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BBH Feature: What If You’re Blind and You Don’t Realize It?

blind to opportunities, overlooked opportunities

The Blind Man Who Could Suddenly See

What would it be like to be blind and suddenly see?

Author Max Lucado tells the true story of a man named Bob Edens that this actually happened to.

You’ll want to make sure read his story. Why?

Because you’re about to realize you have more in common with this guy than you ever imagined.

But first, you have to hear Bob’s amazing story and experience what it’s like to see for the first time.

Listen as Lucado tells the story…

For 51 years Bob Edens was blind. He couldn’t see a thing. His world was a black hall of sounds and smells. He felt his way through five decades of darkness.

And then, he could see. A skilled surgeon performed a complicated operation and, for the first time, Bob Edens had sight. He found it overwhelming.

‘I never would have dreamed that yellow is so…yellow,’ he exclaimed.

“‘I don’t have the words. I am amazed by yellow. But red is my favorite color. I just can’t believe red. I can see the shape of the moon–and I like nothing better than seeing a jet plane flying across the sky leaving a vapor trail.

“And of course, sunrises and sunsets. And at night I look at the stars in the sky and the flashing light. You could never know how wonderful everything is.

What If You Aren’t Aware That You’re Blind? 

You might be thinking, “Well, that’s interesting, but I’m not blind.”

Oh really?

Three years ago I read a book about the brain called, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by a guy named David Eagleman.

We assume that we see all there is, hear all there is, and feel all that there is.

But, in reality, we don’t perceive all that there is.

Eagleman says, “We don’t have the ability to perceive the entire electromagnetic spectrum, only a part of it. The part of the light spectrum that is visible to us is less than a trillionth of it.

“The rest of the spectrum – carrying TV shows, radio signals, microwaves, X-rays, gamma rays, cell phone conversations, and so on – flows through us without us having any clue it’s happening.”

He goes on to say, “Honeybees, by contrast, include information carried on ultraviolet wavelengths in their reality, and rattlesnakes include infrared in their view of the world.”

He says that we assume that a person born blind notices the blackness of their world and misses the fact that they can’t see.

But Eagleman says that in reality they don’t.

They aren’t aware of anything else. They don’t miss it, because they’ve never been able to sense anything else.

It’s the same way we don’t notice the “blackness” of not being able to sense ultraviolet waves or infrared waves.

If a honeybee or a rattlesnake realized we were blind to these things, then they would pity us for all that we aren’t aware of.

But we never stop for even a moment to mourn our blindness in these areas!

You see? Our blindness isn’t something we’re really aware of!

Bob Eden wasn’t aware of all he was not seeing, until he could finally see.

And after that moment, he couldn’t stop being amazed by all he was once blind to.

Two Things We’re All Blind To

There are two ways that most of us our blind in our lives and we don’t even realize it:

1. Problems

I am sure that you are aware of some problems in your life or business already.

And I bet you’re focused constantly on them.

But there are problems in your life or business that you’ve become so used to that you don’t even see them anymore.

It’s the classic frog in the boiling water analogy

ANIMAL LOVERS: No animals were hurt in the making of this video. Please go to 1:56 in the video to see what I mean.

2. Opportunities

There are opportunities that are surrounding us every day, but we don’t see them.

We’re too focused on the problems that we’re aware of or the opportunities that we’re hunting down to pay attention and see the opportunities that are right under our noses!

It’s the classic story that Russell Conwell made famous in his “Acres of Diamonds” speech.

You can listen to this story as told by Earl Nightingale…

The only way to fight this blindness is by taking time to think, pay attention, and look for these things we’ve become blind to.

As I told you before in my last post...

Your main problem is NOT with time management.

Your main problem is with ATTENTION Management.

Taking time to think, pay attention, and look for these things is the type of effort most people ignore and so their results stay the same.

If you want to see new and different results in your life and business in 2016, then you need to make time every day to ask yourself two simple questions:

  • What problems have I become blind to?
  • What opportunities am I overlooking?

The Four Kinds of Effort, Four Kinds of Results

There are four basic types of effort that produce four different results in our life.
(And only one of those is the life-changing kind of results.)

Most of us end up focusing on three of these these types of effort, but only a few focus on the fourth kind.

And those people who do, experience a different kind of results than the rest of us.

If you’d like to learn more about these three different types of effort and the three different results, then sign-up below and you can watch a video that I created for you that’s all about these thing.

This FREE Video Will Reveal What We Do Can About Our Blindness

In this 19:27 minute video, you’ll discover:

  • What we can learn about the type of effort we need to focus on from one of the most dominant players in American college basketball history
  • What the four basic types are and why only two of them are the ones we should be focusing on, if we want to see new and better results
  • The important truth we need to realize about our daily rituals
  • 7 questions you need to ask yourself about your daily rituals
  • 3 basic areas we should focus on, if we want to fight off the daily thieves and get new and better results
  • And more

Plus by signing up, you’ll be the first to know about two other videos that I’ll be posting where you’ll learn more about how to get unstuck and get more done. 

They are a part of a 3-video series I’m calling, “The Dangers of a Busy Life”.

Here are some of the things I’ll share in these two other videos:

  • The power of doing nothing
  • Why we need to become “misers of moments”
  • Why we also need to beware of the barrenness of a busy life
  • The only antidote for interruption
  • Why we need to move from amateur to artist when it comes to how we handle time
  • And more

And through all of this, you’ll learn more about my simple solution that will help any of us to become more focused, more effective, and more creative and how you can begin using it in your life.

 

Photo by Isengardt

About Scott Aughtmon (1958 Articles)
I’m author of the book 51 Content Marketing Hacks. I am also a regular contributor to ContentMarketingInstitute.com and I am the person behind the popular infographic 21 Types of Content We Crave. I’m a business strategist, consultant, content creation specialist, and speaker. I’ve been studying effective marketing and business methods (both online and offline) since 1999. ===> If you would like to see ways that we could work together, then please click here to learn more.