Persuadable: How Great Leaders Change Their Minds to Change the World

They need to courageously change their minds, defying the current social norms. This punctures unanimity and allows for nonconformity within that critical early majority group. These early majority champions prove indispensable by serving as a legitimizing reference to their peers. In addition, now we know—thanks to Christakis and Fowler—that this

“automatic irrational thoughts.”

“If you’re building a brand you have to listen to the critics, and we have.”31

“The willingness and the ability to change is essential,”

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”

We do need to fight against external pressures at times. There is perhaps no better example than entrepreneurship. It’s common knowledge that an overwhelming majority of businesses fail. Even with the best, most profitable idea, the pressure to fold—from family, friends, critics, and investors—is often extraordinary. Every entrepreneur who has beco

“Who actually observes your behavior on a regular basis and will tell you things you don’t want to hear?”

we shouldn’t maximize decisiveness any more than we should maximize persuadability. When we become too decisive, we also become close-minded and blind to new information. The world is just too fluctuating and unpredictable for this.

if you can’t answer this question, you need to analyze very seriously why you have this belief to begin with, because it may be based solely on dogma, which is fundamentally incompatible with persuadability.