Today I started reading Being Wrong: Adventures in Margin of Error by Kathryn Schultz. The book starts with a quote, “It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I’m right”. If you hate to be wrong as much as I do you should pick up this book and read through it with me.
Being right is an exhilarating feeling and usually something we remember while being wrong is much less memorable. How many situations can you think of where you were right or wrong in the past week, month or year? We all tend to remember our rightness over our wrongness and the wrongness we remember usually involves embarrassing situations.
I spent about twenty minutes coming up with a list of things I’ve been wrong about (see complete list here) and selected some highlights. The embarrassing situations popped into my head right away but the rest took a little more thought.
Embarrassing in the moment:
• That Hour devours is not pronounced “Hors de Vors”.
• That Cal Zone is actually a pizza folder over and cooked in an oven vs a “Cow Zone” which is a place in Kansas you smell miles before you see it.
• That I don’t have to take EVERYTHING out of my pockets for the new TSA full body scanners (this error earned a complimentary full body pat down).
• That a name spelled “Shawne” was NOT pronounced like a Native American Princess (emphasize the ending “E”) verse “Sean”.
• That Amber (my wife) wasn’t explaining something clearly (when I was just not paying attention).
Non-embarrassing in the moment (still embarrassing to admit now):
• That Twitter is pointless.
• That musicals are terrible.
• That drinking alcohol is wrong.
• That I would never buy an iPhone.
• That I always communicate clearly (and I don’t).
• That someone was going to be a jerk (and wasn’t).
• That buying a new car never makes sense.
• That I am good at prioritizing and time management.
• That any other intelligent person would see things from my perspective.
• That transitioning a client to an unproven, new software platform wasn’t risky.
• That Human Resource/Benefit staff just get in the way.
• That I don’t take too long making trivial decisions (where to eat, what to do with friends)
Being Wrong: Adventures in Margin of Error is going to explore perceptions of wrongness and how being wrong might actually be the thing that tells us the most about ourselves.
Take five or ten minutes to come up with your own list of things you’ve been wrong about. I’d love to see highlights from your list and know if you like to be right as much as I do.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I once thought I was wrong, but it turned out I was just mistaken.
Only kidding. Good post.
Another one along the same lines is admitting you don’t know. I think I learned that pretty early. A lot of people try to go on pretending they know, when they don’t. It’s much easier to admit it up front, even if it is embarrassing. Then you can learn what you don’t know. Otherwise people may find out that you were wrong when you told them that you already knew.
If you know what you know, then you should know what you don’t know. If you can get that down, you will learn much more quickly than those around you.
You know what I mean?
You are right Jeff, admitting when you don’t know is very important and it is interesting how many people are afraid to show they don’t know. The people who learn the fastest are not afraid to ask questions and show that they don’t know.
I’ll be the first to admit I know far less than I think I do but I try to be curious and ask questions about everything…