Wanting the truth more than wanting to be right

The card, Erik reads it

Practice. I say I don't know when I don't know. I admit my mistakes and fix them instead of defending them. Purpose. I want to know the truth, even when it proves me wrong. Method. When someone tells me I'm wrong, I stop and ask myself whether they're right before I answer.

Open, Erik [the day I said types weren't real]

I studied personality types for more than ten years. I built frameworks on them, made hundreds of videos, it's the thing I'm known for. Then I turn on the camera and tell everyone I don't think they're real. No scientific basis, and people are more complicated than any theory predicts. I'd looked at the evidence for years, and eventually the evidence was clearer than my attachment.

That's the moment I was wrong about something that mattered and said so out loud, in front of the audience I'd built by being right about it. And it's the moment that freed me. Thirty years old. A failed politician, a failed YouTuber, at that point a failed programmer. I couldn't pretend to be smarter than anyone anymore. Failure saved me from arrogance.

Erik, the smart kid [everything about everything, pi, IQ test]

I'll tell you where the arrogance came from. As a kid I announce I'm going to learn everything about everything. Adults call me bright and being smart becomes my proof of worth. A classmate memorises thirty digits of pi. I go home and memorise forty-two, just to beat him. He blocks me. He was right to. I didn't care about pi. I cared about being better.

Then at fourteen I ask to skip a grade, take an IQ test, get stuck on one puzzle, refuse to move on, and score below average. Either I'm a prodigy or I'm an impostor. There's no room in between. First semester at university I fail every class. An identity built on being the smart one collapses at the first test it can't pass.

Nina, first question [being wrong in front of clients]

Erik asks: You work one-on-one with people who are paying you to know things. What happens when you're wrong in a session, or you don't know? Do you say so? And what does it do to the client when you do?

[Nina answers. Follow-up: Is there a difference between how it feels in the body to defend a position and to actually consider one?]

Erik, the meeting [called an idiot, is he right]

I'm in a meeting with the manager of engineering, laying out my plan for an integration. He cuts me off in front of everyone and says I'm an idiot and it will never work. I start talking over him. Then I notice how I'm sitting. Shoulders up. Jaw tight. Talking faster. That's not logic operating. That's a person protecting an idea.

So I shut up, take one breath, and ask myself: is he right? I'm not sure. But he has a point. I say: actually, you raise a good point, let's look into it. The project mattered more to me than winning the room. Compare that to me at twenty, arguing for my party, every counter rehearsed in advance, never hearing a word. Nothing was learned in years of debating. The difference isn't intelligence. It's which goal I'm pursuing.

Nina, second question [outrage and the friend who wouldn't talk about himself]

Erik asks: I have a friend who sends me political clips and quotes a podcaster for thirty minutes, and when I ask how his girlfriend is he changes the subject. A month later they've broken up. He says he doesn't like talking about himself. You see this. People who have strong opinions about everything far away and can't say one true thing about their own week. What's going on there?

[Nina answers. Follow-up: How do you get somebody from talking about the world to talking about themselves?]

Erik, being small [The Joy of Being Small, beginner]

In Barcelona I wrote a short book called The Joy of Being Small. All rivers flow to the lowest point. No matter how much I learn I'll be small in the scale of the world, and that turned out to be a relief. When I let go of needing to be the smartest person in the room, I could ask questions without shame and enjoy being a beginner again.

Erik, what this gives you [one signal, one question]

In your next disagreement, watch for the shoulders going up. When you feel it, ask yourself silently, is this person right, before you answer. You don't have to concede. You have to actually check.

Close

When did you last change your mind in the middle of an argument? What did it take? Comments. Next: love for those who struggle, and why I stopped telling Nina how to run her business. Book link below.