There’s a funny paradox when it comes to highly successful people: They have a strong commitment to action but are willing to question what they believe to be true. On one hand, hard tasks take your full effort to accomplish. But on the other, your experience may prove the world quite a bit different than how you imagined it before getting started.

This flexibility doesn’t always come naturally. When we have a deeply held belief, our cognitive systems tend to act in ways that preserve it. We focus on information consistent with our beliefs and interpret ambiguous information in ways that correspond with it, too. Most of us are more comfortable interacting with people who share the same convictions we do.

All this being true, here’s how the most successful people manage to question their core beliefs in order to stay open to new ideas and opportunities.

It is all too easy to surround yourself with like-minded people. After all, it’s simply no fun to have your fundamental beliefs questioned all the time. But at the very least, it’s helpful to have people around you who don’t share your beliefs as strongly as you do, even if they don’t outright disagree.

So find a few trusted advisers who are willing to argue with you. It’s useful to have to justify yourself to others in order to make sure you aren’t missing something fundamental. For one thing, circumstances might have changed since the time you formed a given belief. Getting other people’s perspectives can make you aware of new situations that may warrant changing your mind.

The advantage of being around people who question your assumptions all the time is that it makes you more aware of the pitfalls of acting right away on what you believe to be true. This way, you can take those potential objections into account from the beginning, rather than getting deep into a project before someone raises a crucial question late in the game.

After all, while it’s helpful to have people around who can tell the emperor that he has no clothes, you have to wonder how he was able to walk around naked for so long in the first place.