Dear Ms. Julia Galef, I hope you are doing well. I am Hailey Selly and I am reaching out to you from M-State, a community college in Minnesota. One of my courses, ENGL 1210 90-91 Writing About Current Events, has me focus on my mindset and the steps that I must take to improve it. We are studying how to see the world more realistically, to understand this further, I was assigned the reading of your 2021 book, “The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Clearly and Others Don’t.” As I read your story, I was shocked. I have never realized how closed-minded I truly am, and I haven’t questioned my ways of thinking like I am now. You have taught me to recognize my soldier mindset and focus more on following a scout mindset. I will practice a scout mindset by noticing myself making claims with certainty and questioning how sure I really am, plan out my worries instead of brushing …show more content…
You, Ms. Galef, shared that the Scout mindset is “The motivation to see things as they are, not as you wish they were” (Opening Introduction). I understand this as showing curiosity, open-mindedness, and truth seeking as characteristics of a scout mindset. I must not hold onto my expectations, instead I need to take it as is. You continued, “Scout mindset is what allows you to recognize when you are wrong, to seek out your blind spots, to test your assumptions and change course” (Opening Introduction). Following a scout mindset causes me to seek information, challenge my beliefs, and change my opinions when new evidence is found. After reading your book, I am now more aware of the differences between a soldier and a scout mindset. One of the greatest differences I saw was that in a soldier mindset, being wrong means defeat, while in a scout mindset, it means revising (14). I also noticed that a soldier mindset focuses on defending beliefs and a scout mindset looks for what is most accurate