For me, there is really only one big choice to make in life: Are you willing to fight to find out what’s true? Do you deeply believe that finding out what is true is essential to your well-being? Do you have a genuine need to find out if you or others are doing something wrong that is standing in the way of achieving your goals? If your answer to any of these questions is no, accept that you will never live up to your potential. If, on the other hand, you are up for the challenge of becoming radically open-minded, the first step in doing so is to look at yourself objectively. In the next chapter, Understand That People Are Wired Very Differently, you’ll have a chance to do just that.The brain is a highly interconnected organ with many different structures responsible for producing our thoughts, feelings, and actions. When explaining these things, I’ve adopted some conventions, such as describing the amygdala as the sole cause of emotional flight-or-fight reactions, even though the exact neuroanatomy is more complex. I’ll cover this in more detail in the following chapter.

One way to do this is by asking questions like “Would you rather I be open with my thoughts and questions or keep them to myself?”; “Are we going to try to convince each other that we are right or are we going to open-mindedly hear each other’s perspectives to try to figure out what’s true and what to do about it?”; or “Are you arguing with me or seeking to understand my perspective?”

Psychologist and science journalist Daniel Goleman originally coined this term in Emotional Intelligence.

Some of this may be a result of what is called the Dunning-Kruger effect, a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals believe that they are in fact superior.
Understand That People Are Wired Very Differently
