Molly’s Reviews > Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know > Status Update

Our convictions can lock us in prisons of our own making.

After all, the purpose of learning isn’t to affirm our beliefs; it’s to evolve our beliefs.

f they were conservatives, they did worse at assessing
evidence that gun bans worked.
In psychology there are at least two biases that drive this pattern. One
is confirmation bias: seeing what we expect to see. The other is desirability
bias: seeing what we want to see.

As gifted as Mike was at rethinking the design of electronic devices, he wasn’t willing to rethink the market for his baby. Intelligence was no cure—it might have been more of a curse.

Sometimes even great scientists need to think more like scientists.

The entrepreneurs who had been taught to think like scientists, in contrast, pivoted more than twice as often. When their hypotheses weren’t supported, they knew it was time to rethink their business models.

As we think and talk, we often slip into the mindsets of three
different professions: preachers, prosecutors, and politicians. In each of
these modes, we take on a particular identity and use a distinct set of tools.

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

The accelerating pace of change means that we need to question our beliefs more readily than ever before.
This is not an easy task. As we sit with our beliefs, they tend to become more extreme and more entrenched.

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 probiem 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.