Last week I had to travel for a training event that I was participating in and stayed in a hotel that was a bit questionable, to put it nicely.
On these kinds of events, I don’t book my own accommodations – that’s done for me by a group with whom our agency partners. So, I never really know what I’m getting when I show up.
The room was pretty sparse but, at least it had a TV, and there was a game I was wanting to watch. However, I could not find the TV remote anywhere – and I looked everywhere for it!
I looked on every table, opened every drawer, and pulled back the covers on the bed.
No remote.
Remembering my childhood days when I was the remote control for our TV, I pulled a chair up next to the TV and turned it on manually. Then, I pushed the buttons on the side of the TV that changed the channels, only to be met with a message on the TV’s screen that said, “This function is not available.”
When I first turned the television on, the channel that automatically came on was C-Span. So, the TV was stuck on C-Span!!! There’s no football or basketball on C-Span!
In frustration, I exhaled deeply and slumped over in my chair.
And that’s when I saw it!
The TV remote was under the bed.
“Why was the remote under the bed?,” you ask.
Who cares?! I found the remote!
And it worked!
Goodbye C-Span. Hello, MAC football.
Here’s my point…
Finding what we’re looking for sometimes requires a change of perspective.
From the perspective of my standing position, I couldn’t see the TV remote under the bed, and I never even thought that it might be under the bed.
But from the perspective of my sitting position, closer to the floor, and at an angle that could see a section of the floor under the bed, I could see the TV remote clearly.
All I needed to find what I was looking for was a different vantage point – a different perspective.
If you’re struggling to see something clearly…
Ask someone else how they see it.
Read a book about it.
Look at the issue from a different point of view.
Get curious and ask questions.
Challenge your biases.
Change your vantage point.
Who knows? Like me in that hotel room, what you’re searching for may be very close by and all you have to do to find it is to change the angle – the perspective – of how you’re looking at the situation.
rusty tugman 