Speaker 1: Today. It's great to have Gleb Zeperski on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Gleb is the CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts, where he consults, coaches,
Speaker 1: and trains leaders on decision making and risk management strategy.
Speaker 1: A cognitive neuroscientist and behavioral economist, doctor Zeeperski has over
Speaker 1: five hundred and fifty articles and four hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: interviews in prominent venues such as Psychology Today, USA Today,
Speaker 1: Fast Company, CBS, News Time, and elsewhere. He's also a
Speaker 1: best selling author known for Never Go with Your Gut,
Speaker 1: How pioneering leaders make the best decisions and avoid business disasters.
Speaker 1: His new book is The Blind Spots Between Us, How
Speaker 1: to overcome unconscious cognitive bias and build better relationships. Available
Speaker 1: Disaster Avoidanceexperts dot com slash blind Spots. He lives in Columbus, Ohio,
Speaker 1: and to avoid disaster in his personal life, he makes
Speaker 1: sure to spend ample He makes sure to spend ample
Speaker 1: time with his wife. Very very smart. That's probably your
Speaker 1: smartest decision, thank you, well, yes, definitely, My smartest decision
Speaker 1: was to marry my wife and keep out really long relationship. Gosh,
Speaker 1: how long has it been already? It's been seventeen years. Wow.
Speaker 1: So that's that's been something that I value and treasure
Speaker 1: very much, and it's definitely most important relationship with my
Speaker 1: wife and in my life and the smartest one, the
Speaker 1: smartest decision that I made. Yeah, of course, Well that's
Speaker 1: really wonderful, and congratulations of both of you. This book,
Speaker 1: this really cool book. You know when we you hinted
Speaker 1: at this book idea when we spoke on the podcast
Speaker 1: a while ago, and I remember, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember, my reaction was, WHOA, Who's I've never seen
Speaker 1: a book on blind spots research applied in the relationships
Speaker 1: to demean before, you know, especially kind of with your message,
Speaker 1: which is don't always trust your gut. You know a
Speaker 1: lot of these books in the in the hippie dippy
Speaker 1: spiritual Realm of Loes and you know, Free Love all
Speaker 1: that stuff is saying just go with the gut, you know,
Speaker 1: and you can't go wrong. But what's wrong with that, Well,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with going with our gut? And what these
Speaker 1: books really get wrong is that our gut is really
Speaker 1: not adapted to the modern world. That's a big problem.
Speaker 1: So thinking about our god, what is that It's our instincts.
Speaker 1: It's our intuition, it's our feelings, it's our emotions, and
Speaker 1: they are built for the savannah environment. And we look
Speaker 1: in small tribes of fifteen people to one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty people. That's what our God is for. I mean,
Speaker 1: think about that tribalism response, right. We need it in
Speaker 1: that tribal environment to be very strongly oriented toward other
Speaker 1: members of our tribe, to like people who look like us,
Speaker 1: who think like us, who have the same values that
Speaker 1: we do, and to be hostile to those who aren't.
Speaker 1: Because if we weren't sufficiently hostile to other tribes, they
Speaker 1: conquer our tribes and we die. And if we weren't
Speaker 1: sufficiently loyal to our tribe, they take us out of
Speaker 1: our tribe and we die. You notice where the descendants
Speaker 1: of folks who didn't die. So we are very tribally oriented.
Speaker 1: That's one example that's really a bad bit to the
Speaker 1: modern world. I mean, I imagine how the modern world
Speaker 1: would work if we only went with our gut reactions
Speaker 1: on tribalisms. We can't have complex modern organizations. We can't
Speaker 1: have relationships with people who are different from us, whether
Speaker 1: romantic relationships or friendship relationships or professional relationships. That takes
Speaker 1: overcoming our gut intuitions and our desire to go with
Speaker 1: people who are like us. That's one broad pattern of
Speaker 1: blind spots, these cognitive biases that we need to addrust.
Speaker 1: Another one is called the flight or flight response, now
Speaker 1: a fighter flight response. You might be familiar with it
Speaker 1: as the stable to tiger response when we had to
Speaker 1: jump out one hundred shadows to get away from that
Speaker 1: one fabre to tiger. And you know the ones who
Speaker 1: got away from that sabre to tiger faster. They're the
Speaker 1: ones who respond, who survived and thrived, and we're their descendants.
Speaker 1: So right now, we still have a very strong stress
Speaker 1: response when we have any stimulus, any external stimulus that
Speaker 1: we perceive a streatning. That's great for when we need
Speaker 1: to get ourselves out of the way of a moving bus.
Speaker 1: That's wonderful. That's a perfect response for that situation. But
Speaker 1: when our loved one does something that is hurtful or
Speaker 1: upsetting to us, the temptation is to either withdraw that's
Speaker 1: a slight response, or attack that's aggressive response. Neither of
Speaker 1: those are the right response. Now, some folks are more
Speaker 1: of the withdraw type. Some folks are more of the
Speaker 1: aggressive type. I'm definitely more of the aggressive type, and
Speaker 1: I know I have to restrain that within myself. And
Speaker 1: you need to know what your blind spots are and
Speaker 1: how to address them, because so many people just respond
Speaker 1: with their guts to what their loved one says, or
Speaker 1: what their colleagues says, or what their friends says, and
Speaker 1: that gets them into a whole heap of trouble. So
Speaker 1: we can talk about that, but that's the kind of
Speaker 1: tendencies that come with going with our guts, and they're
Speaker 1: really bad for relationships in the modern world. So all
Speaker 1: of those books, they're doing a huge, huge disservice to
Speaker 1: everyone by telling people to go with their God, all
Speaker 1: their hard trust, their intuition, because it gets them into
Speaker 1: a whole heap of trouble when they do. Yeah, i've
Speaker 1: heard the the fore a fs. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've heard about the four ass fight, uh flight fight,
Speaker 1: flight freeze and beep a four letter word. So it
Speaker 1: seems like that foreletter word, that's that's a good one.
Speaker 1: We're okay with that right as a response, which it
Speaker 1: can be, but sometimes it's not always the right response. No,
Speaker 1: of course, that's very true. Out of the four if
Speaker 1: you gave me the four options and you said pick one,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's definitely a good response. And people
Speaker 1: put notice that. People who did that, you know, they're
Speaker 1: the ones who fried produced right. Yes, why we're here
Speaker 1: in the modern environment, not the right response, that's true,
Speaker 1: that's true. Context matters for sure, and our gut does
Speaker 1: not respond well to context. Oh and that's the thing,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't are when we look at the world,
Speaker 1: we very much go with our intuition, our feeling, and
Speaker 1: we're not really focusing on the context of the nuance,
Speaker 1: the subtleties we fall into these dangerous judgment or called
Speaker 1: cognitive biases. That's a huge problem for us. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: huge cause of a lot of strife and even the
Speaker 1: most extreme homicide you know, and all over the world.
Speaker 1: Or you look at all these kinds of consequences of
Speaker 1: these sorts of things and relationships, and if you can
Speaker 1: crack this this code, you know you can, you can
Speaker 1: really help save a lot of lives. I would say
Speaker 1: it's true, it's true. It's lines, it's relationships everything, because
Speaker 1: when when you look at tribalism, it's a cause for
Speaker 1: so much conflict, so much discord, so much strife. That's
Speaker 1: really unnecessary, I mean, certainly in America right now, looking
Speaker 1: at the kind of politization that we have, the tribalism
Speaker 1: where people focus on those differences that divide us instead
Speaker 1: of what unites us. I mean, look at what unites us.
Speaker 1: We all care about our families, we all want to
Speaker 1: safe life, we all want help, we all want to
Speaker 1: have reasonable material things. Right, we share ninety five percent,
Speaker 1: even though with the people who you disagree the most,
Speaker 1: you share ninety five percent of what makes us your life.
Speaker 1: You disagree even with the most extreme people on five percent.
Speaker 1: And why do we focus on those five percent where
Speaker 1: we disagree instead of ninety five percent where we agree. Well,
Speaker 1: that's tribalism. That's what it drives us to do, and
Speaker 1: that's a big problem. And we don't realize how dangerous
Speaker 1: it is in modern society. And it's only the United States,
Speaker 1: of course, in other countries tribalism can get into much
Speaker 1: more dangerous situations. Well, right now, we're having some conflicts
Speaker 1: and protesters that do kill people, but that's less frequent
Speaker 1: in the US than outside the US. As you rightly
Speaker 1: point out scott where people are actually killed daily because
Speaker 1: of this tribalism eefinite conflicts of religious conflicts so deadly
Speaker 1: and so dangerous and so unnecessary. I think what you're
Speaker 1: saying is quite right, But is a tribalism the only explanation,
Speaker 1: you know, you think about the phenomenon that you have
Speaker 1: fraternal twins or like firstborn, second borns, third borns, they're
Speaker 1: all competing for their mother's attention. You know, like, I
Speaker 1: don't think that tribalism necessarily makes sense is the answer
Speaker 1: to that. But you know, you said, why do we
Speaker 1: when we agree on so much, why do we disagree?
Speaker 1: Why do we focus on the five percent we disagree
Speaker 1: with it? It It could also just be we're trying to
Speaker 1: be an individual, you know, we're trying to like show
Speaker 1: that we, you know, stand out in some way in
Speaker 1: our beliefs. You know, we can kind of kind of
Speaker 1: get caught up in talking about our own belief system
Speaker 1: because it makes us feel unique. And it's definitely important
Speaker 1: for us to be able to feel unique and make
Speaker 1: sure that we have our sense of fulfillment. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't need to involve by with other groups. And so
Speaker 1: here's one of the cognitive bias is called the in
Speaker 1: group outgroup bias, where when we look at people who
Speaker 1: are part of our groups, usually within families. You look
Speaker 1: at families and they're part of your group, right, so
Speaker 1: you stand up for your brother, and you stand up
Speaker 1: for your sister, even when they did some pretty bad things,
Speaker 1: and that may not be a really good thing for
Speaker 1: our society. You know, do you want people to stand
Speaker 1: for your brother? I mean, there are a number of
Speaker 1: cases of you know, let's say judges, politicians who have
Speaker 1: corrupt brothers, corrupt sisters, I mean, and all, and they
Speaker 1: protect them in a corrupt way that really harms our society.
Speaker 1: And that's the same thing happens with with business leaders
Speaker 1: who get their cousins to work for them, and that
Speaker 1: really hardens the morale arms, teamwork and everything else like that.
Speaker 1: And that's family, just of course one group you also have.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a good example. I was giving
Speaker 1: a presentation to HR leaders here in Columbus, Ohio. So
Speaker 1: this is where I look, Columbus, Ohio, and this is
Speaker 1: the home of the highest state buck eyes. So that's
Speaker 1: what we're famous for. And they have big, big footballs
Speaker 1: for glad Zuperski. They are, But besides that, they're famous
Speaker 1: for the University of for the football rivalry with the
Speaker 1: University of Michigan Wolverines. Unfortunately, this year the game was
Speaker 1: canceled because of COVID. You know, those Wolverines got COVID
Speaker 1: and we couldn't lead them this year unfortunately. So that's
Speaker 1: unfortunately for Fortunately for them, they missed out on a dropping.
Speaker 1: So what happened was that this was twenty eighteen, so
Speaker 1: long before the pandemic, and I was speaking here in
Speaker 1: Columbus to Hire two a diversity inclusion conference of HR leaders,
Speaker 1: over one hundred HR leaders. This mine was the closing keynote,
Speaker 1: and I asked these over one hundred HR leaders in Columbus, Ohio,
Speaker 1: how many of you would hire a University of Michigan,
Speaker 1: how many of you would hire Wolverine spans. So out
Speaker 1: of those over one hundred people, only three of them
Speaker 1: raised their hands. Only three would hire a University of
Speaker 1: Michigan fan. Now, and the thing is I that was
Speaker 1: being recorded, so I have it on video, only three
Speaker 1: people raising their hands. It's silly, but the sense of
Speaker 1: travelism around teams, people are passionate and it's all about
Speaker 1: our emotions, their feelings are in tuition, people get really
Speaker 1: into teams, into that spirit, and they feel a strong
Speaker 1: sense of antipathy, a dislike that's the outgroup. The University
Speaker 1: of Michigan that Wolverines are the outgroup. Of course, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter for your ability to perform on the job
Speaker 1: whether you're a fan of the Buckeyes or the Wolverines, right,
Speaker 1: but that sense of antipathy teamwork is really harmful. That's
Speaker 1: kind of example in the workplace. Of course, so many
Speaker 1: other examples are that in group, outgroup, biased arms. Arms
Speaker 1: of society in many ways call those folks make really
Speaker 1: bad decisions. Yeah, are you do you think they were serious? Though?
Speaker 1: I think they were, of course yes, I mean I
Speaker 1: asked to fluence follow ups. Yes, so there were when
Speaker 1: I do this, and that was a keynote of one
Speaker 1: hundred people. Right. When I do intimate training, and I
Speaker 1: do those for HR leaders, for executives, I ask them,
Speaker 1: Columbus of Hio elsewhere, I look up you know what
Speaker 1: these local football rivalry is, and I ask them, and
Speaker 1: I generally get similar responses. You know, ages ninety percent
Speaker 1: of them won't hire somebody, And I ask them. You
Speaker 1: know why they're like, well, I just feel uncomfortable working
Speaker 1: with this person, you know, just having a negative feelings
Speaker 1: towards this person. That's that's what causes these negative feelings,
Speaker 1: these got reactions. They trust their God. You know what
Speaker 1: the essence trusting our God means is that if you
Speaker 1: feel something that is true, then you believe it's true.
Speaker 1: If you feel a certain course of actions right, then
Speaker 1: you believe it's right. If you feel that your heart is,
Speaker 1: you know, to pursue this person even though that might
Speaker 1: be a very very bad fit for you, then you
Speaker 1: will pursue this person. And if you feel you know
Speaker 1: your friend it is something to betray you, even though
Speaker 1: that might be completely untrue, you will still feel angry
Speaker 1: with your friend. And then so that's kind of the
Speaker 1: difference between feelings and what is actually the reality. And
Speaker 1: we let our feelings guide we trust that that reaction,
Speaker 1: the tribalism, the fighter flight response over what actually benefits
Speaker 1: us and what benefits our relationships and can have some
Speaker 1: pretty terrible consequences. Oh yeah, absolutely, that also can stunt
Speaker 1: possibility for a beautiful relationship, yes, you know, absolutely, or
Speaker 1: a chance your absolutely writes that or it can lead
Speaker 1: into really bad relationships. There's a reason about forty percent
Speaker 1: of plus of marriages in the US and then divorce. Right, then,
Speaker 1: that's because people choose others based on tribalists responses, based
Speaker 1: on and fight or flight things. We'll talk about tribalism.
Speaker 1: We talked about in group and ALGROUPBIS. There's another related
Speaker 1: cognitive bias pattern called the Halo effect and the Horns effect.
Speaker 1: So the Halo effect is, if you like one characteristic
Speaker 1: of someone, you will tend to like all of their
Speaker 1: other culptures. And the horns effect is if you dislike
Speaker 1: one characteristic or someone, you will tend to dislike all
Speaker 1: of their other cultures. Now, folks listening to this, watching
Speaker 1: this might hear that I have an act, right I
Speaker 1: clearly I'm not from around here, right. My parents came
Speaker 1: from a country called Moldova in the Soviet Union that
Speaker 1: part of the territory when I was ten. This was
Speaker 1: an international podcast, by the way, So I may be
Speaker 1: the one with the accent. This is the case that
Speaker 1: people still here, I have an access, right, I don't
Speaker 1: have a mainstream American actor, and this is what this
Speaker 1: is what I'm talking about. So I don't have that
Speaker 1: mainstream American accent. And when I came to the United States,
Speaker 1: I grew up in New York City that was a
Speaker 1: cultural melting pot, and I decided that, Hey, my parents
Speaker 1: taught me to be proud of my cultural heritage, so
Speaker 1: I decided to keep my acts. Many immigrants chose to,
Speaker 1: especially those who didn't live in a cultural melting plot,
Speaker 1: decided to get rid of it. Well, when I was
Speaker 1: getting my PhD at UNC Chapel, I learned that was
Speaker 1: kind of a dumb decision because of noumenam called accent discrimination,
Speaker 1: where people who don't have that mainstream American accent are
Speaker 1: perceived to be less trustworthy, less credible. They are perceived
Speaker 1: to be worse than others who do have that main
Speaker 1: share American accent. And this applies not simply to foreign accent.
Speaker 1: This applies to regional accents in the US as well.
Speaker 1: So let's say someone with a Southern accent would be
Speaker 1: perceived as less trustworthy, less credible than someone with the
Speaker 1: mainstream American accent or someone with a New York accent
Speaker 1: or something like that. So that is a really problematic dynamic,
Speaker 1: and that comes because of the horn defect where you
Speaker 1: hear an accent, that somebody has an accent, and that's
Speaker 1: another the mainstream American accent, and the immediate gut reaction is, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a weird person, that's different, not from my tribe.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of immediate reaction. And that works for
Speaker 1: a number of other dynamics. So for example, people who
Speaker 1: obviously this is the part of racism and religious based discrimination,
Speaker 1: all of these isms, all of these discriminations come in
Speaker 1: terms of the Horns effect going on. There are other
Speaker 1: aspects of the Horns effects that are really interesting to examine.
Speaker 1: So for example, one thing is obesity. People who are
Speaker 1: perceived as a beast gets much less ahead in life
Speaker 1: than people who aren't perceived as a best And that's
Speaker 1: because you don't like that characteristic of someone, because that's
Speaker 1: perceived as a negative thing in our society to be
Speaker 1: obese people. The Hall effect is the opposite. When you
Speaker 1: like that characteristic, you will tend to hire a person.
Speaker 1: So if you're a black eyes span and you are
Speaker 1: interviewing a buck eye span, you will tend to hire
Speaker 1: that person even though they might not deserve to be hired,
Speaker 1: against somebody who is a mutual, you know, in front
Speaker 1: of a neutral Teamore doesn't care about college foot all
Speaker 1: at all. And if somebody has an attractive appearance compared
Speaker 1: to men women, compared to the mainstream of appearance what
Speaker 1: we consider to be attractive, they tend to be hired
Speaker 1: at a greater rate, They tend to be in relationships,
Speaker 1: they tend to get further ahead in life. Same thing applies,
Speaker 1: by the way to taller men. So I got lucky
Speaker 1: in that I'm six to one. So men who are
Speaker 1: you know, the average height of for a man is
Speaker 1: something like five eight five seven five eight United States,
Speaker 1: and people who are above significantly above that height get
Speaker 1: further ahead in life. People who are below that height
Speaker 1: don't get further ahead in life. Because there's an association
Speaker 1: with tribalism and leadership. In a tribal environment, people who
Speaker 1: are taller were physically more fit, and they were seen
Speaker 1: as leaders. They were seen as kind of, oh, these
Speaker 1: are the people who I want to have relationships with,
Speaker 1: who I want to lead me. And those other people
Speaker 1: who tend to get ahead in life because of that
Speaker 1: tale of So those are some other patterns of dynamics
Speaker 1: that relate back to our evolutionary psychology that have some
Speaker 1: pretty negative consequences in the modern world, where people who
Speaker 1: have otherwise great characteristics either don't get ahead when they
Speaker 1: should and people who don't have very good characteristics get
Speaker 1: ahead even if they shouldn't. They just talking to a
Speaker 1: coaching client who was saying that she was one of
Speaker 1: the few women executives in GE who about thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: when she was one of the lowest under one percent
Speaker 1: of female executives in GE at that time, and she
Speaker 1: was telling me that the first time she came to
Speaker 1: a meeting of major executives executives from g she was
Speaker 1: shot that the room was full of super tall white men.
Speaker 1: Super tall white men, not simply white men, that's understandable
Speaker 1: for that time period, right, but people who are all
Speaker 1: pretty uniformly about six feet And that is an example
Speaker 1: of how these people get ahead. Do you know there's
Speaker 1: a big push to have more diversity in the workplace.
Speaker 1: Do you think we should push to have more five
Speaker 1: foot six people in the workplace and five foot four people?
Speaker 1: And should we have more diversity of height? I think
Speaker 1: we should definitely have look at whatever factors research shows
Speaker 1: are discriminated against and address those discriminations. We know that
Speaker 1: research shows that there's discrimination against type, and that's what
Speaker 1: you're saying, Yeah, yes, of course, yes, So that's what
Speaker 1: the pure viewer is. We definitely know there's the discrimination
Speaker 1: against people who are beasts, and I definitely think that
Speaker 1: that should be addressed as well. I think there should
Speaker 1: be more effort put on addressing issues of ethnicity because
Speaker 1: of the cultural problems around ethnicity in this country, with
Speaker 1: discrimination against African Americans, the Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and
Speaker 1: so on. Because of that more because of that focus,
Speaker 1: because of that cultural heritage, because of that history, there
Speaker 1: should be especially with African Americans, there should be more
Speaker 1: focused place than that. But I think all sorts of
Speaker 1: discriminatory impulses and tendencies, I think there should be a
Speaker 1: way to address the discrimination against wolverine spans and black eyes,
Speaker 1: because these are all problematic tendents. People need to know this.
Speaker 1: People need to understand that our gut reactions cause us
Speaker 1: to make really bad decisions about other people. And that's
Speaker 1: what the that's why I wrote the book about relationships.
Speaker 1: Like what you said in the beginning, why do we
Speaker 1: the wise that book important because we make really bad
Speaker 1: mistakes about other people and that hurts us. And we're
Speaker 1: talking about only one aspect of these mistakes about the tribalism,
Speaker 1: and there's so many other aspects of the book we
Speaker 1: can dive into, but we just want to be highlighted
Speaker 1: that this is a problem, and this is something that
Speaker 1: really needs to be addressed, and it's something that the
Speaker 1: way it's addressed right now, I get really frustrated because
Speaker 1: the way that the large majority of diversity inclusion programs
Speaker 1: work is they talk about ways of shaming and guilty
Speaker 1: white majority males into accepting minorities, women, and so on.
Speaker 1: That's a really bad tendency. That's a very bad approach
Speaker 1: to diversity inclusion. When you look at the research, it's
Speaker 1: just like fat shaming. You're gonna know what you're going
Speaker 1: to think, but just by fat shaming a fat person,
Speaker 1: you'll get that fat person to lose weight. Now that's
Speaker 1: not what the research shows. It's intuitive to us. You
Speaker 1: know why is fat shaving a thing? Because you know,
Speaker 1: your mother intuitively feels that fat shaming you will work.
Speaker 1: That's what her gut reaction tells her is the right
Speaker 1: thing to do. To criticize the negative comments about wait
Speaker 1: and so on, and that's what your friends feel is
Speaker 1: the right thing to do, and your relatives and so on.
Speaker 1: And that's why fat shaming and all other sorts of
Speaker 1: shaming are self prevalent in our society, and including discrimination shaming,
Speaker 1: where it's people who are discriminated are shamed. That's not
Speaker 1: a good approach. When you look at the research on
Speaker 1: how do you actually address diversity inclusion, You need to
Speaker 1: show people that this is part of the revolutionary heritage.
Speaker 1: Tribalism is natural. Everyone falls into it. This is the
Speaker 1: hall effect, horns effect, the in group bias, out group bias.
Speaker 1: This is natural. It's a natural tendence. So how do
Speaker 1: you actually address let's say, eating us by shaming people?
Speaker 1: You say, it's natural for us to be triggered by sugar.
Speaker 1: You know, in the savanna environment, it was very important
Speaker 1: for us to be triggered by when we came across
Speaker 1: a source of honey or something like that. It was
Speaker 1: very important for us to eat as much of it
Speaker 1: as possible, or to survive and thrive with the descendants
Speaker 1: of those who succeeded in doing so, and then reproduce
Speaker 1: themselves well. In the modern environment, that's very bad. If
Speaker 1: you come across, you know, a box of donuts in
Speaker 1: the workplace, that's a graceful vendor censure and it's kind
Speaker 1: of sitting there open for everyone. It's very tempting to maybe,
Speaker 1: you know, take half a dollar and then once you
Speaker 1: take half of donut, I mean, it's pretty tempting to
Speaker 1: take the other half and then you know, before you
Speaker 1: know it, you say you're taking you have the box
Speaker 1: of God. Right, So that's a tendency that makes it
Speaker 1: not because they're feathered by sugar. It's very tempting. So
Speaker 1: you need to instead of that choose a different set
Speaker 1: of pats, like for example, passing by that donuts and
Speaker 1: going for the bowl of fruit or another vendors much
Speaker 1: less tasty, much less you know, desirable. That's put untroso food,
Speaker 1: but it's much healthier. The folks hopefully who are checking
Speaker 1: out this podcast that hopefully developed habits that helped them
Speaker 1: make the right decisions in those challenging situations in order
Speaker 1: to have a healthy eating habit. So that's physical health.
Speaker 1: The same thing for fitness. Not intuitive for us to
Speaker 1: go to the gym or not to go to the
Speaker 1: gym in the middle of the pandemic. But let's say
Speaker 1: exercise at home, right the yog or something like that. Ideayo,
Speaker 1: But it's not something intuitive for me. It's not comfortable,
Speaker 1: but it's something I learned to do, just like I
Speaker 1: learned to eat in a better manner that might God
Speaker 1: reaction tells me to do. And in the same way,
Speaker 1: we need to address discrimination in the workplace and in
Speaker 1: personal relationships. These halo effects and horns effects in group
Speaker 1: and outgrow biases tribalism. There are specific strategies to habits
Speaker 1: that you can use that I talk about my consulting
Speaker 1: coaching practice and I talk about, of course in the book,
Speaker 1: that you can use to address these negative, harmful patterns
Speaker 1: in our minds that pauses to have the make these
Speaker 1: bad decisions about other people. But you can't come from
Speaker 1: it from a shaving perspective. You have to say, this
Speaker 1: is a pattern that you need to address for developing
Speaker 1: better habits, and that's the better mental habits, that's the
Speaker 1: key to address these dangerous judgment errors. Nice, I don't
Speaker 1: think you took a breath at all. Thank you. I'm
Speaker 1: passionate about this is as it can tell. I can
Speaker 1: tell absolutely Can you describe one of the more interesting
Speaker 1: cogniases that I read in your book, the illusion of transparency?
Speaker 1: Can you talk a bit about that on how do
Speaker 1: we work to avoid this error in judgment? How can
Speaker 1: we happy to solution of transparency has to do with communication.
Speaker 1: You know, right now this podcast we're communicating and trying
Speaker 1: to convey some ideas well. The intuitive thing to feel
Speaker 1: for me and are you and for everyone else is
Speaker 1: that's what great communicates. We feel in an illusionary manner,
Speaker 1: that our thoughts and our feelings and our message is
Speaker 1: fully transpar earned to other people. That whatever we convated
Speaker 1: people is one hundred percent received, integrated, accepted, and celebrated.
Speaker 1: Well maybe not the last, but that is fully received.
Speaker 1: Not how actually reality work. What you need to understand
Speaker 1: is that, first of all, there might be a lot
Speaker 1: of technical issues in communicating in the modern age of
Speaker 1: zoom right, with a pandemic, a lot of technical issues.
Speaker 1: Glitchous people might not be hearing you so on, stuff
Speaker 1: might be going on in their home that you might
Speaker 1: not be aware that might be distracting them, could not right,
Speaker 1: That's kind of one yeah, exactly, So that's kind of
Speaker 1: one area. Then they might be hearing you, but they
Speaker 1: might be not paying sufficiently good attention. They might be distracted.
Speaker 1: They might be you know, looking at their phone or
Speaker 1: thinking about what they're doing it for dinner or that
Speaker 1: meeting they're going to have with their boss, right, something
Speaker 1: that's reoccupying them. Their attention is not also stand you,
Speaker 1: and they're missing a part of the message that you're conveying.
Speaker 1: So there is an attention issue. Then it's an interpretation
Speaker 1: if they might have different ways of thinking about the
Speaker 1: terms that you're using, you know, different people. Let's say
Speaker 1: you use the term several. What does several mean? What
Speaker 1: does a few mean? What does a couple mean? And
Speaker 1: those are just the sum of the terms that we
Speaker 1: have different interpretations around, and people feel that their interpretation
Speaker 1: is the rightful and they don't even check to confirm
Speaker 1: that the other person has the right interpretation of the term.
Speaker 1: And of course then there's a lot of talkingitive biases
Speaker 1: that cause them to have filters around what they're hearing
Speaker 1: from you. It's another talking to bias that I talk
Speaker 1: about in the book is called the confirmation bias, where
Speaker 1: we look for information that confirms our beliefs and we
Speaker 1: ignore information that doesn't confirm to our beliefs. So let's
Speaker 1: say you're hearing information from somebody. Let's say your loved
Speaker 1: one is telling you, you know, to clean up yourself
Speaker 1: and they're telling you, you know, this is the fifth
Speaker 1: time that you didn't clean up yourselves, and you're kind
Speaker 1: of what you're hearing from is, Oh, they they're just
Speaker 1: they're just you know, nagging me again. You're not hearing
Speaker 1: kind of their frustration, their concerns, they're underlying anxiety and
Speaker 1: their urges that caused them to talk about this topic
Speaker 1: to you. You're just kind of ignoring them as noise.
Speaker 1: And that's what happens to people, or the same thing
Speaker 1: happens in the workplace. You know, when somebody is getting
Speaker 1: constructive critical feedback and they have a defensive response and
Speaker 1: they shut down and they're ignoring what the other person
Speaker 1: is saying. That happens all the time. You know, so
Speaker 1: many leaders don't know how to give good, constructive critical
Speaker 1: feedback because they're not aware of the flight response and
Speaker 1: the freeze response. So when we're talking about the five
Speaker 1: flight or freeze response. By the way, the freeze response
Speaker 1: is kind of an internal flight where you're fleeing within yourself,
Speaker 1: so that either the flight response or the freeze response
Speaker 1: would cause people who are getting constructive critical feedback to
Speaker 1: withdraw from the situation, ignore whether they're being told, and
Speaker 1: not focused on it. And leaders just assume that whenever
Speaker 1: they give constructive but because the other person will just
Speaker 1: do what they say. That's not how the world works.
Speaker 1: And so the illusion of transparency has to do And
Speaker 1: of course we can talk about how to fix that,
Speaker 1: but the illusion of transparency has to do with this
Speaker 1: tendency to fail to understand that our message is far
Speaker 1: from one hundred percent getting through to the other people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we often have that, we operate under that illusion,
Speaker 1: and it's I mean, how in the world do we
Speaker 1: see reality more clearly? I mean, do you have any
Speaker 1: advice on listening skills or so with ilution of transparency.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about this at first. What you want to
Speaker 1: do is, first of all, understand where the other persons
Speaker 1: coming from. If they have if they're likely to have
Speaker 1: some kind of emotional reaction to what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: then you need to understand. Okay, I assume that they
Speaker 1: will have some kind of emotional reaction model, what kind
Speaker 1: of emotional reaction they will have. Maybe they'll have a
Speaker 1: defensive response, aggressive response. Maybe they'll feel like ignoring you
Speaker 1: because this is kind of a time time you've been
Speaker 1: repeating the same thing, and by the way, you shouldn't
Speaker 1: be repeating the same thing time time. That seems that
Speaker 1: the way you're doing doesn't work. So whatever is happening,
Speaker 1: you want to anticipate their emotional response, and you want
Speaker 1: to understand what their emotional responses are. They can address
Speaker 1: the emotions under the content of what you're saying. So
Speaker 1: you don't want to simply think about, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: going to target their head, but you want to think
Speaker 1: about targeting their gots, because they are interpreting your words
Speaker 1: to their gods, not their head overwhelmingly seeking. When we're
Speaker 1: talking about an emotional response, do you want to speak
Speaker 1: to their emotions. You want to address their emotions. You
Speaker 1: want to calm them down. You want to make sure
Speaker 1: that they're hearing what you're saying and their emotions are
Speaker 1: hearing what you're saying. Then you want to check or understanding.
Speaker 1: So you don't want to simply say, you know, here's
Speaker 1: the thing, and I assume that you understood it. You
Speaker 1: want to check or understanding by saying something like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: so can you clarify what you think of what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: And you want to make sure that the person in
Speaker 1: response actually gives you a clarific ate or gives you
Speaker 1: an indication of what they think that you're saying, and
Speaker 1: you and that what they think you're saying is actually
Speaker 1: what you're saying, because that sort of checking for understanding
Speaker 1: gets you to have a discussion about okay, not what
Speaker 1: I meant. And you want to always make sure that
Speaker 1: you take this on yourself. Don't blame the other first
Speaker 1: for misunderstanding, which is self and what happens in communication.
Speaker 1: Very bad tendency, really not something you want to do.
Speaker 1: Don't say you know you're dumb, you misunderstood me. Say
Speaker 1: something like that, I apologize that I am mist communicated.
Speaker 1: What I meant to say was next not why, so
Speaker 1: let's talk about why. Well, let's let's talk about this issue.
Speaker 1: So that's something that you want to make sure to do.
Speaker 1: So speak to other people's emotions and check for understanding, apologize,
Speaker 1: take the blame for yourself for a humous communication, and
Speaker 1: then make sure that you can whatever misunderstanding and suxist.
Speaker 1: It's great, great advice. So let me make sure that
Speaker 1: I understood your point correctly about intuition. I'm going to
Speaker 1: apply your principle to something I was thinking. You said,
Speaker 1: trusting your intuition's bad advice. Could it be that there
Speaker 1: are individual differences though, in how naturally some of these
Speaker 1: principles come to people versus don't, Like, there are some
Speaker 1: people and I'm not saying you, but because I don't
Speaker 1: know you that well, but there's some people who they're
Speaker 1: so rational people that they don't they don't you know
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the autism spectrum, for instance,
Speaker 1: these a lot of these they need rules, and they
Speaker 1: need to cognitively understand all the cognitive biases, and they
Speaker 1: want to break it all down and systematize it. But
Speaker 1: then there are other people who just intuitively get these things.
Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, obviously, now, so don't you think that, like,
Speaker 1: there are some people that are just naturals at relationships
Speaker 1: that that are more likely not to fall prey to
Speaker 1: the illusion transparency because of their intouition is so well developed.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to discuss this with you. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's a very important topic. There are some
Speaker 1: people who are naturally more empathetic than others, so it's
Speaker 1: not that their intuition is developed. There's a specific Let
Speaker 1: me make sure to clarify what intuition is. So when
Speaker 1: we talk about intuition, there can be something called expert intuition.
Speaker 1: Expert intuition is when you've probably heard the phrase you
Speaker 1: need ten thousand hours of practice and something for mastery, right,
Speaker 1: and you actually don't need ten thousand hours, I mean,
Speaker 1: depends on the skills. That's kind of like an exaggeration
Speaker 1: painting with a broadcash. But expert intuition, where you can
Speaker 1: trust your intuition, comes from repeatedly many times performing the
Speaker 1: same task, getting quick feedback, and having over time developed
Speaker 1: a sense that you're absolutely getting the right answer, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever you're doing with this task. So, for example, probably
Speaker 1: most folks listen to podcasts have expert intuition about checking
Speaker 1: their email, going through it and seeing okay. They can
Speaker 1: very quickly tell whether this is an important email or
Speaker 1: this is stam right. That's something you probably have most
Speaker 1: expert intuition. I mean, there are some people who just
Speaker 1: ignore their email that you probably don't have expert intuition,
Speaker 1: but most of you have hopefully expert intuition. So that's
Speaker 1: something good that you have expert intuition in because you
Speaker 1: can quickly tell them. Or when you're driving a car,
Speaker 1: you can probably if you have a lot of experience
Speaker 1: in that you can probably quickly tell how to drive
Speaker 1: the car effectively, inaccurately. So there are a number of
Speaker 1: areas where we have expert intuition. Of course, it depends
Speaker 1: on your So if you're an executive, for example, you
Speaker 1: have expert intuition in looking at a craft and law
Speaker 1: statement and quickly telling how division is doing, then that
Speaker 1: of course you know, or your plumbering can quickly look
Speaker 1: at you know, toilet backed up and see you know,
Speaker 1: this is most likely the cost because you have a
Speaker 1: lot of experience. However, we tend to greatly exaggerate what
Speaker 1: our understanding of what we have expert intuition in, and
Speaker 1: so we feel that whatever area we're engaging with we
Speaker 1: are experts in, where as we are in no way
Speaker 1: experts in those areas. There's, for example, really interesting studies
Speaker 1: on doctors performing lab exams and they assume that they
Speaker 1: know what the right answer is to kind of a diagnosis, treatment,
Speaker 1: and overwhelmingly they tend to be way too confident about
Speaker 1: their knowledge. They tend to feel like they know what
Speaker 1: the right diagnosis is and they don't, and they way
Speaker 1: too confident about it. So even doctors, you know, get
Speaker 1: into this head space where they tend to be way
Speaker 1: over confident about their ability to sell something. Or let's
Speaker 1: say just in terms of over confidence. When you when
Speaker 1: you look at let's say lawyers and you ask them,
Speaker 1: you know, are you an above average lawyer, below average lawyer,
Speaker 1: or an average lawyer, you'll find that about ninety seven
Speaker 1: percent of them raise themselves above average lawyers, which I
Speaker 1: know another average effect. Yeah, that's right, exactly exactly one
Speaker 1: because of the biacest. So this is something that's a
Speaker 1: bad problem now in terms of there's a separate dynamic.
Speaker 1: So that's expert intuition practice. When we talk about empathy,
Speaker 1: there are some people who are naturally empathetic and good
Speaker 1: at reading others' emotions. At empathy, not intuitively, it's something
Speaker 1: you have to develop exactly. Yeah, it's something I learned.
Speaker 1: It's a skill set that I developed to read other
Speaker 1: people's emotions. And so looking at Paul Ecker's work at
Speaker 1: micro expressions, so looking at people being able to read them.
Speaker 1: That's something that I developed. That there are other things
Speaker 1: that I have intuitively better skills in just because of
Speaker 1: my abilities, but that's not one of them. That's something
Speaker 1: I developed. So there are some people who will be
Speaker 1: empathetic and they can quickly respond to others, and so
Speaker 1: they can see all what's going on. They care about
Speaker 1: other people's emotions, they respond to them. They're good at
Speaker 1: that emotional connection with others. But unfortunately, overwhelmingly what tends
Speaker 1: to happen to these empathetic people is that they tend
Speaker 1: to get too empathetic and they get themselves into relationships
Speaker 1: where people they get themselves into relationships that they find
Speaker 1: to be unhealthy. So, for example, if they're too empathetic
Speaker 1: or someone, they will tend to attract people who are
Speaker 1: needy and tend to want to support those people and
Speaker 1: help those people too much, and because they can't get
Speaker 1: away from the desire to help those people, and so
Speaker 1: they end up in relationships that are not helpful where
Speaker 1: they tend to do much more of the emotional labor
Speaker 1: than they should. Emotional labor for folks who don't know
Speaker 1: that concept. You want to think about your activities, your emotions,
Speaker 1: how straining those are. We don't realize how much effort
Speaker 1: we put into engaging emotionally with things, and lots of
Speaker 1: people don't realize. But emotional engagement is a lot labor
Speaker 1: is work, and that's something that's really important to realize.
Speaker 1: And it's not nearly values enough in our society, not
Speaker 1: nearly as much as it should be. That's separate issue.
Speaker 1: So people who are empathetic tend to get into these
Speaker 1: serious problems and they need to learn about these cognitive biases.
Speaker 1: They need to learn about them in order to notice
Speaker 1: when they're getting two pulled in to their relationships with others,
Speaker 1: when they're responding too much to those folks, and when
Speaker 1: they are with whom they're in relationships with, and when
Speaker 1: they're giving too much of themselves. That's a cognitive device
Speaker 1: as well, when you're really not serving your own goals
Speaker 1: and your own needs, when you're just giving to others. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is really good stuff. You know what, if you're
Speaker 1: in a relationship and the other cognitive biases that you
Speaker 1: can have that can actually make you fall in love
Speaker 1: with someone, But it's actually an illusion like you actually
Speaker 1: they're not really good for you, but you're blinded to
Speaker 1: all the reasons why they're not good for you because
Speaker 1: you feel love for them. Yes, so you feel that
Speaker 1: you should love them. You feel that they are the
Speaker 1: right pit for you because society tells you, or your
Speaker 1: parents tell you, or those around you tell you what. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: So you feel I've got the reaction of course, so
Speaker 1: that from the halo effect all of these other dynamics,
Speaker 1: you feel that they're the right thing to fit for you.
Speaker 1: And that's the key. You feel that you feel the
Speaker 1: feeling is always the case. You feel certain information is
Speaker 1: true and you believe it. You feel a certain course
Speaker 1: of action is the right action. You feel when you're driving,
Speaker 1: it's the right thing to do to to you know,
Speaker 1: cut off that jerk, which just cuts you off, and
Speaker 1: then you get into a competition of cutting off each other.
Speaker 1: Is that the right course of action? Of course? You
Speaker 1: know that aggressive driving. But people who have the fight response,
Speaker 1: you know I used to do, have this strong desire
Speaker 1: to do that, and because I have much more of
Speaker 1: the fight response than the flight response, and I to
Speaker 1: learn to avoid being aggressive in response to people who
Speaker 1: are aggressive to me on the road. Right, it felt right,
Speaker 1: It felt like the right thing to do, and so
Speaker 1: does feeling that you know, whoever your love is the
Speaker 1: right person to love. So whoever you feel you targeted
Speaker 1: with your emotions the right person to target. But there's
Speaker 1: a reason we have a forty plus percent divorce raight
Speaker 1: in this country. There's a reason for that, and it's
Speaker 1: because these feelings are lying to you. They're light to
Speaker 1: us all the time because we're not in a savannah environment.
Speaker 1: That person might have been a great fit for you.
Speaker 1: If you are living in a tribe of fifteen people
Speaker 1: to one hundred and fifty people in a savanna environment
Speaker 1: and you are hunters for years and gathers, that would
Speaker 1: be a bit made for you. That's perfect in that time.
Speaker 1: But in the modern world they might not be a
Speaker 1: very good made for you at all. And our emotions
Speaker 1: light to us all the time about whether they're a
Speaker 1: good fits for you. That's why I talk in the
Speaker 1: blind spot between us about how you should not trust
Speaker 1: your gut. You should not trust your heart, you should
Speaker 1: not trust your intuition. You should always check with your
Speaker 1: head before going with your gut. Sometimes your gut will
Speaker 1: get right. Times will be wrong, but you can't simply
Speaker 1: trust it. In the modern world, you will make way
Speaker 1: too many mistakes about your relationships, whether in your love relationships,
Speaker 1: whether in your friendships, whether in your professional relationships, in anything,
Speaker 1: even in your own relationship with yourself. How how often
Speaker 1: do we like to ourselves right? How often do we
Speaker 1: say I'm going to lose that weight, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to do the go to the exercises, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be you know, getting to work on time, and we don't. Well,
Speaker 1: that's because we really don't see ourselves clearly and we
Speaker 1: fall in these same magnifiases, these mental blind spots around
Speaker 1: ourselves too. To how we relate to ourselves, well, under
Speaker 1: what conditions? Do you see any conditions in which we
Speaker 1: can trust our in our experience or in our emotions
Speaker 1: and feelings about things? Can you? Can you think of anything? Sure?
Speaker 1: I mentioned before? When you want to get yourself out
Speaker 1: of the way of a moving bus, that's a great
Speaker 1: time to trust relationships. I'm saying. Within relationship you should
Speaker 1: always check with your head because sometimes again your bet
Speaker 1: will be right, sometimes it will be wrong. But you
Speaker 1: should never simply trust because of all of these cognitivices.
Speaker 1: They should never simply trust. It's just, you know, just
Speaker 1: going with their gut is very dangerous in relationships. It
Speaker 1: will lead you into many, many, many, many mistakes may
Speaker 1: damage damaging relationships. What doesn't mean but what about the
Speaker 1: analogous to the bus coming at you? What if you have, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like a psychopath partner and your your guts
Speaker 1: telling you something's just off, Like, can't that be really
Speaker 1: valuable information? Of course? Yeah, so sometimes you got is
Speaker 1: going to be right, and it doesn't mean So that's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Your guts will be right sometimes and
Speaker 1: sometimes it will be wrong. And you can't know intuitively
Speaker 1: when you can't know internally when it's going to be
Speaker 1: right and wrong because internally it always feels right. That
Speaker 1: is the key. Internally, your gut always feels right, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it will actually be right, and sometimes it will
Speaker 1: actually be wrong. That's why you can't certainly feel that.
Speaker 1: How many people come to a therapist and have couple's
Speaker 1: relationship and say, oh, my partner is a psychopath? And
Speaker 1: when as a therapist in an objective position looking from
Speaker 1: the outside in says you know is saying no, you're
Speaker 1: a psychopath, you know, Well, that happens a lot with
Speaker 1: narcissism a partner. A partner will say, my husband is
Speaker 1: so narcissistic because he never pays attention to my needs
Speaker 1: all the time. He doesn't pay attention to my needs
Speaker 1: all the time. So he's narcissistic, or she's narcissistic, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever the case may be. But that's funny, right, It's
Speaker 1: funny exactly. So that's that's and that's what I'm that's
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. Our gut reactions. You can never
Speaker 1: simply trust them in relationships. That's why you need to
Speaker 1: always check with your head. And one of the strategies
Speaker 1: I talk about in the book, so there are a
Speaker 1: number of strategies I talk about to fix these is
Speaker 1: to get an external perspective. Then doesn't mean you need
Speaker 1: to get a CREC, but that means you need to
Speaker 1: give an objective external perspective somebody who you trust and
Speaker 1: somebody who your partner trust. Well, if you're just getting
Speaker 1: the objective perspective of yourself, somebody who you trust, and
Speaker 1: somebody who's going to give it to you straight, no,
Speaker 1: it's not going to be you know, just a drinking
Speaker 1: buddy and supporting you and saying, yes, absolutely, you know
Speaker 1: that guy is terrible, or yes, absolutely you know that
Speaker 1: girl's a jerk. You know you don't want You want
Speaker 1: somebody who will be honest, and that is one of
Speaker 1: the many strategies that you can use to address these
Speaker 1: copp device Do you recommend that you limit your alcohol
Speaker 1: intake at dance clubs because you're not going to cognitively
Speaker 1: make too many decisions about who you're going to approach
Speaker 1: on that dance floor and who you talk to and
Speaker 1: who you go home with if you have too much
Speaker 1: alcohol in your system. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. Interesting. I'd say that that really depends on
Speaker 1: your value set and what you care about. If you
Speaker 1: just care about having a better there, and you're okay with,
Speaker 1: you know, ending up at home with whoever and know
Speaker 1: that she's not going to be in a one night
Speaker 1: stand with no strings attached, that's fine, sounds very nice.
Speaker 1: There you go, There you go. I don't judge, you
Speaker 1: know whatever. If that's your goal, that's great and there's
Speaker 1: no cognitive biases in there if that's your goal. But
Speaker 1: if your goal is to find somebody in the dance club,
Speaker 1: we can have a long term relationship with you. Definitely
Speaker 1: want to limit your intake if you're not going to
Speaker 1: be making you a very smart decision and you don't
Speaker 1: one to want Yeah, if you just want to as well,
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. But the one night stand, you know, that's fine.
Speaker 1: Cool man. So you bring up this interesting phrase you
Speaker 1: book mental fitness. What is mental fitness and what kind
Speaker 1: of techniques help us develop it? I'll talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about physical fitness. Right with a diet where you
Speaker 1: want to have good physical well, we think about our diet,
Speaker 1: we think about our physical health, but we don't think
Speaker 1: nearly enough about mental fitness out getting the same sort
Speaker 1: of fitness in terms of our mental strength, our mental ability.
Speaker 1: And that's what mental fitness is about. You want to
Speaker 1: improve your ability to make good decisions to address these
Speaker 1: blind spots. So it's not simply about kind of you know,
Speaker 1: it's not about having dealing with challenges. Mental challenges like anxiety,
Speaker 1: like depression, which are very important to deal with, But
Speaker 1: that's about trauma. That's about problems that you're having. Mental
Speaker 1: fitness is about strength. It's about going to the gym
Speaker 1: and exercising that's what mental fitness is about. It's about
Speaker 1: eating your salad. That's what mental fitness is about. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of just like the physical fitness, there's mental fitness,
Speaker 1: and we talked about some of them already. So some
Speaker 1: of them, for example, is getting that external perspective. One
Speaker 1: of the ways that you make sure that you address
Speaker 1: problems and relationships is you can get an external perspective
Speaker 1: on what's going on in your relationships. That's one strategy
Speaker 1: that's really useful. Then another strategy that's really useful is
Speaker 1: delaying your decision needs are emotional systems. We have two
Speaker 1: systems of thinking, broadly speaking, the autopilot system and the
Speaker 1: intentional system, also known as system one and system two.
Speaker 1: So the autopilot system is our older brain. The emotional brain,
Speaker 1: those intuitions, those reactions, they take million seconds to turn on,
Speaker 1: which is great to get us out of the way
Speaker 1: of moving bus, or to flee a saber to tiger
Speaker 1: that's great for that environment, or to be sufficiently hostile
Speaker 1: to an opposing tribal member so from someone from another tribe,
Speaker 1: but not good in the mother world. So you want
Speaker 1: to turn on your intentional system, your system too the
Speaker 1: more rational part of our brain that takes a couple
Speaker 1: of seconds to turn on. And that's why when your
Speaker 1: mom said count to ten before making a decision, that's
Speaker 1: actually pretty good advice, something that researches back as quite
Speaker 1: effective in terms of addressing these cognitibiases. So making sure
Speaker 1: to count to ten, that's one strategy that's you know,
Speaker 1: in that moment. But when you are strongly you want
Speaker 1: to give your rousal around twenty minutes or so to
Speaker 1: stay and that's the sympathetic and pair sympathetic nervous system.
Speaker 1: So we have those two nervous systems, and the sympathetic
Speaker 1: nervous system is the fight or flight system. The pattern
Speaker 1: sympathetic nervous system is the rest and digest system. It
Speaker 1: takes about twenty minutes to switch. So when you're strongly routed,
Speaker 1: you want to take a break from Let's say you're
Speaker 1: talking to your partner and you have a strong emotional arousal.
Speaker 1: You want to take a twenty minute break and say,
Speaker 1: let's put on post you know, I'll go to the restroom,
Speaker 1: you know, get a break, and then resuming about twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: The same thing for if you're talking to a colleague
Speaker 1: in the workplace and gets into a really cute place.
Speaker 1: You want to stop that for twenty minutes. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of another strategy that you can use. Another strategy
Speaker 1: that I struggle recommend folks to use is to consider
Speaker 1: your past experiences we go into the future. I talked about,
Speaker 1: you know, to telling your husband, you know, for the
Speaker 1: tenth time to put up his thoughts right, not a
Speaker 1: good strategy because if obviously hasn't worked, or fat shaming
Speaker 1: someone or something like that that clearly has not worked
Speaker 1: in the past. But we keep repeating the same patterns,
Speaker 1: keep repeating and doing the same thing over and over
Speaker 1: again and expecting different outcomes. It's terrible, it's really but
Speaker 1: that's just how our mind works. So you want your
Speaker 1: past experiences and decide do you really want to do
Speaker 1: the same things that work that did not work before
Speaker 1: in this new situation. That's one another thing that I
Speaker 1: talk about, and then I really recxpend the folks looking
Speaker 1: at a situation, consider alternative explanations and options. That's a
Speaker 1: very good strategy and has been shown to address a
Speaker 1: number of club into biases. When you look at a situation,
Speaker 1: whether do the helo effect or the horns effect, whether
Speaker 1: this is the fighter or fight response, anything. We feel
Speaker 1: that there's only one right way to go. We feel
Speaker 1: that there's only one right way to look at a situation.
Speaker 1: But developing that mental habit of immediately considering alternatives, maybe
Speaker 1: there are other options that you can pursue, other courses
Speaker 1: that you can follow. Maybe there are other ways of
Speaker 1: explaining the situation. Maybe the person will crush you off
Speaker 1: it's not actually a jerk, but just doesn't see you.
Speaker 1: Or they're driving their wife to the hospital because she's
Speaker 1: about to have a baby. Right, So there's other explanations
Speaker 1: and options to pursue. Other options being courses of action,
Speaker 1: other explanations being interpretations to what's going on. If you
Speaker 1: have that immediate habit of looking at those in your relationships,
Speaker 1: you'll be much better off. And I talk about eight
Speaker 1: other strategies which you let's take a look at the
Speaker 1: book to know about you got ready. You can't give
Speaker 1: it all away, my friend, You can't give it all away. Well,
Speaker 1: I just really appreciate you chatting with me today. You know,
Speaker 1: I want to leave with a quote. You say, we
Speaker 1: are biased, but we don't know it. So keep that
Speaker 1: in mind before you make a decision that will lead
Speaker 1: to debt, regret, and stomach upset. I like that quote, Glen.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for coming on, being a repeat a
Speaker 1: guest on the Psychology Podcast and dropping your wisdom to us.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Beth. I really appreciate you advice.
Speaker 1: Appreciate you too. Thanks for listening to this episode of
Speaker 1: the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some
Speaker 1: way to something you heard, I encourage you to join
Speaker 1: in the discussion at the Psychology Podcast dot com. That's
Speaker 1: the Psychology Podcast dot com. Thanks for being such a
Speaker 1: great supporter of the show, and tune in next time
Speaker 1: for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.