often helpful and may save your life but it also misses so much possibility for you. In the modern world there is excitement and life enriching possibilities for you if you can learn to intervene with your automatic processes. You can do this, remain safe and it will make you a more successful businessman, artist and companion.
To see what is there requires an understanding of the way you see the world now. My friend and art teacher Julia Evans has a helpful phrase when we are painting. She says 'paint what is there and not what you think'. This idea strikes at the heart of the way you see the world. Before you even look at the world your brain is anticipating what it expects to see. It will already have worked out what you need and has primed all of your senses to look out for it. It is so biased that it is only seeking confirmation of what you think rather than seeking new information. For example when you are hungry your senses will seek food with increasing urgency as your need strengthens. At the same time it will ignore items of warm clothing. When you are cold you will be motivated to find warmth and ignore nourishing food. When you are seeking to solve a problem at work your brain is working out the answer from what you have done in the past. As you move around your attention is focussed on an infinitesimally small proportion of what is available to you and you ignore the rest. Lost in the background you ignore is the opportunity that could dramatically change your life. That is where the successful businessman, artist and friend finds what you do not see. As Julia says 'see a face, think face and try to draw a face and you are likely to be disappointed with the outcome. You see 'face' which has some meaning for you and you ignore all the information in the picture from which 'face' emerges for you. Focus on the information in what you are looking at and keep looking for more and more and capture what is there then your results will emerge and you will be amazed at the outcome.' In her simplest class a process of capturing lights and darks on a sheet of paper and watching a face appear has delighted so many of her students who have then gone on to produce great work. The greatest artists bring to your attention what is there and create new insights through what they present.
Once your brain has found what it wants it moves on to the next need. The opportunities present for you in the ignored material are gone and are of no further interest in the automatic processes of your thinking. You will solve a business problem in the way you did before. As long as this is good for you you will succeed along with the pack. When you do this and the competition has seen something new then that is when you are left behind. So here is a hint on how to intervene and see what those who make a difference can see. You have to force yourself to suspend belief in the answer you have arrived at and ask yourself what have you not looked at? This is the hard part. How can you challenge your own thought processes that have produced an answer. Every challenge you put up will be met with sophisticated logic supporting the view you came to. You have to work hard by making space for those you disagree with and working through the possibility their perspective is correct. Questions such as how could the opposite of your position be true? What have you ignored in the environment around you? What biases, assumptions and prejudices of your own model of how the world works have you relied on for your solution to be true? You will fight yourself to go through this process as it contradicts all your instincts but it is the only way to see what you currently ignore.
Seeing what is there is a route to an exciting future for you. It is easy to do, hard to execute and worth the effort. Look around and you will see many people seeing what they want to see and missing the prize in what they ignore. You will also see that those who make a difference see something else.
Julia Evans is a working artist and teacher in Benidoleig on the Costa Blanca, Spain. She is an amazing teacher of 'seeing what is there'. http://www.arthouseonline.net/juliaevans.htm
