Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens

by Barbara Oakley

Third, Santiago was flexible. Super-smart learners can get too used to being right. It feels nice to be right, but that feeling can also be addictive.2 Santiago saw that some super-smart learners jump to conclusions quickly. (They’ve got “race car” brains, after all.) But if their conclusions are wrong, it can be hard for them to admit it. They can even deliberately avoid discovering whether they are wrong. All this feels nicer than admitting they might be mistaken. They can fall into a “rut think” of rightness. Santiago wasn’t a genius. So he got a lot of practice correcting his mistakes. Later, when he became a scientist, he actively looked for ways to determine whether he was right or wrong. When he was wrong, he changed his mind. This was an important part of what allowed him to make the groundbreaking discoveries that won him the Nobel Prize.