If you can’t successfully do something, don’t think you can tell others how it should be done. I have seen some people who have repeatedly failed at something hold strongly to their opinions of how it should be done, even when their opinions are at odds with those who have repeatedly done it successfully. That is dumb and arrogant. They should instead ask questions and seek believability-weighted votes to help them get out of their intransigence.

Remember that everyone has opinions and they are often bad. Opinions are easy to produce; everyone has plenty of them and most people are eager to share them—even to fight for them. Unfortunately many are worthless or even harmful, including a lot of your own.

Find the most believable people possible who disagree with you and try to understand their reasoning.

Having open-minded conversations with believable people who disagree with you is the quickest way to get an education and to increase your probability of being right.

Think about people’s believability in order to assess the likelihood that their opinions are good. While it pays to be open-minded, you also have to be discerning. Remember that the quality of the life you get will depend largely on the quality of the decisions that you make as you pursue your goals. The best way to make great decisions is to know how to triangulate with other, more knowledgeable people. So be discerning about whom you triangulate with and skilled in the way you do it.

The dilemma you face is trying to understand as accurately as you can what’s true in order to make decisions effectively while realizing many of the opinions you will hear won’t be worth much, including your own. Think about people’s believability, which is a function of their capabilities and their willingness to say what they think. Keep their track records in mind.
