Comments on: How I’m proved wrong by being right

By: Ketan Rindani

Ketan Rindani — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:00:32 +0000

This idea of yours is itself a good one!

My idea is this:
I/m in the process of building a blog on Jesus Christ, where people who for whatever reason, cannot attend church services, can check out my blog posts and be built up in their spiritual lives. I’m an Amazon Associate but so far am not convinced og Gools Adsens’s relevance to me. So I have disabled it. I do want to make my blog a classy one and rewarding at the same time.

What say you?

Regards.

By: Allan

Allan — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 03:26:26 +0000

What a wonderful post. I’ve had many similar experiences. Even when I was in venture capital, I was proven wrong by several companies that went on to great success, fairly big exits after I rejected their pitch.

It’s like the behavior of quantum mechanics. When you’re watching an atom, it’ll change its behavior.

Very nice – I should like to meet you if I’m ever in Europe.

By: Bob Jansen

Bob Jansen — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:08:45 +0000

Well I think you’re right on the subject. First let me say giving advice is not about being right, in these cases it’s about preventing a person with an idea to go in the wrong direction. You’re actually guiding them.

It reminds me of a discussion I’ve had some time ago about predicting the future. At the end of the discussion (it was rather a long one) this was our conclusion:

We’ll never know what’s going to happen, at the moment we know what’s going to happen we change the current (and so does the future changes).

I think what you’re actually doing is giving the person with the idea a peak into the future. With your experience it could be quite accurate. So the person may be disappointed or maybe dislikes you, but he will change his behaviour because he has a stronger sense of what’s going to happen.

As a young entrepreneur I can say, sometimes it did feel disappointing to get negative feedback but after a few times, you get to see the value and it’s thousand times more worth than positive feedback.

By: Sjors

Sjors — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:20:39 +0000

I think you are allready contradicting your story. If you say to some-one This idea won’t work, next time the come to you with a slightly different! idea, and the last time maybe with a totally altered idea. So you where right when you said the first time that that idea wouldn’t work, and the third time that it might work, simply because you have been pitched 3 different ideas. Two of them wouldnt work, you were right, and the third one could work, you were right again, 3 out of 3 sound like a good score :)

But you are still trying to predict the Future and being one of the powers to influence that future, so if you always want to be right, just dont listen to their ideas..

By: Rico

Rico — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:56:16 +0000

Happy birthday, Boris. And just keep up guiding people with ideas in an honest way.

By: David Petherick

David Petherick — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:26:35 +0000

Boris, you shouldn’t have told us this. Now we’re going to worry about you double-bluffing us when we pitch an idea…

Seriously, I think it’s important to just give honest guidance – but the best entrepreneurs don’t ask “will it work” – they ask “what’s the flaw” – but they have a common trait with the worst entrepreneurs – they still believe in their ideas when people tell them they won’t work.

The trick is knowing when to quit, or knowing when to keep going.

PS: Great photo, by the way.

By: Bart

Bart — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:44:06 +0000

I guess it’s all a matter of perspective: do you want to be right, or do you want to help people?

There’s a famous zen-quote that applies here: there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. And in this case, it seems to me it’s not about being right or wrong, but about guidance.