Allowing for Bull

It is worth reading the book, “How to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie. The name sounds terrible. I put off reading it for years because the title seemed repulsively insecure and insincere. I was wrong. There are very valuable principles clearly articulated. One of those key ideas is building on what people say. We want feedback. But we want feedback in a way that we actually believe that the person giving it wants us to move forward. We want to feel like they are being constructive. If you are constantly niggling at someone, and tearing them down, what you are not doing, is allowing a Bull Quota. A Bull Quota is when you suspend your disbelief. Allowing a buffer for things that can distract you from the important stuff. That quota can eventually be full, but not allowing it prevents deep listening. Like when you are watching a movie. If you are intent on critiquing each word and pointing out the holes, you won’t be able to enjoy the story. Are you looking for the truth in the story? Are you even looking for something that contributes? Because everything has gaps and holes, as we clumsily try to communicate from one grasp at reality to another. Don’t live in the holes.

Don't prematurely call Bull

 

Flour for Grain

The temporary problem that you are solving is not the point. If you need to switch grain for flour, why? Flour does not define your life. It is just the immediate exchange that is happening. That is why we need to talk about money. It is one of the topics we typically avoid because it feels dirty. Avoiding uncomfortable conversations like sex, religion, and politics. We end up carrying the baggage packed through a stuffed relationship with money. The sense of not having enough. Envy. A sense of too much. Guilt. A sense of it controlling us. Frustration. Of it controlling others. Jealousy and neglect. Of not understanding it. Confusion. Money as a hovering external presence. There are basics you just learn. That you copy till you understand. If you fear numbers, you must not fear learning. You must not fear unpacking your fear.

Operation of a Ball Mill

Unpacking Constructively

We haven’t got shared words. Words are imperfect, but useful if they connect us. If they move the conversation forward. Words are models of reality. I am a Soutie with one foot in South Africa, and one foot in the UK. After “persistent problems with salient collective terminology” (Peter Aspinall), the UK office for national statistics defines ethnicity as “something that is subjectively meaningful to the person concerned”. I reluctantly tick White African with half a nod to the colourblind dream of the Rainbow Nation, and half a nod to the reality of persistent bias in all the companies I worked in, and both countries I have lived in. The latest stab at a word for ethnicity that doesn’t sit well for me in the UK is “Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic”. BAME. “Black” people are not a minority in South Africa, and they are only a minority in wealthy countries because our Nations were consciously constructed by race. Creating minorities. Borders don’t interest me much. Religions, nations, companies, races, numbers, and words are imperfect models of a much more complicated reality. The key is unpacking constructively.

2011 UK Census Ethnic Group