Fellow blogger and change agent, Seth Godin, has an excellent post today entitled "When data and decisions collide." In it, he recounts numerous examples of people ignoring data because it doesn't line up with their "hunches" — or what people think they know but "just ain't so."
Godin is pessimistic about the time it will take most people to "get their arms around this avalanche of insight," but he is spot on in his assessment that those who do will have a huge advantage.
Of course, the first thing to do is to simply acknowledge that our hunches may be wrong. This simple, albeit difficult, act is the first step about the path of unlearning. As Godin points it can be the difference between getting into an accident while texting — or not; saving $80 on a bottle of a wine; or even saving thousands of dollars on your kid's college education.
So there you have it, folks: Unlearning can save your life and save you money! I've got the data to prove it.