Wrestling With My Privilege
Tiffany Heimpel
Enterprise and Start Up GTM VP | ?Positive mindset focussed on helping you strategize and structure your business | LinkedIn & NBC alumn | Found @tiffheimpel TikTok and Instagram
I've been wrestling with my privilege the past few weeks and it does not feel good.
The last month, some killer things have happened. I'm talking awesome. I was thrilled - so I heedlessly shared and surprisingly (maybe not), got mixed responses. It became, apparent to me those people I was sharing with who I thought would be excited - were not.
I feel like I got a front-row seat to how people get narrow-minded as they grow older.
Hear me out.
In your 20's if you go to University, you're surrounded by people with ideas. Everything is about the idea. You spend hours in bars and coffee shops chatting about ideas.
Then you start working and you chat about work. You find similar people and making friendships there.
You keep adding layers.
You get a pet - you find people with pets who maybe work in the same industry and you have another common bond.
You keep layering. You buy a house, you have kids, they start school, they do work and you do work. As you climb the life ladder you find more people in simialr situations.
At the same time you're amalgamating all of these commonalities, you have less and less personal time. You look for life hacks. You want comfort. If talking to you makes me uncomfortable, why am I going to continually do that?
And so the cycle repeats itself. I seek out people like me. Who act like me. Who respond to good news the way I like. We understand each others problems and we keep talking to each other. My circle gets smaller and smaller and smaller.
So back to my stellar month. After I got an unexpected response, I sought out people with the response I wanted. Life was joyous. Except something felt off. Why was I only talking to people like me?
In any other year, I would not have questioned this. But the events of 2020 have caused me to pause and reflect. Why am I so complacent? Why do I need to be so comfortable? If I don't start with changing myself, where do I start?
Since this revelation, I'm trying to get uncomfortable. I'm getting out of my own bubble so I can see what is going on in other parts of my peripheral life. My hope is if I can insert myself and wrestle with the uncomfortable I will become a better person. It's not easy but it's needed.
If you need me, I'll be over here feeling incommodious... which is a privilege in itself.
More work can be found on Tiffanyheimpel.com
Freelance Instructional Designer, Developer, Consultant (15+ yrs experience)
4 个月Where did you land with this?
Vice President, Customer Success Management and Renewals
4 年Thanks for sharing Tiffany. I can relate to this. I've found that its taken me real intentional effort to begin to diversify my network, the information I consume, the places I go, and even with that, my layers run deep. Appreciate you sharing this story.
Chef, Media & Food Content Creator
4 年It's a good thing to awaken We all get trapped in our own silo's or echo chambers - you aren't alone. Confirmation bias allows us to interact with people that confirm what we already believe to be true and it validates us. The real learning is when we can have conversations and healthy debates with people that have the exact opposite opinion or experience. That is when the learning begins.....