The Framing Effect- Is The Grass Greener on The Other Side

0:00:02 - Speaker 1
This is The Light Inside. I'm Jeffrey Besecker. A picture. They're often said to be worth a thousand words, but what happens when a part of this picture is inaccurate or even missing? How things are presented has a significant impact on how we see them, Forming our frame of reference, the most common framing, drawing attention to the positive gain or negative association with an option. 

We're susceptible to this sort of framing because, as humans, we avoid loss and at times we develop blind spots. Think about this popular photography metaphor behind the concept. A frame focuses attention on the picture. It surrounds different characteristics, drawing out different aspects of the work. How someone frames an issue influences how we see things. Today. We look at how the way things are presented determines what our brains choose to see and how our emotions and memories of the past shape and inform this perspective. Tune in to find out how. When we return to The Light Inside. 

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0:03:21 - Speaker 2
There's so many stories running through my head about examples that I could share. That even just happened this morning with my son getting ready for school and the meltdowns. You know. It's like I know that I need some more kind of self-care, some more of that time for myself, in order to be able to be a stand for him, to be more emotionally calm when he's in that kind of a state. 

0:03:45 - Speaker 1
For Carrie, the process of getting out the door with the kids a daily battle. To further complicate matters, carrie's busy life is already difficult enough. She's trying to run a business, hold down the fort at home and raise her son. Whether it's wrestling with Gavin's desire to wear one particular pair of shoes, or the comforting finds in the small handful of short-sleeved t-shirts that his overly sensitive nervous system can tolerate, at times she has trouble handling the difficulties and she too finds herself frustrated. Yet she has the hope that her child will grow up to live a happy and healthy life. but she's also concerned about the future. These are a few examples of the hurdles that they face as a family. 

For most parents, nothing is more important than their child's future. While Carrie knows that there are other parents out there who struggle just as much, she's determined to find a way to help them see that they can make it through Every secret to success Her ability to shift the lens. that shapes her perspective, allowing her to see things in a new light. So, carrie, first and foremost I'd like to welcome you today. Thanks for having me. I am so excited to look at this perspective of the lenses we utilize when viewing the world. As a busy mom, a solo entrepreneur and creative photographer, you understand what it means to be busy with many identities or roles that we have often created throughout our lives. You also face the challenges that arise from experiencing neurodiversity as well. That experience had to present some very daunting challenges. Could you share with us a little bit about your story? 

0:05:24 - Speaker 2
Okay, sure. So I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was in my late 20s, and because I had episodes around that and I was hospitalized three times over a period of 17 years, that had a huge effect on how I saw myself, because, that's just, you can either look at it from one perspective or another, though I eventually thank God, i started looking at it from a perspective of, wow, look how resilient I am, look at what I've been through and how you can actually come back from something like that. And that's a perspective that I've chosen thanks to some therapy, thanks to some personal development work, and so really, when you change the way you look at things, the things that you look at really do change, and that's a whole entire quote. 

0:06:17 - Speaker 1
So, as a result of you working as a creative photographer, you've developed a framework that improves our mental and emotional well-being, that allows us to challenge or question or change our view with that lens that we look through when viewing the world. So let's begin today by looking at your perspective on how the lens we utilize to both view ourselves and our perspectives shapes the way we experience the world around us. So let's get going now. 

0:06:48 - Speaker 2
I love that. Just love to say right away about how the lens that we see ourselves through is really how we are going to experience everything around us, and also how our self-image basically it's just everything stems from that, and you're either acting around an empowered state or a disempowered state pretty much all the time, and being aware of your thoughts is what helps you choose which way you want to go. 

0:07:17 - Speaker 1
So, in this regard, what are some of the underlying factors that you feel shape this perspective, and why do you feel we might often see the grass is greener on the other side when we consider differing frameworks and perspectives? 

0:07:30 - Speaker 2
Well, I feel like we're coming from everything we've experienced, all of our conditioning and our upbringing and so many different influences coming from everywhere, And I think that the challenge is being in a more of a state of gratitude can help you not be dwelling all the time on the grass is always greener on the other side, but we're not really taught that as young children. And once you can start to shift your perspective and this is all photography speak to, so much of it relates to that. So that's how that came about. But when you can shift that perspective, then things start to shift in your life. Actually, you know, you start to make changes that are real in your life. 

So I feel you know most of it is a lot of conditioning from when you're young. You know I have a lot of just. I come from a working class family that really struggled still a lot, And so I think that there's always sort of been this little little voice in my head that that family is going on this vacation or not. You know this. Just things like that, that kind of sort of make an imprint when you're young, And so then, as you get older, it's about how do you manage those imprints. 

0:08:42 - Speaker 1
From that perspective, it's easy to see our perception is influenced by various filters, blocks, limitations that shape how we perceive and interpret the world around us, some key factors being your emotional filters, memory limitations, cultural and social filters and cognitive biases, as examples of much more complex interactions. 

0:09:04 - Speaker 2
Right, yeah, i think that then the piece with emotional resilience and self awareness, really having that flexibility of being able to see different sides of things, can really help not have you be stuck in some sort of pattern. I think that that's why, when we do something creative and look at the way that I do my program, it's about looking at the world around us through metaphors, through symbolic site, and so once you start practicing that for example, when I do a my foundation workshop is about creating images of nature as a mindfulness practice, and there's a quote by Virginia Woolf. She said I am rooted but I flow. So once we get into a mindfulness, more of a connecting with all of our senses, after that we start to get into a creative flow state by creating images based on that quote, for example, and just doing that in and of itself can help you start to see different things in your life differently. 

0:10:08 - Speaker 1
From that perspective, do you think we sometimes might be uncomfortable with that idea that we do have a need and value in operating on patterns? 

0:10:18 - Speaker 2
Yeah, definitely. I think most people don't want to admit that. Then it feels like you're not in control of your life. You're kind of just being conditioned or programmed, which I don't think anybody wants. 

0:10:30 - Speaker 1
So that's an ironic relationship sometimes to ponder, because in many regards we do benefit from a healthy relationship, from conditioned response. We have to be somewhat habituated to wake up in a healthy pattern every day. We have to be somewhat habituated and conditioned to show up to work to earn a living. We have to be conditioned somewhat in a pattern to have that habit of showing up for others, especially conditioned in how we look at how we show up for ourselves. 

0:11:02 - Speaker 2
That's true. There's definitely ways that you can be conditioned, in positive ways and also negative ways. 

0:11:09 - Speaker 1
So often we once again kind of focus that lens in on the limiting black and white of well. Conditioning in and of itself is challenging to us. Conditioning in and of itself is somehow adverse. Yet when we look at that other example, we see where, when we empower those patterns of conditioning, we can work with them to work for our benefit. We can work with them to move more productively or more healthily toward that state of flow. 

0:11:39 - Speaker 2
Right, that's true. That reminds me of how. what does it take 30 days to create a positive habit? I think the reason why what I do through the lens method is so accessible is because it's with a smartphone. Anybody can take pictures with their smartphone and most people do it anyway. It's kind of just using it intentionally and as a force for good. It's sort of just changing the habit perspective. Maybe you already have a habit of making pictures with your phone, but you don't ever look at them or create them intentionally. But yeah, i think that just doing some sort of practice in it whether it's a creative practice or a self-care ritual or things like that that can really help shift your idea of what you want to be starts to go in that direction. You can kind of create your own habits and conditioning, if you will, since we're talking about conditioning. 

0:12:33 - Speaker 1
So what role do you feel, from your perspective, carrie, emotional interactions play in this process? 

0:12:40 - Speaker 2
Well, human interaction and just human connection is so important to help us get more out of our heads, because most of the time if we're kind of ping-ponging around in our brains, we can get. 

some of us can get into that ruminating state or we just see things in more of a. we don't necessarily see other options or other perspectives, and when we have that human connection, i mean it also helps with oxytocin, and so our emotions are everything. It's really energy in motion and it's going to affect how, what our next actions are. And so when you can be in a more, when you can have more of a regulated nervous system, when you do things to help you have a regular, more regulated nervous system, which there's a lot of different ways to go about that. But when you have sort of a balance in your life that helps facilitate that process, then you have more of a handle kind of on your emotions and whether or not you're going to be in more of a reactive state or more of an open and calm state, and so that is going to affect what happens next. I mean, i feel like we can talk about it. 

0:13:55 - Speaker 1
So share with us more about that interaction. specifically, what are some of the typical roadblocks you feel you might run into when you're interacting with your child? 

0:14:06 - Speaker 2
Well, there's so many because my child is a very wonderful child and he's also a very highly persistent, highly emotional, highly intelligent and intense, And so my husband and I deal with a lot of emotion all day, every day, And so I think that when it can be really challenging, especially for someone who has sensory he also has. He has some sensory sensitivities And so just putting on clothing is really a big challenge in our daily life and everything kind of bathing, eating, everything is hard, And so I also have some sensory challenges where loud noises bother me And so if he's screaming, you know I have to kind of like take some breaths. I have to. Sometimes I have to leave the room, you know, I have to take a break, but I don't want to leave him alone with his big feelings. So there's always a lot, a lot to navigate with that And it's really hard. It's really the biggest challenge of my life at this point. 

0:15:14 - Speaker 1
That whole task of co-regulating with our children is challenging, inherently for most of us because ultimately we've grown up in a lot of regards and environments that don't teach us those skills of co-regulation, that don't mirror and reflect that state to us. 

0:15:30 - Speaker 2
Yeah, that's so true And it's. You know, i didn't learn. I was a very easygoing kid. I don't think I feel like I didn't rock the boat ever, but my sister, on the other hand, was a really challenging kid, And so there was just there was definitely yelling in my house. There was things that it was. You know, of course, most of the time if someone wasn't behaving well one of the kids in my family we'd have to go to our room. I never did because I was perfect. Well, angel, my brother and my sister they would. They would have to go to their room. And when you have to go to your room and be alone with your big feelings, it's actually not good for your nervous system to to sort of stuff. You learn that you have to stuff your feelings down, but it's not, it's not healthy to have big feelings. 

0:16:17 - Speaker 1
It's a pattern that we can pick up a lot of times. I know from my own experience that we weren't necessarily guided toward that understanding of. I see your feelings. Let's sit with your feelings. Let's respect and honor you know. Let's look at the core reasoning behind that. You know that's not the fault, the parenting model but our parents sometimes did not learn those skills or trade either. It was go to your room. Now you see the emotional interaction as bad. You see that emotional interaction as something to avoid. 

0:16:50 - Speaker 2
Yeah, and also it also reminds me how it's better to not try to fix it right, whatever. My son gets very frustrated with things because he wants to. He's very into building and designing things, but he's only five, so he can't always do what he wants to do. And when he gets super frustrated, my you know natural inclination is to want to just do it for him and fix it so that he doesn't freak out and throw the thing across the room. But you're not really supposed to do that because you know you're supposed to. Well, my understanding is that it's better to just be supportive of them and what they're going through. 

0:17:27 - Speaker 1
You know, in that regard, looking back at our conversation, sometimes we learn those emotional filters as a part of that process. We learn that we filter things. We selectively look at our emotion. We selectively choose whether or not emotion has right to exist sometimes, sometimes that becomes the condition pattern of belief. 

0:17:49 - Speaker 2
Right. Most people believe that it's not going to be angry, which I don't think is a healthy way to look at it, because we, we are human beings with a whole spectrum of a wide range of emotions and anger is one of them, you know, and it's just how to manage that, how to navigate it, rather than just sort of stuffing it down, because I really believe that that can cause a lot of problems. You know, there's a lot of studies about that, how it causes a lot of problems in the body. 

0:18:15 - Speaker 1
I could relate to that firsthand because that was one of my core childhood traumas, growing up in environments of unhealthy patterns of traumatic anger. I'll say traumatic anger because we weren't allowed to express that in healthy manners, because the pattern simply didn't exist. As a result of that, i developed fear and shame around my interactions with emotions in general, even though we had the opposite of that, where the men in our family were very easy to move to tears, very sympathetic, very empathetic. They also had that unhealthy relationship with anger, the unhealthy outbursts, the unhealthy expressions that didn't have that emotional competency to regulate it. 

0:19:02 - Speaker 2
Yeah, i feel like that's such a huge. You know, we need so much more support around that for our parents and for kids, especially because the next generation is following in the footsteps, maybe, of not knowing how to deal with emotions and then, some cases, just choosing to not feel them right and just kind of stuff them down and start looking at screens or whatever it is. I mean, there's different schools of thought on how to regulate and so and I'm not an expert in that but I just feel like when my son is begging me for the iPhone to watch when he's really upset, it pains me to do that because I just feel like that's not the way to handle it, the best way. 

0:19:48 - Speaker 1
Up. Next, we'll discover what our favorite ice cream tells us about how we view the world and why we make the day-to-day choices that we do when we return to the light inside. We'd like to offer a shout out to our affiliate matching partner, podmatchcom. Podmatch is the revolutionary podcasting matching system driven by AI. As an industry leader and podcast guesting and hosting, they are a go-to solution for creating meaningful podcast interactions. Podmatchcom makes finding the ideal guest or host effortless. Stop by and visit our affiliate link today at wwwthelightinsidecom. This is the Light Inside. I'm Jeffrey Besecker. 

There are conflicts everywhere in the world, every day, between people. Many of us find it difficult to understand other people's points of view, whether it is our loved ones or world leaders. Therefore, we attribute our differences to quirks in our personalities. In the world we live in, there is always going to be a difference between what you see and how others see things. For example, two people can look at the same painting and have two very different interpretations of its meaning. This is because everyone has their own unique experiences and perspectives. Their individual experiences and perspectives shape how we interpret the world around us. As a result, it's only natural that people will have different interpretations of the same thing. We all have our preferences, everything from the clothes we wear to the car we drive and even our favorite flavor of ice cream. In typical of us, we each feel our preference to be the best option, not only for ourselves, but for others as well. In reality, our core beliefs shape the way we view the world in many ways. 

This week, we talk with neuroscientist Mark Williams about how our beliefs shape our reality and how we can use this knowledge to live a more fulfilling and harmonious life. Mark leaning in, today, as children, we're all rather malleable in how we view the world. Our ideas and opinions aren't already formed. I'd like to look at how our experiences shape the way we see ourselves and others and perhaps more specifically, why we often form blind spots in how we perceive ourselves. I've purposely set aside preforming our core line of questioning with the intent of returning to that beginner's mindset. But to begin, mark, the way we frame our perspectives is shaped by several key factors. Would you highlight these factors for us? 

0:22:34 - Speaker 3
Yes, sir, a biggest problem with us as humans or any animal really is that the world's really complicated and we are only able to perceive a very, very small amount of what's actually out there at any one time. So our working memory which is what we call it in neuroscience, but from a psychological point of view, we call it the consciousness is really limited and you're only able to have five to seven items in your working memory at any one time or your consciousness at any one time, which is really really limited. So we used to have phone numbers. Before we had mobile phones, phone numbers used to be limited to six numbers, because we could only hold six numbers in our working memory and then we had to dial them before we added these fancy phones but actually hold all that. So they're always limited to six numbers for that reason. So that's why we have to do lots of stuff, or have lots of stuff in our brain which is telling us what's actually going on, when we're not actually able to process it because our working memory or our consciousness is so limited. And so, therefore, most of what actually we think is going on and what we think is being processed is actually all automatic or it's unconscious and it's a bias, because it's just a generalization of what we've learned And because our genetic material that we receive from our mothers and our fathers when we're born is so limited the vast majority of it, but basically all of our knowledge, is learned. 

So it's all learned very early on and it's all learned on everything that we experience in those first few years, which then tells us what the world's like and what all the generalizations are like. 

And so those things, of course, are things like our emotions and how we're going to respond to stimuli that are out there in the world, also our biases towards other people or other things. So they're automatic, they're generalizations or they're categorizations that we have about things that are out there in the world, something from really simple things like when something's in the shade, then it's actually much brighter than it actually is, which makes us perceive colors differently when they're in the shade compared to when they're in the light, all the way to what somebody of a particular race might normally, what we think is normal normally, how they may normally behave. So all of those things are things that we learn and therefore generalize and therefore constantly are perceiving the world in that way because of this fact that our consciousness is so limited and we're only able to really concentrate on one thing at a time. And I gave you a lot of information, didn't I? I wasn't very childlike. 

0:25:10 - Speaker 1
That's great, that's great. No, sometimes being that child is being open to the wisdom or mind that's guiding us. So, in that respect, in our day-to-day lives we're often bombarded with data, information, stimuli, stimulus, multiple sources of potential distraction, even at times, from that biological standpoint, what might serve as that core basis or reason why we are limited to only those five factors or those five points of interest? 

0:25:44 - Speaker 3
Yeah. So because we are limited to only five to seven slots or five to seven items that we can actually have hold in our mind. We can't multitask, so every time we do get distracted, our attention shifts, our consciousness to that new thing that we've just been distracted by, and we actually lose the last 90 seconds of whatever we're doing. So if you actually want to think about something and hold that information, you've got to hold it for at least 90 seconds so that it can be transferred to a temporary source, so then it can be transferred to your long-term memory later on. 

And so each time we get distracted by something in our environment, everything gets wiped from our consciousness, even though we don't realize it, because our brains are really good at tricking us into thinking that our perception is this constant reel that's actually happening, when it's not actually. 

It's this constant jumping from one thing to another. And so every time we're distracted, we go to something else, we lose the last 90 seconds of what we're doing and the new thing then takes over. But again, because it's so limited and the input's so limited, most of what it is that's actually occurring, most of what we're receiving, is actually from our long-term memories, from our unconsciousness. So vast majority 70% to 80% of what we perceive and what we think we're understanding about the world out there is actually just generated from our long-term memory, from our unconscious areas of our brain, and so this is why there often is misunderstandings and there are a lot of misunderstandings that are to care, because we're relying on our own past and our own knowledge in our long-term memory and not on what we're actually really perceiving in the world. 

0:27:23 - Speaker 1
From a technical perspective, from my awareness, i know that that memory is divided or compartmentalized, in some regards, to two different categories or types. I'll put it that way from my perspective The explicit memory and the implicit memory. Could you differentiate the two of those for us and maybe give us a brief explanation of how each of those roles play out? 

0:27:45 - Speaker 3
So yeah, so the explicit is stuff that we're actually we can bring to mind. So if I ask you a question like, could you name 10 different flavors, the ice creams that you've experienced in the past, and you'd be able to reel off chocolate and strawberry and vanilla and whatever it happens about that's your explicit memory. So those are things that you can bring to mind, that you actually explicitly can explain to me. So if I turned around and said, well, what's your favorite ice cream, then that's really an implicit memory because it's based on your emotions, which you don't really have explicit contact of. You don't have access to that explicit. 

So you might, i would probably start thinking about ice creams and I'd probably be like, well, i really like vanilla, but then I also like chocolate sometimes, and then when I think of chocolate, i get certain emotional responses to it, but then I think, well, hang on, i also like cookies and cream, because my kids love cookies and cream. So I have emotional response to that. And so that, though all those those emotional responses, we don't really know what, we don't explicitly remember why we have all those emotional responses. They're implicit, they're things that we're not aware of, but they have an impact on our decisions, on what decisions we're actually making. So that's the way I like to talk to people about the difference between the implicit and the explicit. You know, the explicit of stuff that we can easily describe and, pulling to our working memory from our long term memory. Where there's implicit stuff, it's the stuff that actually impacts on the way we make decisions and how we perceive the world, but we can't really describe it in any way. I can't really describe how I like chocolate, ice cream, for example, but I do like chocolate ice cream. 

0:29:27 - Speaker 1
It's interesting to me to see that correlation between emotion and how our emotions, by most regards, are believed to last between a few milliseconds and 90 seconds within our original emotional engagement cycle. I'll frame it that way. It stands to reason to me now to hear how that connection ties into those memories a lot of ways, and it also illustrates to me that connection with that cycle of rumination that we often, from a certain perspective, label overthinking. 

0:30:00 - Speaker 3
Yeah, we have long term memory isn't objective And because our perception is an objective, like nothing that we perceive is actually based on what's actually out there in the world. Everything that we perceive is based on our long term memory and what is actually good for us. So when I'm talking to you, my voice box causes a wave in the air which travels through the air. And if we're in the same room, the microphones and everything complicate things. But if we're in the same room, that wave of air of course, would then move your e-drum, which would move little bones inside your ear, which would move another little e-drum, which would move your cochlear, which would move a little hair cell, which would push up against the temponic membrane, which would cause activity which would go into your brain. And then your brain creates an illusion that you've heard a noise, but you didn't actually hear a noise, because all my voice box did was cause a wave in the air, because there's no noise out there in the world And all our perception is like that There's no color in the world or you're receiving these different wavelengths of light that are reflecting off different services, but there's no colors out there. So all of the perceptions that we have are all created by our memory in our brains, and so they're not actually based vertically on what's actually out there in the world, but rather what we think is out there, what our brains think are out there, based on our long-term memory. And we now know that about 90% of our perception that we actually see is just based on our long-term memory. It's not even what we think is out there, it's not actually being put from out there, but rather what we remember should be actually out there, and so, therefore, we create that. And then, of course, we layer on top of that a huge amount of information based on all of our experiences. 

We did a study many years ago because this whole area of research it's always looked at facial expressions and argued that we have these six different facial expressions, which are the six basic emotions that we all perceive, and we all perceive those facial expressions exactly the same, and it's automatic And I did a lot of research in that area showing that we perceive them without actually knowing that we actually see them, and it's all done by a subcortical root. What am I getting at here? Well, that could be completely true, because when I saw certain politicians smiling, i actually had an automatic reaction of a very negative response rather than a positive response, because I thought they were smirking and they were up to no good. So we actually studied that and we took a whole bunch of different actors and we told the participants who are in the study that this group of people were really nasty people and really evil and had little vignettes about their lives and how evil they were. And all these guys are really nice people and blah, blah, blah. And then we actually scan them and scan these people while they were looking at different photos of the different people, either really nasty people or really good people. 

Now, when they were looking at the good people and they smiled, they got the normal brain responses, though they were smiling. And when they were angry, they got the normal brain responses, though they were angry. But when they were looking at the people who they knew were really nasty They've done awful things in their past When they were angry, it looked like they were angry. It said being angry responded. But when they smiled, it looked there was a brain respondedit said they were angry and their physiological response was that they are angry. So they So they were actually perceiving and their brain was perceiving these individuals has been angry, even though they were smiling, which went right against all the previous research that we'd actually done in that area and actually showed that knowing who a person is and knowing stuff about them changes what you know about them, of course, in your long-term memory, but also changes the way you perceive them. 

Now, the really interesting thing that came out of all that was that then, when we asked the participants how did you remember who was in which group, they said oh, it was really easy, because you put all the really attractive people in the nice group and you put all the really ugly people in the really mean group, in the really nasty group. But we actually randomised the pictures between each participant, so each participant got different people in each group. So there was no systemic reason to think that the nasty people were unattractive, but every participant perceived that the nasty people has been unattractive. So you even see people and there's been lots of research since then showing that. So if you don't like someone, you actually see them as less attractive than if you actually like someone, and you'll actually hear what they say differently, which is why we have so many issues in society now, because if you don't like a particular person or a particular politician, you'll hear what they say differently to someone who actually does like that particular person or that particular politician, which is why it's so important for you to actually make connections with people before you actually try and convince them of whatever it is you want to convince them. 

Also, we don't learn. 

You can't learn from someone that you're not actually connected with, which is why I work a lot with teachers and in schools, because in schools and with teachers, i think we now have forgotten the fact that teachers actually need to connect with the students first before they can actually teach them, because we now know that students don't actually listen to a teacher unless they first connect with them first, which is why teachers that you like you learn from and you're like I really like that subject, and teachers that you don't like you think you're not very good at that subject, because you don't learn from them, because you're not actually connected with them. So that's really important to realize that our whole perception of the world is just based on our own experiences, not based on what's actually out there, and our experiences change what we know. We even know now that you perceive different colors, even though you're receiving exactly the same spatial frequency of light. You perceive the colors differently depending on what language you speak, because some language have more colors not more descriptive words for the colors than other languages. 

0:35:55 - Speaker 1
So you perceive colors differently in the world depending on what language you learn, And in that regard I'm thinking here back a little bit to early in our conversation. so far. We're processing these, are we not? from both implicit and explicit memories at the same time, Exactly? 

0:36:11 - Speaker 3
yeah, yeah, So both of those are impacting that, but the explicit stuff, the stuff that we think we have control over, but it's been impacted by all this implicit stuff, right, These subjects that we looked at. and when we taught them that these people were good and these people were evil, they thought they were just memorizing that they were good and evil. but they were also having emotional responses because we made them really evil right, These were pedophiles and then done really horrendous things, And so they were having emotional responses to these really evil people. And that emotional responses and all those extra implicit stuff that they didn't realize they were attaching to these people then later impacted on the way they actually perceived them and whether they thought they were attractive and how they perceived their facial expressions when they were smiling and so on. 

0:36:58 - Speaker 1
If seeing is believing, why is it we tend to rely heavily on the first piece of information we receive when exerting judgments or making decisions? The anchoring bias is a cognitive bias that causes us to rely too heavily on the first piece of information we're often given about a person, idea or topic. Up next we'll discover how this common thinking error influences us throughout life and why we do it. When we return to the wild inside, do you struggle with maintaining your energy and mental focus throughout the day? I know I do. The folks at NeuroGum have always believed that the best version of ourselves starts with the mind. That's why they've dedicated the past five years to creating great tasting products that conveniently and effectively get us in the right state of mind at the right time. For simple, healthy and thoughtfully curated ingredients in endless lab testing ensure you can reach the right state of mind safely and consistently. Neurogum products help shift your mindset with ease and flow. Their functional gum and mints are shortcuts to the ideal state of mind. Try NeuroGum and mints by visiting GetNeurocom today. 

We've all heard the saying seeing is believing. Yet the way things are presented to us again affects not only what we see but how we feel about this experience. Whenever we're presented with information, we're influenced by the way it's presented a psychological phenomena known as the Framing Effect When we're presented with options. Why does it affect our decisions? The Framing Effect is due to the way our brains process information. Faces are among the most informative stimuli we perceive. Even a split second glimpse of a person's face tells us their identity, sex, mood, age, race and even direction of attention. Yet much of what makes us who we are, that unique person inside, is missing from these brief glimpses as we encounter each other. As a result, we often fill in this missing data or information, usually inaccurately and with ill effect. Face processing is acknowledged in the artificial vision community, where facial recognition algorithms are contestable. This means that when we're literally faced with two choices, we may be more likely to choose the one that appears more beneficial, regardless of the actual outcomes of this choice. 

Typically, options are framed so that the gain or loss associated with them is highlighted. We are susceptible to this sort of framing because, in accordance with the prospect theory, we tend to avoid certain losses. The loss is perceived as more significant, and therefore more worthy of avoiding, than an equal gain. The way something is framed can influence our certainty that it will bring either gain or loss. This is why we find it attractive when the positive features of an option are highlighted instead of the negative ones. Mark, in many regards those perspectives are two separate ideas that are automatically somewhat conflicting at times. That devil's advocate we often talk about, or that devil on our shoulder which shoulder? or which wolf, that idea of two wolves which wolf are we listening to? Comes to me. 

0:40:39 - Speaker 3
Yeah, which wolf are we feeding? Yeah, and it all depends on how you're actually feeling. If you are stressed, if you're tired, if you've had a bad day the night before, you're going to react in different ways than if you're actually in a good mood and you're happy. It's also going to impact on the way you perceive the world, depending on how you're actually feeling and what has happened to you in the last 24 hours, 48 hours or whatever it happens to be. All of those things are also going to impact on the perceptions that you have and the way you actually see the world. 

We all know I'm sure everybody listening has had the experience where you have a bad sleep that night and nothing works during the day. Of course, everything's working the same as it did the day before. It's just you had a bad sleep the night before, you had a fight with your partner, or you had the kids were playing it up or whatever, which put you in a bad mood, which meant then you perceived everything as going bad, even though it would have been exactly the same as it was the day before. 

0:41:42 - Speaker 1
From that perspective. You mentioned previously how that shapes and informs our ability to open and trust others, especially how we form our ability to open and trust ourselves. Could you share a little bit more in that regard, why and how we start to form some of those values and opinions? 

0:42:02 - Speaker 3
Yeah, there's lots of aspects, too we can talk about. One of them is so we have a face template, the way our brains have actually evolved so that we can actually connect with people. We are the social. My book that's about to come out is called The Connected Species because we are the connected species and we have a large brain because we are connected and we are so connected and we're the only species in the world that actually connects across groups. 

So you've got bees, for example, have amazing big hives and they have amazing everybody's doing different jobs and they all work together and everything to keep the hive together, but one hive never interacts with another hive. One hive won't go. Oh, there's some really cool flowers over there. You guys should go and source some pollen from there. Or they won't say hey, you guys are running out of honey, we'll give you some honey and then you can give us some in the back or whatever. But we do. We're the only species that actually does that and does it across groups. 

But because of that, we've evolved this amazing system to actually communicate with each other, and one of the ways we communicate with each other, and one of the important aspects of being in large groups is recognizing who individuals are, and we do that by the face, and we've got this amazing mechanism in our face template that recognizes thousands and thousands of individuals and we recognize them across time. So I can recognize people that I met during childhood, even though they've changed their hair and hair has fallen out like myself and all those things. But you can still recognize those individuals because of this face template, and we can also recognize who's in the same family by this face template. And the way the template works is it's an average of all the faces you've seen, which means that it's actually biased towards people who you see a lot and people you don't see a lot of further away from it, which is why we are able to recognize most people are able to recognize people of their own race better than they are people of other races, and we're actually able to recognize and remember people of their own race better than we are of other people. But that's only if the most majority of people that you see are people of your own race. 

So that also means because this face template is actually a warning system as well of people who aren't within your group, because people within your group you see a lot of anyone who deviates a long way from that face template you'll have a negative reaction towards, and so your fight or flight response will be activated. So you get quick, your heart rate will go up, blood will be pumped to your muscles, your eyes will dilate and so on, so that you're in a fight or flight response to anyone who's outside of that template. So if you've got a really wide template, then you actually won't have that response. If you've got a really narrow template, then you're more likely to have that response, which is why we find that the most racist countries in the world are ones that are very homogeneous. 

So, according to the UN, the most racist country in the world is actually Japan, because most people in Japan are Japanese and everything they see on the media is Japanese faces. So their template's really narrow, so they have this fight or flight response to everybody who's not Japanese, basically, whereas more homogeneous societies, we know, don't have that same response. So, yeah, we have these implicit I mean that's completely implicit. None of us realize that that's actually going on and that we can actually change that based on just who we actually see on a regular basis. But again, that's one of those implicit things that just happens to us without actually knowing about it and we do it automatically. And then, of course, we have the stereotypes that we learn, which are more the explicit stuff where we actually learn that males are braver than I don't know. I'm not going to come up with some of them and they're all pretty horrendous much to them. 

But yeah, we know all these stereotypes. These are stereotypes that we learn. They're actually not real, but we've learned those and we've layered those also onto our perception of people and how we'll interact with people when we actually meet them. So those are two examples of your implicit versus your explicit, based on our evolution. 

0:46:12 - Speaker 1
Yeah, that's an interesting point for me to make a correlation with a recent research study that I read I can't remember the name of the neuroscientist, but on cortical colapses, i'll spin it out today where essentially our brain is just taking a mental snapshot, time after time after time, of our environment, of our interactions, and recording that in our cerebrum. 

0:46:37 - Speaker 3
Yeah, so we do have these oscillations. We know that we've got an oscillation of our attention, so we don't see the world as this continual movie that we think we see. That's our brain again. Can we create any solution that we're seeing the world as a constant movie that's going on? We're actually seeing things in these snapshots, in these oscillations that are constantly on and off, on and off, on and off, on and off. 

A good example of that, of course, is your eyes because your eyes are moving around all the time and if you did see things continuously, then each time your eyes moved, everything would blur, right, because your eyes are moving. So, yeah, the world should blur, and it doesn't. It shuts down and then starts again, and then shuts down, and starts again, and then shuts down and starts again. So there's lots and lots of periods where we're actually not perceiving anything at all, but our brain is creating this illusion that we have this constant perception of the world. But we don't, and most of what we perceive is actually based on our long-term memory, based on all these heuristics and learnings that we've had and automatic stuff that's going on, based on our learning. 

0:47:42 - Speaker 1
I mean that makes an interesting point to kind of observe how that forms the importance of maintaining eye contact in our connection and conversation, how that keeps us in the present moment with that interaction, versus slipping back into that past. 

0:47:59 - Speaker 3
Yeah, and there's nothing more annoying. 

I mean, that's one of the reasons why it's difficult to communicate well online, because usually we'll do it with a few people in a meeting and you'll have four or five people or more Now all looking. 

it's not actually the proper eye gaze because when you're normally in a group of, say, four or five people, everyone will look at the speaker and the speaker will be looking at everybody else, which is a normal way to do it. But when you're online, everybody's looking at everybody, which is really impossible to do and our brains get really confused by that because it doesn't make any sense and we get really frustrated by it. or the person will have the camera somewhere else to where their screen is, and so they'll be looking away from the camera, and so also to our brain. our brain automatically says if the person's not looking at me and I'm talking, then they're not listening to me, because that's how we know And we know that again implicitly, because I don't know if you've ever experienced it but leaving babies, very young kids, if you're not actually listening to them, if you're not looking at them, they'll grab your face and move your face. 

Don't look at them because they want to get your attention. I mean, babies know that if you're looking at them, then you're attending to them and you're actually paying attention to what they're saying, and if you're not looking at them, then you're not paying attention and you're not listening. You do that implicitly, automatically, and so when we're online and we're doing these things, we get really frustrated and we don't realize we're getting frustrated, but we do get very frustrated by the fact that it's not what it should be. 

0:49:35 - Speaker 1
That's a really interesting point to note, as I observe my own granddaughter. She has that tendency that she's very engaged and very inquisitive and she'll grab your face and just study and you can tell that she's making that connection. 

0:49:51 - Speaker 3
That's an important connection to make. That's an important connection to make And it's really bizarre because we now have a new disorder out there in the world amongst young kids, toddlers, called the still face effect. Where their faces are still, they don't show normal facial expressions and they don't look at people. And we think that's because the carers are using mobile phones and are on screens all the time, so they're not actually teaching the kids implicitly how to actually communicate in that way, so they don't actually learn how to do it. So, just to set aside, there's quite a few studies now coming out showing the kids now, yeah, don't use facial expressions in the right way and don't use eye gaze in the right way, because they haven't learned it as a toddler, because their carers aren't showing them how to do it, because they're on the devices all the time. 

0:50:38 - Speaker 1
It's just scary. Reminds me back to this week interaction with a tween nephew of mine. He's got the cell phone and we're all trying to engage him and put the phone down. We'd like to actually connect with you. We're imprinting and engraining those patterns, so that's interesting to mark and look out. Yeah, it is. 

0:50:58 - Speaker 3
It's a little scary aspect of the whole smartphone thing, because the smartphones are amazing. I mean, it's amazing to have this computer in our pocket that we would have never dreamt of 20, 25 years ago. But unfortunately, yeah, we're using it in a way which is actually detrimental to what we actually need, which is we need to be able to communicate with each other. I mean, if you look at all 21st century skills, the most important ones are emotional intelligence, communication ability, empathy, ability to lead others, ability to communicate, ability to innovate and collaborate and to learn that by actually looking at someone and spending time with people and actually talking to people and interacting with people, not on devices. And sadly, i think a lot of kids these days are on the devices too much and aren't learning those really important skills that they're going to need when they actually get out there in the workforce. 

0:51:49 - Speaker 1
You know, jumping back perhaps a little bit, mark let's look at our environments and the influence that that has on our learning. What role can our social environments play in that regard, in forming how we frame these perspectives? 

0:52:04 - Speaker 3
Yeah, it's 100%, it's everything. Really. We learn from other people. I mean, again, that's another amazing thing about us as humans is so most animals will demonstrate to the younger ones within the group how to do things. So they'll go out hunting and they'll follow them and they'll see what they're actually doing and so they'll mimic what they're doing because of the mirroring your own system. 

We do that as well, but we also think about it and we actually go hang on. We can actually tell this person how to do this. We can actually add extra information to the learning, and we can do that through verbal communication and through demonstrating and so on. That's really crucial and humans learn really quickly. But because of that, we've also got a What would you call it? a lock on it. 

So you can only learn from someone that you think is part of your in group, or the common term for it is a tribe, but it's not really a tribe, it's it's who's part of your in group, and so people who are part of your in group You'll learn from really easily, really really easily. But someone who's not part of your in group You won't actually learn from and you'll actually won't actually listen to. In the same way, you'll actually hear what they say differently. So if we go in to learn from people, we actually need to learn from people who are part of our in group, and you've got to actually connect with the person first, which is you know. I mean, it's easy to connect with someone if you actually take the time to do that, but then everything that we do in the future is actually based on what we learn. 

Right, because we don't have a free will, can't? that can't really occur because of the fact that none of our decisions are made in isolation, so all of our decisions are made based on our prior experiences. You never randomly make a decision. You always make a decision based on your past experiences, and so every decision we make is based on what we've already learned, and so it's so crucial that we learn the right things and not the wrong things, which you know, which is why we need to surround ourselves and we, why we need our in group to be positive and have positive people within that, because then we're going to learn the right things and therefore make the right decisions in the future, which is wonderful, because it means that we can actually influence people right. If we actually didn't, if we made random decisions, then we couldn't actually influence people. But because of the fact that we are social animals, we do influence each other, because of the fact that we always make decisions based on our prior experiences. 

0:54:33 - Speaker 1
You know, in that regard, i feel a lot of times we might learn a pattern of limited Perspective on how we actually learn itself. Aren't there many different categorizations of types of learning? 

0:54:49 - Speaker 3
So in the brain, what we, how we learn, is really all the same. The different categorizations come from more. It's more of a Pedagogical approach to learning. So, yeah, how, how, schools and how to how, how we Compartmentalize it. But when you actually look at the brain, the actual the brain does it the same every time and that's through experience, right, that's just through actually having a connection with someone and therefore learning it and hypothesis testing. So we actually learn constantly through hypothesis testing because we as humans are extremely curious animals. I mean this whole. 

There's a lot of nonsense out there about the fact that we lose Curiosity as we get older and all those sorts of things, which is complete nonsense, because we'd actually be dead if we did Really curious animals, which is why all these reality TV shows are so popular, right, because people are just so curious about what's happening, you know, in someone else's bedroom or in someone else's house or whatever. That's why we like watching those things, because they keep changing and and we're curious about what's going on over there. So, from a learning point of view, what we do is we constantly making hypotheses about what's actually going on there. We're all really just scientists. So when a baby learns, say, for example, when a baby first sees a dog and The babies carer will turn around and go all that thing there, they'll look at it, which the baby will automatically know that they're talking about that thing. Because they're looking at that thing. They'll say dog, the babies brain will automatically go Okay, that's the item dog and that's its name. Or there's a whole category of those things out there that are called dogs I'm going to see some more in the future and then when the carer then turns around and sees another dog and says our dog, the babies brain automatically then goes Oh, it can't be an item, that can't be have been that one's name, because it's that one's name as well. So therefore there must be a whole category of these things and therefore you know, i'm going to see lots more of these out there in the world which are all dogs. 

Now That's to trial learning, which is astounding that anybody is able to do that. So a computer with there's lots of talk about artificial intelligence at the moment, which is actually just learning algorithms which we've had for a long time, and those learning algorithms will take Thousands of trials to do exactly the same thing. Our brains can do it in two trials that toddlers brain can do it in two trials. Yeah, a learning algorithm such as, you know, chat chip at E or whatever, will take Thousands of trials to do exactly the same thing. 

Which is astounding That we're actually able to do that, and we do that through social learning, and all of the learning we do is really through social learning, is there's a desire to learn something and then we go and learn it and we, you know Which is why YouTube videos and always I say popular, right, because you actually get on YouTube And you see someone teaching you how to do something, and that's how we learn really well is through this social Interaction and then making a hypothesis and then ruling out the wrong hypothesis for trial and error. 

0:57:52 - Speaker 1
You know, that to me brings to mind what I've learned through my sociology and group dynamic study, that role of parochial Empathy or our ability to feel that empathy and compassion for in group members, while we also are somewhat rejecting, as you mentioned, those out group dynamics. 

0:58:12 - Speaker 3
Yeah, the Germans. The Germans are always a great Get group to talk about because the Germans actually have a name for it. They have time. Shard and Freud means yeah, you actually like somebody from your out group actually being hurt. Right, it's if you actually enjoyed seeing somebody from your group being And yeah, there's been lots of studies now on the brain actually showing that if somebody's you know part of your out group, you you actually get pleasure from seeing them hurt. Whereas you know this is even very empathetic people, very, you know, emotionally aware people, will even like Seeing somebody from the out group getting hurt and they don't like seeing somebody from our group getting hurt. But it's an automatic reaction to that. If you know what I mean. I feel guilty for it. They still do it. 

0:59:01 - Speaker 1
We've explored that a good deal in a past episode. Looking at a very popular dynamic in your area down under known as tall poppy syndrome? No, yeah, where the opposite of that is rather than showing that empathy, we do the complete opposite and start to cut down and find fault in others. 

0:59:22 - Speaker 3
Yeah, it's a bizarre thing that happens. Yeah, i loved working in the US because you don't have a tall poppy syndrome. You have quite the opposite, where you know it's quite okay to be very successful, whereas here in Australia we do have a tall poppy syndrome, which we think is actually come because People who moved here originally were convicts and, of course, convicts weren't supposed to be successful And so we have. Yeah, we have a very great dislike towards anybody who talks about the fact I haven't done well, which it doesn't happen over it, you know, in other countries anywhere near as much as it does here, which is very bizarre. 

1:00:00 - Speaker 1
Do you feel, from a certain perspective And this is kind of picking apart things at the scene within Americanized culture that might become a little more covert or a little bit more guarded in how we present it possibly? 

1:00:14 - Speaker 3
I think there's also There's a big difference between Australia and the US. 

I found well, i found when I was because I've lived in both countries in the US Which I really like about the US is it's okay to fail. 

So here in Australia, if you have a business, for example, and you go bankrupt, then you won't get another loan ever like you're just screwed, that's just the end of it, whereas in the US, going bankrupt It's almost a writer passage for a lot of entrepreneurs and they'll do it several times and be quite successful Eventually, because they'll do it and have to go on in not and I really like that about the US because making mistakes like that I think it's really important and you're not going to be really innovative and creative unless you're willing to make mistakes, whereas here in Australia there's much more of an emphasis on getting it right the first time, which I find it Yeah, there's not that willingness that to make mistakes We're sure I think are really important, or I think that We need to teach people to make more mistakes. 

It's why we really learn and the way we become innovative and great I mean Google and things like that and you know happened in the US because of the fact that they're willing to do things, they're outside the norm and they're willing to give things a go, and all those things which, yeah, unfortunately here doesn't happen as much. 

1:01:30 - Speaker 1
Might that be interrelated with what you often term as our neuro myths in some regards, let's maybe segue toward that in our conversation. You mentioned how it's important to frame how we execute our meaning making in perspective context. What are some of these more popular neuro myths that can misguide or misdirect our brain? 

1:01:58 - Speaker 3
Yeah, there's a few around. What one of them, of course, is a multitasking one, which drives me crazy. But we can multitask, and we can't multitask because our working memory is only capable of the. You know, it only has some five to seven slots, and so we're only able to concentrate on one thing at a time, and so, therefore, we have a whole bunch of stuff that's going on automatically. So, hopefully, because I'm talking, you'll be listening to me and you won't be able to do anything else. 

And if you tried to say you know, do a mathematical calculation while I was talking, you wouldn't be able to give me, and we know that Anybody who has kids knows that you know if they're reading a book, so you can, you start talking to them. You, they don't hear you right, they don't actually have any comprehension of what you're doing. So, yeah, that's one that really frustrates me, because a lot of people I Work with, a lot with students Just getting them to realize that if they want to do less time, spend less time doing homework and get the same marks, it's really easy to do that. They've just got to concentrate just on their homework and get rid of everything else, and then they can just concentrate on the homework, they'll save a lot of time and I'll actually get that done and they'll get better marks, because that stuff will get Consolidated in their brains a lot better, so they'll be able to recall it better when they're actually doing their exams, and then they can go and do everything else They want to do, such as, you know, look at YouTube or hang out with their friends or go for a surf or whatever. But they've got to just, you know, get rid of all distractions and just focus on one thing. 

So that's, that's one of the neuromists that I, yeah, frustrates me a lot. And other one is that Male and female brains are different. I, that one frustrates the vagibies out of me. Yeah, all the meta-analysis that's out there has shown that male and female brains are identical. There is no difference between the two. Same amount of variance and same, yeah, exactly the same. There's no difference between male and female brains. I think it started with the whole Yeah, men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but I mean, that was somebody trying to make a lot of money. 

Yeah, so she'll condition that we're different. Our behaviors are different, but our behaviors are different because of the way we're brought up. So because before a woman has a baby, as soon as they know what sex the baby is, even the doctors treat the woman differently if they're having a male baby versus a female baby. And You're treated differently. From that stage onwards and as we talked about before, all of your behaviors and all of your long-term memory Is based on your experiences, and if your experiences are different and you're treating one group one way and another group another way, then they're going to them behave differently because of that, and that's one. Males and females behave differently, not because of any difference in their actual brains, because you know, yeah, all of the scans show that they're actually identical and we. There's no difference between males and females as far as their brains concerned And therefore, if they're treated the same, they'd actually develop the same and they'd act the same later on in life. 

1:04:48 - Speaker 1
So, yeah, that's another one, that sort of frustrates me a bit Often mention and reinforce that belief think before you act. You know, in many regards We're acting from that pattern, condition or habit of thought, normal go-to, kind of automatic. Why is this such an empowering statement as we consider how we frame our perspectives think before you act. 

1:05:12 - Speaker 3
Let's reinforce that, yeah no, that's a good one. So, because of the fact that we've evolved, our brains have evolved to the last 100 million years in an environment which was very potentially dangerous, and potentially dangerous most of the time And so we have a brain that's constantly looking out for danger and constantly a fear of what's actually going to happen. So it's constantly monitoring the world for any danger out there in the world, and so, therefore, all of our automatic responses are geared towards safety, geared towards what's safe, and therefore, and so you need to think first before you act, because a lot of the time, your brain will be telling you that there could be something potentially dangerous there, and if you don't think hang on, is it dangerous or am I okay? Then it will send you in the wrong direction. And I mean, our emotions aren't there as something that we should respond to immediately. Our emotions are a warning that there's potential of something that we need to be aware of, and so we need to stop and actually think about what is our brain trying to tell us? why is it telling us a particular thing? I mean, a perfect example is our face perception, which we talked about before. So when you see a face which is outside your template, your body, your brain and therefore your body, will respond as though there's something dangerous there And you'll automatically get the faster heart rate. You'll automatically get the fight off. 

Why response going on Now? of course, if you acted immediately on that, then you're going to do something which is inappropriate in this day and age where we're all much safer than we were before. And similarly, if someone came towards you and looked like someone that you don't like, again you'll get that fight or flight response go off, and that fight or flight response is telling you this person looks like someone that you don't like, but it's possibly not that person, and so you've got to first respond to it. You first got to go hang on. Why am I having this response And then say, ok, it's only because of this, you know, because he looks like someone who did me wrong 20 years ago, or they've got tattoos, and I've learned that tattoos are on people who are more dangerous, or whatever it happens to be. So, yeah, that's why we need to think before we act, because our brains are constantly trying to warn us that it could be danger, because that's the environment we're involved in. 

1:07:46 - Speaker 1
You know, in my work I've often noticed how that role of the availability heuristic interacts. In particular, you know it creates adverse and healthy influences a lot of times. What role does that availability play, either information or in the data we have present, in forming our perspective? 

1:08:07 - Speaker 3
Yeah, it's important Always. I think one of the biggest problems with society at the moment is is that we're all too busy, is that we're constantly busy And so therefore, we're not giving ourselves and everyone else time. And it's ironic because we are busier now than we've ever been in the past, yet We're less productive than we've ever been. So we were most productive, actually, in the 70s and 80s and going to the 90s, and then productivity dropped off in the last 20 years or so, usually in all organizations, which is crazy. Yet we're all feeling busier than we ever have been, and I think a lot of that has to do with this, this problem that we're not giving our brains time to do what they actually need to do. So what we need to do is slow down. 

I always, when I talk to especially leaders about communication and a lot of companies want me to come and talk about communication And the first thing I say is you have this. When you actually ask a question, you then have to stop and listen to the answer, and if you're then asking another question as soon as the person finishes answering your question, then you didn't listen to the answer, because what you were doing you was, you were thinking about the next question. Right, you need a gap in between, and society doesn't like those gaps, doesn't like to give people the opportunity to think anymore, and I think that's a real problem with society at the moment is we need to give people the respect of giving moments of silence in between discussion. So when we need to give people that gap which shows respect, so when you're talking to someone, when they speak to you, then you should stop. Give 30 seconds. It feels like a lifetime when you first start doing it. 

But give 30 seconds because that actually tells the person. This person's thinking about what I just said, which shows them respect And they actually like that. But it also gives you an opportunity to think about what they've just said and then respond to what they've actually said, rather than coming up, because most of us spend most of the time somebody's talking to you thinking about how you're going to respond to them rather than thinking about what they're actually trying to tell you, and so we miss out on actually understanding what each of us is trying to say to each other, because we're constantly thinking about how we're going to respond to them in a way that we've already decided is what they're going to want to hear. Does that make sense? 

1:10:33 - Speaker 1
I find myself and I tried to practice that pause now Doing that very regularly, especially during our interviews on the podcast. In that regard, as I pause and ponder, it brings to mind to me the idea of selective reinforcement, an idea which, as we were speaking, i projected forward into which merely selective reinforcement is finding those things that you can do, is finding those things that you already want to create that value from in some regard. 

1:11:07 - Speaker 3
Yeah, so I think it's different when you're on, say, a podcast and you've already decided what you want to cover in the podcast, for example. I think a podcast is an unnatural sort of I'm not many, but we've been unnatural. 

1:11:24 - Speaker 1
It's not. Let's frame it that way. It's a framing context. 

1:11:27 - Speaker 3
It matters today, it's a typical A typical, very good way to speak. 

Yeah, ok, so it's an atypical way of actually communicating, because we're really trying to communicate to inform the listeners rather than actually to inform each other, and so we're actually trying to do that, and so we probably know what we're both going to say before we're saying it. 

Anyway, most of the time, and I think when you're asking questions, you would have a good idea about how I'm going to frame it, and so, therefore, you don't need those gaps as much in that sort of environment As you do when you're a business leader and you've got one of your employees and you're talking to them about why they're not being very productive at the moment and how their mental health is going and how your relationships with other people in the workforce is going, and so on, or if you're talking to your son or daughter about how school is and why they're not getting along with a particular person or whatever. 

So I think the normal, those important discussions that we have at home and those important discussions that we have at work, require us to slow down and have those gaps, whereas I think there's other situations, such as a podcast, where you probably don't need those gaps in between. So, yeah, there is a little bit of a difference there in the situation, and you have a new typical and your atypical conversations. There And with most of our conversations, i think we need those gaps, we need more of those gaps, but there are situations where, of course, you want a bit of a flow going on And so, therefore, you're not going to have those gaps. Is that fair? 

1:13:10 - Speaker 1
You asked so shall we receive? There's that pause. In that regard, let's look at that notion or this kind of burgeoning idea of active listening and holding space for others, where we create that gap And we're not constantly trying to jump forward. What are some tips or insights we might share about first creating that space and then being at our optimum then to more actively and conscientiously responding? 

1:13:43 - Speaker 3
Yeah, it's a beautiful question. The first thing I think we need to do is, before you respond, i think you want to first think what does that person actually want to hear? Right, rather than what do I want to tell them? It's actually what do they want to hear? Because people talk to us because they want answers. Right, they want to hear something in particular, and often we're talking to them because we want to hear something in particular, and so you need to sort of stop and say hang on, what do they want to hear, rather than what am I trying to tell them? 

Because often we go into these things and, especially with kids, we go into the situation with this is what I need to teach this child, because his child is on this, or this child is not doing the right thing, or whatever happens. But even as a leader, you go into it thinking, you know, i've got to get this person to be more productive, or I've got to get this person, rather than going into it, to actually listen to what they want, which means that at the end of their piece, whatever they have said, you've got to give that little gap. Well, you don't have to give the gap, but if you think to yourself. What do they actually want? How do they want me to respond? Then that makes you stop for long enough that you actually give that gap and you stop for long enough to actually show them the respect right, show them that you actually you are considering it and you're waiting for that thing to move on. I know, if you want little trips, i always have a glass of water and I will often take a sip of water before I respond, because that just automatically makes me slow down, which is a good way to just make yourself do that, and it's also good because you drink a lot more water that way, which is healthy for you as well, absolutely. But yeah, doing that is really important. But I'll give you another trick which I'm sure you know. 

But if you're face to face with someone, the most important thing to do is to touch them first, because if you touch someone, humans have what we call C fibres on their skin And we, in all societies, we have some way of actually greeting people where, which involves touch. 

So in stoic societies like here and over in the US, of course we shake hands And of course in Europe they'll kiss each other on the cheeks, but even the inuits, because everything's covered will rub noses because only the skin that's actually showing And on our hairy skin which is on our palm, which is on the back of our hands So when you shake hands you touch that or on your nose and your face and so on There's C fibres which activate an area of our brain which releases oxytocin, and oxytocin actually makes us more open to actually make connection with the person And we're more willing to actually trust the person. 

So just giving someone a hit of oxytocin, by getting the snow Oxytocin, will make them more trusting in whoever they're actually talking to at that point in time, more likely to give them money If you're actually looking for money or looking for someone to invest. Yes, so actually just just shaking hands when you actually first meet someone will make them more connected to you, make them more open and make them more willing to actually have an open conversation, feel connected to you because of the oxytocin released in their brain, making them more connected to you. So that's a good way to start before you do anything else. But then during the conversation, if you can touch the elbow or touch the arm or whatever, we'll actually keep that oxytocin going and keep the conversation going and keep them more aware, more open to making the connection and keeping the connection going. 

1:17:15 - Speaker 1
In that regard. Might it also be significant, then, how we feel in that connection. 

1:17:22 - Speaker 3
Yeah, absolutely. So making a connection with someone who's in a really bad mood is virtually impossible to do. Right, you've got to calm them down first before you can actually make that connection. So if they're grumpy, if they're in a bad mood, then, yeah, that's going to be really difficult. 

I work with schools where I go in and talk to the students about their emotions and how to control their emotions. And, well, not how to control their emotions, but how to understand their emotions, how to react to their emotions, to be aware and to slow down, but also how to talk to other people. And I always talk about the fact that we do little role plays and stuff. And this person has sent you a mean tweet and told you da, da, da, da, da, da, and you want to talk to them. So you're coming into the room And they always walk in grumpy and stomping in and da, da, da, da, and I'm like do you know what happens when you do that? And it's like, well, that's how I feel And it's like, yeah, but that's also your transfer in that to them. 

Because emotions are contagious, right, because of our mirror system and our mirror neurons within our brain. When you see someone looking aggressive, you become aggressive too because of the fact you mirror what they're actually doing. So you start off this discussion where you'll want to talk to them about something in a really negative place, because they're going to get aggressive too. So always walk in smiling and relaxed. 

When you want to have a serious conversation with someone which most people don't do, because they're having a serious conversation They'll walk in with a serious face on and they'll walk in with their. You know, this is where I mean business walk and sit in a way which is more aggressive because they mean business, whereas what you want to do is to relax, have a smile and do these things because that will mimic in them and they'll feel more relaxed and they'll have serotonin and so on released in their brain, which will make them feel more relaxed and more likely to actually interact with you. So, yeah, absolutely, emotions 100%, which is where we started. Emotions with 100% effect how you can connect with someone, how you can communicate with them and how you can therefore influence what they're actually thinking and doing, and, in that regard, that all influences how we feel, think and respond. 

1:19:36 - Speaker 1
At our core, we all want to feel two foundational things as human beings to feel loved and to feel like we belong. Mark, i love that we had this conversation today. Thank you, jeff, and I truly, truly want to welcome you as part of our community here at the Light Inside, thank you. Thank you so much for creating meaning for us today. I truly, truly appreciate you, thank you very much, jeff. 

1:20:04 - Speaker 3
It's been really really, really fun, and I hope people learn something And if not, i hope they just enjoy themselves, because I definitely did. It was a great conversation. 

1:20:15 - Speaker 1
Thank you, Mark. Where can our listeners go to find out more about you and your programs of study? 

1:20:21 - Speaker 3
Yeah, the easiest part is DrMark Williams.com. So it's DrMark Williams.com. All my programs are on there and links to my research are linked to my new book that's coming out called The Connected Species. So it's all on that one page, which makes it nice and easy. Such a great resource. 

1:20:40 - Speaker 1
I'm overjoyed with making the connection to this website and starting to dive into some of that information. Mark, Thank you so much for sharing that with us, And thank you for being the beautiful, loving and kind, glowing human being that you are. Thank you very much, Jeff. To think before we act. Never perhaps has there been a truer axiom than this To pause, linger and ponder, allowing our natural emotional responses to subside, then consider with conscientiousness, openness, vulnerability and, ultimately, clarity. Our influences can easily shape and mold these perspectives. So, therefore, when we allow this space to pause and linger, we envision even greater possibilities throughout our lives. 

If you found this episode meaningful, please share it with a friend or loved one. Our crew here at the Light Inside will take a short break from our production schedule next week to pause and reflect on the freedoms we cherish and honor those who gave their lives so that we may continue to enjoy these freedoms. We'll also be taking some time to recharge our batteries and refuel our content vehicle so we can continue creating thoughtful, high-impact messaging for you. We'll rejoin you the second week of July and, as always, we're grateful for you, our valued listening community. This has been the Light Inside. I'm Jeffrey Besecker.