How We Are All Frogs In a Well and What To Do About It

As I looked out the airplane window on my second of three connections I had to take to get back to Chicago from my exchange experience in Southeast Asia, I couldn’t help but feel in awe of how far this part of the world I had spent the last three months was from where I had spent the last 30 years of my life. Despite this short time that amounted to less than 1% of my total life, it was packed with memorable experiences across 9 countries over 3 months that allowed me to grow my self-awareness, foster new perspectives, and galvanize existing perspectives more than I have been able to before over the same period.

As expected, nearly every aspect of my exchange experience provided practice in adapting to an unfamiliar environment, and some took more time to adapt to than others. From navigating life in a different country, to adjusting to a different class and social environment at INSEAD, each experience provided a valuable opportunity to learn about myself and the world around me. In the next series of articles, I’ve put together a few of my key learnings from my exchange experience.

For Part 1, I explore the question “why exchange?” and the importance of operating in unfamiliar, uncertain, and uncomfortable situations.

Complacency is an obstacle to growth. John Maxwell has termed complacency as one of the things leaders should fear the most. Yet, complacent was how I felt after one year at Kellogg. You begin to fall into the same routine, and gravitate towards the same social circles despite your best efforts. Recalling my time in consulting where lack of structure and novelty was the norm, and the high degree of growth operating in this type of environment created, I felt an exchange experience would be just the opportunity to get more practice being at the edge of my comfort zone.

Why are these types of experiences so important to developing yourself?

First, the real business world and life is faced with unstructured, uncertain, and uncomfortable situations, so it’s always helpful to get practice operating in these situations – “getting comfortable with the uncomfortable” as the common saying goes.

Second, unfamiliar experiences are important because it is the richness of perspectives that can lead to better decision making, and a better understanding of people who have different backgrounds than our own. However, through the course of our lives, we are only able to lead one path, a path that is made up of the hundreds or thousands of decisions we choose to make. This is also the path that we often base our perspectives and future decisions on. To make things worse, we all have an egocentric bias – we tend to heavily rely on our own opinions and experiences thinking these are the only ones that matter.

The Frog in the Well

There is a traditional Chinese proverb about a frog in the well, and when he looks up all he sees is the small circle of sky and think that’s the entire world. That is, until another frog who has seen more of the world outside of the well accidentally falls into the well and tells the frog who has been stuck in the well of all the other things that are in the rest of the world.

Similarly, we go through life having seen the one path that we’ve followed, not giving enough stock into the possibility that things could have been very different with just one or two different decisions. When we’re asked – would you have done something differently – we often base our answer on the outcome. If our decision yielded a positive outcome, then we pay less attention to alternate options. There’s also no way to know for sure whether different choices would have led to more optimal outcomes since we only have one life to live and no replay button.

A more optimal way to approach life is to find opportunities to “broaden your aperture”. Instead of looking at the small group of decisions in front of you – like the small group of trees that are illuminated by the narrow beam of a flashlight – work to diversify your experiences across different competencies, industries, and cultures so your beam becomes broader and more like a searchlight.

Here are some ways I found it helpful to broaden my aperture during my time abroad and also apply to daily life when not travelling:

1.????? Focus on the people, not the places

Whenever you plan a vacation, how many times have you thought about what places to visit? Probably most of the time. Our Instagrams are dominated by awe-inspiring vistas and architectures. However, the perspectives come not from the places but the people behind these places. The people who have lived and conducted religious ceremonies in these historical sites. Or the people who are commemorated in the museums and monuments we visit. These are the individuals who bring these places to life, the ones who have the stories that will stick on our mind long after we leave.

While traveling in Vietnam, I came across an art gallery owned by Réhahn, a portrait photographer, where he showcases photos from all 54 tribes across Vietnam. He spent over 5 years spending time with each tribe, talking with village leaders, taking photographs, and trying to document a small part of their history especially their unique costumes and artifacts. It was here that I began to understand the unique struggles faced by tribes – things you wouldn’t have known just through cruising past the tourist sites in large cities across Vietnam. Once I began to realize the importance of people, I began to ask everyone questions - from my tour guides to locals at the coffee shop - to better understand the people of the country. Their views on politics and the direction of the country, their families and upbringing, and personal stories. This brought a richness and important context to allow me to better understand the culture I was seeing.

This can also be applied to work and other social environments, not just while traveling. Take for example working in a team. Whether you are a manager or individual contributor, taking the time to not only focus on the work, but getting to understand your team - the people behind the work - has consistently been shown to increase team satisfaction and productivity.

2.????? Being curious not critical

When you ask and learn about the people, work to actively listen and seek to understand. The first step is observing a difference from something you may be used to, but the second and most important step is understanding the difference. This can be done through asking questions like “why” and taking time to reflect on why these differences might exist. Although you might not fully agree by the end, the process of seeking this understanding is what’s most important.

Again, you don’t need to travel to adopt this mindset – taking this approach whenever encountering someone new, especially if they have a contrasting opinion or background, is just as helpful.

In the next article, I’ll begin to share some of my key learnings and mindset shifts from my exchange experience. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!