Narratives Create Bias

One solution is looking for opposite points of view

Hey,

I’m in the middle of packing + watching movies with my mom before I fly out.

(I recommend 12 Angry Men (1997) and Masoom (1983))

Won’t publish next week.

Also, I found a beautiful copy of Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘Think on These Things’ in my community library. Makes me sad I can’t carry it with me on the plane.

This piece is more of a musing than a fleshed-out essay. I’m still thinking about the idea and its usefulness, but thought it is worth sharing.

Best,

Ved

PS: This was written while listening to a Guitar Meditation by Vraell.

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My favorite day of school was when it ended. My final year was colored by signs of burnout:

• Daily stress eating of Lindt chocolate.

• Emotionally breaking down and staring at the abyss.

• Falling asleep out of exhaustion every day after school.

Why? College applications.

I was caught in the madness of SAT scores, Statement of Purposes and The Common App. But unlike my peers, who planned these things a year in advance, I was winging it a month before the application deadlines.

Naturally, I was rejected by most of the US-based colleges. But then the UK colleges rejected me as well. I was too unprepared. I ended up settling for whichever Dubai-based college would let me in, as I had no choice with poor grades and no other offers.

In addition, I never fit in my class. Aside from one in my classroom, I was alone. 17-year-old Ved had not developed his social skills yet. Nor his emotional management ones.

So when it was all over, I could finally breathe. I had survived school by the skin of my teeth.

A part of me is grateful for this early failure story.

When I went to college, this story gave me a fire under my butt. I went in with a goal: make the most of it. Join whichever clubs would take me. Participate in competitions. Make friends fast. Study. Take things seriously. Try as much as I could handle, and then more.

This drive led to the unfathomable: I got into a top business school after my undergraduate. I made it. It took 4+ years longer, but I had spun my failure story into a growth one. I won a second chance.

This story helped me - except it’s not entirely true.

My Failure Story Was Biased

School was not an absolute hell all the time.

The other night, I was talking to a few school friends (albeit we were never in the same class) on Instagram and realised: school was fun. Yes, some things sucked. But it wasn’t that bad.

Yes, what I said above about burning out and getting pummeled by college apps was true. But there were fun moments too. Like teacher theatrics I could laugh about 10 years later.

With my failure story, I could only see a subset of choices (I have to make up for past mistakes). Though useful, it wasn’t exactly a care-free college experience. I was also too focused on grades and the world of college, and less on what was going on in more interesting arenas.

(like the Internet)

Even worse, I was becoming an asshole.

I gave a cold shoulder to most people from my old school. I wanted nothing to do with my classmates. I had blood-tinted glasses on when I saw them, interacted or even thought about them. While we weren’t friends, being so reactive didn’t help me. I could have shown more grace.

Why had my brain painted this story, though useful, in such a negative light? I can’t say. But I’m more interested in another question:

How do I see through the bias a narrative creates?

Here’s one working theory: collect opposing narratives.

To See Through Bias, Collect Opposite Points of View

In high school debate, I learned how to frame arguments to suit my side of the story via rhetoric. But that’s level 1. A good debater also understands the other side’s arguments. Both to prep for rebuttal and to stress test their own arguments.

I think the same is true outside of debate: to see your own bias, you have to actually step into the other person’s narrative.

That’s easier said than done.

Covering The Gap Between Worldviews

At an enterprise startup I worked at, the sales team struggled to explain what the product actually did. The founder had developed a list of 50+ value propositions. (yes, really)

I suggested a playbook straight from The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick, combined with the 40% Test for measuring Product Market Fit, based around the question: how disappointed would clients be if our product didn’t exist?

But it was dismissed.

Not outright, but it didn’t fit my founder’s narrative. He used to be a leader at McKinsey. My proposal, straight from startup handbooks, didn’t click with his corporate framing. Startup lingo like “PMF” didn’t mean much to him.

Looking back, neither of us was “wrong.” I just didn’t frame it well.

Look For The Overlap Between Two Narratives

In debate, there’s this idea of ‘My World’ vs ‘Your World’. My World was saying we need to look for Product Market Fit. My Founder’s World was about getting sales.

My world was about testing PMF. His world was about sales performance. Both stories created bias. Both narrowed what we could see.

That clash taught me something important: when two narratives collide, truth isn’t in either one alone. It’s in the overlap.

Bias is dangerous because it makes you think you’re right. But the real danger is you can’t see the options outside your story. Collecting opposing narratives forces you to see that overlap. And that overlap is where better decisions live.

With that founder, I would have framed my proposal around the problem. The sales team was struggling. The playbook, while designed around getting PMF, is useful for an enterprise team as well to get more sales reliably.

Maybe that’s the lesson my school story was hiding all along. Narratives can give me fire. But opposing narratives can give me sight.