Originally posted 2010-07-11 09:40:03.
Context, Mindset, Backdrop… why should you care?
This is going to be a mind-bender, and at the end of it you’ll come up a lot smarter, and with a lot more power over your life… interested?
It is all about mindset! Context is decisive… but what the heck is a backdrop?
Let’s start with backdrop. Why? Because it’s the easiest to see what’s going on.
I say that the backdrop is more important than what happens in the foreground.
- Someone says something to you and you feel hurt.
- Your boss assigns someone else to an important assignment.
- Your experiment at making money with your first product is a flop.
- You continually have trouble and emergency in your life.
The above statements are the foreground.
Depending on your mental attitude (mindset) you say it’s bad, or it’s good, or you have no opinion.
So far so good… are you still with me? Good.
Those four sentences are what happens… even a Martian with no knowledge about our culture, would be able to see it if he watched you long enough.
OK, let’s add the backdrop… but we will need a simpler background, ok?
Imagine a photo studio, a big empty room with just a park bench in the middle, and alongside the back wall there is a rack that you can hang different painted fabric, that’s the backdrop.
When you enter the room, the backdrop is a New York City skyline at night.
If I asked you what’s the story: you would immediately have one.
Now, let’s change the backdrop: it is now a cemetery with freshly dug graves with lots of flowers.
Got the story?
The third backdrop is a city park at high noon… with neatly trimmed hedges, and trees.
Got a story?
If you noticed, there was no change in the foreground. The background-(backdrop)-change immediately changed the story.
And such is life.
We concentrate on the foreground where we have very little power… and completely ignore the background.
But what if you could create the background at will? How do you do that?
The default backdrop is almost always bad.
I live in the ‘snow-belt’, one hour south of Lake Ontario, on of the Great Lakes. We normally get a lot of snow, and it makes sense to buy a 4-wheel drive vehicle. Especially if you live on a hill, or if you need to drive on streets that don’t get plowed too often, like myself. But… I don’t have a 4-wheel drive vehicle… lol
This morning, after we got 3 feet (almost a meter) snow in the past 3 days, I dug my car out, I drove to an audio studio to record a cd we want to give away… and hurried back home to talk to my mastermind partner at 12… except I could not get up the hill. I got stuck in an intersection, and could not go up, could not go down. Finally, 2 kids with snowboards helped me get out of that tight spot, parked my car, and climbed the hill on foot… and was only 7 minutes late to my call.
When I told, breathlessly, what happened, my coach said… terrible, poor thing… etc.
Her backdrop for snow, getting stuck in an intersection, climbing to the top of the hill… is terrible.
I, given that I know that I can design a backdrop that makes me happy, optimistic, positive, I design: it was fun, I needed the exercise, no big deal… etc. and laughed it off.
What if you could turn around on a dime? Like me.
Your health will be better. You’ll have more energy. Life will appear better. And you’ll make more money, attract better quality people, customers, mates… it’s a snowball… because the backdrop is decisive.
Got it? Context, Mindset, Backdrop… all mean pretty much the same…
