[netcan]

Andrew is getting really good. I listen to maybe 1/10 shows. It's a lot of fun watching someone get better.

His strategy seemed to have been start with hyperactive bluntness which was great. It was a little hard listening to him say "how much do you make per year" to someone who didn't want to say it, but it meant he got. Now he seems to be getting more subtle and calm. He's getting good at picking the point where pushing needs to stop by intuition: "I'm happy to change my mind about big things but my beliefs are my beliefs." (around 31min).

[jasonfried]

To clarify that point...

Believing in something doesn't mean you're closed minded. It means you have an opinion, a point of view. My beliefs come from keeping an open mind, questioning assumptions, experimenting with new ideas. I wouldn't believe what I believe without approaching life this way. My mind remains open, but I haven't found better answers yet so I'm comfortable with what I believe: Avoid organizational complexity, product complexity, and political complexity as best you can. Things are pretty simple and easy until you make them hard and complicated.

My 6th grade science teacher told me: "Never believe yourself to be completely certain of anything." I think that's good advice.

Hope that clarifies things. It was a great question from Andrew.

[netcan]

At the risk of being argumentative, I don't think so.

Usually, and seemingly in the context of that interview, belief usually means something different from 'my current position.' It does usually imply some sort of rigidity and does imply an unwillingness to change. In the context of current political correctness it also amounts to a request that thee not be challenged too much.

Notice how that word ends that line of questioning as if either, (a) you have arrived at the root cause or (b) the issue is no undependable. Belief (or practical synonyms such as conviction) leads to no more questions. 'I became very convinced that these are correct' would have prompted the question 'why/how.'