As I witness my two-year-old son growing so quickly, there are days when I notice that he will say things I didn’t think he knew.

His cognitive development takes leap after leap when you least expect it.

What’s even more interesting is how present and pure they can be.

These balls of energy live life fearlessly as their true selves.

No worries about judgment for their actions or fear of consequences for giving their opinions or asking for what they want.

And when they want something, there is nothing holding them back.

If they don’t get it right away, they’ll b$tch, cry and complain until they get it!

What’s interesting is after working with so many adults, I’ve found that they all have three mental filters through which they process external data, to create internal perception, states of being, and eventually a response.

Have you ever noticed how our perception of the world can be influenced by our mental filters?

Let me explain what I mean.

For instance, my two-year-old son's cognitive development often surprises me, and it got me thinking about the mental filters we use as adults to process external data.

The three mental filters are Deletion, Generalization, and Distortion

Take my son’s picture with the aviator shades on. These could be like the filters of deletion. Someone could be feeling so confident and proud. Walking down the street with these shades on, but they don’t realize the background noise that’s happening. Do you hear the background noise happening right now? Probably not before you read this line. That’s because our brains only focus on the things we pay attention to, and will delete all the other things that seem less important.

Then you have the red glasses. These could be the filters of generalization. I know a guy who wore similar glasses. He had one bad encounter with the first Taiwanese person he met and until this day, he would avoid them like the plague. We all know that first impressions are important, so remember a single event can create a strong belief system for us all.

And then there are the blue frames which could be the distortion. A good example would be if you saw a stick, then your mind plays a trick on you and makes you believe it’s a snake. Your heart starts racing. Sweat starts dripping. You get scared you decide to scream while running the other way. Here the distortion is so strong, that your false perception of a snake leads to thoughts that feel very true to you.

Any of these sounding familiar?

Which filter do you think affects your life the most?

Now that you know about the three filters, I urge you to take a moment to slow down and think about which filters you’ve been using lately, and ask yourself if they’ve had a positive or negative effect on your life.

Is there something you need to change? Something you aren’t seeing?

You might uncover something interesting… and when you do, let me know in the comments below.

Happy Thursday!

Alex