In my past, I was sent on several management trainings. One of them featured Zig Ziglar.
Zig, rest his soul, has written dozens of books and training products on selling and was a master in telling stories. There are a few that always makes me laugh, being a European not an American and it goes a bit like this…
Zig’s mother warned him when he was little: “Son, you should never tell anyone you are from Texas”.
Zig was confused about this and said: “Why not momma? Isn’t that something to be proud of?”.
And I am sure the reply was something like this “Being from Texas is the best thing there is son. But you know if you meet someone and they are from Texas, they’ll tell you. And if not, why embarrass them?”.
I used to be the same, I used to think “I’m from Holland, where the F.. you from?”. And even though it is true that where you were born and raised influences your world vision (amongst others find more in Hofstede’s culture comparison), I also believe that you can decide to expand your vision, and restrict your comments in the understanding that we are all biased, we don’t know the local situation and we are not all-knowing (and know what people need). I am taking action to get aware of my biases (based on this excellent article by Gareth Lock) and start to feel more like a world citizen, not only by traveling the world and talking to people but also because I follow the news through Feedly. In one of the next blogs, I will tell you more about it. Good luck!
