I recently started a blog titled "Wiccan Things", and shortly after placed a picture of me from my active days as a religious leader in Wicca on my Facebook page.
The results have already been commented on in a previous blog post and article.
So why then am I following up on that with this one? I noticed some things from the study that I honestly hadn't given a great amount of thought.
While sleeping last night it came to me! How much do we limit ourselves from other human contact and friendship, in our personal lives and our business lives, due to preconceived notions or stereotypes? While I have not conducted a huge scientific study to accumulate data and statistics, I would "guess" that the incidence is quite high based on casual observance, as well as my own biases I have had to come to grips with and overcome.
As I have said before, we are all human and we all have them..
..
myself included! It goes without saying that since the events of 9/11, many are "suspicious" of every middle-easterner they see.
Many of us will look upon them with some level of guarded curiosity and wonder if they are connected to terrorism in any way.
I know I have.
While this is not fair, we do it without consciously thinking about it...
or how that makes them feel.
As a society we have let our differences in appearance, dress, language, religion, life experiences, upbringing,etc.
determine, and seriously limit, who we associate with and who we are friends with, and include in our social and business circles.
I am not arguing against those of common interests "hanging out" or going into business together in any way.
My point I am making is that we also "shut out" those we feel are different from us in whatever way we use to judge them.
A sort of arrogance in a way.
Are we truly better than they are? I don't know about your beliefs but mine teach me not to do this...
there is a difference between what we are taught and the way we put, or fail to put, those teachings into action.
Again, I have also been guily of this at times.
We are all guilty of this behavior, after all, we are all human and it is within the psychology and sociology of human nature to behave in this way to an extent.
My argument here is this.
It is behavior we can change.
So why change it? What does that benefit me? I ask myself this question and I know you do as well.
How many potential friends do we overlook this way? And how many do we exclude from our business ventures as either clients or recruits? As a business leader and a religious leader I have to ask those questions.
If I continue to think this way then I am limiting my human interactions.
It costs me friends, and in my business ventures, it costs me money and potential long lasting friendships and business contacts.
I know that we cannot completely overcome our biases or all of the ideologies that have been drilled into our heads.
This article was never meant to give us ways to overcome them but to simply make us stop and think about something that we normally just take for granted.
How can we not take for granted something that is done subconsciously? Now that you have read this I hope we will all make the choice to make a concerted effort to make those decisions conscious ones and help us expand our horizons in our friendships and potentially explode our business to new heights.