How do I know I am right?

Bridgewater is an internationally well-known company, for three major reasons. Firstly, they’ve got an incredibly unique view of their work culture, which is very ‘life-giving’ to those within it. They are also a $160 billion hedge fund operation – so we’re talking about a big organisation in this world. Lastly, they’re incredibly well known for their resilience.

Ray puts this resilience down to asking good questions, which gets us seriously excited because that is our ethos too. Asking good questions stimulates deep thinking. A great question he raises in his book is, “How do I know I am right?” He goes on to say we need to move away from the statement of “I know I’m right”, to “how, do I know?”

In essence, asking a good question doesn’t solve a problem; it actually creates a new one.

Hopefully a very meaningful one. Neuroscience processes say that our brains give us a dopamine rush when we conclude. We like to find meaning in everything, and so our brains love to conclude as quickly as possible.

But this isn’t always very helpful to us. In the instance of this question, “How do I know I’m right”, we can easily assume without asking that question that we are right, the other persons the villain, and that’s that. But is that, really that?

Do you want to hear the not so nice news about you and I? The truth is …

Humans by nature are lazy thinkers. Our brains don’t want to waste time thinking on things we can quickly conclude.
We are often not as good as we think we are - especially when it comes to reading into other people! Naturally, we have a clouded judgment, as our personal perception is not necessarily the true perception.
We are prone to blind spots and even more so when we become convinced about being right. Again, this comes down to personal perception as well as systems that we might assume are fully formed but inevitably leave out an aspect of importance we aren’t aware of. We need the perception and input of others to form a well rounded idea of something.

So now that we have literally reduced us all to lazy not so good thinkers that stumble around this world blindly…. What now?

If I could sum up the essence of this podcast it would be this:

We’re all for positivity, and know that we need to have a positive outlook on life wherever possible so that we can embrace and love and live. However…

Don’t let positivity stop you from doing deep thinking.

Deep thinking is what will really turn the soils of our minds. It is what will unearth unexpected truths and great discoveries. Deep thinking opens us up towards that which we might receive, and teaches us to have a sharper awareness towards that which we might otherwise have missed. We as a collective, run the risk of using positivity as a blanket to cover the deep thinking that we often know in our hearts needs to be done. Do not let positivity keep you from digging deeper, going further and opening up the golden, hidden pathways within our desires and duties that we would otherwise have no idea, are within.

Here's some everyday examples where we might find this question useful.

When you find yourself close minded towards others because of a strong belief or conviction. We do believe in conviction, and know that we all need a truth that centres us through our belief in it. But don’t let it stop you from adding substance to that truth. By talking tentatively and truly listening to others we can keep our minds open towards the possibility that we could be preventing ourselves from discovering more beauty, or more truth, to our conviction.
Making assumptions on the readiness of people within change can bring some not so nice consequences. Hope in people readily accepting the change is good. Hope needs to be there for us to feel motivated with said change. But it can be very dangerous if it is just expected of others, and no deep thinking or preparation is done for when someone does find it hard to receive.
When we have absolute confidence in something. Don’t be afraid to question it in order to define it, make it better or more true! Ask yourself, did we ask the hard questions? For an example, If every restaurant at this given location failed before us, what makes ours different, why will ours succeed? Failing to ask these questions might just mean that we fail to succeed, because we duplicate the errors.
When you have a “best practice” situation, where the best practice is something that is known to work well and provide the right result. Don’t let that turn you into a lazy thinker where we stop striving for alternative, better ways of doing things.

After all of this, can we really claim convictions?

Of course we can. We aren’t saying that you can never claim you’re right. But we encourage you to do the deep thinking, the research, the work around the situation so that you really do know if what you’re believing in is something of value. As Desmond Tutu says, “Don’t raise your voice. Improve your argument.”