[MUSIC] In this lesson we will review how to discern the difference between your thoughts and the facts. And actually as a part of this lesson, there's an exercise for you to practice distinguishing the difference between all of the elements of the thought model. You may recall the circumstance thought, feelings, action, and results. And by experience, people have the most difficulty identifying the difference between a fact and what we've learned to be now a circumstance and a thought. So in this lesson you will examine a few examples in order to better understand the difference between thoughts and facts. So first just as a reminder, a thought is a sentence in your mind. It's a way that you define a fact. So things happen in the world all the time which are circumstances or facts, right, they're provable. And then we define them in our mind with a thought. So I went to the grocery store today is a circumstance or a fact. My thought is, it's so overwhelming to go to the grocery store on a Sunday, [LAUGH] right? So, I want to give you a few other examples so that you can hear quite frankly, how most of what we talk about is really our thinking and it's not really the facts of a situation. So these are pulled straight from the annals of my coaching experience. So I will be giving you a real examples. So here's one, my employee didn't implement the new report that we just started using. And when I asked them why, they said they just didn't have time. So, you know what, I just don't think they have the capacity to do this job. I don't think they're motivated to think out of the box. They dont seem to be curious at all and It's clear that they don't do things I ask them to do. Sometimes I even wonder if they're sort of insubordinate. Are they just being disrespectful? Like what's going on, right? Now what did you hear in that that was actually a fact? [LAUGH] What you heard, that was factual was the employee didn't implement the new report. And the employee told me that they didn't finish it because they didn't have time. They didn't get to it. Other than that, everything else I said is my thoughts about the fact, or the facts in this case, right? That's what we've got. So, most of the way that we tell our stories, and most of the way we address challenges is, unfortunately, through our own opinion. [LAUGH] Through the thoughts that we have about the facts. So, let's think about this one. I have an employee who I'm meeting with about other current performance which has lately been dropping. I just am very nervous about the meeting, because they always get really defensive and sometimes they even cry when I have these meetings with them. And I just really don't like conflict and it gets so uncomfortable with me, so I honestly have to book the time with them, but I haven't been able to get it on my calendar. I've got so much else going on, but I'm really not looking forward toward this meeting. I just think it's going to be really uncomfortable for both of us. Okay, so what did we hear there that was factual? We heard that I have an employee who's not meeting performance expectations. We heard that I have an employee who has cried. We could probably prove it, but that's a loose one, like when, right? Let's get real specific. Everything else is my thoughts about what might happen. And notice that as a manager, these kinds of thoughts, they might get defensive, I don't like conflict, this is really uncomfortable. Those thoughts, are actually potentially driving me to not have the conversation I need to have with my employee. And let's do one more, I have a tenured employee in my team who also isn't meeting their goals and I'm just pretty sure it's because they don't like their job anymore and I'm convinced they're looking for a new job. They're just half in, they're not really committed. So I'm not even sure I should keep meeting with them until they figure out what they want to do. So again, we have an employee who's not meeting performance expectations and that's it. Everything else, I said is just my thoughts about it. I'm making it up. Now, isn't that so interesting that if I have an employee that I think is leaving and look how I'm not engaging with them. Do you think that makes an employee want to stay? [LAUGH] Maybe it does if you're not a great manager, I don't know. But like if you're a manager who avoids an employee who you think is leaving, is not likely to engage that employee and keep them. And want them to stay, it's just so interesting. So, notice that just delineating the difference between a thought and a fact, or a circumstance is not easy because most of how we talk to one another is in our thinking. Is through the stories that we tell, is through the opinions that we have, is through the belief systems that we have. So I would really invite you even after you go through this lesson. As you go out into the world today, just listen to people and listen to how much of what people say and really make as a basis for their assumptions is all of their thoughts about something, not what actually happened. So the clearer we can get as managers at discerning the difference between a thought about something and a fact, the more objective and effective we are as coaches.
