Don’t you just hate it when someone tries to convince you you’re wrong?
I know I do. Ever since I was a young child my parents instilled in me a sense of self confidence and to stick up for myself if I felt I was right.
So I did. There was only one problem – they didn’t teach me how to be wrong.
A lot of people either have, or pretend to have, a lot of confidence.
They talk a big game and refuse to back down even in the light of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Simply put – many people hate to be wrong.
And we hate it even more when we have to admit to someone that they were right.
My wife and I have this constant battle trying to prove ourselves right.
I think I speak for my wife when we both think it’s good fun when we can make the other eat humble pie.
But maybe that’s just us. What I have found from experience is that such actions usually end up causing animosity.
What’s worse is that people close their mind off to your ideas because of it.
And closing off our mind is one of the main reasons people fail to succeed.
Before we can learn anything, we must open our minds. My wife herself said it best in my book, iSucceed, when she said “If you want to be better, you must first be humble.”
When I listened to some of the techniques in the books I’ve read and audio sessions I listened to I sometimes shook my head saying, “What a bunch of baloney!”
There was only one problem, I had never tried it.
So I decided to suspend judgment until having tried something. And not just once.
I would give each technique its own fair shake.
It was the same with magic, teaching, humor and psychology. People told me things that I thought were outrageous and thought the presenters were off their rockers.
But then I went and tried them and I was amazed at the results.
I have learned that it pays big to keep an open mind. Sure, not everything an expert says may work for you but don’t let that put you off his/her others ideas.
A good friend of mine has a habit of telling me how annoying some speakers are, or how silly their ideas are, and by doing so they let the valuable message that the speaker was trying to get across pass them by.
Regardless of whether we want to be a better teacher, parent, doctor, artist, magician, or lawyer we must first accept one simple truth – that we’re not perfect and we can learn more.
So open your mind to good ideas, you’ll be surprised at what you let in.
Adrian Shepherd