Did you know that today is Pluto’s birthday? Yep, Pluto is three-years-old.
I know that because my 4 ½ year old grandson Michael, who takes a stuffed Pluto to bed with him each night, sent a text message to me this morning of him singing Happy Birthday to Pluto. He then told me that Pluto is three-years-old. There’s something beautiful in the innocence of a child’s imagination.
However, if Michael’s imagination is still informing him of Pluto’s age when my grandson is 30-years old, someone needs to say to him, “It just ain’t so, Michael.”
Being 70 years older than my grandson, my imagination sometimes tells me things that ‘just ain’t so’. Unfortunately, I think they are. These things are just as real and true to me as Pluto being three-years old is to Michael. Like what?
· Like I think your political party is out to lunch when my political party hasn’t yet come back from breakfast.
· Like my way of doing something as Director of Top 20 Training is certainly better than what my colleagues think, so it’s no use listening to them.
· Like if that is what happened last time, it will certainly happen again this time.
· Like I’m sure I know someone’s motive for doing something when I often don’t even know my own motive for doing something.
That kind of innocence at age 70 is not a beautiful thing. Without someone saying, “It just ain’t so, Paul,” I’m not operating any more effectively than when I was 4 ½ years old.
Mark Twain wisely reminds us:
“What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know.
It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”
If you are like me, it’s so much easier to see what ‘just ain’t so’ in someone else’s thoughts and beliefs than it is in my own. Knowing that, we need to do two things:
1. We need to seek out some folks who will help us realize what ‘just ain’t so’ in our head.
· Who are the people you can invite to your ‘just ain’t so’ team…the people you want to ask to help you see any of your own thoughts and beliefs that ‘just ain’t so’?
By helping us realize what ‘just ain’t so,’ people help us eliminate scotomas or blind spots in our lives that block us from seeing the truth and ‘what is so’. We need a seeing eye dog, Pluto, in our lives who accompanies us and alerts us to things that ‘just ain’t so’.
2. We need to help others realize what they are carrying around in their head that ‘just ain’t so’.
· Who is someone in whom you recognize something he or she is thinking or believing that ‘just ain’t so’? How can you effectively share with them in a way that they realize what ‘just ain’t so’?
Hoping you have opportunities to enjoy the innocence of a child’s imagination while benefiting from the wisdom of your own.
From a few who bark warnings to me…Kevin Brennan, Willow Sweeney, and Tom Cody…when I’m believing something that ‘just ain’t so’.
Paul Bernabei
Director
Top 20 Training
paul@top20training.com
