Welcome to Mastering Monday —where we hope to tackle some often experienced but not often talked about personal and professional issues affecting leaders. 

One of our favorite phrases right now is: 

You don’t know what you don’t know. 

It sounds annoyingly redundant but it’s a statement chalk full of truth. It means, we just can’t do much about something we are totally ignorant of. We can’t wrap our brains around what our eyes have not been able to see about ourselves. 

Sometimes ignorance is bliss. And sometimes, it’s murder. 

Jesus clued us into this when he said, as he was dying on the cross, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” He could have said, “ Father, these people are utterly blind to the truth as they do this horrible thing —and they don’t even know it. Please don’t deal harshly with them. They just cannot see.” 

When someone we know can’t see the damage they’re doing at work or in a relationship we call that their blind spot.

But when we can’t see the damage we’re doing in similar areas we call it...someone else’s problem...

the truth is we’re smack in the grips of denial. 

You’ve probably said, like we have, “Of course, I have weaknesses, everybody does.” But the weaknesses we know about, are not our blind spots. If we can see something then we aren’t blind to it. 

As we discovered, there may be several things sabotaging you and your working or personal relationships right now. For the most part you are unaware of them or at least unable to see the damage they’re doing. You might even have the attitude, “It’s no big deal, everyone knows this is just way I am.” 

* Our blind spots are like a great mystery that everyone around us has already solved about us. 

You: Why didn’t you guys, tell me?! This is sooo embarassing. 

Them: We’ve tried.  

– Blind spots probably originate in childhood as we adapted ways to feel safe or accepted at home, with extended family, in our neighborhoods and schools.  

-Sometimes, if we get close to our blindspots, it’s too painful. Which is one reason why we want to avoid seeing them at all costs and we deny they exist. 

– It’s like we are so identified with this blind spot ( or two or three) so attached to it, so close to it, it is so us, that we have no space to step back and get the perspective we need to actually view it. 

– Blind spots can be self defeating aspects of our personality that we often make excuses for.

* Unfortunately, for many it takes a serious loss or failure to break us open enough

to see what’s been sabotaging our work and personal life.  

– We ALL have blindspots. We cannot know what we cannot know. 

-Our blind spots are hiding in places like anger, deception, envy, resentment, fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, resistance, passivity, hostility, distractibility...and more. 

Helping leaders and their teams get some space from themselves to get clarity on their undesirable personality patterns hindering their working and personal relationships is one thing we are pretty passionate about these days. 

We have several workshops & retreats where we unpack a spot-on diagnostic tool that gets at stuff we’ve all unknowingly used as our central defense or internal motivation, our own particular and narrow lens on the rest of the world that has been defeating us in key areas for years. 

But in the meantime… This week... see if you can’t begin to learn how to relax the intensity, rigidity & attachment you have to certain disabling filters of our personality.

 It is putting it mildly to say we truly don’t know where we’d be today without this fresh understanding of ourselves and each other. With ever-increasing clarity and precison what we have discovered about our own blind spots has allowed us incredible personal insight, transformation and growth that affects everything we do and everyone we relate to.

And we have learned a number of hugely helpful ways to address and stay aware when our particular blindspots get triggered that we can pass on to you or your team. 

“One thing I do know, I was blind, but now I see.” 

John 9: 25      

If you’d like to learn more about our talks, workshops, retreats or coaching, just click either “Schedule Us to Speak” or “Schedule a Consultation” and we’ll get you on your way to a truer way of seeing yourself and relating to others. 

And thanks for sharing this blog with someone you think may be interested. 

(Art by: Rana Rabei)