I'm Elise Hugh. You're listening to TED Talks Daily. Today's talk is about being wrong.

I mean, I'm never wrong, obviously, but this talk's for you. Just kidding. We could all use a reset to our mindsets, especially if we get too locked into one kind of thinking.

In her archive talk from TEDx, PSU in 2016,

writer Julia Gayleff explains why our minds get so stubbornly set,

how to be open to changing them,

and the path forward to improve our judgment.

So I'd like you to imagine for a moment that you're a soldier in the heat of battle.

Maybe you're a Roman foot soldier or a medieval archer or maybe you're a Zulu warrior.

Regardless of your time and place, there are some things that are constant.

Your adrenaline is elevated and your actions are stemming from these deeply ingrained

reflexes. Reflexes rooted in a need to protect yourself and your side and to defeat the enemy.

So now I'd like you to imagine playing a very different role, that of the scout. So the scout's job is not to attack or defend.

The scout's job is to understand. The scout is the one going out, mapping the terrain, identifying

potential obstacles, and the scout may hope to learn that, say, there's a bridge in a convenient

location across a river. But above all, the scout wants to to learn that, say, there's a bridge in a convenient location across a river,

but above all, the scout wants to know what's really there, as accurately as possible.

And in a real actual army, both the soldier and the scout are essential.

But you can also think of each of these roles as a mindset, a metaphor for how all of us

process information and ideas in our daily lives.

And what I'm going to argue today is that having good judgment, making accurate predictions,

making good decisions is mostly about which mindset you're in.

So I'm going to take you back to 19th century France, where innocuous-looking piece of paper launched one of the biggest political

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