#345 – What keeps you from noticing the beam in your eye?

When you feel you're doing everything right, you're in danger: your feeling of perfection may make you self-righteous, and from that to forgoing empathy, the path is short.

This is what's happening to me––every day, multiple times a day––during my work with the AI project.

I feel excellently prepared for the work I'm doing. My long experience as a voice and speech teacher, my PhD in Linguistics, my years analyzing speech, and listening acuity help me excel at this job––my little box of competence, by the way.

And so while I'm completing my tasks, my Ego sits next to me, filing its nails and filling my eyes with beams of praise. It gives me absolute certainty that I don't make mistakes.

Then I notice my nose go up and my lips go thin every time I see someone else's mistake––because it's of course others who make mistakes.

Earlier today, my Ego even wanted me to "snatch" on another contractor, to let the leaders know this person wasn't as capable as me––ME!

Thankfully, my True Self stood up. Hey, hey, hold your horses, she said.

I breathed and realized that I do make mistakes.

And that it benefits the work to have so many pairs of eyes and ears reviewing tasks.

And that it benefits my bottom line when others make mistakes that I then get to review and correct––more mistakes means more hours spent reviewing, means more dollars at the end of the week.

More importantly, my True Self made me see that these other contractors, like me, also need and appreciate the job.

What did you gain when you looked into other people's eyes with soft focus so you couldn't see the splinters?

Love,

Carolina