"Education is nothing but a diminishing lie"
Lindsay and I were chatting to a friend recently and the subject of education came up for discussion. In the last few weeks this has been a recurring topic, particularly the idea of teachers contradicting themselves as you go further through the system. They used to introduce a concept in the early years using such a simplified model that in later years they had to admit that they lied to you to help you understand; "Welcome to the new model" (but is that accurate either?)

That then made me think about becoming more self-aware. Is that also a diminishing lie? I think there are many people in this world who want to be something or someone that they are not. "But we can all pretend, can't we?". Pretending is not the end of the world so long as we are completely aware that it is a little piece of fantasy that we have introduced for a short space of time. In a healthy sense we can call it imagination and we encourage it in children and people in creative jobs - although its surely a good thing in anyone, but that's a story for another post.

However if we continually live in the fantasy world it becomes unhealthy and we call it delusion. This is one of the reasons it is so important to become more aware of who we really are and lessen the lies that we tell ourselves. Sometimes that will hurt - we don't want to hear the bad news. Or alternatively, we know inside what the issue is and how to rectify it and that is the bit that will be hard work. So we lie to ourselves to avoid dealing with the issue. But until we deal with it, like any conflict scenario, it will always be with us blocking our path.

But...there are some people whom we would generally describe as bashful who never really recognise the talents that they have. I watched some of Masterchef professional last night - down to the final three, making desserts for the famous pastry chef, Pierre Hermé. Afterwards, he commented to one finalist that her offering was so good he could have sold it in his own establishment. Her reaction to that, she said, was to gain confidence in her own abilities. To which I thought, if she is in the Masterchef Professional final she must have a wee bit of cookery talent. Presumably she knows it deep down otherwise she wouldn't have entered the competition, but I know of lots of other people who are completely blind to their skills. It frustrates me sometimes to see them willfully ignoring the potential that they have but are not using.

Self awareness is not just about seeing how we match up alongside the competition - that can make us proud or despondent. Instead it is about ignoring the lies and objectively looking at what our weaknesses and strengths are, working on the first but revelling in the other. Let's continue to 'diminish the lie'.

I went to a sales training day this week. Entertaining and interesting but I did feel like a rather small fish in a big boys pond, given the stature of selling that some of the participants were involved in. The best bit of it all was doing a practical exercise where I had to role play a sales meeting in front of some of the other participants.

I didn't want to play. But they made me, and actually it was very worthwhile. They graciously gave me helpful feedback that I can now put into practice.

But it made me wonder, why did I not want to take part. Basically I supose I don't like failing publicly, or even not matching up to other people's perceptions. This then led me down a line of thought about self-awareness.

Finding out about ourselves is often painful. Sometimes its about the results, because we don't want to know the answers, thinking they will be less good than we might hope. Alternatively, we don't like the process because it will be painful. It was certainly the latter that was bothering me. I was reasonably clear where I was at in terms of my actual sales abilities so the results were never going to be a surprise. However, roleplaying my inabilities in front of people whom I wanted nothing more than to impress was not something I entered into lightly. In fact I even tried to palm it off on another participant but they wouldn't let me wriggle out.

Oh what I would have missed out on. Actually the role play itself was easy. Like lots of things, the anticipation was worse than the ordeal itself and once I got into character I was oblivious of my observers. And the feedback they gave me was priceless. They even managed to say some nice things too.

How often do we see an opportunity to learn about ourselves and we either let it pass by or actively try to avoid the pain? When the chance is there, do we ask people to say what they think? Or do we duck down and hope they haven't observed anything notable?

And that's before we think about how well we wil accept their feedback once it is given...