The world doesn’t change but your point of view changes the world.
Leadership Step-by-Step by Joshua Spodek is one of my recent book reviews. Josh and I were able to get acquainted over the internet and phone and decided to work on a podcast together. Josh had been doing podcasts and I was anxious to learn from experiencing the process.
We corresponded over a couple of weeks leading up to the interview for the podcast. And even though we exchanged a few emails about topics, the start of the process turned very awkward.
Being cordial, Josh asked me a few questions and then hesitated. He was waiting for me to kick off the interview process.
I was enjoying the early exchange but then seemed to run out of things to say. I was waiting for him to kick off the interview process.
It dawned on each of us that we were expecting the other person to lead and record the interview. We approached a very simple and enjoyable situation from different points of view. It became awkward for both of us.
We persevered and had a wonderful exchange of ideas and thoughts.
Josh must have been thinking “This is awkward and this guy doesn’t know what he’s doing. Am I about to waste an hour of my valuable time?” What if Josh had turned those questions into a point-of-view?
- This guy is a loser.
- I’m not going to get anything out of this exchange.
The interview would have ended ugly with no real value to either of us.
But Josh came into the interview with a good point-of-view. He believed there was
- Value in learning from other people (maybe questioning this particular person)
- It was always worthwhile to listen and learn.
With that point-of-view, Josh lives in a much more positive world that many of us.
I could list dozens of different point-of-views that Josh may bring to the interview. 8 out of 10 of them would have led to a negative result.
But that didn’t happen. Josh starts each day with a point-of-view that the world is an amazing place full of amazing people. He believes that we can learn so much from each other if we
- understand and lead ourselves before we
- understand and lead others (check out his book for lessons on this concept).
We had an enjoyable interview (that ran overtime) and I look forward learning more from Josh in the future.
What point of view do you bring to the table?
