Week 208
Positive post Sunday, February 14, 2021- Week 208.
I love it when my favorite authors and bloggers come together. I have shared blogs from Shane Parrish’s Farman Street Brain Food, a weekly newsletter full of timeless ideas and insights for life and business. The January 31st edition (here’s the link: Brain Food: Attracting Luck, The High Cost of Distractions, and Personal Experience (ckarchive.com) included “A quote to think about” and that quote was from one of my favorite authors, Adam Grant, a Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Adam’s quote was from his new book that I wrote about 3 weeks ago and that was just released. The book is titled, “THINK AGAIN: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know”, and yes, I did get the book last week and I’m reading it now. I’ve finished Part I and so far, I’ve found the book to be insightful and thought provoking. It’s already challenged my thinking, or should I say rethinking. There are several examples of the value and importance of our ability to change our minds and the power of being wrong. Yes, I said being wrong. As Adam notes in his book, when we truly understand when we’re wrong, we have the greatest opportunity to learn something new. That is if our minds are open and we choose to do so. This will make more sense when you read the book!
Here’s the quote
A QUOTE TO THINK ABOUT
“When people reflect on what it takes to be mentally fit, the first idea that comes to mind is usually intelligence. The smarter you are, the more complex the problems you can solve— and the faster you can solve them. Intelligence is traditionally viewed as the ability to think and learn. Yet in a turbulent world, there’s another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn.
Mental horsepower doesn’t guarantee mental dexterity. No matter how much brainpower you have, if you lack the motivation to change your mind, you’ll miss many occasions to think again. Research reveals that the higher you score on an IQ test, the more likely you are to fall for stereotypes, because you’re faster at recognizing patterns. And recent experiments suggest that the smarter you are, the more you might struggle to update your beliefs.
The curse of knowledge is that it closes your mind to what you don’t know. Good judgment depends on having the skill— and the will— to open your mind. A hallmark of wisdom is knowing when it’s time to abandon some of the most cherished parts of your identity.”
— Adam Grant in Think Again
Here’s the link for the book on Amazon: https://geni.us/edgBZ
Where do you have the opportunity to open your mind and unlearn and rethink?
Do you recognize when you are wrong and learn from the experience?
Do you have the ability to change your mind when the true facts warrant it?