Our Co-Contributor Is Right

In a business gathering, I came across a gentleman who I admired from the moment we met. After the networking event, we spent the rest of the evening together. He was talking about his life, his experiences, his believes, and his understanding of the world.

We clicked at the first sight. Twenty years later he is still my friend.

Throughout our relationship his life circumstances kept on changing and so did his opinion. When he was contributing to my undertakings, his suggestions would shift according to his life situations. Sometimes contradicting his past suggestions.

Despite this deficiency still he was and to this day remains one of my important Co-Contributors. His suggestions were one of the possible, amongst many, solutions to solving the issue on hand. He was not intentionally changing his mind but rather he was changing his suggestions as he was growing. He was offering his contributions as he was receiving new information, experiences, and having a better understanding of how things worked.

If we appreciate our Co-Contributors the way they are, we cherish them and value their opinion. Each one of us have our own experiences that form the story that we tell ourselves. These stories shape our worldview. From our perspective our way is the right way in that particular moment. As time goes by, our story might shift and so does our suggestion to others.

In fact, we all form our opinion based on our experiences. What we know, what information we have and what information was provided to us all play a role in shaping our opinion. Basically, how we were brought up and continue to be growing, impact our outlook. These experiences constantly shift and so does our suggestion to our Co-Contributors.

We have to believe that everyone is right from their perspective. We all have our own way of looking at things. We have to learn that the stories we tell ourselves are different and therefore we contribute differently at different times. We are not an exception, we all change as we grow.

As a receiver of suggestions from our Co-Contributor, we should value their suggestion as a contribution in that particular moment. Each one of us understand our own circumstances better. So, we should assess our Co-Contributor's suggestions according to our situation. Even better, it is much wiser to have more than one Co-Contributor so that we can compare and contrast their suggestions and accommodate according to our circumstances.