Dismantle Your Mind

Hi there. It’s (a) ‘Good Friday’. Compliments of the season and thanks for dropping by to read this piece.

If you have never met a perfect man, you have really missed! Is there a perfect man? I met one sometime ago. Before doubt engulfs your heart, kindly digest this piece. This guy is an interesting guy who is a strong team worker. We met on a project and we connected perfectly. Our relationship was perfect! We became partners in business and the going was good.  I had met my ‘best’ colleague and resource partner up until...

Many times in life, we meet several people in particular force fields – careers, religious, even family. It’s normal to cling to a set of people with whom you think you share values. I had met my perfect man and interestingly, the guy was perfect. We worked in the strategy office and produced results. But something bothered me, which I didn’t attend to as I enjoyed my sojourn in denial of that fact. I was afraid to face it. Perfect Shaun knew it all. He made sure he had the last say every time. My calm nature permitted his choleric spree. I refused to be bothered since we were producing results, although he took the glory ninety-nine percent of the time.

Being recognized for his good works in the organization, his ‘know-it-all’ sense was propelled. He registered his dissatisfaction every time his ideas were not welcome. We had an altercation and he said “there is nothing I don’t know, so no one can rubbish my ideas”. Isn’t that interesting? He had read so much and simply believed he knew everything about ‘systems control’. This guy had developed a sense of confidence in that thought line.

Many times in life, we arm ourselves with interesting thought patterns and never question them. It is not abnormal to run an appraisal exercise for oneself on a consistent basis. Like late Steven Covey rightly highlighted that it is a mature act to consistently think about the way you think, so that you’d consistently perform a mind audit.

Overconfidence is an index of an ‘unchecked mind’. There is a thin line between what you have the capacity to do and what you think you have the capacity to do. Being sure is a sign of well developed capacity but being overconfident subtly makes you lose sight of warning signals, for you have become confident in your prowess. My friend has changed jobs already. I met three other of his former colleagues who feel that he’d be shipwrecked if he continues with his ‘know-it-all’ mindset.

Dr. D once told me that he succeeded to a point in medical school with residual knowledge. He stopped studying, became overconfident in his academic prowess. His mind grabbed on to that fact such that he never studied properly. At some point, he had terrible academic issues! He had to dismantle the thought pattern that he knew it all, humbled himself and began to learn actively, all over again. He’s a successful medical doctor today. The fact remains however, that he lost some years.

Perform a check today: anytime you think you do not need to learn more, it is what I called ‘Knowledge Saturation’. You need to do something, which my e-mail signature expresses with the statement ‘’if need be, dismantle your mind... then re-gather it’’. I wish @SirAyoade will soon write on how to perform a surgery on your mind when you are saturated with knowledge. Initiate a dismantling process if you are in the phase of ‘knowledge saturation’. How? Ask Google!