How I View Right vs. Wrong
Hey everyone,
This week I want to talk about the idea of right versus wrong.
It’s something that comes up a lot in our Dota games and has been on my mind for the last few months. The reason I felt the need to make this video is because in my last week’s video I said, “I don’t think in right and wrong,” and people were like, “What do you mean by this?”
There are also times where people are talking about my Dota games, their own games, or their teammates’ games, and they’re using the frame of right and wrong.
I wanted to make this video to explain how I see it, in a way that has really helped me more clearly fix my mistakes, be more open-minded, more aware, and overall have a more pleasant experience playing Dota, which also means winning more.
Why this matters
On my stream a day or two ago, somebody asked me, “BSJ, is it ever correct to see things as objectively right or wrong?”
They were talking about a Dota game.
I’d encourage you to be open-minded to the idea that viewing things as right and wrong is simply not good for you. It’s not that there’s no such thing as right or wrong, but when I look at my decisions, or other people’s decisions in a Dota game, rather than labeling them as right or wrong, I think there’s a better way to analyze these scenarios.
Why right and wrong is a problem
The drawback of thinking in right and wrong is that it’s very black and white.
It lacks nuance, where something could be 80% good and you still think it’s wrong, or someone else could think it’s 80% right and they think it’s right.
When I say someone else is right or wrong, that means I’m done learning. I can no longer approach the situation with an open mind.
And when I say that I’m right or wrong, if I think I’m right and someone else in the game thinks they’re right, that leads to arguments, toxicity, and frustration.
The whole idea is that there’s no one-size-fits-all answer in such a complex system like Dota.
There are times where both of you have good ideas that could work, but they’re not aligned. When you think in right or wrong, you end up arguing even when there’s merit to both of your ideas.
The pattern I see all the time
This situation, in my experience, happens a lot in Dota games.
So often I hear questions like, “How do I get my teammates to do the right thing?” or “How do I get them to do what I want them to do?”
And the commonality amongst all these situations is that the person who’s asking me the question, somewhere in their question, they’re like, “Am I right or am I wrong? BSJ, tell me, am I right or wrong? I just need you to tell me.”
And I’m like, well, that’s kind of besides the point, because I think your idea has merit and I also think the other guy’s idea has merit.
Maybe there is an option to go high ground here. Maybe it is better to wait till next Roshan spawn. Maybe both of these have merit and maybe one of them is slightly better than the other this time around.
But there are so many factors that go into it and a lot of times it just ends up being hindsight 20/20.
The better mindset
If I’m telling you that I think it’s not in your best interest to assess your decisions or your teammates’ decisions as right or wrong, what am I telling you?
The peaceful way, meaning that I feel like my brain is at ease a lot more (I feel like I’m judging other people a lot less, I’m keeping my composure a lot better, I’m making more logical, sound decisions) is to acknowledge that every person is doing what they think to be the best answer that they know how at the time.
So rather than, “Is my answer right or wrong?” I can just assert that, “This is the best that I know how to do right now.”
And what that does is it then kind of automatically transitions you into a question when somebody else disagrees with you, or when things don’t go as planned, which is, “Is there a better way to do what I’m trying to do right now?”
The way that I like to do it right now is how I believe it is best done with the knowledge that I had up until this point. But is there something in this situation that this person is saying that I might have missed, that might change my mind, that might tip the balances one way or the other?
That allows you to adjust over time. It allows you to interpret contextual clues that will really, if you think about this over the course of hundreds or thousands of games, make little tweaks to your approach that will really add up. It’s like that 1%, you know, compound interest over time.
An example of going high ground:
When you’re thinking about it as right or wrong, like, “Isn’t it right to go high ground here?” what I find a lot of people doing is… then they think, “BSJ, is it correct to go high ground or is it correct to go Roshan?”
And one of my recent shorts was actually like, “Well, it’s actually better to go do this.” (Then they get the wrong idea and stop thinking for themselves, just thinking of the short)
So not only are they thinking about it as right or wrong, but they’re also usually only looking at a very limited scope of their options in this scenario.
If your goal is to go high ground, the better question is, “What am I trying to do here?”
Like, “This is the best way for me to accomplish X.”
And the answer is not to go high ground. Perhaps the answer is, “I’m trying to capitalize on a lead. I’m trying to force the enemy to come back to their base. I’m trying to apply pressure. I’m trying to end the game.”
What is the reason that you want to go high ground in this arbitrary example? You are then asserting that, “This is the best thing I think to know how to do right now to end the game, to put pressure on the opponent, to capitalize on my lead.”
And it’s like, if I think, “I’m trying to capitalize on my lead, the best thing I know how to do right now is go high ground.”
Does what the other person is saying also perhaps capitalize on a lead? How does theirs differ from mine?
What are they trying to accomplish? Are they trying to outfarm? Is that a way to capitalize on a lead?
If you ask what you’re trying to accomplish by going high ground, or whatever else you’re trying to do, you’ll see that there are at least several other options in every circumstance for how you can go about this.
And the one that you’re choosing to do, that you currently think is right, is actually just the best thing you know how to do to accomplish that thing right now.
Why right and wrong slows your growth
If you decide something is right or wrong, you stop thinking. You close the chapter.
It might feel satisfying, but it prevents growth because you stop analyzing situations that look similar later on.
You start overgeneralizing… taking something that was right once and applying it everywhere, even when it no longer fits.
You’re nullifying your pattern recognition skill.
You stop asking, “What am I trying to accomplish? What is the other person trying to accomplish? Is there merit to both?”
That’s the kind of thinking that actually leads to growth.
Asking better questions
There are going to be times in my future videos where I’ll say, “No, I don’t think about it as right or wrong.”
What I’m trying to do is keep an open mind about the way I’m approaching something. If I say it’s right or wrong, I’ve closed the chapter. I’ve said I no longer have to think about this ever again.
There’s a lot of power in the words we use.
If you’re trying to get better at the game and have a clear system for how you play, removing the use of right and wrong in the way that you describe your actions and other people’s actions and shifting it to, “This is the best thing I know how to do. I’m going to assume that’s the best thing they know how to do” and then analyze the situation from there, that helps.
Because if you say “the best,” that’s like a sliding scale. There could be things slightly worse, way worse, slightly better, way better. It’s not yes or no.
If you’re creating a yes or no, black and white scenario, that’s not going to help you learn very much when you’re asking your questions.
How to reflect better
As a last little bonus tidbit, when you guys are asking yourselves questions in the middle of the game, that’s how I teach people. I coach people on how to ask themselves better questions.
Think about the questions you’re asking yourself in your games or about your games.
Is this a yes or no answer, or is it an open-ended question?
If it’s open-ended, it’s almost certainly helping you infinitely more than a yes or no question.
The example I like to use is when people send me a replay and say, “Was there anything I could have done to win this game?”
That’s a yes or no question. That’s very black and white and quite frankly irrelevant, because there’s a million factors that go on in a Dota game outside of your control.
By asking a question like that about things you can’t control, you’re just going to get frustrated.
Now, the question we could replace it with is simple: “Was there anything I could have done better this game?”
Was there a CS that I missed? Was there an ability I didn’t cast properly? Was there an item I could have bought that I think would have been better?
That’s a growth mindset. Because regardless of win or loss, you’ll ask yourself this question and it will help you make small tweaks over time to your performance.
While if you ask, “Was there anything I could have done to win this game?” you’re not going to ask yourself that when you win, which means you’re much less likely to improve.
And when you lose, and you try to figure out the answer, there will be times where it’s outside your control and you’ll get really frustrated.
The takeaway
So I guess the whole story of this video is, under the premise of right and wrong, when it comes to asking yourself questions, when it comes to analyzing your games, when it comes to thinking about your real life, assessing it as right or wrong has very little to no benefit when it comes to reflecting and evaluating the way you like to do things.
Thanks so much for watching everybody.
I hope you enjoyed the little update from what was today, November 7th, 2025.
I’ll see you guys in the next one.
See you in the next one,
– BSJ
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P.S. This was written by the Dota Dojo Team. Join the Dota Dojo Discord for more and mention this email if you liked it.
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P.S. This was a transcript from the Brian Canavan Youtube Channel. Join the Dota Dojo Discord for more and mention this email if you liked it.