5 Ways To Train Your Brain To Be More Open-Minded

If you're working in a multicultural or a diverse environment, and you recognize the importance of being open-minded, then this is the video for you. Because in this video, I'm gonna share with you five ways on how you can train your brain to be open-minded. And you'll find that after these five ways, if you implement them, of course, because knowledge itself is not wisdom, but applied knowledge is where the wisdom comes to fruition in your life.

You're gonna notice that open-mindedness will come naturally to you, and it will be something that you don't have to put effort into. And that's my goal for you in this video. So when it comes to open mindedness, what does that mean?

Cause I'm sure that you have Googled this before and you read a lot of articles on open mindedness, but I wanna give you a distinction, a key distinction on what does it mean to be open minded. Right? Open mindedness is not a personality trait.

It's not a characteristic, it's also not a genetic thing that you're born with or you're born without. Open mindedness is open mindedness is nothing more than a state of mind. It is a state of mind.

In other words, a type of a mindset where you are naturally open and willing to consider other people's perspectives. Even when other people's perspectives are quite different from your own or they're opposite of your own perspectives, or maybe they even challenge your perspectives that you are willing to open mindedly, you're willing to consider them. You're willing to listen to them as well.

And you're maybe even willing to adopt some of their principles from their perspective. That is the distinction of open-mindedness. Now it is really also known as a state of being unbiased, right?

So that is another way to talk about open-mindedness it's really an unbiased state unprejudiced state, because you are willing to accept it, willing to listen to it and really willing to pay attention and have the patience to go through what is your perspective, right? And when it comes to being open mindedness, let's talk a little bit about why is this so difficult? Why is that so difficult to do, right?

And the essence of why it's difficult, why that is a challenge is because on the core of every human, every individual has their own priority of values. We have our own values systems. Some people called it a hierarchy of values, and these values really dictate all of our actions, your values dictate your decisions and your values also dictate your perspectives.

Right? Your life, the way that you're living right now, they are driven by your values. So that's why it's really important to understand, and to have some awareness of what are my core values, what are they actually?

Not what you think they should be, not what you think they have been, but what are they actually, what are your actual, your true values? And the thing is whenever we all have our set of values and your values are unique to you, my values are unique to me and no two people have the same set of values. No two people have the same system of values.

So as a result of that, whenever you meet somebody new and whenever you're working alongside along somebody they're gonna have different values. And as a result of that, they have different perspectives because our perspectives are driven by our values. And anytime we meet somebody where they have a perspective and they share their perspective and you find that their perspective supports yours, and you find that their value system kind of supports your own value systems, you will naturally feel that, that it is a friendly perspective.

You'll naturally be more warm and welcome to that perspective. And the flip side is also true. Whenever you meet somebody or you're working along side, alongside somebody, and they share their perspective and you find that their perspectives are opposite from yours, or you find that their values are quite different from yours.

And they challenge yours. You're going to label that as unfriendly. You're gonna label that as something I want to avoid or something that is a risk or a threat to you, right?

That is always two-sided. And so when it comes to being open-mindedness, it's not possible to always be meeting somebody who is gonna support you in what's truly most important to you is not gonna be possible. It's not possible to always have support from the external.

So this is why the essence of why it is important to develop the state of mind of open mindedness. Because in any situation, in any environment you can be in, there's always going to be people who challenge your values and your what's important to you. And there will be some people who support them.

And oftentimes the more that we desire to seek people who support it, the more we will also see the opposite. Those who challenge it, those who have quite the opposite perspectives and values, right? So it's not possible to always be among people or to change people so that they come to our side.

It's not possible to change people, to shape their perspectives so that they come over to our side and adopt our perspectives. That's not possible either because every people, every individual yourself included is just interested in preserving what's important to me, right? What's important to that person.

And everyone is, everyone is in, is invested in that. What I what's into me, what are my highest values, right? And looking for ways to enforce that way, to articulate that.

And that's what people are committed to. So that's why it's not possible to change them. So that is the essence of what open mindedness is and why it is very important to develop that state of mind.

And so now let's go into it to talk about the five ways and how you can train your brain to be open-minded and that it will be natural to you. And by the way, if you enjoy this topic, give me a thumbs up, cuz I wanna hear from you as well. And if you haven't done so already remember to subscribe to my channel, ring that bell below as well, so that you can receive a notification, every time I release a new video every single week on topics like this, and so much more.

Way number one, the first way to program your brain to become more open-minded naturally is to change your relationship with challenge because when it comes to challenges that come in our life and in our career path and in our relationships, and so on most of the time, you know, it's common for individuals to see challenges as a threat challenges to a threat of our way of being, or as a threat to our routine, as a threat to our identity or as a threat to our intelligence or the way people perceive us. Right? So these are quite common.

And as a result of seeing challenges as a threat, what we will naturally do as a consequence of that is we will naturally tend to want to avoid challenges or go as far away from them as possible, or to turn away from opportunities or to not raise our hand. Because there are too many challenges that threaten our identity or the way people perceive us. Right.

And comment below. I wanna hear from you, if you, if this is resonating with you, I wanna hear from you just say, yes, I've, I've experienced that before. And when it comes to seeing challenges this way, this is where it'll always create that feeling of resistance.

It'll always create that feeling of procrastinating on pursuing opportunities like that so long as you perceive challenges as a threat. So that is the why the first way is to change your relationship with challenge. Instead of seeing challenges as a threat, perceive them as a very valuable mechanism to refine your skillset so that you can achieve mastery of your craft because let's face it when it comes to achieving mastery.

And by the way, I really do believe that the whole purpose of learning is to achieve mastery in that thing. But when it comes to becoming a master of your craft, and a lot of people talk about becoming experts in their field or leaders in their industry, when it comes to achieving that level of career achievement or that level of achievement of your goals, it does in, it does involve, and it does necessarily need to have challenges. Cause imagine this, you go along your career path and there are absolutely no challenges along your way, everything is just smooth sailing and everybody who meets you, they say yes to you, right?

Everything that you wish for is granted. And at the same time, it is just completely smooth all the way. As a result of an absence of challenges, what that causes on the flip side is now an addiction to support because the opposite of challenge is support.

So the more that we have absences of challenges in our life, or the more we seek to avoid challenges, the greater our tendency to want to have support only, being addicted to support. And if you have only support in your life, right? Let me know, comment below, have you, have you yourself met people who have more cha more support than challenges.

How do those individuals usually turn out when it comes to having resilience, right? When it comes to being accepting of other people, when it comes to even being able to step up when the going gets tough in life, which it necessarily does, right? How do those people usually manage that?

So that's why challenges. If you see them instead of as a threat, but is set as a valuable mechanism to refine you your skillset, to help you master your craft. Then it changes your relationship with challenge, and you'll no longer seek to avoid it.

And you'll no longer have that addiction to support because in life it is not possible to only have yeses or to only have supports or to only have smooth sailing all the time. That's not possible. Life gives you both.

Life gives you an equal balance of both. So step number one, the first way, that's why it's so important and is very crucial to change your relationship with challenge. Way number two, to be more open-minded is to love others for who they are.

Now, I know what you're thinking, as soon as I said that, you might be thinking, well, this is professional. I'm I'm talking about the professional corporate workplace. It's inappropriate to love.

It's inappropriate, but you see, I'm not referring to romantic love. I'm not referring to that. I'm referring to loving people for who they are, which means appreciating their strengths and weaknesses, appreciating their securities and insecurities, appreciating their differences in all aspects of it.

Because here's the thing about humans as a principle, every individual just wants to be loved for who they are, and this includes the workplace. So it is very appropriate even in the workplace, even in professional settings, to love people for who they are, because as individuals, we're all walking around, wanting to be loved for who we are. And what does that mean?

It means that no matter what mistakes they make, no matter what perspectives they have, no matter what decisions they make, they wanna be appreciated for it. Right? And if you understand this from a deep level and you reflect within yourself, you'll notice that this is true because oftentimes we come across individuals that are difficult to love or difficult to get along with or difficult to work with.

But if we will learn to appreciate even those most difficult circumstances, and we love them for who they are, they turn into people we love. And when we love them for who they are, another thing that could happen, another really advantage and a benefit that could happen is that they turn into people we love. And at the same time, we're no longer resentful of them because so long as we don't love and appreciate them for who they are, we will, and necessarily we will want to change them.

We will want them to come to our side of the table. We will want them to ha to adopt our perspectives. We will want them to see our per point of view.

We will want them to say yes to us or agree to everything we suggest necessarily that will be our intention, whether we admitted or not, whether we say it outright or not, this is what will be created within so long as we do not love and appreciate people for who they are. So if we do adopt this mentality in terms of, I understand that we have differences. I understand that we have our own unique weaknesses and strengths.

And I understand that we have our own unique perspectives and sometimes our perspectives may clash and be different or challenge one another. But I love you anyways, right? When you adopt that mentality, this is where they turn into who you love, and you will no longer be resentful.

And this is what creates peace and harmony in any situation, any relationship, whether it be professional or personal. The third way to program your brain to become naturally more open-minded is to embrace all of who you are. I mean, let's face it.

We go through life willing to change certain things about ourself. We go through life, liking certain things, but disliking certain things about ourself and those things that we dislike about ourselves, we wanna change them, get rid of them, hide them, or cover them up. And so we have these sides about around ourselves that we do not embrace and that we do not like we're going to always want to cover them up.

And we're gonna always want to compare ourselves with other people. And we're gonna always want to talk in a certain way to not reveal those sides of ourselves. And the other thing is true so long as we have these sides that we dislike about ourselves.

Whenever there are other people that we meet or that we work with that have different perspectives to us. And whenever we are faced with challenges, those challenges will further magnify these insecurities because the parts that, that we dislike about ourselves so long as we do not embrace them, we will always feel that those areas are our most insecure. And when it comes to challenges, challenges have a way to really magnify our insecurities.

And in those insecurities, this is where we had the highest propensity to say things that we later regret. How many of you have experienced that I wanna hear from you, comment below how many have experienced that where people, where you've meet, where you meet people and they say things, they say things that they wouldn't otherwise say, but it's out of their own insecurities that they say them, and they might regret it later on, but it causes a, a wedge in the relationship. So this happens whenever there is an insecurity.

That means there is a part of you, or there are, there are parts of yourself that you dislike or that you want to disown, or that you do not embrace. So that's why the third way is really important because what is within the seed that is inside is planted outside. What is within gets mirrored outside.

So that's why this is really super important. I wanna hear from you acknowledge this, that from this point forward, you're gonna commit to embrace all of who you are. The fourth way to train your brain to become more open-minded is to practice deep introspection.

now, intro is within right. Intra is between people. Intro is within.

So introspection introspection is very important because the whole purpose of introspection is to really have an examination glass directed inwards. This is where your eyes are directed inwards. Instead of looking at what everybody else is doing, what everybody else is saying.

This is the practice of going within, going deep within to understand who you are and to understand what you're all about. So when it comes to deep introspective introspection, the one of the key things to this practice is to realize that your own perspectives are sometimes incomplete because oftentimes we develop our in, we develop our perspectives. Again, as I mentioned earlier, our perspectives are driven by our values, but sometimes we can hold our perspectives so strongly because we really do believe our perspectives.

We really believe we saw what we saw, and we really do believe that this is the way it is. But oftentimes even in the strength at which we hold our own perspectives that our perspectives are not in, that are not, they're not complete. We don't see the whole picture of it.

We see one side of it. We see the side that supports our values. We see the side that really gives us the feeling that we are supported and gives us confirmation of what we do believe.

And this is a bias that we have inside of our brain. It is very natural. So this is where it's important that you raise you step up in your consciousness and you take the, you have the courage and the willingness to challenge your own perspectives.

Give yourself a challenge, because oftentimes when we have a perspective, we have that perspective. If you think about it, how did your perspective get there? Have you ever taken the time to really reflect upon that this is the perspective I have about this thing, but how did that perspective get there?

How did I formulate that perspective? Right? Oftentimes we just have our perspectives and we hold onto them and we articulate them.

And sometimes we fight and argue about our perspectives, but do we ever of take a moment to think, how did they get there? How do we even develop them? And are our perspectives really reflective of the truth?

Not what we think is the truth, but, uh, are they really reflective of reality and what is true out there? And so this is the really important step is to challenge your perspectives. When you challenge your perspective, this is how you can expand your knowledge, really develop greater wisdom and depth of wisdom as well.

And at the same time to be familiar with challenges because you yourself are challenging your perspectives. And this is why it's important to have perspectives, but perspectives that are loosely held, right, and not perspectives that are so closely held that you're unwilling to budge, unwilling to go to the other side or unwilling to see things from the opposite perspective as your own, because when it comes to perspectives, oftentimes perspectives can be confused with opinions and whose opinion is the absolute truth anyways, my opinion, your opinion, their opinion, whose opinions are the absolute truth anyways? And so our perspectives, if you go out there and you really do explore, and you really become a truth seeker, this is where you can get familiar with the notion of challenge and you won't resist it so much, but at the same time, you could expand your knowledge base and really have clarity on who am I right now and who do I wanna become?

Right? So that is the fourth way is to really, really practice deep introspection. The fifth and final way to train your brain to become more open-minded is to practice deep gratitude, even among challenges, because when it comes to being grateful for something it's really easy, it takes absolutely no effort to be grateful when things go your way, it absolutely takes no effort to be thankful to say thank you or to be very grateful when people are supporting you, that takes no effort.

And oftentimes in life, we go through life only being grateful when there is support, we're only thankful. We only thank people when they support us. When they see our perspectives or when they change to adopt our perspectives, then we're grateful.

And then we're thankful. But the challenge in life and a meaningful one is to practice gratitude, even in challenges, because among challenges, when you can be grateful, even when you have challenges, because you see challenges going back to the first way, by the way, when you see challenges, not as a threat, but as a valuable feedback mechanism to refine your skills, to master your craft. And you're grateful for those challenges, then you can have gratitude among both support and challenges because life gives you both support and challenges.

If you're only grateful when support comes your your way. And you're only grateful when things go your way, then you're only be great. You're only going to be grateful half of the time.

And the opposite of gratitude is ingratitude thanklessness and the state of being in, ingratitude and thanklessness is a state of very low energy, right? It's very difficult to be fulfilled. It's really difficult to be content even.

It's very difficult to have meaningful relationships when we are in ingratitude or thanklessness. And so we're only grateful for the times that things go our way, then we're only in gratitude half of the time, and we're in thanklessness the other half of the time, but wouldn't it be more meaningful in life, wouldn't experiences be more meaningful, to be more depth and to have more chances at opportunities that turn in to meaningfulness to us and greater contributions for us, if we are grateful all of the time. And that is within your control, because your perceptions also go on to influence your gratitude and the moments in which you can feel grateful and be grateful even when there are challenges.

And I say, when there are challenges, not if there are challenges, because challenges will happen, life gives you both, right? So I have another video for you. Coming up next is my video that I created earlier on the five ways to be yourself, because this is about being authentic, right?

So stay tuned that video's gonna come up next on the five ways to be yourself.