Approach to Life

You Are Wrong Often

Why I’m Wrong About Everything (And So Are You) by Mark Manson. Knowledge is an eternal iterative process. We don’t go from “wrong” to “right” once we discover the capital-T Truth. Rather, we go from partially wrong to slightly less wrong, to slightly less wrong than that, to even less wrong than that, and so on. We approach the capital-T truth, but never reach it…Being wrong means change. Being wrong means improvement.

Why You Can’t Trust Yourself by Mark Manson. Our brains are fundamentally unreliable, that we really have no clue what we’re talking about, even when we think we do, and so on. Bertrand Russell famously said, “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves and wiser people so full of doubts.”

Change Your Mind Often

It’s Okay To Change Your Mind by Darius Foroux. I used to think it’s bad to change your mind. “He doesn’t know what he wants” is what most people think when you change your mind…If you’re someone who always changes their mind, so what? Own it. If you’re the opposite, own that. The risk of changing your mind is that you allow others to influence your thinking…YOU also change all the time. If you learn a lot, you’re probably not the same person you were a year, month, week, and even a day ago. So if you think about it more deeply, it’s weird if you never change your mind. It’s the opposite of what most people think.

Why It Should Be Glamorous to Change Your Mind (theschooloflife.com). In an ideal, wiser culture than our own, the price of changing our minds would not be very high. It wouldn’t be embarrassing or shameful. Indeed, it would rightly – and with great justice – be understood as an attractive, alluring quality and a definitive sign of intelligence…Changing our minds delivers a calming, politically highly-consequential revelation: those on the other side of a debate might actually be nice. So disputes can’t be cast as stand-offs between bad people and good people (as we so often want to imagine). We can still disagree; we don’t need to hate.

Keep Changing Your Mind? According to Jeff Bezos, That’s a Sign of High Intelligence (inc.com). According to Bezos, changing your mind means that you’re open to new points of view, new information, and new ideas that contradict or challenge your way of thinking. This allows you to constantly revise your understanding, and reconsider problems that you thought you’ve solved. At the end of the day, you come up with more innovative approaches, and improve upon your existing solutions.

Why Jeff Bezos & Steve Jobs kept changing their mind (Medium). I learned that changing my mind is actually a good thing if done the right way.

1. I only change my mind when I have new data available that supports my new thinking, or strong emotional experiences that altered my opinion.
2. To change my mind I need to make a good case for WHY I changed it so people around me can follow. We know that changing our mind will harm our reputation in any case. So all it comes down to is minimizing the damage.

But the worst thing we can do is not changing our mind when data or experience clearly suggests that we should. The worst thing is being consistent for the sake of being consistent or from fear of upsetting other people. It means being stagnant without any progress.

Why You Shouldn’t Feel Guilty When You Change Your Mind About What You Want to Do (themuse.com). Changing your mind and adjusting your approach isn’t something worthy of shame or remorse. Instead, it’s a natural part of growing. It’s totally understandable (and even recommended) to find out what you like, what you don’t like, and keep making changes from there.

Being Wrong and Changing Your Mind by Michael Batnick. People like to talk about big ideas that they no longer subscribe to, but they often talk about the idea that they should throw away their ideas without using specifics. Why? Because changing your mind about big ideas is easier said than done.

This Article Won’t Change Your Mind (theatlantic.com). “A man with a conviction is a hard man to change,” Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schacter wrote in When Prophecy Fails, their 1957 book about this study. “Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point … Suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before.”

Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds by James Clear. We don’t always believe things because they are correct. Sometimes we believe things because they make us look good to the people we care about.

If You Can Change Your Mind, You Can Change Anything by Darius Foroux. The only philosophy that comes close to adopting this formless way of living is Pragmatism. A pragmatist looks at what works. Other than that, a pragmatist is agnostic. I change my mind all the time. In the past, I always thought that was a bad thing. But adopting a fluid mindset gives you more tools to adapt to change. To me, that’s the most important trait of the 21st century. We live in a world where our job can become obsolete tomorrow.

Stop Caring What Others Think

Taming the Mammoth: Why You Should Stop Caring What Other People Think by Tim Urban. Humans evolved an over-the-top obsession with what others thought of them—a craving for social approval and admiration, and a paralyzing fear of being disliked….But in today’s large, complex world of varying cultures and personalities and opportunities and options, losing touch with your Authentic Voice is dangerous. When you don’t know who you are, the only decision-making mechanism you’re left with is the crude and outdated needs and emotions of your mammoth. When it comes to the most personal questions, instead of digging deep into the foggy center of what you really believe in to find clarity, you’ll look to others for the answers.

The mammoth will always be with you but you’ll have an easier time ignoring or overruling it when it speaks up or acts out, because the AV is the alpha dog now. You can start to relish the feeling of being viewed as weird or inappropriate or confusing to people, and society becomes your playground and blank canvas, not something to grovel before and hope for acceptance from.

How To Stop Caring About What People Think & Do by Darius Foroux. One of the reasons we gravitate towards groups is uncertainty. We don’t have a set of rules for our own lives and blindly adopt any belief system we run into. When you join a group, you must adopt their views and beliefs by default…Instead of being driven by your need to belong, be driven by your mission…Instead of measuring everything in your life by other people’s standards (which is why we care so much about what others think), measure it by your mission.

Two Ways to Stop Caring What Others Think (raptitude.com).

1. Firstly, we need to recognize that it’s impossible to be fairly judged. Nobody will ever understand you perfectly. You will continually be both underestimated and overestimated, shortchanged and given undue credit.
2. We can understand that kind of unfairness much more easily from the other side, by learning to become a lot more aware of our own judgments of strangers. Notice how quick and careless they are. You’ll discover that they’re almost always categorical (good person or bad person), that they’re provoked by a single behavior, and that we rarely second-guess these judgments…There is a direct relationship between how quickly we judge and dismiss others, and how strongly we fear being judged or dismissed.

Other People’s Views (NY Times). To sum up, I can’t find any universal rules about when to defer to outside approval. It depends on the circumstances. It does seem that people should defer less to public approval as they age. At 15, it’s normal to be socially insecure. By 45, unless you’re in a crisis, you should have distilled enough ancient wisdom to have inner criteria.

I Quit Giving a Damn (NY Times). Their interest in my situation lasted only, at best, about 60 seconds, and therein lay one of life’s most powerful (if alarming) lessons: Unless you are paying their bills, very few people care or think about what you are doing and why.

Managing Your Identity

Keep Your Identity Small by Paul Graham. Which topics engage people’s identity depends on the people, not the topic…When people say a discussion has degenerated into a religious war, what they really mean is that it has started to be driven mostly by people’s identities…You can have a fruitful discussion about a topic only if it doesn’t engage the identities of any of the participants…If people can’t think clearly about anything that has become part of their identity, then all other things being equal, the best plan is to let as few things into your identity as possible…The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you.

Hacker News Discussion on “Keep Your Identity Small” (news.ycombinator.com)

Keep Your Identity Small (dailystoic.com). Tyler Durden in Fight Club expresses the truth of it beautifully: “You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis.” You are not who you voted for. You are not the city of your birth. You’re not how good you are at golf. You’re not your socioeconomic status either. You’re just you. 

Diversify Your Identity by Mark Manson. A while back, I saw a short video of Tim Ferriss and in passing, he mentioned a concept called “identity diversification.” He more or less said the following: When you have money, it’s always smart to diversify your investments. That way if one of them goes south, you don’t lose everything. It’s also smart to diversify your identity, to invest your self-esteem and what you care about into a variety of different areas — business, social life, relationships, philanthropy, athletics — so that when one goes south, you’re not completely screwed over and emotionally wrecked.

What do you care about? I mean, what do you really care about? Invest yourself in a wide range of areas. If you like music, start attending concerts or learn an instrument. Don’t just travel as a vacation, but invest in learning about the cultures. Learn a new language. Make time for old friends. Pick up new hobbies. Get competitive in something. Expand yourself beyond your work and your relationships. Go out for no other reason than to be with your friends. Learn how to dance. Take some time off work. Attend a meditation retreat.

Strong Opinion, Weakly Held

Strong Opinions weakly held by Paul Saffo. Since the mid-1980s, my mantra for this process is “strong opinions, weakly held.” Allow your intuition to guide you to a conclusion, no matter how imperfect — this is the “strong opinion” part. Then –and this is the “weakly held” part– prove yourself wrong. Engage in creative doubt. Look for information that doesn’t fit, or indicators that pointing in an entirely different direction. Eventually your intuition will kick in and a new hypothesis will emerge out of the rubble, ready to be ruthlessly torn apart once again.

These Four Words Will Help You ‘Hold Strong Opinions Weakly’ by Isaac Morehouse (Founder and CEO, Praxis). The beauty lies in the ability to embrace the power of definiteness and the power of openness at once. When you act, you can’t be of two minds. You have to commit and proceed boldly. But to understand the world you have to constantly learn, adapt, and grow, which implies shifting direction. When I am taken by an idea I act as if it’s true. The “as if” is important, because it reminds me that I’m acting on the best available knowledge and that I’m fallible. The “it’s true” is equally important, because unless and until being convinced otherwise I must decisively move forward.…To hold strong opinions weakly, act as if your current knowledge is true until you know it’s not.

Daniel Craig— Flip flopper (Signal v. Noise). I think more of us have to step up and form strong opinions about the decisions we have. Anytime you have a inkling about what’s right, use that energy to see it through. Stay open minded when people and situations naturally push back, but either way you win and increase your productivity, energy and drive.

Strong Views Weakly Held by Fred Wilson. Strong views are quite helpful if weakly held. Strong views strongly held are only helpful if they are actually correct and even then they can stifle debate. So while we like everyone at USV to have strong views, we also like them to concede the point when facts suggest they aren’t actually right. 

More Reading

Living In The Age of Outrage by Mark Manson. Outrage is everywhere today, on the political left and right, with old people and young people, people of all races and economic backgrounds. We may live in the first period of human history where every demographic feels that they are somehow being violated and victimized…People have become less tolerant of opposing opinions. And their reactions to those opinions has become more emotional and outrageous…But what if technology is advancing beyond the point of our human capacity to leverage and benefit from it?

Say What You Think And Don’t Be Apologetic About It by Darius Foroux. There’s no universal truth or higher authority in life. You can say and think whatever you want. No one will stop you as long as it comes from a good place. There’s one condition though: Take ownership of your words. If you’re wrong, admit it with confidence. And be respectful.

Take Your Time To Think by Darius Foroux. Derek Sivers, one of my favorite thinkers, says he’s a slow thinker: “It’s a common belief that your first reaction is the most honest, but I disagree. Your first reaction is usually outdated. Either it’s an answer you came up with long ago and now use instead of thinking, or it’s triggering a knee-jerk emotional response to something that happened long ago.”

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