Alexandre Lim

An interesting perspective as to why we need to be flexible. We must keep our ability to adapt fast to cope with our ever-changing world. We don't talk much about the skills to rethink and unlearn. It's often scary and uncomfortable. It takes courage and humility, but that's the price to keep growing.

Notes

In a turbulent world, there’s a set of cognitive skills that matter: the ability to rethink and unlearn.

Some psychologists point out that we’re mental misers: we often prefer the ease of hanging on to old views over the difficulty of grappling with new ones. Yet there are also deeper forces behind our resistance to rethinking. Questioning ourselves makes the world more unpredictable. It requires us to admit that the facts may have changed, that what was once right may now be wrong. Reconsidering something we believe deeply can threaten our identities, making it feel like we’re losing a part of ourselves.

Psychologists call this seizing and freezing. We favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt, and we let our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. We laugh at people who still use Windows 95, yet we still cling to opinions that we formed in 1995. We listen to views that make us feel good instead of ideas that make us think hard.

This book is an invitation to let go of knowledge and opinions that are no longer serving you well, and to anchor your sense of self in flexibility rather than consistency.

A hallmark of wisdom is knowing when it’s time to abandon some of your most treasured tools— and some of the most cherished parts of your identity.

Most of us take pride in our knowledge and expertise, and in staying true to our beliefs and opinions. That makes sense in a stable world, where we get rewarded for having conviction in our ideas. The problem is that we live in a rapidly changing world, where we need to spend as much time rethinking as we do thinking. Rethinking is a skill set, but it’s also a mindset.

When it comes to our own knowledge and opinions, we often favor feeling right over being right.

We go into preacher mode when our sacred beliefs are in jeopardy: we deliver sermons to protect and promote our ideals. We enter prosecutor mode when we recognize flaws in other people’s reasoning: we marshal arguments to prove them wrong and win our case. We shift into politician mode when we’re seeking to win over an audience: we campaign and lobby for the approval of our constituents. The risk is that we become so wrapped up in preaching that we’re right, prosecuting others who are wrong, and politicking for support that we don’t bother to rethink our own views.

We move into scientist mode when we’re searching for the truth: we run experiments to test hypotheses and discover knowledge.

That makes me wonder: is it possible to train people in other fields to think more like scientists, and if so, do they end up making smarter choices?

I’m beginning to think decisiveness is overrated . . . but I reserve the right to change my mind.

Mental horsepower doesn’t guarantee mental dexterity.

Recent experiments suggest that the smarter you are, the more you might struggle to update your beliefs.

The better you are at crunching numbers, the more spectacularly you fail at analyzing patterns that contradict your views.

One is confirmation bias: seeing what we expect to see. The other is desirability bias: seeing what we want to see.

Thinking like a scientist involves more than just reacting with an open mind. It means being actively open-minded. It requires searching for reasons why we might be wrong— not for reasons why we must be right— and revising our views based on what we learn.

Research shows that when people are resistant to change, it helps to reinforce what will stay the same. Visions for change are more compelling when they include visions of continuity. Although our strategy might evolve, our identity will endure.

The curse of knowledge is that it closes our minds to what we don’t know. Good judgment depends on having the skill— and the will— to open our minds.

That’s the armchair quarterback syndrome, where confidence exceeds competence.

The opposite of armchair quarterback syndrome is impostor syndrome, where competence exceeds confidence.

The less intelligent we are in a particular domain, the more we seem to overestimate our actual intelligence in that domain.

When we lack the knowledge and skills to achieve excellence, we sometimes lack the knowledge and skills to judge excellence. This insight should immediately put your favorite confident ignoramuses in their place. Before we poke fun at them, though, it’s worth remembering that we all have moments when we are them.

Arrogance is ignorance plus conviction. While humility is a permeable filter that absorbs life experience and converts it into knowledge and wisdom, arrogance is a rubber shield that life experience simply bounces off of.

What we want to attain is confident humility: having faith in our capability while appreciating that we may not have the right solution or even be addressing the right problem.

The most effective leaders score high in both confidence and humility.

We don’t have to wait for our confidence to rise to achieve challenging goals. We can build it by achieving challenging goals.

Uncertainty primes us to ask questions and absorb new ideas. It protects us against the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Although she doubted her tools, she had confidence in herself as a learner. She understood that knowledge is best sought from experts, but creativity and wisdom can come from anywhere.

Recognize that we’re all wrong more often than we’d like to admit. The more we deny it, the deeper the hole we dig for ourselves.

When a core belief is questioned, we tend to shut down rather than open up. The technical term for this in psychology is the totalitarian ego, whose job is to keep out threatening information.

Neuroscientists find that when our core beliefs are challenged, it can trigger the amygdala, the primitive “lizard brain” that breezes right past cool rationality and activates a hot fight-or-flight response.

Being wrong is the only way I feel sure I’ve learned anything.

Attachment. That’s what keeps us from recognizing when our opinions are off the mark and rethinking them. To unlock the joy of being wrong, we need to detach. I’ve learned that two kinds of detachment are especially useful: detaching your present from your past and detaching your opinions from your identity.

Who you are should be a question of what you value, not what you believe.

The single most important driver of forecasters’ success was how often they updated their beliefs. The best forecasters went through more rethinking cycles. They had the confident humility to doubt their judgments and the curiosity to discover new information that led them to revise their predictions.

It’s a sign of wisdom to avoid believing every thought that enters your mind. It’s a mark of emotional intelligence to avoid internalizing every feeling that enters your heart.

Research suggests that identifying even a single reason why we might be wrong can be enough to curb overconfidence.

Research suggests that the more frequently we make fun of ourselves, the happier we tend to be. Instead of beating ourselves up about our mistakes, we can turn some of our past misconceptions into sources of present amusement.

“People who are right a lot listen a lot, and they change their mind a lot,” Jeff Bezos says. “If you don’t change your mind frequently, you’re going to be wrong a lot.”

When you form an opinion, ask yourself what would have to happen to prove it false. Then keep track of your views so you can see when you were right, when you were wrong, and how your thinking has evolved.

Research shows that how often parents argue has no bearing on their children’s academic, social, or emotional development. What matters is how respectfully parents argue, not how frequently.

Agreeable people make for a great support network: they’re excited to encourage us and cheerlead for us. Rethinking depends on a different kind of network: a challenge network, a group of people we trust to point out our blind spots and help us overcome our weaknesses. Their role is to activate rethinking cycles by pushing us to be humble about our expertise, doubt our knowledge, and be curious about new perspectives.

Studies in oil drilling and tech companies suggest that dissatisfaction promotes creativity only when people feel committed and supported— and that cultural misfits are most likely to add value when they have strong bonds with their colleagues.

Research reveals that CEOs who indulge in flattery and conformity when their firms perform poorly become overconfident.

We learn more from people who challenge our thought process than those who affirm our conclusions. Strong leaders engage their critics and make themselves stronger. Weak leaders silence their critics and make themselves weaker.

I’m looking for disagreeable people who are givers, not takers. Disagreeable givers often make the best critics: their intent is to elevate the work, not feed their own egos. They don’t criticize because they’re insecure; they challenge because they care. They dish out tough love.

Experiments show that simply framing a dispute as a debate rather than a disagreement signals that you’re receptive to considering dissenting opinions and changing your mind, which motivates the other person to share more information with you. A disagreement feels personal and potentially hostile; we expect a debate to be about ideas, not emotions. Starting a disagreement by asking, “Can we debate?” sends a message that you want to think like a scientist, not a preacher or a prosecutor— and encourages the other person to think that way, too.

We’re more likely to have a good fight if we argue about how.

In a formal debate, your goal is to change your audience's mind. In an informal debate, you’re trying to change the mind of your conversation partner.

Expert negotiators mapped out a series of dance steps they might be able to take with the other side, devoting more than a third of their planning comments to finding common ground.

The more reasons we put on the table, the easier it is for people to discard the shakiest one. Once they reject one of our justifications, they can easily dismiss our entire case.

There are times when preaching and prosecuting can make us more persuasive. Research suggests that the effectiveness of these approaches hinges on three key factors: how much people care about the issue, how open they are to our particular argument, and how strong-willed they are in general.

When you give people different kinds of reasons to donate, you trigger their awareness that someone is trying to persuade them— and they shield themselves against it.

Psychologists have long found that the person most likely to persuade you to change your mind is you. You get to pick the most compelling reasons, and you come away with a real sense of ownership over them.

When we point out that there are areas where we agree and acknowledge that they have some valid points, we model confident humility and encourage them to follow suit. When we support our argument with a small number of cohesive, compelling reasons, we encourage them to start doubting their own opinion. And when we ask genuine questions, we leave them intrigued to learn more. We don’t have to convince them that we’re right— we just need to open their minds to the possibility that they might be wrong. Their natural curiosity might do the rest.

Expert negotiators made a move more often than average negotiators: They were more likely to comment on their feelings about the process and test their understanding of the other side’s feelings.

In every human society, people are motivated to seek belonging and status. Identifying with a group checks both boxes at the same time: we become part of a tribe, and we take pride when our tribe wins.

People gain humility when they reflect on how different circumstances could have led them to different beliefs.

The central premise is that we can rarely motivate someone else to change. We’re better off helping them find their own motivation to change.

Motivational interviewing starts with an attitude of humility and curiosity.

The goal isn’t to tell people what to do; it’s to help them break out of overconfidence cycles and see new possibilities.

The process of motivational interviewing involves three key techniques:

There’s a distinction between sustain talk and change talk in motivational interviewing. Sustain talk is commentary about maintaining the status quo. Change talk references a desire, ability, need, or commitment to make adjustments.

There’s a fourth technique of motivational interviewing, which is often recommended for the end of a conversation and for transition points: summarizing. The idea is to explain your understanding of other people’s reasons for change, check on whether you’ve missed or misrepresented anything, and inquire about their plans and possible next steps.

It’s a basic human tendency to seek clarity and closure by simplifying a complex continuum into two categories. Psychologists named this “binary bias.”

When we’re reading, listening, or watching, we can learn to recognize complexity as a signal of credibility.

Psychologists find that people will ignore or even deny the existence of a problem if they’re not fond of the solution.

Asking “how” tends to reduce polarization and sets the stage for more constructive conversations about action.

It turns out that emotional intelligence is beneficial in jobs that involve dealing with emotions but less relevant— and maybe even detrimental— in work where emotions are less central.

Perspective-taking consistently fails because we’re terrible mind readers. We’re just guessing.

What works is not perspective-taking but perspective-seeking: actually talking to people to gain insight into the nuances of their views.

What stands in the way of rethinking isn’t the expression of emotion; it’s a restricted range of emotion.

To think like fact-checkers:

Despite enjoying the lectures more, they actually gained more knowledge and skill from the active-learning session. It required more mental effort, which made it less fun but led to deeper understanding.

Experiments have shown that when a speaker delivers an inspiring message, the audience scrutinizes the material less carefully and forgets more of the content— even while claiming to remember more of it.

Achieving excellence in school often requires mastering old ways of thinking. Building an influential career demands new ways of thinking.

It’s been demonstrated repeatedly that teaching is one of the best ways to learn.

Psychologists find that one of the hallmarks of an open mind is responding to confusion with curiosity and interest.

I believe that good teachers introduce new thoughts, but great teachers introduce new ways of thinking.

Rethinking is more likely to happen in a learning culture, where growth is the core value and rethinking cycles are routine.

The foundation of a learning culture: a climate of respect, trust, and openness in which people can raise concerns and suggestions without fear of reprisal.

How do you know? It’s a question we need to ask ourselves and others more often.

Social scientists find that when people are held accountable only for whether the outcome was a success or failure, they are more likely to continue with ill-fated courses of action.

Amy Edmondson finds that people tend to stay within their comfort zone when psychological safety exists without accountability. When there’s accountability but not safety, people tend to stay silent in an anxiety zone.

Always requiring proof is an enemy of progress. This is why companies like Amazon use a “principle of disagree and commit.”

Identity foreclosure can stop us from evolving.

In some ways, identity foreclosure is the opposite of an identity crisis: instead of accepting uncertainty about who we want to become, we develop compensatory conviction and plunge head over heels into a career path.

I think it’s better to lose the past two years of progress than to waste the next twenty.

A first step is to entertain possible selves: identify some people you admire within or outside your field, and observe what they actually do at work day by day. A second step is to develop hypotheses about how these paths might align with your own interests, skills, and values. A third step is to test out the different identities by running experiments: do informational interviews, job shadowing, and sample projects to get a taste of the work. The goal is not to confirm a particular plan but to expand your repertoire of possible selves— which keeps you open to rethinking.

Data suggests that meaning is healthier than happiness and that people who look for purpose in their work are more successful in pursuing their passions— and less likely to quit their jobs— than those who look for joy.

As Ernest Hemingway wrote, “You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”

Our happiness often depends more on what we do than where we are. It’s our actions— not our surroundings— that bring us meaning and belonging.

Psychologists find that passions are often developed, not discovered.

Interest doesn’t always lead to effort and skill; sometimes, it follows them. By investing in learning and problem solving, we can develop our passions— and build the skills necessary to do the work and lead the lives we find worthwhile.

It’s left me thinking about happiness less as a goal and more as a by-product of mastery and meaning.

At work and in life, the best we can do is plan for what we want to learn and contribute over the next year or two, and stay open to what might come next.