CTech's Book Review: Understanding the continued process of learning

Guy Flechter is the CEO and Co-Founder at Cider Security. He has joined CTech to share a review of “What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Today's Leading Minds Rethink Everything” by John Brockman.

Title: What Have You Changed Your Mind About?: Today's Leading Minds Rethink Everything

Author: John Brockman

Format: Book

Where: Home

Summary:

The book is part of Edge.org series of thought-provoking questions posed to influential people across the globe. In this book, they ask 150 people from different disciplines the question posed in the title, and they provide their answers with explanations on the reasons that made them change their minds, while also taking an honest look at the mistakes they have previously made based on previous thought. I strongly recommend reading all the books in the Edge series.

Important Themes:

You need to be open to change - whether it’s your mind and thinking, actions, processes, or even culture and behavior. Eventually, the world is much more complex and multi-faceted, and sometimes you need to understand that at some point in time you may have had one understanding of something, and a few years/months/days later, you discover additional information or a new point of view, and you need to be able to change your mind and adapt based on this. This is the only way that you can grow and be better. It’s also a good lesson to be modest and understand that you don’t know everything and that learning is a continual and constant process.

What I’ve Learned:

This book provides a good understanding that not everything that you think is right, is indeed the collective right thing for everyone. You always need to be very open-minded and listen to other ideas (even in areas that you think that you’re an expert in). And it might surprise you, the things that you’ll learn, and the new opinions and perceptions you’ll form.

Who Should Read This Book:

Everyone. I literally think that it is such a critical book in our time, when everyone is struggling to listen, actually hear, and ultimately internalize other ideas and thoughts. The world is becoming so polarized by social media and other very immediate formats of engagement, that we need to be more receptive to adapting our way of thinking and be open to continuously evolving our thoughts and actions.