Seek dissent

Written by Jim Chaput
After a 19-year career in financial services, Jim left a leadership position to focus on health and fitness. Jim is a Master Practitioner of Applied Movement Neurology and holds Certificates in Applied Functional Science and 3DMAPS from the Gray Institute. His passion is empowering people to help resolve the pain, tension and insomnia that prevents them from living well.

If you want to grow, you might want to venture out of your bubble. How do you know if you’re in a bubble? One sign is that you always see and hear opinions that agree with you. It’s easy to find information that supports your views, but what if you’re wrong? Hint: If you’ve never been wrong, you’re definitely in a bubble.

If any of that resonates with you, it might be time to look for some new sources. Find some opposing opinions and work to understand why they believe what they do. Develop reasoning to support “their” side of the argument. Even if you don’t change your mind, you’ll understand better the people that think differently than you.

If you’re not quite ready to venture out of your bubble, try it at home instead. Maybe you and your partner don’t agree on certain things. If you were them, how would you make the case to win you over?

When have you changed your mind about something for which you had strong beliefs?

When have you empathized with someone whose views were very different from your own?

2 Comments

  1. Pat

    I was dead against plastic water bottles Poland Springs & Nestle were the enemy.
    Then, Pueto Rico needed water after the deadly hurricane & floods. The bottles of water saved many lives.
    I had to embrace it.

    • Jim Chaput

      That’s a good lesson that we need context before we decide what to accept or reject. Maybe someday we will get to a point that plastic packaging is for emergency use only. Even better, someone will come up with an edible water container – like a coconut, but easier to open.