Shhh….
Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of Trust Me, I’m Lying, The Obstacle Is The Way, Ego Is The Enemy, and other books about marketing, culture, and the human condition. His work has been translated into thirty languages and has appeared everywhere from the Columbia Journalism Review to Fast Company. His company, Brass Check, has advised companies such as Google, TASER, and Complex, as well as Grammy Award winning musicians and some of the biggest authors in the world. He lives in Austin, Texas.
It’s completely counterintuitive and like most people, I want to immediately reject the notion. But I know it to be true.
Ryan, my uninformed opinion will not be silenced. You *will* feel the sting of my misinterpretations and faulty conclusions. Listening and learning is for idiots.
You must be a huge idiot for everything you think is important to be continuously reforming. The major things I think are important have been the same since I was a child. And as Im on a rigid professional path (Im sorry, I know you frown upon that)…the things I think are important in terms of my career have not changed since high school. So what are you referring to? The iphone? The new affliction shirts? Chrome Hearts jewelry? If you think that kind of thing is important, you are an idiot anyway…listening and learning isn’t going to be of much help. I would love to think that your statement applies because you are young, but Im only 2 years older than you, and I know I didn’t think that way then either.
Oshkosh, you are being rather myopic.
Who would have guessed that a troll with a history of moronic and annoying comments would be stubborn and against listening? Please, tell me more.
I agree with most of that – definitely the basic sentiment – but I think there’s a couple caveats. While it is true that many of the important truths have already been thought, people still need to process ideas by interacting with them, which involves coming up with competing ideas and seeing what fits and what doesn’t. More importantly, we need to be able to articulate what we believe (or don’t) at a given time; it helps clarify our thinking. That process is, for example, more or less what you’ve said you intend this blog to be about. Just because you’ll probably change your mind is no reason not to speak up. It just means you shouldn’t speak as if you’ve discovered some grand new absolute, but as if you’ve come up with an interesting hypothesis. I know I’m not really responding to the main thrust of the post, but I think it’s important not to be timid, the same as it is not to be brash.
Maybe this is just me, but I learn a lot by forming wrong conclusions. I’m not suggesting interrupting somebody who’s trying to teach you, but discussing the conclusions that you’ve come to with other people who are working out the same issues can be immeasurably helpful.
To me, at least.
I think the real issue comes from people who have a desperate urge not to be wrong, ever. You know the type…
“My vision of the world is absolutely correct. Fuck you and your facts.”
Tucker had a really good post on the RMMB a while back about how he learned (learns) more from his mistakes than his successes. I agree, fucking up and learning from your mistakes (faulty conclusions) is probably the fastest way to learn. But…it can be kinda painful.