We must believe things when we’re not fully certain. The volatile nature of life means leaders and artists venture into less certain places than the rest of society. So, influence loosely correlates with the ability to trust.
Everyone, even leaders, are subject to changing their views. This can create large-scale consequences for everyone, especially if it’s changing a core view.
Conviction requires focus, so smarter people (who can often see complexities) are often lousy at sticking to convictions, which often makes them terrible leaders.
The only way we can prepare our minds for maximum understanding is by opening it up to all possibilities. While it’s uncomfortable, all we have to do is convert every inner statement into a question to create an inner conflict about it.
Hypnosis is all around us (especially through our past trauma, public media, and politics), but we can use it for our purposes. By repeating something specific, we can channel our subconscious (e.g., “I will find a new job by the end of March.”). It’s the secret to most success.
Magical thinking exists proportionally to how self-trusting someone is, which frequently comes with intelligence. Thus, there are tons of magical thinkers in fields with intelligent people like politics, academia, and computer programming who won’t acknowledge additional elements of reality that they can’t know:
- Many doctors believe the body’s healing processes to be strictly mechanical and often neglect the psychosomatic power we possess through our happiness and beliefs.
- Most scientists are religiously atheist, but claim to be non-religious.
- When large groups have a procedure or policy they deem necessary, they’ll become corrupted while trying to maintain it.
Hope is based around a purpose, so if someone feels hopeless, they’re failing to see how a thing can accomplish a purpose. Understanding that purpose is key to understanding if something is hopeless.
To find someone’s actual opinion, ask for their advice for resolving a problem, or what they think everyone else believes.
MLM, gambling, and lotteries appear to be ubiquitous because people are deceived into expecting tremendous wealth. In reality, they engage in those things because they hope for tremendous wealth from those things, and find meaning in a journey that’s rarely fulfilled.
While extremists are typically the most outspoken people of a group, they often don’t understand the thing they’re promoting. They’re typically acting off trauma and magical thinking, but devout believers in a thing don’t really need to convince others to feel the thing is true. Disagree with them and closely observe what they disagree over.
It’s extremely difficult to change a person’s opinions. The only way to do this is to influence them with a compelling story about an alternative opinion, then wait.