#135: Humans Are More Interesting Than The Grand Canyon
It's people like Pip who inspire me to look at everyday things a bit differently. Like this morning, when my laptop, which is about 7 years old, was being super slow... first my frustration made me wanna slam it shut. And then I thought to myself, what an incredible man-made thing this machine actually is. And how human beings really are a rather remarkable, emotional yet innovative, and highly intelligent species whose achievements often go unnoticed. Thank you Pip for motivating a shifted perspective towards admiration for humankind.
- Amanda
Pip Coburn pcoburn@coburnventures.com
HUMANS ARE MORE INTERESTING THAN THE GRAND CANYON
I think we seem to take ourselves – us 7 billion humans now, and the ones in our lineage -- and what we have accomplished so far -- for granted.
I don’t think we think highly of ourselves… as we had a human community scale “we esteem” issue. We would never have required Nike to tell us “Just Do It” if we lived in the space of knowing we can do it.
But maybe worse…
…I think we just take ourselves for granted not recognizing what an amazing species we are.
Here is my test…
We collectively (as 7 billion humans) contemplate the cosmos and beyond pondering if there might be life that is more advanced than us humans out there – itself a backhanded compliment that we actually DO realize that we are pretty extraordinary in our capacity.
It is a KEY question for us… is there life out there?
We don’t so much ponder if there is, for instance, another “Grand Canyon” out there in the universe… and the Grand Canyon is pretty cool for sure, but if I had to pick which is more incredible between a human being and the Grand Canyon? Easy. Goes to the humans.
…and yet back here on earth, we treat the Grand Canyon as super special, but individual humans as common.
It's messed up. If contextually ANY of us 7 billion were discovered on another galaxy or planet, we would automatically get a booking on Oprah, huh?
But…
There are 7 billion of us here so we seem dime a dozen to one another. Abundance seems to confuses us perhaps.
Stunningly, day by day, we just walk by others not realizing they could EASILY be on Oprah with a different context!! Celebrities for just existing.
Hah!
… I think I will say hi more often to others as if they were just discovered somewhere else in the galaxy and were the coolest things ever… even when they are grumpy.
Cheers
Pip's first-person bio:
More than anything I suspect I am driven by “community”. Across the past 15in years, I have grown to realize that most any success or fortune I have had in the work I do I have re-invested back into my activities such that I spend more and more of my life with people I adore and admire and just loving being around and working on a whole bunch of things that I am incredibly excited about. I like to study monumental change at the levels of society, marketplaces, organizations and most significantly… people. I like to study culture deeply. I like to attempt to create culture. I like processes and helping others advances their processes and being trusted deeply. My wife Kelly is both supportive and probably confused by what I do for a living which makes two of us. My greatest joy in my work is when I have the chance to draw from two decades of intense work in order to perhaps help someone have a break through.