Pay Attention To Dissent
The mark of an intelligent person is how comfortably he handles contrarian views, and more importantly, how well he handles dissent. Nobody is perfect, no argument is airtight, no approach is the right approach, so there is always room for dissent. There will always be people who have something to say about what you do. Some call it feedback, some call it dissent, some call it jealousy.
Regardless of how you choose to frame it, having people voice their dissatisfaction about your conduct or your work matters. You have to invite that by paying attention to their arguments. This is the only way to know what people think, how they think, and how far they stand from what you actually believe. They may be acting out of misunderstanding, or they might simply be lacking context you failed to provide.
You can either resolve the situation or, at the very least, understand how your approach is being perceived. There is another kind of dissent, a quieter one, which we tend to avoid when it conflicts with what we want. It is the internal dissatisfaction we feel after certain decisions. There is always a tension between what we want and what we ought to want. This internal conflict is your secret moral compass. It points you toward the right direction and steers you away from ruin.
Even if you don't care about the feedback, even if you believe what you do is right, even if you are arrogant in that way, it is still important to pay attention to dissent. It surfaces perspectives you could never have arrived at on your own. We are not wired to think from every angle. We like to believe we've covered all angles, but that is simply a myth. We never can. Paying attention to opposing views opens a window onto perspectives we would otherwise miss.
Every bias the mental models warn us against can be countered the moment we start paying attention to internal and external dissent. Even if you dislike the person, they can still say the right thing, if you have the ear to listen. Even if you hate the tone, the argument could be filled with insight. That is the entire purpose behind encouraging people to speak their mind.
Intelligence lies not just in discovering the smartest argument, but in holding the argument that has survived the greatest number of opposing arguments.