SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE PART I

School of Athens

“We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.” Rabindranath Tagore

As we read the quote above we can think that the great question for us is the way you look at your life. All in life has two sides: good and bad. If you say yes to one other will disappears. It is like when you take a picture: you choose a person, or a flower or a landscape, when you say yes to one object you say no to the rest. The picture represents the memory of a choice we made in a certain time.

This article is to demonstrate how perspective can be a powerful skill in coaching. Here I have choose, or I mean, said yes to some skills will help another coaches.

According to http://www.semioticon.com/seo/P/perspective.html :

“Perspective is a method for producing realistic pictures. It is a mathematical system that indicates how a real-world scene would project to a vantage point. If a picture is to be produced, a picture surface is placed between the real-world scene and the vantage point. Each point of interest in the real-world scene is joined to the vantage point by a straight line. A depicting point is placed on the picture surface where the line intersects it. Perspective pictures look realistic because they recreate the pattern of light of the real-world scene.”

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An observer looking at the painting “The School of Athens” by Raphael (Figure 1) gets an impression similar to that from observing a real scene in Athens. In other words, the painting looks realistic. This realism is provided by perspective. Here, we outline the principles of perspective and show how vision uses perspective pictures.

Figure 1. Raphael’s (1483-1520) The School of Athens (1510-11), Stanza della Segnatura (Vatican).

So, perspective can be defined as a simulation of the real world. We can only simulate the reality. Every time we see the world our eyes and brain create a perception of what we are seeing. It is not the reality, they are signs, and they are representations of the world around us.

Every time I see I activate some filters, this can be my emotions, my beliefs, my culture, my imagination about the fact.

If I am in a place I have never been before I have different sensations in seeing persons, things, foods. If I do not know anything about the culture I can find wrong what they find right and vice-versa.

People has individual differences: own story, class, education, ethnic differences, personality types and gender, we are different as world observers, we are in different points of observation, we have different values and beliefs used as filters to see the world.

In coaching, it is important take this note: we are all human, we need love and be loved, respect and be respected, be successful and help people reach the success but the way we do this is different from person to person.

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