“Your mind is both the detective and the judge, gathering evidence to prove its own case.”
This sentence from my recent post seemed to grab people’s attention. It made them pause and think about their thinking.
Most of us assume our minds are objective observers.
We Think We’re Gathering Facts
But often, we are gathering evidence.
And there is a difference.
Facts help us understand reality.
Evidence helps us support a conclusion.
The challenge is that our minds often reach a conclusion first and then start collecting evidence to support it.
The Detective Goes to Work
A colleague does not respond to your email, and your mind decides they are annoyed with you.
Someone gives you short feedback, and your mind decides you failed.
A team member asks a lot of questions, and your mind decides they are resisting the idea.
Once the conclusion is in place, the detective goes to work.
It looks for supporting clues.
It ignores contradictory evidence.
Then the judge enters the room and says, “See? I was right.”
This is not because our minds are bad.
It is because our minds are efficient.
We Don’t See Reality. We See Our Predictions
The brain is constantly trying to make sense of the world. It predicts, interprets, fills in gaps, and creates meaning quickly. That can be helpful. It allows us to move through life without analyzing every single moment from scratch.
But it can also lead us to mistake our first interpretation for the truth.
We are not simply observing the world.
We are comparing incoming information to what we already expect to see.
That means much of what we “see” is influenced by what we expected to see.
This matters in leadership.
It matters in relationships.
It matters in how we interpret silence, disagreement, feedback, conflict, and change.
The Antidote Is Curiosity
If we want to be more intentional, we need to create a pause between what happens and the meaning we assign to it.
Not a long pause.
Just enough space to ask:
What else could be true?
What else could explain this?
What information am I ignoring?
What would someone else see here?
The goal is not to stop your mind from forming conclusions.
It will form conclusions. That is what minds do.
The goal is to remember that your first conclusion may not be the only explanation.
The antidote is not certainty.
It is curiosity.
Before you let the judge make the final ruling, invite in one more question:
What else could be possible?
