Changing Your Mind: Weakness or Superpower?

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Automatic transcript, lightly corrected for names, with profanity masked. Some passages may contain transcription errors.

Welcome to Inner Circle where Kevin Dahlstrom and I, Mike Brown have the conversations that we'd be having anyway today rolling in hot withs a tweet from our mutual friends, Sahil Bloom. He posted, I'm increasingly convinced that the willingness to change your mind is the ultimate sign of intelligence. Most impressive people I know change their minds often in response to new new information. It's like a software update. The goal isn't to be right, it's to find the truth. Kevin has a hot take, so why don't we dive in and go Yeah, so this is one of those things that Mike, you and I started a discussion via text and we're like, well, why don't we just make this the next episode because this is this idea that changing your mind is a sign of

intelligence. It's a great sound bite and it's really popular to say, but it's also to it's one of those things that actually if you think about it a little bit, I'm not sure I agree. So here's my contrarian, maybe somewhat contrarian take on on this is, you know, there's nothing inherently virtuous about changing your mind. You know, it could mean that you just have a lot of bad takes. So you change your mind a lot. It could mean that you just have ill formed positions on a lot of issues and so you learn and change your mind a lot. I'm not sure that's a sign of intelligence, but it is a sign that you're a truth seeker, right? And so I think the upstream thing that is the signal of intelligence is the fact

that you seek truth, truth. And as I was started thinking about this, I actually wrote down three things that I admire in the smart people that I know and I'm going to use you as a story in one of them. So you'll be maybe flattered. So this is my rant. I think smart people do three things. Number one, they seek truth above all else. You know, I was at a dinner party at your house the other night. And your lovely wife said that the moment she fell in love with you was when you said that you love to have your mind changed. And I don't think Claire said that because

seeking truth above all others. The second thing that I admire admire in smart people is they have well formed opinions. So they know what their values are. They've thought deeply about issues. And the problem, and this is especially true on X or Twitter, is most people simply haven't thought deeply about issues. So they shoot from the hip and then they say, well, look how smart I am because I'm willing to change my mind. Well, the truth is you just had a bad take. And you know, I call there's a lot of people on X in particular that I call experts on everything. They've got an opinion on everything and most of them are wrong. So, you know, I think smart people are actually fairly resistant to changing their mind because they have thought about

issues deeply. And so that's number two, the third one. And this is the most important one to me. And this is where we could all do a better job. I'm even pointing at myself here is smart people stay in their lane. And what I mean by that is like, they don't have half cocked opinions about things they don't understand or frankly, don't care about. So the example is, you know, I have, if you want to talk about rock climbing, I'm going to have some hot takes for you. Like I have opinions, they're pretty well formed. them probably right because I've been climbing for, you know, 25 plus years. Seriously. If you want to debate economic tariffs, I mean, I could probably pontificate on it. I'm certainly not an expert on it. And so I'm not going to, you know, say that I have the definitive answer. And so that's how I avoid actually

having to even change my mind because I don't really have an opinion to begin with. So anyway, I'll pause there. I'll I'll repeat the three things that I admire because I was pretty proud of this but when they don't number three, they stay in their lane and they don't tend to pop off on things they don't understand. I love it. I mean, this starts with you don't have to have an opinion on everything. In fact, right? I mean, really, the sign of intelligence is going, I don't know enough to actually have a well-formed opinion. Yeah. What I think all three of these hit at is absence of ego or at least a diminished ego because I think it's incredibly egoic to have an opinion

on everything. Right? If you if you if you haven't done the research or you haven't built a really, really solid case for your opinion, then it isn't worth much. You're right. But what when I think about changing my mind, I, I agree that true seeking is is truly I think one of my highest values. And when I when I talk Claire, my favorite feeling in the the world is having my mind changed. It's not because it's easy. It's exactly because it's so difficult to change my mind because I have built over years a very intense research opinion. And I'll give you a great example. a few

years ago, he's a good person. He's kind of the Canadian Andrew Yang, he's a big proponent of UBI. And I've always been libertarian leaning. I've always, you know, really been against socialism. And I had heard about UBI before, but I thought it was a it was a just a new form of. So socialism and a new wrapper. But he went through and explain why he thinks UBI makes sense from a libertarian perspective that it increases freedom because it gives used the example of his mother who was married to an abusive man.

I think you have to, have the, I don't have the answer. At least, I don't change my mind or change my position very often, but I'm shaping my views all the time. I, like having my views, shaped, it doesn't mean that I change my fundamental position, but I

because it would, you know, taxation through coercion. And then I saw that it actually aligned better with my values. So I think you have to have that baseline rubric. What are my values? Yeah. And then I'm, and then I'm comparing my positions to my values and updating them when I get better information. Really important call out for our listeners, you know, I would say maybe if anybody I know, there's nobody who has been more deliberate about, you know, defining their values than you. And I would say, if you're going to like the starting starting point is have a clear understanding of what your values are. Like I'm a huge believer in, like when you write things down, it just hits different. It causes you to think at a deeper level. Like in fact, I'm not even sure this recent, like literally write down your four or five

core values and wrestle with it a little bit. That's, that's like the foundation of being able to develop a cogent position on any issue, because our views on any issue are shaped by our values. That's the core principle. Yeah, they have to be. And you, you and I are obsessed really with one question. What makes a great life? Yes. And, and I think upstream of that is, is my values, right? If I get clear on my values first, now I can start shaping a great life around those values, but if I'm unclear on my values, it's going to be really hard to even do your, your ideal in-state exercise, right? Because if I haven't gotten clear on what do I value, then I don't actually have a clear path to, well, how do I, I want to live.

And, and, and you're right. I think it's wildly valuable. Much like our word of the year exercise to define your values and then constantly stress test them go, Hey, does this still fit? And I've actually updated my values over the last three years, but it's two words that are an evolution of the originals, not, not a new value. I did pull something something completely new out of thin air. It just goes, Hey, actually, this fits a little bit better in this version of my life, than this old word. Well, cool. I think that's a great place to kind of, wrap this one. It'll keep this one short

And I actually don't think that's the best of the best signal, the best signal, and I'm going to steal this from Neval. He says the only real, test of intelligence is if you get what you want out out of life. And back to like our core mission, you and I, we, share, which is trying to figure out and help people, what makes a great life and, how do you get there? That's really the only test of intelligence that matters. You know, you can be there's a lot of really people with in cognition out there who are not happy. Yeah, in fact, in some ways, high intelligence can actually be a barrier to happiness because you're more aware of humanities problems, the world's problems, you're more aware of your own problems, you're more aware of your own limitations. So self awareness can often

stand in the way of actual happiness. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. It just means there's a bigger job at hand and seeking truth and seeking clarity. I do agree. It's okay. What am, what am I solving for here? Well, yes. And as you often say, like getting what you want out of life isn't a destination that you reach. It's a it's a state of being. That's why like my ideal in state exercise, I describe it. It's not a bucket list. It's a state of, of being like, it's a way of living that's ever changing. And, you know, I think at the core of that is what we talked about, which is seeking truth, letting go of ego. Yeah, I love it, man. I mean, that's, that's, I think the ultimate hack is

to to recognize when you, a quote that I love also like, would you rather be right or would you rather be happy? And, and you know, oftentimes it means walking away from arguments that aren't serving you in the first place. Yeah, one of my friends from X, Mike Girdley, he has this great line that I steal from from time to time, which is I've had to get really comfortable comfortable with other people being wrong. Just let them be wrong. That's it. I love it, man. All right, brother, as always, enjoy it.