Everything is about perspectives. I can work #iPadOnly because I took the time to check my own workflows and give me some perspective on what and where I am trying to accomplish and doing. My daughter eats vegetables because for her it is a normal food (and from the perspective of the parents she has consequences if she doesn’t.) In the past I was a frequent flyer (more than 200,000 miles on a year) and except when I got bumped to First Class I always found the space really small. I stop flying for a living in 2010 and begin working full time at my home office. To be honest, we haven’t travel that much on a plane since. Regardless I notice how this week my perspective changed. I use to weight more than 350lbs. That fact defined my perspective regarding the size of the rows on airplanes, and based on that perspective, they were really small, the little table is way to close (even impossible to use if the person in front of you decide to recline) the seats are tight and the person next to you (asumming you didn’t got the lucky middle, in which case is the people around you) is way to close. I did it for more than 200,000 miles every year but was never something comfortable (unless you got sent to first, that happen often when you travel that much)
As I was saying this trip came with some change in perspectives, I set my iPad mini to work on the table and decide to pull it closer because it was more comfortable to type. It was in that moment that a little something in my brain fire a smile and for a moment I was really proud. I was more than 150lbs lighter than 2008, 100lbs lighter than my last work flight in 2010 and 20lbs since my last plane trip and for the first time in my adult life I was comfortable in that space.
I am aware that airlines rows have less and less space, so I am sure it’s not that. Also I didn’t got bumped to first class in this trip. The thing is the change of perspective, this seat are not as small as I remember them, the table is not as close as it used to be, and actually this may have been the best working session I have ever had on a plane, while sitting on coach. The perspective changed and seems totally different than 150lbs ago (even 20lbs ago) from an uncomfortable space to a one that it fits perfectly.
It was this exactly the fact of how I was able to change everything that made me think about other perspectives that may also need to create an adjustment, that may need a readjustment or even a radical change.
We tend to come to the conclusion that certain things are the way they are, I did for many years , airplanes were small spaces, I never considered that: I was too big.
This is a topic that I want to continue covering, and I want to leave you thinking for a moment on what may need an adjustment on your own perspective… I can think on a couple of things…