"Maxim" ize Your Perspectives

“Perspective is the most valuable commodity on the planet. Your point of view can change the most drastic of circumstances into the most powerful of positive experiences.”
     David Allen, Efficiency Coach


“Think like a photographer, circling your subject, snapping pictures from every angle and perspective. Then choose the perspectives that are the most useful, that will best serve your intention.”
     Dale Cobb

“Choice of attention, to pay attention to this and ignore that,, is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer.”
     W.H. Auden, Poet


“Fear to me is like a high energy candy bar.”
     Chuck Yeager, Test Pilot, First Pilot To Break The Sound Barrier


“What is the value of a different point of view? Observe the difference between professional and home movies. How many cameras? How many seconds, on average, do you think the standard scene (point of view ) lasts in a professional movie? Watch a movie and see. The standard number of cameras in professional work is three (and there may be many more). Individual shots last only about 5 seconds before switching cameras and point of view. Shots in commercials last about one second. The viewer is constantly given new information or insight that would be impossible with just one camera from a single viewpoint. In techniques and exercises, try placing point of view overhead or to the side then “watching” yourself as if moving through water complete with a bubble trail. Pick a topic and argue it from both sides. Practice looking at other possibilities. ‘The flip side is….’”
     C.M. Shifflett, From Aikido: Exercises for Teaching and Training


“If your eye (gr. Ophthalmos vision, perspective, – way of looking at things) causes you to stumble (sin gr. Hamartia, miss the mark… an archery term), throw it out.”
     Jesus Christ from Mark 9:47


“It’s important to change your perspective, maybe by living or traveling extensively or abroad. Shifting your stance changes you. You take the same set of facts and shift the vantage point and everything looks different.”
     John Sculley, Former Ceo of Apple Computer


“Perspective is no more or no less than how you see things, your particular frame of reference.”
     Warren Bennis, Leadership Expert


“Point of view is worth 80 I.Q. points.”
     Marvin Minsky, Artificial Intelligence Pioneer


“I use two analytic skills in everything. One is perspective – I like multiple frames of reference. And I always look for the heart of the issue, the core.”
     Roger Gould


“We look at art from 360 degrees. The only problem is we forget to do that with our lives.”
     Andy Warhol, Pop Artist


“These jobs call for relative realists rather than the hard-charging individuals who populate the ranks of the million dollar-seller clubs. There are also more senior managerial and professional jobs that require an extremely keen sense of reality, jobs where optimism must be restrained and where mild pessimism can be a virtue. These jobs need people who know when not to charge ahead, and when to err on the side of caution. Mild pessimists do well in these fields: Design and safety engineering, Technical and cost estimating, Contract negotiation, Financial control and accounting, Law (but not litigation), Business administration, Statistics, Technical writing, Quality control, Personnel and industrial-relations management.”
      Martin Seligman, Author of Learned Optimism, Professor at the University of Pennsylvania



“The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
      Marcel Proust



“Jesus said, ‘If thine eye causeth thee to sin, pluck it out,’ a hard saying that seems to make little practical sense. But in the original Greek, the word used is ophthalmos. It meant the physical eye but it also meant point of view. Does your point of view cause you to be dark and negative? Better to change it than fill yourself with darkness.”
     C. M. Shifflett


“Your very point of view, believe it or not is an asset.”
     Jay Abraham, Marketing Expert


“In the medical field when they are trying to find a malady they’ll perform a cat scan which is looking at an area of the body up and down, sideways, externally, and pivotally and they look at it from so many points of view until aha, they finally see the problem or opportunity to change or eliminate in a manner that no one else has seen.”
     Jay Abraham, Marketing Expert



“There are 360 degrees and 360 perspectives on anything. Often attitude is only in terms of good or bad, positive or negative. The perspectives approach includes attitudes and is much more expansive.”
     Dale Cobb


“The way you look at things determines what you see. An apple to a hungry person is something to eat; to Cezanne, it’s the subject of a painting or series of paintings; to a biblical scholar, it’s the embodiment of man’s disobedience, the reason for our loss of Eden. Your model of the world, the place your coming from, your presuppositions: All these determine how you interpret experience.”
     Anne Linden, Author of Mindworks, NLP Authority


“I am convinced by my own experience, and by that of others, that if there is any secret of success it lies in the ability to get another person’s point of view and see things from there angle as well as from your own.”
     Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company


“Before you take a 180 do a 360.”
     Dale Cobb


“The way we see the problem is the problem.”
     Stephen Covey


“Being is seeing in the human dimension.”
     Stephen Covey


“The way we see things is the source of the way we think and the way we act.”
     Stephen Covey


“As clearly and objectively as we see things, we begin to realize that others see them differently from there very own apparently equally clear and objective point of view. Where we stand depends on where we sit.”
     Stephen Covey

“Change occurs spontaneously when we see things differently.”
     Stephen Covey

“To make significant, quantum change, we need to work on how we see things.”
    Stephen Covey


“Always try to see the situation from the other persons point of view.”
     Lee Iacocca, Chrysler CEO


“Those who follow the part of themselves that is great will become great. Those who follow the part that is small will become small.”
     Mencius


“The most fatal illusion is the settled point of view. Life is growth and motion; a fixed point of view kills anybody who has one.”
     Brooks Atkinson


“We are not disturbed by things, but by the views we take of things.”
     Epictetus, Stoic Philosopher, From The Encheiridion


“We all see things differently and that’s why our point of view is at the heart of every single problem that we have.”
     Morris Massey, College Professor and Expert on Personal Values


If you need more clarity, lift the altitude of your focus. If you are busy and unclear, go back to your plans. If you are planning and unclear, lift up to brainstorm and get the inputs you may be missing. If you are brainstorming and unclear, revisit your vision for more specificity. If you are visioning and unclear, return to your purpose. Clarity is never found within something that is unclear. You must loosen your grip, let go, and lift your sights.
      David Allen


To gain a fresh perspective on your world, try actually looking at life through a child’s eyes. Get down on the floor and look up at a world that is bigger than you, often out of focus, composed mainly of feet and knees and beltloops.
     Thomas Kincade


To gain a new perspective, our questions must be simple and profound. What is important? Who is important? What are we going to do about it?
     Don Osgood


Keeping your focal point in view is crucial to making the decisions that keep life balanced. A distinct focal point is as important to a peaceful life as it is to a peaceful work of art.
     Thomas Kincade

Successful people are able to distinguish between a reality and a perspective.
     Dale Cobb