In this brief reflective monologue, the speaker delivers a "moment of yes" for June 16, using the iceberg analogy to illustrate how socially conscious entrepreneurs—and people in general—often only see the visible tip of a person's public persona. He argues that judgments based solely on this surface miss the deeper, hidden 90% of a person's experience and motivations. By intentionally practicing vulnerability, the speaker explains that one can foster empathy and compassion, encouraging others to lower their own defenses and reveal more of their hidden selves. This deeper understanding enables more compassionate, safe interactions and better relationships. The talk concludes with a call to stop judging based on the tip of the iceberg and to strive to dig deeper in our daily encounters.
Chapters
Good morning, everyone. Here is your moment of yes for today. What is it? Today is June 16th. It is Wednesday, June 16th. I am in the middle of teaching my Watson class, long Zoom days. So they are on a break right now. So time for me to get a moment of yes. So one of the concepts we're talking about, these are socially conscious entrepreneurs, so is the iceberg model or the iceberg effect. Or the root cause analysis, which essentially means whatever issue you're looking at in society, it's like looking at the tip of an iceberg, or maybe 10% of it is above the surface, but it's actually 90% of the real problem, or the real issue is what's going on under the surface. And we've all heard the iceberg analogy before, but I think it's a great reminder to remember that as we interact with people, As we interact with really anything, but as we interact with people on a day-to-day basis, it's really important to remember that we're really, we're just interacting with the tip of the iceberg, right? We're only interacting with the public-facing image, the public-facing personality, whatever is really that they feel comfortable showing in public. And so as we interact with people, we We're just kind of interacting sort of the tip of the iceberg to the tip of the iceberg. And so we're not getting the full picture. We're not getting what's really going on in their world. We're not getting what's really going on in their head. And so when we only see people for what is showing up above the surface, and we're making judgments about people for what is showing up above the surface, we don't get a real clear idea of who that person is and what they're about. It's been my experience, and hopefully I'm getting better at it, that, you know, the, the, the better relationships you create with people, the more vulnerable— the more vulnerable you are. Interesting that I screwed up vulnerable, vulnerable, thus making myself vulnerable. The more vulnerable you are, uh, the more empathic you are, the more compassionate you are, uh, people start to let you see further down the iceberg. They start to open up. They be— they're more trusting. They're more vulnerable themselves. And so I just think it's important that whenever we run into a situation, we run into a person where we just don't get why they're behaving or acting the way that they are, or we think to ourselves they shouldn't be behaving that way, it's— we have to remind ourselves that we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. And perhaps there's more going on there underneath the surface that if we knew, we would probably treat them a little bit differently. And so, and then maybe we can show up differently in a way that creates a safe environment, safe relationship for them. So there you have it. Stop judging the tip of the iceberg and see if we can dig a little bit deeper. That's your moment of yes for today, Wednesday, June 16th. Have a great day, everybody.
