Attack Your Blind Spots

Lots of people - myself included - talk a good game about being open-minded. But how many of us are truly open to ideas that challenge our most closely held beliefs? This question is important because the odds are overwhelming that at some point, your career, marriage, or even life will be undone by your belief in an idea that proved to be wrong.

One of my most treasured and longstanding friends is a southern conservative CEO; I am a somewhat liberal creative-type born in Massachusetts. I'm pretty sure we have never voted for the same candidate. But one reason I treasure his friendship is because he works very hard to try and understand how I think, and I do the same with him. Each of us recognizes that we are limited by our beliefs, attitudes, and - most importantly - restricted access to information.

People who share your views probably surround you. If you are religious, you congregate regularly with people of the same religion. Americans surround Americans; the same is true in Russia, India, China, and Portugal. If you work for a cautious firm, you are surrounded by other cautious professionals. If you work for a startup, you associate with people more willing to take risks than the general public.

When you go online, you do not see the same Web that I see. You see a Web that has been personalized to match your ideas, preferences, and activities. So, you find more reasons to be set in your ways, and so do I.

The more set you are in your ways, the more blind spots you have. That's why a closed mind is so dangerous.

As we get "experienced," we think we get wiser. In reality, we simply accumulate a longer list of mistakes we have made. If we are reasonably smart, we avoid making the same mistakes again.

But few of us have the courage to attack our blind spots. Doing so requires challenging many of our most cherished beliefs. It makes us feel foolish. Why would we deliberately do something our brains are telling us is nonsense?

Let me be clear: I am just as blind as you. I count pattern recognition as one of my best skills, but thinking in this manner limits my creativity and causes me to draw some conclusions that are stunningly wrong (Unfortunately, it can take months or years for me to recognize when this happens.).

I cannot give you an easy prescription for opening your mind. Anything that's easy will simply fool you into believing you are being open-minded; it won't actually open your mind.

The only thing I can tell you is that lurking among your beliefs are one or more deadly traps that have the potential to cut short your success, health, and/or happiness. Don’t allow these blind spots to linger. Attack them.