Do you find yourself defaulting to “Preacher” mode when you’re under pressure, or starting to act like a “Prosecutor” when someone challenges your ideas? Brené and Adam unpack four mental modes – Preacher, Prosecutor, Politician, and Scientist – to explore why we often cling to being right rather than getting it right. In this episode, they discuss how these defensive stances are shaping our response to AI, Brené’s “bounce” method for emotional hypothesis-testing, Adam’s go-to “strategy of small losses,” and ways to stay curious when the stakes are high.

You can find The Curiosity Shop on ⁠YouTube⁠ and ⁠Instagram⁠ (@thecuriosityshop).

0:00 - Introduction and Emoting

3:00 - Thinking Under Thread

11:00 - Testing Your Gut with Small Experiments

22:30 - The Integrity of Commitment: The Making of This Podcast

27:15 - Four Thinking Modes: Scientist, Preacher, Prosecutor, Politician

33:57 - When Opinions Become Beliefs

42:48 - The Social Costs of Changing Our Minds

51:30 - A Missing Mental Model: Teacher

59:30 - Wrap up





Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know - Adam Grant, 2021, Book



Eric Ries on ‘The Lean Startup’ - Eric Ries, 2011, Knowledge at Wharton



Learning Through Failure: The Strategy of Small Losses - Sitkin, 1992, Research in Organizational Behavior



Affective Forecasting - Wilson & Gilbert, 2003, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology



Atlas of the Heart - Brené Brown, 2021 (Book)



The Science of the Deal - Adam Grant, WorkLife with Adam Grant Podcast



The Power of Vulnerability - Brené Brown, 2011, TED



The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers - Adam Grant, 2016, TED



Beliefs Are Like Possessions - Abelson, 2007, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour



We Need to Talk about Astrology - Adam Grant, 2024, Substack 



The Diplomat - Cahn et al., 2023-present, Let's Not Turn This Into a Whole Big Production & Well Red, Netflix (TV series)


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