19 Mar The Trouble with Being Certain
One of the most useful skills in life is the ability to change your mind.
Psychologists call it intellectual humility.
I was reminded of it at two in the morning in the Phoenix airport parking garage.
My flight had been delayed, and by the time I stepped into the garage it was quiet. The echo of my suitcase wheels was the only sound.
When I travel, I keep parking simple. I always go to the eighth floor and park in the same row. It’s one less thing to think about when I land and am ready to get home.
I have a system. It had never failed me.
I walked straight to where my car should have been.
My car was not there.
I stood there staring at the space.
I rubbed my eyes and looked again.
Still no car.
I walked the row once.
Then again.
Then the next aisle.
Then back again.
Still no car.
I noticed the blue light above an emergency phone mounted to one of the pillars. I picked it up and said my car was missing. The operator said someone would come assist me.
A few minutes later a small airport car pulled up with PHX on the side. A woman stepped out, calm and matter-of-fact. She popped the trunk and told me to put my bag inside, then motioned for me to sit in the back.
I slumped down in the seat, thinking how embarrassing it is to be driven around a parking garage because you can’t find your car.
She asked for the make, model, and license plate. I told her, and then explained where the car was.
“Level eight. The same row I always park in when I travel.”
She drove slowly down the aisle.
No car.
“Maybe you parked somewhere else?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I always park here.”
She drove the entire level slowly.
No car.
“Let’s check other levels,” she said.
I sighed. Loudly. This was not going to help us find the car that was on level eight.
Still, she drove down to level seven.
No car.
Then level six.
By this point I had stopped looking. I was thinking about who I should call first to report that my car had been stolen.
Suddenly she stopped the vehicle.
“There is your car,” she said.
I looked up.
And there it was.
My car.
The same row I always use.
But not level eight.
Two floors down on level six.
I stared at it.
“How in the world… did my car get there?” I asked.
Of course she didn’t need to answer. The answer was glaringly obvious.
I had parked it there.
Standing there in the garage, it struck me how tightly I had held onto that certainty. Every suggestion she offered bounced off the story I had decided was true. I was busy protecting the one I had.
In psychology, intellectual humility is the ability to recognize when the evidence in front of you no longer matches the story in your head and to change the story.
People who can do this make better decisions. They learn faster. They avoid the traps that keep the rest of us arguing with reality.
Because the goal isn’t to be right.
The goal is to get to what is right.
As the woman drove away, she gave a small wave. She had just spent fifteen patient minutes driving a stubborn psychologist around a parking garage at two in the morning.
“Level eight,” I had insisted. “The same row I always use.”
She simply kept driving.
One level down.
Then another.
Until the evidence appeared.
She never once seemed surprised about where the car finally turned up.
She had simply been open to the possibility that I was wrong long before I was.