“I cleaned up your face today”, my Grandpa would tell my sister & me when we answered the phone.

I don’t suspect that he grew up realizing that he’d spend every Friday morning performing the thankless task of dusting but my Grandma ran a tight ship & he was an early adopter of husbands helping with household chores.

And there was plenty to do. Their house was spotless.

Well, at least compared to mine. Is this a good time to point out that Generation X women mostly work full time?

One day, I reached into the fridge for the orange Tupperware container of freshly shaken Minute Maid & noticed something shocking:

The side of the refrigerator was…not white. Not even subtly off-white. Not “maybe it’s the lighting”.

This was a full-on amber film.

How had this happened? Surely this was recent. I imagined my Grandpa about to receive a corrective action plan.

A few weeks later, I checked again, fully expecting it to be as white as Ross Geller’s teeth.

Ladies & gentlemen, it was not.

They clearly didn’t even see it. I would bet my 13 lb cat on the fact that this refrigerator would be sparkling if they did.

How many times did they walk up to that thing every day to pull out the milk carton or add another Cool Whip bowl full of homemade baked beans?

And yet, the grime never made it to their conscious awareness.

This is mental filters in action, folks.

We take in millions of bits of information every second, and our brain filters out most of it. Not because it’s lazy. Because it has to.

It decides what matters. What gets noticed. What gets ignored.

It’s the same reason you buy a new car and suddenly see three of them on your 7-minute drive to Target.

The good news?

Filters aren’t fixed.

You can train your brain to start noticing possibilities instead of problems. The path starts to light up light a yellow brick road.

If you’re curious about how to shift your filters so they work for you instead of against you, click the button at the top of the page to schedule a free consultation.

P.S. We never spoke of the fridge. I am literally airing dirty family secrets to make my point. Wish me luck at the next family wedding where I’ll likely be sitting in the annex next to the men’s bathroom.