Have you ever found yourself trapped in an echo chamber? I have.
When you surround yourself with like-minded people, it's easy to fall prey to echoes of your own minds.
But what happens when those echoes turn into a deafening roar, distorting our understanding of the world?
In this thread, I’ll share my personal experience with echo chambers during the last crypto bull run.
I'll cover:
• Why the "soldier mindset" makes us fall into echo chambers
• How the "scout mindset" helped me become more open-minded
• Strategies to escape echo chambers
I've fallen prey to the "soldier mindset", especially during the last crypto bull run. I've held on to $LUNA with fierce loyalty, discounting dissenters, and falling into the echo chamber of Crypto Twitter.
And I lost money with which I could have bought my first home.
The "soldier mindset", as described by @juliagalef, is a mental model that focuses on defending a specific viewpoint at all costs.
As soldiers, you either win or lose.
This makes us fall into echo chambers, making it harder to learn from dissenters and see things as they are.
Why do we act as soldiers?
• To avoid the unpleasant feeling of being wrong
• To convince ourselves to do things and convince others
• To choose the beliefs that make us socially acceptable
Since $LUNA, I've learned that I'd much rather act as a scout.
The "scout mindset" is all about keeping an open mind, constantly questioning our opinions, and exploring new perspectives to update our beliefs.
What does being a scout look like?
• Admitting when you're wrong
• Announcing publicly when you change your mind
• Keep dissenters close
• Avoiding influencing others toward your point of view
• Admit to cases when you’ve been a soldier
As a growth professional, I focus on continuous experimentation, learning, and data-informed decisions to update my map of beliefs about my users, products, and channels.
The last crypto bull run taught me I should strive to act the same when investing.
But even when you realize you’re in an echo chamber, it’s not easy to apply the scout mindset.
Check out my newsletter for tactical tests to apply the scout mindset.
titta.substack.com/p/scout-mindset-how-to-escape-echo-chambers
Seeking challenges with people you don't know and *completely* disagree with you can lead to unproductive arguments and deeper polarization of your beliefs — like when debating on social.
Social algorithms are optimized to expose us to information that aligns with our beliefs, reinforcing our soldier mindset.
The medium we use to seek challenge is critical.
Confront yourself instead with friends, family, or coworkers.
Seek dissenters that share intellectual common ground, personal experiences, or similar goals — it lowers your soldier mindset and helps you integrate net new knowledge.
Also, new opinions can be hard to process, especially if they contradict existing beliefs.
Give yourself time to digest them, and ask multiple sources to hear multiple viewpoints.
After the $LUNA crash, I unfollowed lots of my Crypto Twitter and started talking with close friends that were not "LUNAtics".
Those conversations are probably the reason why I avoided being impacted by #Celsius and #FTX later in the year.
Our beliefs are all interconnected — changing one often requires updating other interrelated beliefs.
This process can be emotionally taxing but is essential for personal and professional growth.
The $LUNA crash taught me to re-evaluate my investment strategy, and pay more attention to the macroeconomic picture.
This didn't make me bearish on the fundamental of Web3 but it helped me update my thesis on yield and CeFi, as well as re-evaluate self-custody.
In conclusion, the scout mindset taught me to hold my identity lightly.
It's easy to activate our soldier mindset and fall into echo chambers when we’re discussing topics that we identify with — like religion, politics, or ideological principles.
This doesn't mean renouncing our identity altogether, but rather seeing it as subject to change and updating it constantly with new information and perspectives.
Want to learn more about how to escape echo chambers and apply the scout mindset in your life?
Check out my newsletter, and subscribe to get future posts.
titta.substack.com/p/scout-mindset-how-to-escape-echo-chambers
Also, check out The Scout Mindset by @juliagalef — it's genuinely a must-read for your 2023.
amazon.co.uk/Scout-Mindset-People-Things-Clearly/dp/034942764X