Don’t make assumptions. What does that even mean? So you must find the courage to ask questions rather than make assumptions. And why is it called courage?
Why does it take courage to ask questions?
Because how many of you don’t ask questions because you just assume you already know the answer.
How many of you don’t ask questions because you assume you already know the outcome? How many of you don’t ask questions because you’re afraid of the answer?
So you just assume, assume, assume and what does that do for you?
It keeps you in the dark. It keeps you in the unknown. It keeps you almost in a state of denial. I do a lot of coaching and performance coaching for whether it’s like executives in our company, or I used to do it for all of our clinical staff personal development talks, I do it for a couple outside companies right now. And I tell you this, I ask them, “Hey, so what makes a good leader?” And they say “Well, I’ve been doing this for a long time. I know the skill set. I know what to do. I know how to do it. I know when to do it, where to find the answers. I’m knowledgeable in the space.” I’m like, “Okay, so you are the reason why you’re a good leader?” And they’re like, “Well, I mean pretty much.” And I say, “Well, I’ll tell you this. The greatest leaders in the world don’t have all the answers. They have the right questions. They don’t have the right answers man, they got the right questions. And when you look at your own recovery and you look at your own life and you look at your healing transformation journey do you make assumptions about what is going on and what’s next? Or do you ask questions? Because the assumptions they make with this, with changing this one thing, you can completely transform your life.
Exceptions Kill your Peace and Serenity
In the 12 and 12 I think we got a line in there that says, “My level of serenity and my expectations are a zero sum.” So what a zero sum means before I do my little thing is that both of them together are going to equal a 100 right? So if my expectations are 80, my serenity can be 20. If my expectations are 50 my serenity is 50. If my expectations are 20, my serenity could be 80. And if I just turn off my expectations, I could be in a state of bliss, or a blissful state. Beautiful thing.
The Problem with Assumptions
A lot of times if we actually are good at what we do, if we’ve had some level of success, if we’ve been able to manage our life, we assume that I don’t need to ask questions. Because look at my life, I’m doing okay right? But then that’s also an assumption. We just assume that’s the case. So this whole thing is the problem with assumptions. It’s that we believe that they’re true and we take them personally. It’s always better to ask questions than to make assumptions. Because assumptions set us up for suffering.
Find your voice.
Ask what you want.
Focus on clear communication with yourself and others.
