There’s a JLG lift at work near my office. If you don’t know what a JLG lift is, it’s basically a fancy ladder on wheels. It’s a boom lift like you would see on a lineman’s cherry picker truck - except minus the truck. And it beeps. And beeps. Every time the boom moves, it beeps. Which means background noise for me.
Try as I may, it shows up in my zoom calls, my podcasts, my phone conversations. Everything.
While we were getting off the phone the other day, my wife said, “I hope that beeping stops for you.” I honestly hadn’t heard it in a bit. It just was in the background. I wasn’t conscious of it at that time.
There’s this thing called the Johari window that breaks up our awareness into 4 categories:
1. I’m aware and you’re aware
2. I’m aware and you’re not aware
3. I’m not aware, but you are
4. Neither of us are aware
What background noise is in your background that you’re unaware of but other people can hear? What can you hear in the background of other people’s lives that they can’t hear?