Answering this question changed my life.
Here goes….
“You’re in a boat on a lake. What’s the first thing you notice?”
Got your answer in mind? Good.
WTF is this?
The idea here is that the human brain has one way of primarily processing the world. You’re either visual, auditory or kinesthetic. Answering this question helps put you in one of the three buckets. With that in mind, here are the most common responses and what they mean…
The sun, sky or something similar.
This means that your primary way of taking in the world is visual. 60% of humans think this way, which makes sense since about a third of your brain is dedicated to processing visual information.
The sensation of the boat rocking on the water.
This means your primary way of taking in the world is kinesthetic/feelings. This is 30% of the world, including my husband. He gives great hugs.
The sound of the water lapping against the side of the coat.
If you got this, your primary way of taking in the world is auditory. This is 10% of the population, including yours truly. I tell this story when I’m getting to know someone as a friend, and-or to kill time as a bar trick. At this point in the question-reveal process, I usually get asked a few questions, so I thought I’d throw them in here, in case you have them, too.
Really? Are you kidding?
No, I am not kidding. The sound of that water… that’s what I get, every time. In fact, as shocked as some of you may be that I’m focusing on the water? That’s how floored I was when I learned that most of the world looked at the sun or something.
How did you take that test?
My father was a business consultant and this question was one of the measures he used to tell if someone was aligned to the right job or not.
The test stuck with me and got me interested in the other 90% of the world. Mostly, I’ve tried to understand more of the visual thinkers because that’s what our culture is mostly about. So, I’ve taken drawing classes and followed art and design. My default is to care about the story behind the artist, how it fits into other stories, and what the image is trying to say, but I’ve learned about line, color, and balance, too. All in all, I can bend myself a bit, but there are limits. At the end of the day, everything is a story for me. For example, I have a hard time sharing pictures of my food for this reason. No story there. It looks good. Meh. Boring.
I like pics like the one below. Here, my dog Ruby is glaring at me because I couldn’t find her leash and strapped her up with one of my husband’s belts again. Story time!
And there’s a challenge to being auditory, too. That belt pic sums it up. If doing something moves the story ahead, I do it. In the pic above, I grabbed a belt because it got the job done. I honestly don’t give a crap if it looks weird. Some people think that’s awesome. Others don’t. This used to bug me, but one of the great things about being over forty is that my ‘give a fuck’ meter is almost always close to zero. Yay aging!
So why share all this? Hopefully, my little question gave you something to add to your personal story as well. For better or worse, that’s what I care about 
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