THE THOUGHT

There was a time before COVID when most of us used to have watercooler stories. My favorite story was about Dan.

It was a Tuesday morning, and I'd cornered him near the coffee machine with what I thought was a brilliant change to our go-to-market strategy. Dan's responses came in clipped fragments. His eyes darted past me toward the hallway. When I paused for his reaction, he brushed past me with what felt like deliberate indifference.

I spent the rest of that morning replaying the interaction, gathering evidence of his dismissiveness. The way he barely looked at me. His rushed, almost irritated tone. The abrupt exit that left my enthusiasm hanging. Absolutely rude.

But then, the afternoon brought news of the incident. The story of a man who lost a brutal battle to food poisoning before reaching his destination. Dan wasn't dismissing my ideas. He'd been fighting something far more urgent than marketing plans.

THE DIVE

The Assumption Generator

Misattribution of intent is the mind's tendency to assign motives to others' actions based on incomplete information, filtered through our own emotional state and past experiences.

We do this constantly. The colleague who doesn't respond to your email becomes dismissive rather than overwhelmed. The friend who cancels dinner transforms from tired to uninterested. We fill gaps in understanding with assumptions that say more about us than them.

Beyond misjudgment, when we attribute intent, we're constructing a narrative that makes sense of uncertainty. Our brains prefer a coherent story to the discomfort of not knowing. So we assign motives that align with what we already believe about the person, the relationship, or ourselves.

Attribution often reflects our inner landscape. When we're feeling insecure, others seem critical. When we're angry, they appear deliberately provocative. When we're content, their actions feel neutral or even kind.

It’s the eternal illusion of understanding and control. If we can explain why someone acted as they did, we can predict and protect ourselves from future hurt.

But the stories we tell about others' intentions become our reality. We respond not to what happened, but to what we decided it meant. What if the motive you assigned was the one thing preventing you from seeing what was actually there?

THE PRACTICE

Pause Between Action and Story

Awareness lives in the gap between what someone does and what we decide it means.

This week, try catching yourself in the moment of attribution. Notice when you assign a motive to someone's behavior. The driver who cuts you off. The colleague who speaks over you. Ask yourself what else could be true. Recognize how quickly you moved from observation to explanation.

The practice is about becoming curious about your own interpretive process. What patterns emerge in the stories you tell? Discovery happens when you notice how your emotional state shapes the story you choose to believe.

The Dan incident forever changed my perception of social interactions. It became a reminder that behind every perceived slight might be someone who's barely holding it together. Where are your Dans?

I'd love to hear what you discover. Feel free to reply with your thoughts.