Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. Right now, I'm really excited
Speaker 1: to be speaking with today's guest, Frederica Fabricis. Frederica is
Speaker 1: co author with Hans Hagemann on the new book The
Speaker 1: Leading Brain, Powerful science based Strategies for achieving Peak performance.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being on the show today. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure. Really enjoyed reading your book, The Leading Brain.
Speaker 1: It's a really fascinating for me to see how you
Speaker 1: apply the latest insights in neuroscience and neurochemistry to the
Speaker 1: business and leadership world. That how often do you see
Speaker 1: kind of a marriage of those things. Not very often,
Speaker 1: because you know, I used to work in management consulting before,
Speaker 1: and nobody there wanted to hear about neuroscience at all.
Speaker 1: I think they're now catching up. But when I worked
Speaker 1: there and I said something from my perspective as a neuropsychologist,
Speaker 1: they were just rolling the eyes. They were like, we
Speaker 1: don't care, you know, get back to work. And then
Speaker 1: when I was at the Max Plunk Institute for Brain
Speaker 1: Research where I started out, I always looked for applications
Speaker 1: and people were not so very much interested in applications either,
Speaker 1: I found. So, you know, it was a real I
Speaker 1: don't know how to call it, but for me, it
Speaker 1: was an epiphany. When I was finally able to combine
Speaker 1: those two. It was a dream come true because when
Speaker 1: I wanted to work with leaders, but I realized that
Speaker 1: lots of the insight it's that people are giving to leaders,
Speaker 1: So lots of the advice that is given is not
Speaker 1: science based, and I think there's a lack You can
Speaker 1: just go out and tell people to do things differently
Speaker 1: if you don't have any evidence that supports your advice. Oh,
Speaker 1: I completely agree, And anyway, you're doing a great job
Speaker 1: with it. And I wanted to discuss some of these
Speaker 1: ideas from your book, starting with the you that motivates us.
Speaker 1: What is this you, this mysterious you that you talk about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it's the inverse U curve of peak performance. I
Speaker 1: also call this concept or I like to call this
Speaker 1: concept DNA of peak performance. It's about three substances that
Speaker 1: you need together in order to perform really well. And
Speaker 1: those three substances are dopamine or adrenaline and as you'll
Speaker 1: call it, and you need all three of them in
Speaker 1: order to perform at your best. And the key thing
Speaker 1: is I also like to call this maybe it's easier
Speaker 1: for our listeners to understand fun, fear, and focus. So
Speaker 1: you need the fun when you're and then dopamine is released.
Speaker 1: And I'm not talking about after work fun having coffee
Speaker 1: with your colleagues or you know, celebrating somebody's birthday at
Speaker 1: the office, and more about you know, you should enjoy
Speaker 1: what you're doing in order to be high performing. And
Speaker 1: then you have the fear part. You know, imagine you
Speaker 1: were to interview the same person every single time you
Speaker 1: do your podcast would be probably very maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit boring. You know, I don't want unless it's a
Speaker 1: very very interesting person. But you don't want to get
Speaker 1: too bored or too routined in a task. You always
Speaker 1: need a challenge. So this is about the fact that
Speaker 1: in order to get the au adrenaline and flowing in
Speaker 1: your brain. You always need a challenge, you need to
Speaker 1: be slightly over challenged, and then you have the focus.
Speaker 1: In order to get into flow. You need the focus.
Speaker 1: You really need to not multitask. You know, you shouldn't
Speaker 1: be checking your text messages while we're talking. I should,
Speaker 1: you know, we should be able to fully focus. And
Speaker 1: that's when it. See, Colin is released and I still
Speaker 1: colon is a substance that helps us to learn better.
Speaker 1: It helps us to concentrate in the here and now.
Speaker 1: Babies have it, you know, they are always in the presence.
Speaker 1: They don't think about tomorrow, they don't think about yesterday.
Speaker 1: They're always fully experiencing. So you need the fun, you
Speaker 1: need the fear, and you need the focus in order
Speaker 1: to perform well in order to get into flow, fun, fear,
Speaker 1: and focus. How does this relate to the four e
Speaker 1: fs of stress. I'm not familiar with the four apps
Speaker 1: of stress, but I think if I can tell you
Speaker 1: how it relates to stress. What you need to know
Speaker 1: is that, yeah, sometimes you know people, let's say you're
Speaker 1: having I know you're doing a lot of talks and
Speaker 1: keynote speeches, Let's say you're invited to do a keynote
Speaker 1: speech and you're you know, a little bit nervous, and
Speaker 1: it's a very exciting, big audience, and then you know,
Speaker 1: you know, very important people are watching and you're really
Speaker 1: a little bit nervous. That's good for your performance. But
Speaker 1: then let's say a minute before you're on stage, you
Speaker 1: realize that your data that you were going to present
Speaker 1: from your research is totally wrong. Somebody from your lab
Speaker 1: calls you and said, oh, Scott, we noticed all of
Speaker 1: the data is wrong. So you know, you're just about
Speaker 1: to go on stage, that would probably push you over
Speaker 1: the edge. It would make you nervous to a degree
Speaker 1: where you can't really perform well anymore. And that's what
Speaker 1: you can call you know, this state is called over arousal.
Speaker 1: There's a correlation between the degree of nervousness you should
Speaker 1: be having and your performance. And maybe what puts you
Speaker 1: over I don't know you so well, but maybe for
Speaker 1: you it happens when all of your data is wrong.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying this will ever happen to you.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, you know, imagine for you it would
Speaker 1: be happening. Then for somebody else it could be already
Speaker 1: that they wanted to have a coffee before, and then
Speaker 1: there was no coffee and they're already totally nervous. So
Speaker 1: it depends a lot what makes people nervous. But everybody
Speaker 1: does perform well anymore when they're overly stressed. So you
Speaker 1: need to understand where your personal comfort zone is and
Speaker 1: you need to always be slightly above that in order
Speaker 1: to perform well. Yeah, I actually was going to say
Speaker 1: that I reached that when I have too much coffee,
Speaker 1: not when I can't find my coffee. It's probably good
Speaker 1: that I can't find my coffee sometimes, yeah, And then
Speaker 1: you know, it's also happening too many people that they
Speaker 1: have very boring jobs or they've been in the same
Speaker 1: job for a very long time. And then what happens
Speaker 1: then is that you go through the motions, you do
Speaker 1: your job, but you're a little bit bored. People might
Speaker 1: think you perform well, but in reality you're underperforming, and
Speaker 1: that from a you know, a psychology term would be
Speaker 1: called under arousal. So in order to get into peak performance,
Speaker 1: you need to be not underperforming, you know, not bored out,
Speaker 1: and not overly stressed. And the artist to get that, right,
Speaker 1: and to stimulate yourself at your work so that you
Speaker 1: can get into the zone. Yeah, it's not easy, is it. No.
Speaker 1: You know, research has shown that people are five times
Speaker 1: more productive when they get it to flow. So it
Speaker 1: really pays off to have that experience. But I think
Speaker 1: about twenty percent of Americans never experience flow. They probably
Speaker 1: have jobs that don't enjoy or that don't match their strength.
Speaker 1: You usually get into that stage more easily if you're
Speaker 1: very skilled at what you're doing and when you enjoy
Speaker 1: what you're doing, and that's where the fun aspect comes in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like the fun aspect. So dopamine doesn't guarantee that
Speaker 1: you'll experience pleasure though, right. It's all about anticipation of pleasure. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: So you should anticipate that something positive is going to happen,
Speaker 1: So anticipate that something's going to be fun, yeah, and
Speaker 1: then hope and pray that it actually will be fun.
Speaker 1: Well very often. I mean, it doesn't guarantee you, but
Speaker 1: I think that very skilled people who are in jobs
Speaker 1: they enjoy and that they're good, they also enjoy it
Speaker 1: while they're doing you know, when you are on stage
Speaker 1: and holding a keynote I'm sure you enjoy it. You
Speaker 1: enjoy the moment. You're not just thinking, oh, this will
Speaker 1: be great afterwards. You enjoy it while you're doing it.
Speaker 1: So I think it can be in the presence as well. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I thought of this question as you were talking. Have
Speaker 1: you heard of new tropics? What is that interesting? Tell
Speaker 1: me more, well, people that are trying to create safe
Speaker 1: smart drugs to enhance your production of these various neurochemicals
Speaker 1: that you're talking the very ones you're talking about. Ah, so,
Speaker 1: in order to perform better work. For example, so you're
Speaker 1: taking dregs a little bit like the I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, the retelline that people use with attention deficit disorder. Yeah, sure, really,
Speaker 1: but yeah, but these are not over the counter. These
Speaker 1: are things that are just you know, like herbs and vitamins. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen any of those around. I usually think
Speaker 1: it's well, I don't know about this. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can do a lot in order by having good nutrition.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, the building blocks, the precursors for
Speaker 1: the your transmitters. You take them in through your diet.
Speaker 1: But I think actually it's more about changing your environment.
Speaker 1: I think if you're in the right environment that helps
Speaker 1: you perform well, you don't need any drugs. I think
Speaker 1: it's mostly people try to fix themselves. I think, actually
Speaker 1: think it's easier to fix your environment than to change
Speaker 1: who you are. So let's say you're in the wrong
Speaker 1: job or you're having difficulties with your coworkers. I think
Speaker 1: it's much easier to maybe change jobs or speak to
Speaker 1: the people around you, change the task you're performing, than
Speaker 1: to always try to optimize yourself. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of things fall into place once you've found your passion
Speaker 1: and once you found the right place where you appreciate
Speaker 1: it for who you are. Yeah, and in an ideal world,
Speaker 1: we could kind of snap our fingers and appear in
Speaker 1: that environment. If we're kind of stuck in a like
Speaker 1: I say, we have a contract or something, and still
Speaker 1: changing yourself can go a long way though, right right
Speaker 1: your attitude And also I think you know, it's very
Speaker 1: good to have healthy work habits, such as you know.
Speaker 1: I think if people exercise regularly, their resilience really improves.
Speaker 1: So even if you have a stressful work environment, you
Speaker 1: will do better if you sleep well, if you exercise regularly,
Speaker 1: if you eat well, and if you also have a
Speaker 1: good attitude, you know, if you have emotional regulation techniques.
Speaker 1: And there are many science based emotional regulation techniques that
Speaker 1: people could use. Oh go on, I'm taking notes. One
Speaker 1: that I like a lot is called emotional labeling. You know.
Speaker 1: Research has shown that if you, let's say, you're very
Speaker 1: angry and annoyed at work, if you put a word
Speaker 1: on it, if you call it, you know, I'm angry,
Speaker 1: I'm annoyed, I hate my coworker. You don't have to
Speaker 1: say that to the person, you know, it's enough that
Speaker 1: you say that to yourself the moment you do that.
Speaker 1: It has been shown that the amygdala for processing negative
Speaker 1: emotions shows less activity, and your prefunto cortex for rational
Speaker 1: thinking increases its activity. So just by the fact of
Speaker 1: putting a name to your feelings, you will actually calm
Speaker 1: down your negative feelings. That's really interesting. It sounds like
Speaker 1: it really could be really helpful technique. How does this
Speaker 1: relate to, like, you know, regular emotions, How does that
Speaker 1: relate to people that are kind of feel imposter syndrome? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a real problem for people high up
Speaker 1: in organizations that very often, even though they have achieved
Speaker 1: a lot, they feel like they don't really you know,
Speaker 1: it was all just pure luck. So they're thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: I've achieved so much, but wasn't really me. It was
Speaker 1: just circumstances. And one day people are going to find
Speaker 1: out I'm not as smart I might think. And I
Speaker 1: think one thing that really helps there is gratitude. If
Speaker 1: you can actually there's a technique where you can, for example,
Speaker 1: write a gratitude diary. So every day you take five
Speaker 1: minutes to write down five things that you're grateful for
Speaker 1: during that day. So this is not about wishful thinking
Speaker 1: and saying things that didn't happen that you wish for.
Speaker 1: It's more but saying like, I'm very happy that today
Speaker 1: I had one hour with my children that I really enjoyed,
Speaker 1: or today I did well on this and that. So
Speaker 1: it's about writing down what you're grateful for on that
Speaker 1: particular day. And if you do this on a regular basis,
Speaker 1: it will make you appreciate what you have, and it
Speaker 1: will make you see all the positive things in your life,
Speaker 1: and it helps you to not feel so stressed about
Speaker 1: the things that you can control. So even if it
Speaker 1: turns out you are a fake, like at least you
Speaker 1: have gratitude for your elier loved ones, like at least
Speaker 1: they love you, at least they love to thank you.
Speaker 1: I think it puts things into perspective. I think the
Speaker 1: problem with imposter syndrome is also that people put so
Speaker 1: much emphasis just on their jobs and everything else is
Speaker 1: empty maybe no family, no friends, no hobbies, because there's
Speaker 1: so much, you know, so busy in their careers that
Speaker 1: if something bad happens at works, the entire world crumbles.
Speaker 1: That is always a problem if you don't have other
Speaker 1: areas of your life that counterbalance that. So gratude sort
Speaker 1: of helps you get outside yourself transcend yourself a bit.
Speaker 1: So now I think so ego driven, Yeah, sounds good.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a little bit about what is
Speaker 1: cognitive jiu jitsu? Yes, that's about the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: most people, when they have an emotion they don't want
Speaker 1: to experience. They suppress it. They use cognitive inhibition rather
Speaker 1: than saying I feel jealous. As we just learned for
Speaker 1: emotional labeling, what you should be doing when you're jealous.
Speaker 1: They will pretend that they're just fine, and they will
Speaker 1: try to suppress any negative emotions. What you should do instead,
Speaker 1: is use other techniques so work around that. Rather than
Speaker 1: trying to inhibit and fight against your emotions, you should
Speaker 1: work with your emotions. So one example is gratitude. Another
Speaker 1: would be emotional labeling. There's also research that shows that
Speaker 1: your body influences your emotions a lot, so you can
Speaker 1: use your body to change your feelings rather than using
Speaker 1: your prefrontal cortex your rational mind to inhibit them. Ah
Speaker 1: that yeah, that's interesting. This idea of the rational mind
Speaker 1: as not always being the best tool for us actually
Speaker 1: leads to you what you talk about in your intuition chat.
Speaker 1: You have a whole chapter on the unconscious. Right, So
Speaker 1: what is the difference between focused thinking and insightful thinking? Yeah,
Speaker 1: rational thinking and insightful thinking. Well, you know, rational thinking,
Speaker 1: you just concentrate hard on a task. Can you go
Speaker 1: through it step by step and then you come to
Speaker 1: a logical conclusion. Many of our everyday problems are built
Speaker 1: on this. If I look my clients, they often sit
Speaker 1: and they have an Excel sheet with a strategy and
Speaker 1: they just have to work through it, you know, and
Speaker 1: identify areas where they can improve the company or you know.
Speaker 1: It's all a very logical business. But some problems. They
Speaker 1: have to be solved by creative insight. You know, they
Speaker 1: come through you as an AHA moment when you're not
Speaker 1: thinking about it, when you're maybe taking a shower or
Speaker 1: taking a walk or feeding your dog. That's when you
Speaker 1: suddenly realize, oh, there's a different solution to it, you know,
Speaker 1: that I haven't thought of before. So this can't be
Speaker 1: worked out logically. It's about the occurrence of AHA moments. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And you cite some of this research by John Kuneos
Speaker 1: and Mark Beeman. Yes, exactly. The brain areas associated with insight,
Speaker 1: so those the neuroscience areas associated with insight are different
Speaker 1: than the neuroscience is associated with controlled rational thinking. Is
Speaker 1: that right? Exactly exactly. And also I think the most
Speaker 1: interesting thing about this research is that your mood again
Speaker 1: influences your occurrence of a HA moments, as I've seen it.
Speaker 1: You know. For example, they showed participants funny videos prior
Speaker 1: to letting them solve difficult creative tasks, and it showed
Speaker 1: that when they had left a lot before and had
Speaker 1: you know, the possibility to see funny videos prior to
Speaker 1: solving the task, they would perform a lot better. So
Speaker 1: the key in takeaway I take from this for my
Speaker 1: leaders that I'm working with is that it pays off
Speaker 1: to be in a good mood in order to be innovative.
Speaker 1: There's this interesting lot of research suggesting that actually mixed
Speaker 1: emotions are most conducive to creativity. Oh so a little
Speaker 1: bit of good at the same time, having kind of ambivalence,
Speaker 1: being excited but also being fearful, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: like the more complex our emotions can be seemed to
Speaker 1: be more related to creativity. I'll set an article on that,
Speaker 1: but maybe the point you're making positive emotions can be
Speaker 1: conducive to a particular stage of the creative process, like
Speaker 1: insights coming up with insights. Yeah, I'm just talking about aha.
Speaker 1: I know there's different kinds of creativity, and you know
Speaker 1: it's a very complex area. The one that I was
Speaker 1: focusing on here is just you know, the aha moment.
Speaker 1: How can you get to aha kinds of insights that
Speaker 1: you know you can solve logically. I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: all kinds of artistic creativity, and you know it's a
Speaker 1: wide area, very wide. The whole creative process is your life, right,
Speaker 1: That's the whole process of life is creativity. So there's
Speaker 1: much more to creativity than just a high insights. But
Speaker 1: I think you know, there has been some very strong
Speaker 1: studies that showed that if you want to have more
Speaker 1: high insights, it pays off to be in a good mood.
Speaker 1: And I think that's interesting because in the business world,
Speaker 1: very often people are very stressed and there's no laughing
Speaker 1: and no fun. It's all very serious, and I think
Speaker 1: many emotions are just neglected, and it's good for executives
Speaker 1: to hear that it's sometimes detrimental to not be in
Speaker 1: a good mood, and it does help productivity to actually
Speaker 1: also experience positive emotions at work. Right, But how does
Speaker 1: that relate to your point about it? With self regulation,
Speaker 1: you don't always want to inhibit. So sometimes when someone
Speaker 1: feels a negative emotion, you'd want them to express that, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: you want them to express that. You don't want to
Speaker 1: suppress it. So you can say to your coworkers, if
Speaker 1: you have a good relationship, first you can say, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm very stressed out, but this will already be a relief.
Speaker 1: So the mere fact of labeling it and calling it
Speaker 1: out helps. This doesn't mean that you have to dwell
Speaker 1: on your negative feelings all day and put everybody else
Speaker 1: in a bad mood. I think if you use emotional labeling,
Speaker 1: then you get over it more quickly. And then I
Speaker 1: also advise to physically exercise in order to get that cortisol,
Speaker 1: the negative stressformon out of this system. And I think
Speaker 1: there's many things you can do to feel better. Emotional
Speaker 1: labeling does not say that you have to sit there
Speaker 1: all day at your desk and saying I'm stressed, I'm miserable,
Speaker 1: I'm tired. I think you get tired of saying that
Speaker 1: to yourself after a while, and then you switch to
Speaker 1: different mode. Yeah, I was just looking up this research.
Speaker 1: It does suggest there's some environments that when they bring
Speaker 1: out what's called emotional ambivalence, like the environment is unusual
Speaker 1: or it taps into a wide range of seemingly contradictory
Speaker 1: emotions that actually can lead to greater creativity in the workplace.
Speaker 1: So that might be something interesting to consider. Absolutely, I'm
Speaker 1: always interested in new things. You know, they never reach
Speaker 1: the business world otherwise, I think you know they don't.
Speaker 1: There's not much connection. So I'm always looking for new
Speaker 1: stuff that I can use and that I can brint
Speaker 1: to life. Awesome. Yeah, we can swap articles and stuff.
Speaker 1: I'll send that overther circle called The Emotions that Make
Speaker 1: Us Creative for Harvard Business Review, and I'd be happy
Speaker 1: to share it with Oh wow, yeah, I'd love to
Speaker 1: have that. So let's go on our habits because that's
Speaker 1: a big topic on the Psychology podcast that we talk
Speaker 1: about a lot. And what has your own research suggested
Speaker 1: about how we can adopt better routines? Well, I don't
Speaker 1: have any own research on that topic. When I was
Speaker 1: in research, I actually worked on monkeys and the visual cortex,
Speaker 1: but very far from any application. And that's also a
Speaker 1: way I was frustrated because it didn't give me any
Speaker 1: answers to my big questions. I'm looking at other people's
Speaker 1: research always, that's still research. That's still research. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're researching. You know, what does research I have to
Speaker 1: say about the stuff. So, yes, that's what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: and looking at everybody's research and new studies coming out
Speaker 1: and try to pull them together so they become applicable
Speaker 1: for business leaders. I think that's the job I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I'm building the bridge. I'm not doing any research anymore.
Speaker 1: I work with executives and I really you know, I'm
Speaker 1: constantly checking the literature for new stuff that could actually
Speaker 1: be applied. And when it comes to habit change, you know,
Speaker 1: ninety seven percent of all your's resolutions fail and people
Speaker 1: really are looking for new techniques to make havage stick.
Speaker 1: I really like the implementation intention research, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that works very well in the business work. When
Speaker 1: you rather than saying, you know, during Christmas holidays, I
Speaker 1: will work out more often, you say, you know, when
Speaker 1: I wake up in the morning, I go on my treadmill,
Speaker 1: So you make a win then connection. I think that's
Speaker 1: very effective and that can be implemented so easily in
Speaker 1: the business world by just, you know, finding a trigger
Speaker 1: that makes you go into your habit. Rather than just
Speaker 1: having these very vague intentions, you make them pragmatic instead. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Gabrielle Otigin, I think she might be a fellow German. Yes,
Speaker 1: I've seen that you had her on the podcast, and
Speaker 1: I think, you know, that research nobody in the business
Speaker 1: world knows about. It might be widely discussed in psychology,
Speaker 1: but these leaders have never heard of her and her research.
Speaker 1: So what I'm doing is I'm bringing these things to them.
Speaker 1: And another thing I think that helps a lot with
Speaker 1: procrastination is to take very small steps. So rather than saying, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to lose twenty pounds and from tomorrow on,
Speaker 1: no more chocolate, never ever again, and I will just
Speaker 1: eat kale soup, which is the approach most people are
Speaker 1: taking to have a change, they just overwhelm themselves with
Speaker 1: these perfect, big goals. Instead, you make a very small goal,
Speaker 1: you know, of eating maybe one piece of chocolate less
Speaker 1: than the day before every day a little bit less,
Speaker 1: or you know, one tablespoon of sugar less into your
Speaker 1: coffee each time you drink a coffee. Things like that
Speaker 1: make a real difference if they accumulate over time. But
Speaker 1: most people, when they want to change something, they make
Speaker 1: these very drastic, absurd, challenging ideas, and it just overwhelms us.
Speaker 1: I think nobody can endure this kind of new life
Speaker 1: any more longer than two weeks. I mean, each sprouts
Speaker 1: for two weeks and then you're just going back to
Speaker 1: chocolate cake. Yeah. And also, it's not really active in
Speaker 1: your fun your fun system. There no, And I think
Speaker 1: you need quick rewards in order to make a habit functionable.
Speaker 1: You need quick wins in the beginning it cannot just
Speaker 1: be a long, miserable path to change. You need to
Speaker 1: build in some small rewards right in the beginning, and
Speaker 1: you need to well, how do you put this? You know,
Speaker 1: rather than inhibiting unwanted behavior, it's better to create new
Speaker 1: neuronal pathways. So you should think of not only what
Speaker 1: you not want to do, but also about what alternative
Speaker 1: behaviors you want to display, and then make those alternative
Speaker 1: behaviors fun. Because what most people will do is they say, oh,
Speaker 1: I will stop smoking, and it's that I will eat
Speaker 1: salary sticks. How much fun is that? Not so much?
Speaker 1: So you need to find an alternative behavior that actually
Speaker 1: giving you joy, because otherwise you're depriving yourself from all
Speaker 1: the rewards and you're just getting a ranch instead, and
Speaker 1: that is not going to work longer than two days
Speaker 1: or two weeks. I like your method. I like to
Speaker 1: hear that again, rid of akin of the fun. But
Speaker 1: it is smoking fun though it's addictive. But is it
Speaker 1: actually fun? Well? I think it gives you a relief
Speaker 1: in the moment that you smoke. Yeah, I think smoking
Speaker 1: builds up nervousness in your system, and then when you smoke,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit like you relax, so you know,
Speaker 1: you need to find different ways to relax what you're
Speaker 1: getting like meditation, mindfulness, meditation. But that also doesn't work
Speaker 1: in the moment if you do it for the first time.
Speaker 1: The problem with that is that you have to build
Speaker 1: a certain practice in order to make it work. It
Speaker 1: won't work the first day you sit down to meditate.
Speaker 1: It can make you just think of I want a cigarette,
Speaker 1: I want to cigarette. You know, imagine that the first
Speaker 1: day you quit smoking, you sit down and you meditate,
Speaker 1: and said, it might just make you very obsessed thinking
Speaker 1: about your cigarette. Well can't you smoke and meditate at
Speaker 1: the same time. Well, don't think it's very effective for
Speaker 1: getting rid of your unwanted habits. Well no, I don't
Speaker 1: think it. No, But just to begin and then you
Speaker 1: slowly get rid of it, Well probably you could fade
Speaker 1: it out and then associate the reward you or you know,
Speaker 1: the relaxation you get from the cigarette with a meditation,
Speaker 1: and then you make more and more meditation and less
Speaker 1: and less smoking. You could do small steps of first
Speaker 1: smoking the entire cigarette, next day you smoke half of
Speaker 1: it could work. Well, I'm not a smoker, but I
Speaker 1: think that this could be very valuable information for my
Speaker 1: smoker listeners of a psychology podcast. So that's great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So you know, you talk about habits and I am
Speaker 1: interested in this link between the habits and of conscious thinking.
Speaker 1: They seem so yeah. I mean, habits are by needs,
Speaker 1: are kind of unconscious, right, because there are patterns of
Speaker 1: behavior that we go through, Like you know, we all
Speaker 1: have our things, right, My smoking is my picking on
Speaker 1: my nails. You know. That's why habits are so power
Speaker 1: bufful there's unconsciousness. And when I was still in brain research,
Speaker 1: I worked with Wolf Singer who you know on the
Speaker 1: visual system, and he said to me, and that really
Speaker 1: sticked to my brain. He said, you know, most of
Speaker 1: our thinking is unconscious, and we just use the remaining
Speaker 1: conscious parts of our brain to justify what we did afterwards.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a very important to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: most of our brain activity is unconscious and to use
Speaker 1: that to our advantage. Rather than going thinking, oh there's
Speaker 1: no free will, Oh my brain is just doing what
Speaker 1: at once I have no control. That's not very helpful.
Speaker 1: I think it's helpful to build powerful habits so that
Speaker 1: they unconsciously guide us towards the path of our success.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's easy for our brain to engage
Speaker 1: in habits. You don't have to think about brushing your
Speaker 1: teeth in the morning. You don't have to think about
Speaker 1: the things you always do eating your cereal in the morning.
Speaker 1: It's just a habit. You get down to the basement,
Speaker 1: you know, and you start eating your fruit or your
Speaker 1: cereal or whatever. So it's important and I think very
Speaker 1: useful to install good habits because you don't have one
Speaker 1: to think about it. Every time you do something positive.
Speaker 1: You don't have to think, now, I need to exercise.
Speaker 1: If you have an exercising habit, then you will automatically
Speaker 1: exercise every day without even second guest in your activity.
Speaker 1: Or you know, if you have a habit of treating
Speaker 1: other people, well, then you don't have to think about it.
Speaker 1: You know. If it's just an ingrained habit of appreciating
Speaker 1: other people, respecting other people, and you make that part
Speaker 1: of your nature, then you don't have to think, oh,
Speaker 1: now I need to praise my employees and give them
Speaker 1: a few compliments. That usually doesn't work so well because
Speaker 1: they will feel that you just did this in order
Speaker 1: to make them work harder now, you know, I just
Speaker 1: think installing good habits makes your life so much easier
Speaker 1: because it takes a lot of energy from your brain
Speaker 1: to make deliberate decisions. You know, there's something called decision fatigue.
Speaker 1: You're just ego to please and if you're all day
Speaker 1: busy making lots of decisions, and the most executives I
Speaker 1: work with, they are very busy people, and you don't
Speaker 1: want to deplete these resources by constantly having to think
Speaker 1: about things from you know, use your brain research for
Speaker 1: the important stuff. So if you really want to make
Speaker 1: important decisions, then you can, you know, maybe use a
Speaker 1: quiet moment to really think about that problem. But all
Speaker 1: the other stuff you're doing on a daily basis should
Speaker 1: be put into habits so that you don't have to
Speaker 1: waste your energy thinking about them too much. Right, So,
Speaker 1: you want to hone your intuition in a way where
Speaker 1: your intuition is actually helpful and not hurtful to your goals.
Speaker 1: So what are some ways people can increase their intuitive
Speaker 1: decision making skills. Yeah, that's a very good question. I'm
Speaker 1: basing this on the insights of gird bigger answer from
Speaker 1: the Mustiplunk Institute in Berlin. You know, I asked him,
Speaker 1: what's the key takeaway from your research? What are you
Speaker 1: really bringing to people? And he said, when you have experts,
Speaker 1: give them limited time and give them limited information and
Speaker 1: then make them have a quick decision making process. Don't
Speaker 1: ask them to justify themselves, don't ask them for a
Speaker 1: million reason why just make them have a quick decision
Speaker 1: making process. And that makes a lot of sense because
Speaker 1: experts they use their basil ganglia where a lot of
Speaker 1: experience is stored for decision making, whereas beginners and people
Speaker 1: who are not experts will use the prefunter courts for
Speaker 1: a lot of the analyzing of the situation. And when
Speaker 1: you're I think it's important to understand are you an
Speaker 1: expert or not. Your brain has stored a lot of
Speaker 1: information on the topic, and then you can just access
Speaker 1: your basic ganglia to make a decision. And if you're
Speaker 1: not an expert, then you should actually go and do
Speaker 1: a lot of fact finding and soul searching and asking
Speaker 1: a lot of people and interviewing people and trying to
Speaker 1: look at the facts. So I'm not saying you should
Speaker 1: always use your intuition, because for a non expert, what
Speaker 1: you expec sperience is gut feeling. Could also just be
Speaker 1: a bias. They say, you think you're interviewing to work
Speaker 1: candidates and one seems smarter than the other. If you're
Speaker 1: not an experienced recruiter or not an experienced interview you
Speaker 1: might just have a woman and a man, and then
Speaker 1: you just think the man is smarter, for example. That's
Speaker 1: a very obvious one. But I'm just saying intuition truly
Speaker 1: works when you're an expert at the topic. So you
Speaker 1: should thrive to become an expert things, and then you
Speaker 1: should trust your intuition not think too hard about why
Speaker 1: you're making that particular choice. Cool, but don't trust your
Speaker 1: intuition blindly, yeah, because it could also just be a bias, yeah,
Speaker 1: or a habit, A bad habit, A bad habit, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a bad habit. And you know, I'm thinking about this sometimes.
Speaker 1: I compare this to car driving. The first time you
Speaker 1: get your driver's license. You're concentrating, right, you're driving, and
Speaker 1: you're thinking, how do I push the brake, how do
Speaker 1: I turn the wheel? Oh, I need to look in
Speaker 1: through the mirror, and all of these things are process
Speaker 1: by your prefone to Cortes, you really have to focus
Speaker 1: and take in all the information. And you wouldn't even
Speaker 1: think in your dreams of having a phone call while
Speaker 1: you're driving or having a burger while you're on the road,
Speaker 1: and then ten years later that's what you might be
Speaker 1: doing because you're driving with a different body part. You're
Speaker 1: using your basil ganglia to drive. It's become a habit
Speaker 1: rather than a deliberate cognitive task to drive. And with
Speaker 1: decision making, you can make good decisions if you have
Speaker 1: good stuff in your basil ganglia. And that's why I
Speaker 1: think training is important. You know, in the military, they
Speaker 1: really train people for emergency situations because when you're in stress,
Speaker 1: your pre phone to cortex doesn't work so well anymore.
Speaker 1: So you're accessing the habits your basil ganglia for decision
Speaker 1: making process. And then you want to make sure they
Speaker 1: have the right kind of information in there. You don't
Speaker 1: want them to access a bad habit. You want them
Speaker 1: to pull out exactly the right the right way to
Speaker 1: pull the trigger, the right way to deal with an
Speaker 1: emergency situation. And that's why the police, the firemen, the military,
Speaker 1: emergency doctors, they all use a lot of drill in
Speaker 1: order to assure that the right kind of stuff is
Speaker 1: in your basil, Ganglia. Yeah, when you said a lot
Speaker 1: they use the right drill, do you mean practice. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about practice, and in particular, I'm talking about overlearning.
Speaker 1: So you want to make sure that the right kind
Speaker 1: of information is in your basil, Ganga. Let's say I
Speaker 1: get into an emergency situation on the street and somebody
Speaker 1: is almost dying, and I rush, and I am also
Speaker 1: not going to sit there and think about it for
Speaker 1: ten minutes. What's the best approach. I'm just going to
Speaker 1: do whatever comes to my mind first, since I'm not
Speaker 1: a trained doctor, not a nurse, intuitively seems right to me.
Speaker 1: But that is just wrong. And that's why people who
Speaker 1: need to make very quick decisions, quick intuitive decisions need
Speaker 1: to have the right kind of training and very deep
Speaker 1: training in order to access the right information in very
Speaker 1: short time when an emergency, for example, because it will
Speaker 1: save somebody's life if I have the right stuff in
Speaker 1: my basil Ganglia. Yeah, and yeah, and as you said, yeah,
Speaker 1: Giger answer has done some good research on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's similar researchers. Klin Colin, Yes, has shown that as well. Yeah, great,
Speaker 1: that's a great point. So let's talk about let's go
Speaker 1: into the very last part of this interview and talk
Speaker 1: about teamwork. Yeah, what are the brain chemicals that make
Speaker 1: us different? Oh, you know, I'm thinking a lot of
Speaker 1: Helen Fisher to that respect. I think her research on
Speaker 1: and I think she was on your show as well,
Speaker 1: and she's she's a friend of mine. You know, you
Speaker 1: you complete the dream team here of the psychology podcast. No,
Speaker 1: And she has done such wonderful research on that topic
Speaker 1: because she has shown that there are four neurochemicals that
Speaker 1: are important for distinguishing personality. One is dopamine, and we
Speaker 1: talked about dopamine before. It makes you look for novelty,
Speaker 1: makes you a very curious person, It makes you excited
Speaker 1: for challenges. Probably people with a very active dopamine system,
Speaker 1: they're always looking for the next new challenge, interesting things,
Speaker 1: interested in culture, in art or in mountains and hiking.
Speaker 1: They always have something going for them. And then you
Speaker 1: have the serotonin, which is more important for mood stabilizing.
Speaker 1: So people who have a very active serotonin system, they're
Speaker 1: very loyal, they respect the rules, they enjoy a more
Speaker 1: structured work environment with you know, if we relate that
Speaker 1: back to the you we talk to about in the
Speaker 1: beginning when we talked about peak performance. The people with
Speaker 1: a very active serotonin system, they actually don't need so
Speaker 1: much external stress to perform well. They actually have a
Speaker 1: very intrinsic motivational system. And then we have the testosterone
Speaker 1: and I'm not just talking about men here, women have
Speaker 1: it too. And that is about logical thinking of being
Speaker 1: very tough minded, interested in systems and structures. So the
Speaker 1: people who have a very active test restaurant system, they
Speaker 1: are also very interested in going up in the hierarchy.
Speaker 1: They want to become bosses. You know, it makes you
Speaker 1: there's a certain power drive behind that. They also have
Speaker 1: very good spatial abilities, whereas people who have a very
Speaker 1: active estrogen system and not just women, have a higher
Speaker 1: verbal fluency and they are more of a netthinking, so
Speaker 1: they can connect topics that are not usually connected and
Speaker 1: see the big picture of things. And they usually very
Speaker 1: empathetic and care about other people and have very good relationship,
Speaker 1: very deep relationships with other people. So you have these
Speaker 1: four brain systems, and she has really shown how they
Speaker 1: are connected to our personality, and I think that's amazing,
Speaker 1: and you can use that a lot in the business work.
Speaker 1: She's now applying it in the business world as well.
Speaker 1: And you know, she's moved away from applying that for
Speaker 1: matchmaking and now she's applying it in the business world.
Speaker 1: And I think it's so important to understand that there's
Speaker 1: a genetic basis to personality and that you shouldn't change
Speaker 1: the way people are. You should rather acknowledge each other's
Speaker 1: strength and work with those. Yeah, I'm so glad that
Speaker 1: you drew in that research. And I'm wondering, like the
Speaker 1: point there in terms of the importance of diversity for teams,
Speaker 1: are you saying you need or you will literally need
Speaker 1: a mix of these systems to be I think it
Speaker 1: depends on the task at hand. If everybody in the
Speaker 1: team has the same job, Let's say you have a
Speaker 1: bunch of journalists all writing, then you probably want to
Speaker 1: have people that are very high in estrogen and all
Speaker 1: of them are good with words and writing and interviewing people,
Speaker 1: and then you don't need variety necessarily. But then you
Speaker 1: might have somebody else that the US paper who has
Speaker 1: to talk to the advertisement people and get other you know,
Speaker 1: get the newspaper to perform financially, and then you might
Speaker 1: want to have a person who's more structured, who has
Speaker 1: a high activity in serotonin. I think when you put
Speaker 1: a team together, you have to make sure that you
Speaker 1: get the right kind of person for the right kind
Speaker 1: of task. Great point, great point. Yeah, I don't think
Speaker 1: diversity considerations are taken into account as much as they should.
Speaker 1: So when you personally go into work, into the workplace
Speaker 1: to consult, for instance, do you give people on the
Speaker 1: team's assessments personality assessments? How do you say, yes, if
Speaker 1: the client wants that, I actually give them Helen Fisher's
Speaker 1: neurocolor tests. And then you can see where people fall
Speaker 1: in each of these four categories, and then you know,
Speaker 1: it's very helpful. When you have a team of people
Speaker 1: who work together, you can really see them having a
Speaker 1: comm moment. They will say, oh, that's why you always
Speaker 1: ask for the numbers. You know, he's very high, probably
Speaker 1: on either testosterone or serotonin, wants to have all the facts.
Speaker 1: You understand why somebody else always turns in his material
Speaker 1: right before the deadline, because some people really need deadlines
Speaker 1: and a lot of pressure in order to work well.
Speaker 1: It's people with a very active dopamine system. They need
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure otherwise say well, you know they're underperforming,
Speaker 1: And I think it helps for people to understand that
Speaker 1: we're all different. And there's also a concept that I
Speaker 1: think is very important that's intraversion and extraversion. You need
Speaker 1: to understand people's needs. And some people work very well
Speaker 1: in the home office and perform better if you just
Speaker 1: leave them alone, and other people perform best when they
Speaker 1: have the open office space and lots of chatty colleagues around.
Speaker 1: It depends on who you are, and that you know.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have anything to do with intelligence. People are
Speaker 1: just different, and I think a workplace environment needs to
Speaker 1: respect these different I certainly agree with that. I wonder
Speaker 1: could there be any potential danger in labeling people though
Speaker 1: in a sort of unchanging way that kind of sets
Speaker 1: you know, like, oh, that's the high testosterone guy on
Speaker 1: the team. Oh that's the high you know. Could there
Speaker 1: be costs as well as benefits of that approach. I
Speaker 1: think this can happen with the old school approaches like
Speaker 1: the MBTI that have been used a lot in the
Speaker 1: business context. I think with Helen Fisher's research, if you
Speaker 1: use it right, she's saying type is dad or actually
Speaker 1: also her partner David Glopno is saying that type is dad.
Speaker 1: She's talking about neural signatures. So it's much more complex
Speaker 1: than just looking at your two most active systems. Let's
Speaker 1: say you have a high testosterone activity and also high
Speaker 1: dopamine activity, so probably your sensation seeker. She looks at
Speaker 1: all four systems and how they interact. Because you can
Speaker 1: be high on both testosterone and estrogen, for example, it's
Speaker 1: something most people don't know about. And you can also
Speaker 1: be high on serotonin, so it's not about just the
Speaker 1: one substance you're high in or that is very active.
Speaker 1: She actually looks at all four of them and how
Speaker 1: they combine to make you unique. And I also think
Speaker 1: her research is very appreciative of differences. I think there's
Speaker 1: no style or signature that could be considered bad. You know,
Speaker 1: there's none that you could look at and say, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be associated with that. Mostly when
Speaker 1: I give the test to people, they are very happy
Speaker 1: about their results. They feel like they want to show
Speaker 1: it to everybody. It's more wow. Now, finally somebody gives
Speaker 1: me an explanation why I feel the way I do
Speaker 1: and why I behave the way I do. It's a
Speaker 1: you know, if you know the people around you, you
Speaker 1: can make it easier to give them what they really
Speaker 1: need and what they really want. And that's a relief. Sure,
Speaker 1: And Susan King's Quiet Leadership Institute, for instance, particularly has
Speaker 1: been looking at that and poor of the introversion extroversion dimension.
Speaker 1: But there certainly are other dimensions, so that's good. Could
Speaker 1: you take them into account. At the same time, I
Speaker 1: want to make sure we don't stereotype people as well
Speaker 1: or let them know. And also I want to make
Speaker 1: sure we let people know that they can change. You know,
Speaker 1: these are dimensions, not type. So like you said, you
Speaker 1: know that through the course of our day we can
Speaker 1: fluctuate back. There are moods where I'm more testosterony after
Speaker 1: coming from the gym. Yeah, there are moods where I'm
Speaker 1: more serotonin in the you know, it fluctuates in all
Speaker 1: of us. I think it fluctuates and people can change.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, there's a genetic component, but as
Speaker 1: we know, genetics is never one hundred percent. There's always
Speaker 1: you know a mix of genetics and environment that makes
Speaker 1: us behave the way we do. And it's important to
Speaker 1: understand that you need both to understand a person. So
Speaker 1: there's a genetic component, but you can influence that a
Speaker 1: lot by how you know, interact and how you challenge yourself. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: what's the difference to a talent and a strength, Well,
Speaker 1: my talent is more of a trait. My talent is
Speaker 1: more about what you're born with, so your genetic disposition,
Speaker 1: whereas a strength is those talents put it use by
Speaker 1: the accumulation of skills, for example, and training. So let's
Speaker 1: say you're very talented with music, okay, but nobody knew
Speaker 1: about it, and then one day you start by trying
Speaker 1: to play an instrument, and then you really train that,
Speaker 1: and then you have a strength once you really combined
Speaker 1: your genetic disposition with training. So talent and skills become
Speaker 1: a strength. And I think in the business world it's
Speaker 1: so important, and not just in the business world to
Speaker 1: play by your strength. You don't want to, you know,
Speaker 1: I would kill myself if I had to have the
Speaker 1: work of an engineer. I could never be really successful.
Speaker 1: It's just not the skill set that I have by
Speaker 1: natural position. So I could train a lot, and I
Speaker 1: could do a lot of training, and then I would
Speaker 1: probably pull it off. Somehow, but I would never experience
Speaker 1: the flow and the joy of really being very successful
Speaker 1: and very good at what I'm doing. So it's best
Speaker 1: to know where your talents are and then put a
Speaker 1: lot of practice in those areas of talent, because very
Speaker 1: often in organizations, what they do with executive coaching is
Speaker 1: that they take somebody's problem areas. They say, oh, you
Speaker 1: know this person, he doesn't know how to present in
Speaker 1: front of an audience. So now we're sending him to
Speaker 1: a hundred different presentation skills workshop and we coach him
Speaker 1: on how he can present data. This person will probably
Speaker 1: never become a truly brilliant presenter, whereas he might or
Speaker 1: she might have a different talent, for example, in an
Speaker 1: artistic area for graphics and putting together beautiful presentations on
Speaker 1: in a graphic way, not by standing in front of people,
Speaker 1: but maybe by you know, making illustrations or presentations on
Speaker 1: PowerPoint or something like that, and then this person could
Speaker 1: become the best possible expert at that in the company
Speaker 1: and really add value to the company by putting more
Speaker 1: hours of practice into that skill. So interesting, it is
Speaker 1: just interesting how different people define the word out in
Speaker 1: different ways, right, you know, like, yeah, you know, it
Speaker 1: seems like a lot of people have different definitions that,
Speaker 1: And of course nothing is purely genetically determined, as you know,
Speaker 1: even our talents are all developed to a certain extent
Speaker 1: through the experiences. So that's just a really interesting way
Speaker 1: of looking at the difference between the two. Can I
Speaker 1: end this interview today by asking you do you see
Speaker 1: a new era of leadership? Well, I think companies are
Speaker 1: realizing now that people have needs and that it actually
Speaker 1: pays off to allow people to sleep and to take breaks,
Speaker 1: and to exercise, and to to be treated well by
Speaker 1: their employer. And I think it pays off to create
Speaker 1: a brain friendly work environment which people enjoy what they're doing.
Speaker 1: I think people are catching on to that. That's great. Well,
Speaker 1: I hope that your ideas proliferate more of the leadership community,
Speaker 1: and I wish you good luck with your new book.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, thanks for having me, Scott, thanks
Speaker 1: for being here, Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast
Speaker 1: with doctor Scott Barak Kaufman. I hope you found this
Speaker 1: episode just as thought for booking and interesting as I did.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to read the show notes for this
Speaker 1: episode or hear past episodes. You can visit the Psychology
Speaker 1: Podcast dot com