It can be difficult to grasp that two opposing truths can both be right. Yet nowhere is this paradox more evident, or more consequential, than in the nature of conviction.
Strong conviction has sparked new technologies, toppled injustice, and turned the seemingly impossible into reality.
Yet, throughout human history, countless well-intentioned individuals driven by conviction has led people towards harm. Beliefs held with certainty, but unchecked, have justified wars, oppression, silencing of dissent and massive ecological destruction.
The danger isn’t conviction itself… it’s the inability to hold it responsibly with wisdom.
Conviction as a Compass
Conviction can be a superpower. It sharpens your sense of purpose, keeps you focused, and gives you the stamina to persist when obstacles impede progress.
It aligns your actions with your values and helps you bring others along when the road ahead is unclear.
With conviction, you’re not distracted by every passing idea. You move with clarity and intention.
Conviction as a Blindfold
But conviction also casts a shadow. When it hardens into dogma, it distorts your perception.
You begin to reject anything that challenges your beliefs, not because it’s false, but because it doesn’t fit your worldview.
What once offered clarity now limits your ability to see… or even to ask new questions.
Conviction becomes a blindfold. And when that happens, truth can be hiding in plain sight in front of you… yet you’re unable or unwilling to recognize it, let alone welcome a conversation.
Holding Both Truths
The challenge isn’t to abandon conviction, but to hold it with humility. To believe deeply while remaining open to being wrong. To leave space for a little doubt… not as a weakness, but as a path to continual learning, deeper understanding and growth.
A crack of doubt invites re-examination. It creates space to evolve, to adapt, and to align our beliefs with a greater, more enduring truth. It’s what keeps conviction a compass… not a cage.
To move forward with strength and confidence in your current understanding, while staying open to change as your understanding evolves… that is the paradox.
Two opposing things can both be right.
Knowing when to choose to a strong conviction of let go?
That’s the essence of wisdom.
And the heart of good strategy.