In case you’re stuck – distinctions can come to save the day.
What are distinctions?
A great way to define a distinction is that it is a a property that sets it different from anything else that’s alike. A lady of distinction is a lady who’s not like everyone else somehow, better, more, above them.
A different way to examine distinctions is that it is a concept or occurrence or maybe even abstraction. (abstraction definition: a general quality or characteristic, apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances. )
I am going to speak about this latter manner of looking, where distinction is a concept.
We could say that distinctions can behave oddly: they won’t present themselves at all to you until you have seen them, and from that point on, you can experience the second part of oddity: they are everywhere.
They come from the things that you didn’t know that you didn’t know.
One of my mentors, T. Harv Eker tells the story how he turned his life around. His father’s millionaire friend told him, that when things are not working, there is something he didn’t know. Obviously he was talking about some distinction, the odd stuff, because T. Harv turned his life around and he is now a multi millionaire.
Distinctions is like the vocabulary of an expert… Like the tools of a surgeon.
Another illustration where I have more details to share happened to me. In 1999 I had to buy a vehicle. I wanted a second hand car, and I was sure I preferred a red color car. As you can tell, I didn’t consider many details concerning vehicles. Lol.
I visited an individual who went to car auctions to buy cars for used car dealers and I put in a purchase order: I would like a red vehicle and I want it to cost around three grands.
In a few days he contacted me and told me: We have three vehicles that you should take a look at. I strolled to his location (keep in mind, I didn’t need a vehicle because I had one!) and saw three cars, all different shades of red. One of them was a little bigger than the other cars. What make? I did not know. Exactly what model? I didn’t know.
I picked out the shade of red I liked and he prepared the vehicle for me.
I asked what make of vehicle it was and he answered it was a Nissan Maxima. I felt pleased. I had never seen a car exactly like that, I didn’t even know Nissan was a car maker, therefore I was feeling very unique and privileged.
My first journey in the new vehicle was on the freeway towards the big supermarket in some distance. I saw 14 Nissan Maximas of most shades on this 4 miles long section of this road. It looked like every car must have been a Nissan Maxima. I even spotted a few standing on the street, off of the freeway.
I obtained the distinction: Nissan Maxima, and finally I could see it all over the place.
That’s the dynamics of distinction. You don’t see it, you don’t see it, then you see it and a whole new world opens up.
Why’s this approach useful to a person? For the reason that nearly all learning is much like this: you stare and you aren’t able to see it. You are staring at the thing you want to understand: and you can’t understand it. And in a crucial moment you begin observing it. So you ask: So why didn’t you tell me? Correct?
In any area of life, you are able to identify only the things that you already know. Unfortunately, given your track record, that was not where the missing knowledge was. Distinctions expand your universe and give you capacities to unstuck yourself and keep moving.