Being open-minded means that you’re receptive to new ideas and willing to consider other perspectives to see if they hold any value. An interesting fact is, the more you can openly consider others’ ideas, the faster you grow as a human being.
This all sounds very logical so why are we not all engaged in this practice? Perhaps we feel that we deal with people who are close minded, totally stubborn in their beliefs and unreceptive to new ideas? Well, don’t we? So how can we handle this problem?
Yes, indeed this is a problem, however, it belongs mostly to you. You need to ask yourself why do I feel such resistance towards this type of person, or a need to convince them or even have a strong need to be right when I’m around them?
You’ll begin to uncover the part of yourself that is resisting what that person represents to you as you look deep into yourself. Then consciously ask what your desire is, to hold onto it or let the resistance go?
Resistance comes from our egos. When our egos take over our ideas, they treat everything personal, thus the attack begins. If you separate your ideas from your ego you’ll feel no surge of defensiveness because there will not be any attachment.
There are four respectful words that have been given to all of us by Dr. Wayne Dryer, “you could be right”. These four words keep all of us open to hearing constructive criticism. And they can be used sincerely at anytime.
If you work with someone in your field with the Internet you will find some people like to bait others into an argument. By replying with these words you let them know you allow them their position, but you do not take ownership of it yourself.
Each time you deal with such a person, you will learn that resistance is always a lesson in disguise. And you will also learn how to defeat close mindedness to make money on the Internet.
The more you develop this amazing ability to separate your ideas and ego, the more open-minded you become in other areas. You begin to accept people more and judge them less because you are aware that you are not seeing the full picture from them.
There are people that will always choose to compete and hold no value for anyone, so be aware. When the choice is given to them they will always choose close mindedness due to their fears.
