Something really important the toilet taught me
By Angela Guido
When I was 8, I drank toilet water. I was playing truth or dare with some friends, and even at that young age, I was never one to back down from a challenge.
The fact that I actually followed through on the dare and lived to tell about it is not what makes this story interesting, though. What makes the story interesting was my rationale as I confidently plunged my cupped hand into the bowl.
See, the way we played truth or dare, we didn’t ever really use the truth option. Instead we’d give two dare options and force each other into embarrassing situations that usually involved kissing boys. We’d make the alternative dangerous or super gross, so the only viable option was to kiss somebody or write a love note or make some other embarrassing gesture of affection towards someone you may or may not have actually liked. This is how Jolie was forced to kiss Carlos and Nicole was forced to send a love letter to the guy she sat next to in science class. We made the alternative unthinkable.
So when “drink toilet water” was my alternative to declaring undying love for my most profound crush at the time, Andy Waltman, I jumped at it. “That’s stupid!” I said. “That’s not even a dare! There’s no tinkle or poop in there, it’s just water!”
And so I drank it. Then I smugly rejoined the group thinking that my intellect had allowed me to gain the upper hand in this game. (Those who know me well would probably say I have always been a bit of a know-it-all, even when — or particularly when? — such an attitude really wasn’t warranted.)
Now, as an adult, having cleaned and repaired several toilets in the course of my life, I understand the hilarious folly and danger of my young presumptions. Now I know that if the mineral buildup in the tank or the bacteria swimming in the bowl post-flush doesn’t kill you, the toxic chemicals we use to clean it will.
So what’s the lesson here?
Your ability to make good choices is limited by the degree to which you understand how things really work.
This is a lesson I learned somewhat late in life, and only after many other embarrassing mistakes.
If you aren’t asking questions and seeking to understand how things really work behind appearances — though it probably won’t kill you — it will limit your opportunities for advancement (and possibly cause embarrassment). Knowing how your role, your team, your division, and your company fit into the bigger marketplace will help you make better choices and do better work.
If you are challenging yourself, tackling a continually steep learning curve, getting promoted to more authority and power, and managing more and more people, at each turn, you’ll be in at least slightly over your head on a regular basis. To really do your best work under uncertain circumstances, you need to know how your work fits into the bigger picture of what everyone else is doing, what the organization needs, and what your managers, customers, and stakeholders value.
If you want to get better at asking intelligent questions to understand yourself and the big picture in the world, here is a quick exercise to do every day to…
Build Your Big Picture Awareness Muscle.
- Once a day, stop.
2. Look at what you are doing.
3. Ask yourself, how did this thing (hamburger, doctor, text book, website, cash machine, whatever!) come to be serving me right now?
4. Probe a bit more and see if you can map out the supply chain or life cycle of that product or service. Use the Four W’s + H: Who, What, When, Where, and How?
5. Bonus step 1: On days when you have five free minutes, do a little internet research to validate your suppositions.
6. Bonus step 2: Talk to your friends about it. Put your heads together and see if you can actually answer some of these questions.
Want a more intimate exercise that makes this more personal to you and helps you create big picture thinking in your job? Go download our 19 Questions to Expand Your Impact Exercise.
If you do it right now, you are probably reading this article on a smartphone or a computer screen. If you try to trace the value chain of that device back to its basic elements, you’re soon going to learn that your iPhone is a veritableUnited Nations of manufacturers.
However far you take your research, asking these questions will begin to make you more aware of how the world works. And more importantly, it will also teach you to start thinking bigger picture — to not take the reality you see for granted and to think beyond the obvious.
Make More Confident Choices
Then you can apply your Big Picture Awareness Muscle to your own impact.
Today, you might be building a financial model, but understanding the outcome of that model, how it is used, and what decisions it helps drive, will help you move up that chain of impact and advance closer to the position of decision-maker, get the skills you need to advance, and build relationships with the right supporters and political allies to move upward quickly.
And perhaps most importantly, it will help ensure that when you actually get to the top, you won’t inadvertently and unknowingly make the choice that amounts to drinking the toilet water.
Just to make sure you aren’t drinking toilet water, pop over to my website and download my 19 Questions to Expand Your Impact Exercise to make this all more personal and real for your career in your own experience.
This post was originally published at Career Protocol by Angela Guido.
