What a 400 km Car Trip Down South Taught Me
Last weekend (25-27 Sep 2010:) was a long weekend in Western Australia and some friends of ours suggested we go camping for the weekend. I thought it would be a great idea to take a break and do something different. It was a wonderful trip and over the next few blog posts I want to share with you the experience. I got quite a number of personal development lessons and I made a number of interesting marketing observations as well when I was out there.
Here is how it started, when my friend suggested we go to the Porongurups, I thought it was about a hundred kilometres from Perth, but when I checked Google maps to my surprise it would be a 380 kilometres trip and the Porongurups looked very close to Albany. Now, in my mind Albany is just too far away for a car trip by me and I’ve only ever driven within the Perth metropolitan area before.
I thought Albany was about a thousand kilometres or so away from Perth, which was the impression I had when I looked at the map of Western Australia. I was under the wrong impression because I interpreted the map wrongly and it never occurred to me to actually check the facts about the distance. The consequence of this would have been: because of my ignorance I would never have made such a trip if it was only up to me.
I only realised after checking that I could easily do the trip because my car does 500 km with a full tank. I could just do it.
Here is the personal development lesson I got from this.What am I missing out in life because of wrong impressions or misinformation that I never thought of actually checking out?
We can miss out or fall short on a number of things in life because we maybe under the wrong impression of: “it’s too difficult, I can’t do that, it would be too expensive, or I just don’t know enough”.
If there is one thing we rarely do, unless we are taught to, is to question our impressions. Have you ever noticed how often you take your impressions for fact? It can be worse as believing they are fact sometimes we hold on to our misinformation.
What about the impression or first impression you have about someone? We are always getting impressions (actually making judgements) on people based on what they say, do, wear, keep company with, etc. Are those impressions fact? Would it pay to have a second impression?
Robert Kiyosaki said, “Intelligence is the ability to make finer distinctions”. So, it pays to know and be able to make the distinction between what you take for fact and what is indeed fact. I’ve heard many teachers say you must act upon your gut feeling or intuition because they tell the truth. Well, there is a fine line between impressions and intuition. Are you able to distinguish between the two? I would say, when you do or don’t act upon mere gut feelings, just be aware that’s what they are. Do your due diligence, and check the facts as well.
I’ve visited Albany, Denmark, some wineries.
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Welcome, my name is Ben Wan. I help people get started online by building their website. I also train them to run their own website.
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Hi Ben
Welcome back to the blogosphere. Albany is a beautiful place to visit with the hills on one side and the ocean on the other. I have visited there many times and the only problem is how far it is from Perth. Great scenery on the way down there too isn’t there?!
Glad you enjoyed your break and I loved the analogy. Very challenging and will be checking back for the next post….hopefully soon. No pressure lol
Patricia Perth Australia
Patricia@lavenderuses recently posted..Lavender Products- Why Choose Organic Lavender
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Porongorups.. a beautiful place.. thanks for sharing some of your more prsonal thoughts Ben.. good to hear in a techie blog!! just goes to show we can get lost in computing but in the end it is all about the lessons learned. I enjoyed the shift to another level in your blog this time.
Shazar Robinson recently posted..Nothing to do with Health – Google Doodles!
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Very nice lesson. I think both intuitions and impressions can help guide our behavior. I sometimes even consider those “gut feelings” a form of super-fast logic that we can’t comprehend. I would say be weary of it, but that it can lead to some creative decision-making.
Hope to read more from you soon!
Steven H recently posted..To Catch An Insight
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Ben Wan Reply:
October 5th, 2010 at 9:06 am
Thanks Steven for visiting my blog.
Impressions and intuition almost feel like the same thing, but arn’t the same thing. It pays to know the difference. By this post my intention is to raise our level of awareness-consciouness so we can make better informed decisions.
Ben Wan recently posted..How to Get Started With Social Bookmarking
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That was an interesting read Ben. Thank you. As Shazar said – it’s good to find a flower of personal insight in the field of a tech blog.
Your post was about the human inner journey rather than the internet traffic highway. Two different roads !
First impressions – I plead guilty to making assumptions based on these, but intuition – the feeling in the solar plexus – I think that comes from the subconscious and is more wrong than right. The more I listen, the stronger it becomes. It has saved me from a few dangerous situations.
Thanks – Ben – loved reading. Please add more of the same. You can become the SEO philosopher. Julia
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Ben Wan Reply:
October 5th, 2010 at 9:26 am
Hi Julia,
Thanks for liking this post.
I want my blog to be not just raw fact, there’re plenty of other places to find just raw information. I tweet and social bookmark them when I come accross those. I think it’s time to put a bit more of myself into my post now.
Impression and intuition exist to warns us of dangers before we actually get harms. This happens at a subconscious level. They often hold us back when there is actually no danger, or lead us to make wrong decisions (emotional decisions based on no actual evidence).
When we become aware of the above, we then know the way to check if our impression/intuition is right or wrong is to check the facts. Of course some facts are easy to check, others arn’t.
Ben Wan recently posted..How to Get Started With Social Bookmarking
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Wonderful and how perfect. Today we discussed fears in business on both my radio shows and I came away with the same conclusion.
How many times am I holding myself back by not looking at the situation and not being swayed by the condition.
BTW I came here because of your comment in #blochat about reading folks blogs and tweets to get to know them. Found that very attractive
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Ben Wan Reply:
October 5th, 2010 at 9:39 am
Hi Michele,
Thanks for visiting my blog.
Since you wrote on social media. I’ll add, the same lesson apply: are we deciding not to use social media based on the impression: “social media are for the young people only”, “I don’t have time for this”, “it’s too hard to learn”, “social media is a waste of time”?
Ben Wan recently posted..How to Get Started With Social Bookmarking
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