Find Your Tribe

What does it take to shift your perspective? When was the last time you changed your thinking on a topic that you held to be fundamentally true?

We get wrapped up in our confirmation bias and it is difficult to move us off our position. Adding to the bias are our ingrained habits and absorbed environmental cues. And if that wasn't enough to keep us rooted in our beliefs, let's sprinkle traditions, family history and bake it in an oven of culture for a few hundred years. That should harden things up.

Facts do not change these dynamics. No amount of logic moves someone from one position to another. Our new president has folks running around talking about alternate facts. This is an interesting concept, no? X happens, you want it to be Y, so you just say Y is true. There, that was easy.

People are moved by emotion. Our fears, joys and sorrows are what guide our rational selves to create narratives. These narratives help shape our worldview, which nearly all of us believe to be 100% true, despite the reality that there are 7 billion of us on the planet, each with his or her own worldview that they think is correct.

Finding opportunities to share our stories is so important. We become connected and human through the specific details of what we are sharing. We relate. We empathize (those that are capable, anyway). We hold on to the common values that we hear in our stories and bind together.

We are a social animal. The tribe has always been crucial to our survival. Share your story. Find your tribe - get involved. Help.