Have you ever been so in love with an idea that you told everyone about it in excruciating detail? It may have been an investment opportunity, a business idea, or a philosophical take on the mundane.
I know I have. It’s easy to fall in love with ideas — especially when they are your own.
The hardest part is admitting (to yourself, first and foremost) that you were wrong. That your precious, shiny, seductive idea is, in fact, flawed.
Being wrong happens all the time. Admitting you were wrong — not so often. If my subject line made you uncomfortable, read on.
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With three days to 2023, I won’t keep you from getting ready for the NYE party with a long analysis. Instead, I invite to you ponder the opportunities that stem from embracing you were wrong.
Intellectual humility and mental crossfit
“When facts change, I change my mind.” Quote attributed to British economist John Maynard Keynes.
Admitting you were wrong isn’t a judgment of your intellectual prowess; quite the opposite. Intellectual humility doesn’t mean that you weren’t able to draw a good conclusion or make an accurate forecast.
Intellectual humility is simply admitting that reality is so intricate that seeing it clearly is rarely possible — for fools and geniuses alike.
When you’re intellectually humble, you don’t doubt yourself. You allow yourself to see other perspectives that could alter your own. I like to call this “mental crossfit” because:
1. It’s painful BUT
2. It can get your mind in shape
A fit mind is better equipped to make good, future-proof decisions.
A fit mind can see things more clearly.
A fit mind is less likely to make emotional decisions.
[FIRST NAME GOES HERE], my advice for 2023 may sound harsh, but it’s the foundation of building a future-proof business. And life.
Kill your darlings to save yourself
My work in trend analysis and forecasting taught me that admitting you were wrong is both hard and necessary. Facts change FAST and if you’re stuck in your old beliefs, you’ll be stuck behind reality. Out of touch.
Think of it as a game of Jenga: you are comfortable taking out pieces at the apex; they support nothing else. But it’s much harder to pull out fundamental pieces — or admit you were wrong about a core belief after you’ve built a lot on top of it.
To accurately analyze trends, I have to tear up the Jenga tower and rebuild it over and over again. I’ll be the first to admit I still have a hard time starting from scratch multiple times.
Bayes’ theorem about updating probabilities when new information is acquired comes in handy here. You can use it to calculate probability but when extrapolated it also works as a belief-updating system.
It helped me come to terms with being wrong or inaccurate. I’ll spare you the math and get straight to the explanation:
Your new belief should depend on two things:
- Your prior belief, along with all the knowledge that informed it
- Multiplied by the diagnostic value of new information
In essence, Bayes’ grand idea is that you’ll gradually get closer to the truth by updating your beliefs proportionally to the weight of new evidence.
What should I do with all this?
In 2023 and beyond, remember that the truth is rarely static. Facts change fast. If you read the Ideas to Power Your Future edition about navigating uncertainty, you already know why it’s important to be able to pivot.
However, as always, I invite you to find balance: adjust your opinions and beliefs based on new facts. But don’t be too quick to leave your old beliefs completely behind. Remember that Bayes’ theorem says you should multiply core beliefs by the diagnostic value of new information, not dump them altogether.
This will help you:
- Spot new business opportunities without uprooting your current strategy entirely.
- Discern between trends and fads.
- Know when to pivot and when to stay put in your old ways.
That’s it from me today — and this year.
Have an excellent 2023, whatever that means for you! I hope my newsletters brought some value into your life or, at the very least, that they made you think.
See you early next year, with fresh perspectives and Ideas to Power Your Future.
Here to make you think,
Adriana
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