Principles for Success: “Your Two Biggest Barriers” | Episode 6

Principles for Success: An Ultra Mini-Series Adventure in 30 Minutes and in Eight Episodes

Episode Six: Your Two Biggest Barriers

I can't tell you which path in life is best for you because I don't know how important it is for you to achieve big goals relative to how important it is for you to avoid the pains required to get them. This is the courage I spoke of earlier, and we each have to feel these things out for ourselves.

After my big mistake in calling for a depression, I had come to one of life's forks in the road, as we all do. If I made the choice to take a normal job and play it safe, I would have ended up with a very different life than the one I had. But as long as I could pay the rent, put food on the table, and educate my kids, the only choice for me was to risk crossing the jungle in pursuit of the best life possible.

My big mistake inventing on a depression gave me a healthy fear of being wrong. In other words, it gave me deep humility, which was exactly what I needed. At the same time, it didn't stop me from aggressively going after the things I wanted to succeed. I needed to see more than I alone could see, but standing in my way of doing that were the two biggest barriers everyone faces: our ego and blind spot barriers.

These barriers exist because of how our brains work. First, let's explore the ego barrier. When I refer to your ego barrier, I'm talking about the parts of your brain that prevent you from acknowledging your weaknesses objectively so that you can figure out how to deal with them. Your deepest seeded needs and fears reside in areas of your brain that control your emotions and are not accessible to your higher-level conscious awareness.

Because our need to be right can be more important than our need to find out what's true, we like to believe our own opinions without properly stress-testing them. We especially don't like to look at our mistakes, and we instinctively react to explorations of them as though they're attacks. We get angry, even though it would be more logical for us to be open to feedback from others. This leads to our making inferior decisions, learning less, and falling short of our potentials.

The second is the blind spot barrier. Everyone has blind spots. The blind spot barrier is when a person believes he or she can see everything, but it's a simple fact that no one alone can see a complete picture of reality. Naturally, people can't appreciate what they can't see.

Just as we all have different ranges for singing, hearing pitch, and seeing colors, we have different ranges for seeing and understanding things. For example, while some people are better at seeing the big picture, others excel at seeing details. Some are linear thinkers, and others are more lateral. While some are creative but not reliable, others are reliable but not creative, and so on.

Because of how our brains are wired differently, everyone perceives the world around them differently. By doing what comes naturally to us, we fail to account for our weaknesses, and we crash. Either we keep doing that, or we change.

Aristotle defined tragedy as a terrible outcome arising from a person's fatal flaw— a flaw that, had it been fixed, would have instead led to a wonderful outcome. In my opinion, these two barriers are the main impediments that get in the way of good decision-making. My fear of being wrong gave me the radical open-mindedness I needed, and that changed everything.

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