Why Your Personal Beliefs Are Keeping You Trapped In A Mental *Checkout* Line
This weekend I stopped in the grocery to buy some OJ and Baked Beans.
The checkout clerk said, “Gross. I hope you aren’t eating those together?”
I wasn’t.
But 50% of me wanted to say, “Actually it’s my favorite meal!”
(Just to make things awkward.)
Now, I’m a nice guy.
So I laughed, agreed, and walked out with my weird culinary combo.
I got to thinking on the way back to my car…
What if OJ and Beans were my favorite dead grandmother’s recipe?
And today was the day to I was making it in her honor.
I would have felt like a weirdo (or worse been offended).
We all do this to some extent — project our beliefs on others.
We assume others think, believe, and act the same way.
But we don’t!
Duh!
So, a much better approach would have been to get curious, make an observation, and checkout what I had in my basket with a question:
“What are you making with beans and OJ?”
She might have learned something new.
And broken free from a mental rut.
PS…”Orange baked beans” recipe has 5 stars on Google.
