How to Keep Your Cool

I go around the world and talk to people about controversial ideas. One of the most common questions I’m asked is: “How do you keep your cool?”

Here’s how I do it:

1. I am genuinely curious if someone knows something I don’t know. If they know something I don’t know, I want to know what that is. But for me to figure out if they know something I don’t know, I need to first understand how they know what they claim to know. Someone can be as upset with me as they’d like—they can think I’m a complete idiot or a really bad person—but that does not change the fact that they either have good reasons for believing what they believe, or not. Their feelings about me are irrelevant to the reasons they have for justifying their position. So first and foremost, understanding the reasons behind people’s beliefs keeps me grounded.