№ 79: Allowing Those You Love The Right To Be Wrong
Why you’re getting this: I’m Jason Nguyen. I run Bloomstory.co.uk and The Mailroom. This is my newsletter. I used to write this every week, but now I send this out when I can — life got in the way. Updates on what’s been going on in my life are at the bottom of this newsletter.
When you’re an entrepreneur, you learn to love problems because a problem is just an opportunity disguised in work clothes.
An opportunity to get better, to develop your skills, to make money or to open new doors.
So when someone I love comes and tells me about a problem, I can’t help but want to solve it for them.
I want to get involved.
I want to enter their inner world and impose what I think is the right solution instead of allowing them to make their own choices, even if I know what they’re about to do is going to lead to a huge mistake.
I like to believe this urge to help others comes from a place of love. I don’t like to see the people I love hurt, so I want to do all I can to lessen their pain, share their burdens and solve their problems.
I finally see why my mother was so overbearing. She simply didn’t want me to hurt or suffer. She wanted to solve my problems for me.
But what we think is the best choice for others isn’t necessarily the choice that is best for them.
We have to let others make their own mistakes, even if it means them hurting more later on.
By trying to intervene in another person’s life, we rob them of the opportunity to become wiser.
I’ve made this mistake enough times to know that by trying to intervene, the result is that the other person resents you.
It’s in our nature to push back when things are imposed on us (even if it is good) because the power to choose has been taken away from us.
It is why in behavioural science, if we want to influence someone we don’t nag them to death. Instead, we architect their choice. We present options:
“Burgers or pizza?” “Still or sparkling?” “Asian food or western?”
By presenting options, the choice architect creates an illusion for the recipient that they’re in control while controlling the context.
It has taken me a long time to realise this, but trying to save people from their own pain most often causes them more pain.
There’s a term for this in medicine: Iatrogenics. Iatrogenics is when there is more (unintentional) harm caused by intervention from a doctor.
I’m not yet a father, but I can understand how hard it must be for a parent to want to intervene and protect their children. Everything I do now is because I want my kids to grow up without pain and to be safe and secure.
Yet, one of my biggest wishes is for my future children to be self-sufficient, able to think for themselves, and resilient when facing the vicissitudes of life.
For that to happen, I need to learn to let others be, to hold space and reserve judgment so that they can think, act and learn for themselves.
A heuristic I’ve picked up from business and marketing is that there is no objective right or wrong. What may have worked for me may not work for a competitor, and vice versa.
So, what seemed right for me may be wrong for someone else. Only they can know what is the best answer.
By letting them make their own choices, fucking up and taking responsibility for it, they have the opportunity to build their sense of self-trust.
Intervening would rob them of that privilege.
I was recently catching up with a friend when he asked me, “How have you found so much faith in yourself? Why are you so optimistic about the future?”
It’s precisely because for the last three years, I’ve been failing and making mistakes but telling myself no one can get me out of this mess but me.
Gradually, after seeing myself survive and somehow shaping my life to be what I want, I learned to trust myself. Had anyone intervened, developing my sense of self-trust would’ve taken longer.
So why does self-trust matter so much?
Well, about a year ago, these charts of time spent with loved ones went viral:
While it highlights the time spent with loved ones declining over time, only one increased: the time spent with yourself. This is the most important relationship you have in this life because you’re stuck with yourself until the very end.
That requires you to own your decisions, develop self-trust and treat yourself like someone you’re responsible for helping.
Paradoxically, when you take care of yourself, you take care of the world. Or as my friend Trung puts it, “To be selfless, you must first be selfish.”
I’ve often thought about why this is, and I think when we choose to see ourselves as Kings and Queens of our inner kingdoms, we no longer hide from who we truly are.
We take stock of what is inside of us, and we serve, protect, govern, and take care of our inner pastures.
And when our inner kingdom thrives, only then do we serve the outside world from a place of abundance.
What Have I Been Up To Lately?
Bloomstory has made some strategic changes over the last quarter. We’ve been shifting more to be at the intersection of marketing, behavioural science and AI/ML.
I’ve been exploring Markov processes and how they work in predicting human behaviour. I understand how a Markov process works in practice, mainly from poker, but I wanted to learn the theory behind it. This has led me to learn Python and some statistics.
We’re trying to figure out how to get AI to analyse videos. It requires learning coding to get implement this.
I’ve caught the running bug, and I’ve signed myself up for The Big Half in London and the Race for Life 10k. Cardio just makes me feel better than lifting, especially on a beautiful summer day.
Also entered the 2025 London Marathon ballot.
I sold my soul and started writing on LinkedIn more. This is mainly work-related stuff. If you want to hear me talk more about marketing, behavioural science and AI, you can find me here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonvunguyen/
RIP to two legends: Daniel Kahneman and Jim Simons
Hiked Snowdonia in the wind and rain.
That’s all for now.
Speak soon.
— Jason Vu Nguyen