How (not) to miss the elephant in the room
Yannick Jacob
Existential Coach (MA), Supervisor, Positive Psychologist (MSc), Cambridge University Teaching Faculty, Course Director of the ACIC
“NO. WAY!” I quite loudly stated, to myself, when I first watched this video about selective attention during my undergrad in psychology back in 2005.
It’s difficult not to spoil the experiment even with a subtle headline (I’ll share my first drafts at the end of this Nugget), so my invitation is to watch this video right now before you read on, and really commit to engaging in the task.
Go on, I’ll wait…
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Whether you were surprised or not at the end, try this one next…
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Why is this an important warning to coaches and supervisors?
Because I see a lot of my students focus too hard on paying attention through a particular psychological lens. And with best intentions. They’ve got excited about spotting strengths, psychodynamics, thinking traps, or limiting beliefs.
But what are you missing when you’re listening through a particular lens?
Well, possibly a big fucking gorilla doing a little dance in front of your very eyes, or the infamous elephant in the room.
This, for me, is a wonderful illustration of the difference between focus and presence.
Focus can be tremendously helpful. But it’s limiting your view by definition.
That’s why it’s important to “tune out” of focus now and then and check whether there’s something you might be missing, something outside of “the zone”, on the periphery of awareness, that might just be the thing that’s most important to notice right now.
It’s this interplay between tuning in (focus) and tuning out (presence) that makes for masterful practice.
This is also why supervision is such an important aspect of professional coaching. Because we all have our blind spots, an extra pair of fully present eyes can help you pay attention outside of the box.
As always, curious about your thoughts. If this resonates, make it swing! I’d love to hear from you.
With Love Yannick
PS: There are more videos and resources here if you want to explore selective attention further. And my first drafts of the headline were “Did you spot the Gorilla?” and “What you are missing when you’re focusing too much”.
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Some of the (AI-generated) takeaways are:
As always, you can listen to the episode here or where you get your podcasts, or watch it on YouTube .
Next Event: Existential Coaching with Yannick Jacob
This month's guest is none other than Yours Truly, the Lab's Founder, Yannick Jacob. I've known Yannick for, well, all my life. He's been instrumental in shaping not just my coaching approach, but has been a leading voice for existential coaching. He's the author of An Introduction to Existential Coaching and has been training and supervising existential coaches for the past decade. I figured it's been some time since Yannick stepped into the Lab as a coach, and last time the client decided to pull the recording since it got a little deeper than we had anticipated, so here I am, excited about what will happen this time, and looking forward to welcoming you to this session.
Learn more about Yannick at?https://gocoachinglab.com/vault/next-lab/
Tickets available via?MeetUp ,?Eventbrite ?or catch the recording by signing up as a?member .
And if you'd like to be Yannick's client for this session, you can put your hand up?here .
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And that's it for this week!
If any of this resonates, make it swing! I'd love to hear from you :)
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Executive & Organizational Performance Coach | ICF-Certified Neuroscience Coach | Member of American College of Healthcare Executives | Institute of Coaching Fellow
5 个月I love it. I’m familiar with the experiment. The other day my wife, a psychologist, was telling me about a disagreement she and a couple of colleagues were having about a diagnosis for an elderly patient. At the end, I said they were looking at the leaves and missing the forest. The problem was that he wasn’t communicating effectively with his wife, who had unrealistic expectations of him. Whether the reason for the lack of communication was dementia, low IQ, or dyslexia was immaterial for the 80+ year old man. His wife wasn’t likely going to believe any assessment results that conflicted with her view anyway. They simply needed someone to facilitate a conversation around what was really happening. I see this all of the time. And you’re right. Sometimes we need to take a step back and ask ourselves what’s really important.