I Was Wrong — I Need To Admit This Publicly
I’m about to break something to you that may surprise you..
I was actually wrong about something recently.
I know, that’s crazy, right?
In all seriousness, I created a video recently that suggested I came up with a brand new idea for Medium articles.
*This article is NOT about Medium, it’s about being wrong. Keep reading.*
My idea was that writers could
- collaborate on posts, and
- basically respond to each other *in the same article* to bring a different article-reading experience.
I go over my concept further in the video, so just watch that to see what I mean.
I Then Got Corrected
In my original video I got a little overzealous I think. I sort of made the statement that I came up with the idea for collab posts alone and that nobody else was doing it on Medium.
But there were some people already doing it.
And I heard about it.
And it hurt me to hear about it.
I immediately felt like I had to “fire back” to salvage my manhood or something.
But then I thought about it and realized these people were right. Further, I realized something even more profound about being proven right/wrong that I feel I need to highlight.
There Is Honestly Nothing Wrong With Being Wrong
Right?
If the above is true, why do we feel so freakin’ butthurt when we are proven wrong?
I think many times we feel bad because of the way people let us know we’re wrong.
Like, you could either help someone feel 100% positive about being wrong or 1,000,000% destroyed about being wrong depending on HOW YOU GO ABOUT TELLING THEM.
Also, I think we value our egos too much. This hurts our EGO because we’re valuing how we look to other people over everything else.
When we’re proven wrong, for some reason we think we’re bad people for being wrong. We also sometimes feel like we’re the only ones who are wrong in the world.
Like everybody is laughing at us or something for being wrong.
But again, this gets back to ego, not truth.
Truth, in the end, is what we should be chasing.
Damn our ego.
It Says More To Admit You’re Wrong Than Trying To Prove You’re Right
Even if you are right. Even if you’re so fucking right it’s ridiculous.
People will give you 10 times more credit for relinquishing your ego rather than defending it.
It’s just the truth.
Isn’t our ego what we’re trying to salvage in the first place anyway?
I’m not saying you should just admit you’re wrong all the time because that’s going to win you favor with everyone.
I am simply saying this to hopefully help you feel a little better about being wrong.
You don’t look like a fool for admitting you’re wrong.
You never will.
People actually respect the hell out of that. They might not say that immediately, but they feel it deep down in their heart.
I Want To See More People Admit That They’re Wrong
Look guys, I’m 25 years old. I don’t have a damn clue about MANY of the most important lessons in life.
I don’t hold all the answers and sometimes I do get massively overzealous in my blog posts/videos.
Sometimes I’m downright rude. Sometimes I have a lot of pride so it’s hard for me to respond to someone’s response with grace instead of venom.
(Would it kill you guys to just insert a “I hear what you’re saying, but I respectfully disagree” before you go about tearing my thinking to shreds, though?)
I wanted to write this to:
- apologize to the people who were already using Medium for collab posts.
- encourage others to be wrong and admit it — not run from it.
“If you can be open with your weaknesses it will make you freer and will help you deal with them better. I urge you to not be embarrassed about your problems, recognizing that everyone has them.”
― Ray Dalio, Principles: Life and Work
Why I Didn’t Know About Collab Posts On Medium
To be honest with you guys, I don’t actually read other people’s blog posts that much. Like, I have to remind myself to read people’s stuff every week.
(I do scan a lot of articles, though. Like, if there was an award for the person who scans the most articles, I’d win it)
You know why?
Because I’m literally so busy creating. Gary Vee says he doesn’t really pay attention to what everybody else is doing because he’s so busy doing him (I’m paraphrasing).
I’m the same way.
Furthermore, I don’t read fiction. I don’t read poetry or stories or anything like that.
The last book I read for fun that was a story was the Lord Of The Rings in 4th grade. I’m serious — I read those books when I was like 10 or something.
I’ve written about how Medium “needs more creativity” before and I think I was wrong to suggest Medium doesn’t have enough.
I thought this platform didn’t have enough creativity because I don’t really pay attention to the writers who write amazing fiction pieces day in and day out.
It’s not because they aren’t great writers — it’s just because I’m more interested in other sorts of writing.
I only read writers who talk about life lessons, business, entrepreneurship, and writing.
I’m oblivious. I should’ve done some more research. I should’ve realized that I’m not the only freaking creator on Medium and taken the time to figure out whether I was saying was TRUE instead of just saying it.
I’m sorry for that, everyone. I was wrong.
Here I am two years later, still figuring out new things about Medium and discovering new writers. That’s why I love this place.
I See Two Mediums, Though
To me there’s two sides of Medium.
The fiction-oriented side and the non-fiction oriented side. One group of writers normally publishes stories/poetry while the other group normally publishes life lessons and other topics.
When I talked about collab posts, I was really just speaking to writers who publish non-fiction. The Tim Denning’s of the world. The Tiffany Sun’s of the world.
There’s not much collaboration on the non-fiction side of Medium.
Again, I should’ve clarified that and not been overzealous to include BOTH sides of Medium in my statement.
A Quick Shout-Out To Those I Wronged
I wanted to very quickly give a shout-out to the writers who are creating amazing collaborative fiction right now on Medium, as well as highlight a few great publications who are publishing them, too.
The ‘Bent Willow’ Series (This One’s Chapter 8):
A few (great) writers working on this project:
A few (great) publications publishing collaborative articles already:
Th-Ink Queerly (run by my good friend Darren Stehle)
I’ve probably missed a ton of great writers and publications, please feel free to comment more writers/publications who are publishing great creative collaboration articles already and I’ll update this article to show them as the comments come in.
Thanks for reading!
