Being willing to change your mind when new information is presented is a sign of a strong mind.
Stubbornly clinging to an idea that starts to appear inferior is a strategy that will start to render diminishing results.
When it comes to changing his mind two examples from Elon come to mind.
First is the old idea Tesla had of swapping out battery packs, for a faster charging experience. At one point Tesla was going in this direction, but they decided to abandon it as faster charging solutions have emerged.
Another more recent example is when Elon released a song about NFT’s as an NFT.
As you can see in the tweet above, Elon changed his mind.
Turns out NFT’s like the bored ape yacht club lost a ton of value. Elon was on point with under valuing NFT’s. They lack the intrinsic value and can be copied too easily in my opinion. They have lost around ~10X or more of their value since their peak.
Changing your mind might seem counterintuitive to other advice Elon gives, namely his praise for persistence.
Elon clarifies: “Yeah I think absolutely persistence is extremely important. You should not give up unless you’re forced to give up.
That principle can be misapplied if you happen to be trying to penetrate a brick wall with your head, you know, so you need to be cautious in always saying one should always persist and never give up because there are actually times when you should give up because you’re doing something in error.”
So the lesson of this segment is: Don’t be afraid to change your mind if the path you are on proves to be unpowerful.
Changing your mind when presented with more new information simply makes sense. Remaining unphased by new information is a sign of ignorance.
Don’t let others try to paint your ability to upgrade or change your decisions as a weakness. Because it is a strength.