About This Episode
Following the release of the paperback edition of his latest book How Not To Be Wrong: The Art of Changing Your Mind, we welcome James O’Brien to this week’s Change Makers. Described as a ‘verbal bruiser’, ‘an insufferable dinner part guest’ and ‘the bloke in the pub who could never agree to disagree’ – by none other than himself – James is one of the UK’s leading broadcasters with over a million loyal listeners for his daily LBC talk show. But you’d be wrong if you thought this episode would contain the thoughts of someone who has made up his mind. As he says in his book: “There is no point in having a mind if you never change it.”
James O'Brien, Broadcaster & Author
James O’Brien is an award-winning writer and broadcaster whose journalism has appeared everywhere from the TLS to the Daily Mirror. His daily current affairs programme on LBC has over 1.2 million weekly listeners and his first book, How To Be Right, was a Sunday Times bestseller, which won the Parliamentary Book Award for Best Political Book by a non-politician. He is often to be found on Twitter trying not to get into arguments unless absolutely necessary. In his follow up, How Not To Be Wrong, James turns the mirror on himself to reveal what he has changed his mind about and why, and explores how examining and changing our own views is our new civic duty in a world of outrage, disagreement and echo chambers. He writes candidly about the stiff upper lip attitudes and toxic masculinity that coloured his childhood, and the therapy and personal growth that have led him question his assumptions and explore new perspectives. Laying open his personal views on everything from racial prejudice to emotional vulnerability, from fat-shaming to tattoos, he then delves into the real reasons – often irrational or unconscious – he holds them.
