In our journey of becoming better, we’ll encounter new concepts, different perspectives, and unique tactics & strategies; all aimed at making the most of our lives through Directed Action. To keep our terminology straight, we will establish an anchor for each powerful concept or idea. To better understand what an anchor is, let’s engage our imagination!
ANCHORS: THE WATERMELON METAPHOR
Close your eyes. In your mind’s eye, picture a watermelon.
Can you see it clearly? Take a moment to examine it more closely – focus on its unique details. Is your image of a sliced watermelon, or whole? Can you see the cutting board it’s on, a nearby knife, any seeds? How deep and juicy is the red in your watermelon? Is there more than one shade of green along the skin? How deep is the contrast between those shades of green?
Now compare the watermelon as you currently see it to the watermelon you pictured a few moments ago. It’s very likely that the form of your imaginary watermelon significantly changed!
Once we begin to examine an idea in detail, we develop a truer picture of what that idea represents. In this case, our idea is “what a watermelon looks like,” with “watermelon” acting as our agreed-upon word representing the colorful fruit. From the start to the end of this exercise, the word “watermelon” doesn’t change, yet somehow our interpretation of the word is much different – more detailed and perhaps even a bit more realistic! We have just upgraded our mutual watermelon anchor. An anchor is an agreed-upon word or phrase which represents a concrete idea or concept.
LEVELING UP OUR THOUGHTS AND OUR COMMUNICATION
The complexity of an anchor can be as detailed or simple as we choose. The more complex an anchor, the greater our need to be in complete agreement as to what it represents. To truly succeed in becoming better together, we must speak and think using the the same anchors or we risk derailing our ability to understand each other’s ideas.
As this blog continues, we’ll be creating new anchors to level up our mutual communication and thoughts. Each of these anchors will be defined in a single post, then repeated in context in future posts. Each time an existing anchor is first referenced in a post, the word will hotlink back to its original definition. I will also use WordPress to tag each anchor referenced in the post, if the concept is expanded or used as an example. Over time, we will compile a linked list of anchors, allowing us to easily reference and research ways to use that anchor – developing a truer representation (a greater mutual understanding) of the idea than could be written into a single post!
Thanks John !