Business Book Review: Liminal Thinking by Dave Gray
If you’re a leader or personal development proponent, add ‘Liminal Thinking’ to your language and mindset.
My Rating: ★★★★
Length: 186 pages
Publisher: Two Waves Books
Released: 2016
Key Takeaways for Personal Branding
As the foreword of Liminal Thinking shares, it’s a powerful idea you aren’t sure why you haven’t heard of more often - if at all.
Dave Gray highlights that change starts by changing the way you think. It’s a common concept - yet a uniquely packaged idea. Gray delivers not another book about exploring what’s on the other side of your comfort zone, but rather paying attention to the boundary of your comfort zone itself.
What is liminal thinking?
Liminal means boundary, doorway or portal. Not the old way or new way, but the threshold itself - which is the meaning of the Latin root word Limen. Because this is opening to change:
“Once you see the boundaries of your environment, they are no longer the boundaries of your environment.”
The key is learning how to open this door:
“Have you had moments like this in your life when you suddenly saw things in a new and different way? A new way of seeing the world—and yourself—opens the door to change and growth. You can cultivate a way of thinking and being that will allow you to have these breakthrough insights more often…This way of thinking is a practice you can use to find and create new doorways to possibilities, doorways that are invisible to others. I call this practice liminal thinking.”
Liminal Thinking proposes that change happens at:
“…the boundary between the known and the unknown, the familiar and the different, between the old way and the new way, the past and the future.”
Instead of being one or the other, it’s between the space that defines two things.
Liminal thinking is recognising that there are thresholds, doors or opportunities around you all the time. Most of the time, they are invisible to you because you’re busy focusing on the definable things.
Liminal moments occur every day - in the shower, the first moments as you wake up or the last moments before you fall asleep. The moments when your mind relaxes and opens to new possibilities.
Limiting beliefs create limiting thinking
Gray proposes in Liminal Thinking, the most important material to understand is belief:
“Liminal thinking is the art of creating change by understanding, shaping, and reframing beliefs.”
Our beliefs create blind spots. Liminal and limit share the same Latin root.
People will first test ideas for internal coherence and then test for external validity. However, people rarely test ideas because their bubble prevents internal coherence to a new possibility. Beliefs are inherently designed to defend themselves. So, testing your belief takes a new level of awareness and proactivity in acknowledging your boundary.
The four rooms
The Johari Window is a framework developed by two psychologists (Joe and Harry) to help you understand yourself, and Gray links it as a valuable tool for liminal thinking.
Imagine you are a building with four rooms. They are either:
Open: This is the public you - both you and others know, e.g. your job title and hair colour.
Hidden: This is the private you. What you know about yourself that others don’t, e.g. the feelings you conceal
Unknown: The things you don’t know about yourself and neither do others, e.g. feelings or capabilities you’re unaware of.
Blind spots: The things others can see about you that you’re unaware of, e.g. maybe you’re seen as pushy.
The key is becoming aware of the different possible parts of you, including what you know or don’t know.
Empty your cup
Opening the doorway to new possibilities means not allowing existing knowledge, theories, assumptions and preconceptions to get in the way. In Zen practice, this is the beginner’s mind. It’s taking on an attitude that is open, curious and eager to learn. And, even if you believe yourself to be an expert in something, coming to that thing with a clean slate of a student mindset. Feeling vulnerable so you can rewire your mind.
Liminal Thinking by Dave Gray: Available on Amazon.
