Seeing versus observing : discuss

Perception is an interesting thing. And it leads on into observation. And there is something that I have noticed recently; the busy, stressed corporate life in contrast to a more observant, creative existence. It isn’t that wearing a suit and living from transaction to deal to transaction is a bad thing, but is it causing you to close down your senses?

Let me explain. I have had and continue to have, a long corporate life and have worn every colour tie you can think of through the 70’s up to the present day. It has and continues to be, terrific; to get your teeth into an issue or a project and see it through to a successful conclusion. But perhaps in chasing something so determinedly, we lose sight of what is going on around us.

This has come home to me in the simplest of ways in the last year or so since I left a large corporate organisation and began advising on my own account (other than the immediate drop in resting heart rate and the good night’s sleep on a Sunday before a Monday morning start to the week) . I now function in parallel existences; corporate/entrepreneurial advisory and photography.

If I pass someone that I know in the street who knows me through photography and the creative community, they spot me whether I am wearing a suit, a t-shirt or whatever. If I pass someone who knows me through my corporate existence, I am invisible unless I am dressed as they expect me to be dressed.

I’m battling around with this. Is it that the corporate life and the pressure that it exerts creates tunnel vision or a need to compartmentalise so that we can filter out what we perceive could be irrelevances? Or is it that creatives live in a more observational world?

If it is a narrowing of senses, I wonder what it would be like to remove that corporate protective filter and observe more of what is going on around us? I wonder what opportunities we, as corporates are literally failing to see passing us by?

Just a thought but possibly an interesting one to talk through from a coaching perspective. Please drop me a note if you would like to continue the discussion.

:-)

John

In other news.... shot the University Fair 2014 as an event; attended a great composites course run by Terry Donnelly, completed another 3 subjects in The Project, checked my email ecery day for a reply from the Arts Council on my Grant Application...........