Why The Brain Thrives on What It Fears Most

Everything we do in life we do to decrease uncertainty — Beau Lotto

Your perception of the world, life, yourself and others affects each and every decision you have ever made, or ever will make. Neuroscientist Beau Lotto has devoted much of his work to understanding perception, creativity, biases, and much more. He is the author of the book Deviate, which reveals startling truths about the brain and it’s perceptions. Beau argues that the next big innovation in the world is not a new technology, but rather a new way of seeing. 

For A Deep Dive on Your Most Common Biases Check Out — http://www.successpodcast.com/weaponsofinfluence

Uncertainty of what your brain is receiving can lead to extreme consequences. Let’s take a simple example from Beau…

When you go down below in a boat and your eyes are moving and registering the boat, and your eyes are saying, “Oh, we’re standing still,” but your inner ears are saying, “No, no, we’re moving.” And your brain cannot deal with that conflict so it gets ill. — Beau Lotto

While getting a little seasick is not the end of the world the consequences of too much uncertainty can be tremendous. Too much uncertainty increases brain cell death. It decreases plasticity in the brain and transforms you into a more extreme version of yourself. 

Think back to a time when you had to deal with extreme uncertainty. Was this a pleasant experience? Oftentimes when we are making extreme changes to our lives such as changing careers, moving to a new place, trying something potentially dangerous for the first time we see a drop in our health and mental state. This is because our brains are deeply wired to avoid this type of uncertainty at every turn. 

Every minute of every day we are making hundreds of assumptions, which helps us mentally avoid uncertainty. As I type this I assume the chair I am sitting on will not give way and leave me sprawled out on the floor. I assume the desk in front of me was assembled correctly, I assume the keyboard on which I am typing will continue to work, and so on and so forth. 

These assumptions are absolutely critical to our survival. Can you imagine what a nervous wreck we’d be if I stopped to make sure my chair was sturdy each minute. First of all I’d never finish writing this article but even worse I would most likely worry myself into no longer using this chair, checking the screws on my desk, and monitoring the battery life of my keyboard. 

However, these assumptions can largely be a double edged sword themselves. Our brains are wired to take what is meaningless and assign it meaning. Look at the flip side, in the early development of human beings if I assumed that rustling sound was not a predator and it turned out to be a panther… it’s too late. I’m dead. Taking this information and all the inputs around you and assigning them meaning is the process of creating your own perceptions. The key is to be able to determine what can be assumed and what it worth checking out and worrying about. 

Here’s the kicker. 

If we do everything to avoid uncertainty, how will we ever see anything differently?

We do almost everything to avoid uncertainty. And yet the irony is that that’s the only place we can go if we’re ever going to see differently. — Beau Lotto

How would we ever be creative if we never dared to venture into the uncertainty of life? How would we learn to perceive the world differently through new information if all we did was avoid uncertainty our entire lives. Creativity begins with a question, a hypothesis, it begins with a “why?” or a “what if?” all which come through uncertainty. 

This is also why it’s an interesting reaction when people become mad at one another for “flip-flopping” their opinions. Too often, especially in politics, individuals are criticized for changing their opinions to reflect new facts, new evidence, and new information. But how can we ever hope to grow and draw new conclusions if we ignore the uncertainty of new facts and opinions. 

The irony of uncertainty is that while we were undoubtably hardwired to avoid it, it holds the key to our growth and to our success. As we noted, too much uncertainty for too long a period can have drastic consequences for your health but avoiding it altogether leaves one walking in place. 

Lessons and Tools From Spy Recruiters, Astronauts, and Mental Masters

We’ve interviewed some incredible guests on The Science of Success. From many walks of life including spy recruiters, astronauts, bestselling authors, and more. Across each of our guest’s from widely different fields, we see many overlapping mindsets, strategies, and practices for achieving goals and a more effective life.

We’d like to share with you some of these mindset and strategies to help you achieve your goals. Whatever they may be…

Focus On Your Health

Psychology Secrets of Extreme Athletes, NFL Teams, & The World’s Top Performer with Dr. Michael Gervais — Dr.Michael Gervais has spent years and countless hours in the trenches with high performers. From Red Bull athletes and The Seattle Seahawks to everyday civilians, Gervais has been able to unlock the true potential of his clients by utilizing the psychology of high performance.

What’s Life’s Biggest Trap We Fall Into? — In Matt Bodnar’s widely popular and upvoted Quora answer he takes us through some of the biggest traps people fall into in life and how we can avoid each to get out of our own way in 2018.

The Skeptic’s Guide To Meditation with Dan Harris — Learn more about meditation and the science behind the practice. Dan Harris takes you through his personal journey (including a panic attack live on air) that led him to pursue meditation and report of the science behind the sometimes “woo woo” reputation.

The Neuroscience Behind Building A Sustainable Healthy Lifestyle with Foodist Darya Rose — Sticking to a diet plan can be very, very hard. Darya Rose takes us through how we can set the right physical health goals and use neuroscience to actually stick to them.

Overcome Your Fears

How Do You Become Mentally Strong? — In this Medium article Matt Bodnar take us through an incredible framework for developing mental toughness. Compiling and exploring some of the most validated strategies and tactics to push yourself and grow.

How This Astronaut Survived Going Blind In Space & Tools For Crushing Fear with Chris Hadfield — Chris Hadfield is one of the most decorated astronauts in history. On his first spacewalk he went momentarily blind and was able to remain calm and complete his mission. Chris takes us through some practical knowledge for overcoming irrational fears and accepting others.

Your Secret Weapon To Becoming Fearless with Jia Jiang — Most people actively will avoid rejection. How is this fear holding you back? Jia decided to actively seek rejection each day for 100 days and while his journey is very entertaining, the results he saw were very impactful.

Master Your Emotions

Discover Your Hidden Emotional Insights and What’s Truly Valuable to You with Dr. Susan David — Your emotions are there to communicate through your subconscious. By using Dr.Susan David’s framework and research you can begin to learn how listening to these emotions and using them as a compass can help you make peace with them and achieve more.

The Mental Tools Olympians, Traders, and Top Performers Use To Make High Pressure Decisions with Denise Shull — Denise Shull was the inspiration for Wendy Rhodes character on the Showtime show Billions. She’s coached countless high performers through high pressure situations by using their emotions and inner working to guide them. Find out how!

Get What You Want

Simple Strategies You Can Use To Get Anything You Want with The Godfather of Influence Dr. Robert Cialdini — Dr.Cialdini has been doing incredible work on the art of influence for years. Most recently he unveiled a researched backed tactic that you can begin to use today to help you influence anyone and make a great first impression.

How To Use Influence Tactics Like an FBI Agent — In this article from SUCCESS Magazine we highlight some of the key takeaways from all the military influence experts we’ve interviewed. Everyone from hostage negotiators to FBI Spy recruiters. Learn how you can begin to influence like a secret agent today!

Connect With Others

Never Eat Alone — How Relationship Expert Keith Ferrazzi Built His World Class Network — Keith Ferrazzi literally wrote the book on networking. Through his work and research in relationship building, Keith has identified mindsets and frameworks that you should apply to every interaction and relationship.

Proven Practices for Building The Ultimate Competitive Advantage with Todd Davis — Todd Davis is the Chief People Officer at Franklin Covey and wrote much of the company’s award-winning material. Todd takes us through several ways to build better relationships at work from all hierarchies and how to build the ultimate competitive advantage.

Build The Right Habits

Break Your Phone Addiction (and Your Other Bad Habits) with Charles Duhigg — Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and has devoted much of his life and work to discovering why we do the things we do. Specifically how our habits and routines can affect our lives for the better and for the worse. Learn how we can become the masters of our own habits today!

How You Can Use Behavior Design To Create any Habit You Want with Nir Eyal — Nir Eyal has worked with hundreds of companies to make their products more habit forming. From video games themselves to products that pull you back in such as Facebook and Instagram it’s all by design and has Nir’s fingerprints or framework all over it. Learn how you can use Nir’s framework to break your cycle and create the habits you want!

Adam Grant’s Guide To Success and Self-Awareness

As Wharton’s top-rated professor for the past six years running, Dr. Adam Grant knows a thing or two about what it takes to succeed. He’s one of the world’s 10 most influential management speakers, the best-selling author of Give & Take, Originals and Option B and a member of Fortune’s 40 under 40.

In a recent interview, Adam shared with The Science of Success’s Matt Bodnarthe most impactful secrets to success, starting with self-awareness. In the world of self-awareness there’s a lot of talk about recognizing one’s own strengths and weaknesses. Dr. Grant argues, however, that it’s more beneficial and reliable to trust those around you to identify these weaknesses and not rely on your own (biased) soul searching.

Why Is It So Difficult To Be Self-Aware?

According to Dr. Grant, there are two main challenges when it comes to developing self-awareness. First, there are your own blind spots. These are shortcomings that the people around us can easily see, but that we might have a hard time identifying ourselves. As humans, we’re typically better at focusing on how we think we look, versus how others most likely see us. Our blind spots only become visible to us when we solicit outside feedback. When we understand how others view us in the world, it’s easier to change our behaviors and expectations.

Learn the top ten leadership blindspots and how to overcome them here.

We also must face our internal personal bias. Biases include the negative aspects of ourselves that we don’t want to see. For many, it can be easy to see ourselves in our own personal spotlight, as the hero of our own journey, which can lead to overconfidence.

“I think the big lesson here is that any time a trait is easy for other people to see or hard for us to admit, we can’t trust our own judgment of it,” — Adam Grant on The Science of Success

How We Overcome These Challenges

The good news is that these hurdles to becoming more self aware can be overcome. Dr. Grant’s solution is developing two networks of people; a support network and a challenge network.

Build a support network filled with people that you can count on to bring you up when you’re down. These should be the people you trust, those that will always give compliments and increase your confidence.

Your challenge network should be the people who will tell you that you’re not quite where you need to be. These are the people that will push you because they care about helping you get better.

“So if in the last six months somebody has given you really harsh feedback, you’ve probably done everything in your power to drop them from your life. In the short run, that might feel good, it might help with your motivation, but it destroys your opportunity to learn. I think we all need to embrace that challenge network if we want to reach our potential,” — Adam Grant on The Science of Success

When Asked, Be A Graceful Challenger

Many believe the “compliment sandwich,” is a good way to give feedback. This is when you offer criticism in between two compliments in order to lessen the blow. People mistakenly think this is the best way to offer negative feedback, but Grant argues this method only makes it harder for the receiver.

So if you find yourself a part of someone else’s challenge network follow this framework instead. Affirm a skill, value or achievement from one area then give your negative feedback in another. The idea is that you never want to give praise and criticism at the same time for the same project, piece of work or idea. This only serves to delude your feedback all together.

If you want to soften the blow of hard feedback praise something unrelated the receiver has done and start the conversation out in a positive light. Then change the subject to the project at hand and deliver your unbiased feedback. After all, you’re in someone’s challenge network because they trust you to push them. Give them what they expect.

Embrace The Devil’s Advocate

In every situation, business meeting, discussion, etc., make sure there is one person who genuinely disagrees with the majority opinion. It’s important that this person is not just playing a role, but truly has different ideas than the rest of the group. This person should be given the opportunity to argue passionately about their viewpoint thus stimulating divergent thinking. If done properly, the group will be more likely to reevaluate the situation on the table, gather new information, update their criteria and make a better decision in the end.

Make it known that no employee or partner has the right to withhold a critical opinion. Dr. Grant emphasizes the importance of creating a space and culture where dissenting ideas are encouraged. Everyone at the office should feel comfortable speaking up for his or her opinion no matter how different it is from the boss or from the group.

“Personality traits don’t predict behavior. Different ifs activate different thens.” — Adam Grant on The Science of Success

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The Research Backed Guide To Being Lucky

Let me ask you an important question…

Are you a lucky person?

Shockingly, your answer to that question actually has more to do with how lucky you are than anything else. Recently, science has proven that we actually can create our own luck. This groundbreaking research reveals several evidence-based tactics you can use to help you stumble into that next great opportunity.

Dr. Richard Wiseman has been named “The Most Interesting and Innovative Experimental Psychologist in the World Today” by The Scientific American. His research and experiments have shed light on some of science’s most interesting topics and debunked several common “self-help” practices.

In a recent interview on The Science of Success, Dr. Wiseman explains how you can find more luck in your life today with science based steps.

But First, A Story…

So you think you’re unlucky, huh? Before we get into the steps, let’s review some of the stories from the Luck Experiments. Dr. Wiseman began by gathering thousands of people who considered themselves lucky or unlucky.

To give you some context, this was the experience of one self-proclaimed “unlucky” person…

· 5 Car Accidents Within 50 Miles — On the same trip.

· Signed Up For A Dating Service…

1. First date broke a leg on the way to meet her.

2. Second, ran into a glass door and broke his nose.

3. When she got engaged, the church she was to be married in burnt down the day before her wedding.

So… maybe you aren’t as unlucky as you thought. Despite these experiences, through adopting some of the mindsets in Dr. Wiseman’s research and implementing some new practices in her life, she actually is luckier.

So let’s get into it, here’s how you can go from unlucky to lucky, in no time at all.

The Newspaper Effect — Your Attention Spotlight

One of the most interesting differences between lucky and unlucky people is their attention spotlight. Lucky people are always looking for an opportunity in the details of everyday life. Where the unlucky tend to move forward without paying as much attention and without looking for luck. This hypothesis was proven and illustrated by Dr. Wiseman’s “Newspaper Experiment”

Dr. Wiseman began by asking participants to classify themselves as lucky or unlucky. They were then asked to flip through a newspaper and count the number of pictures they saw. As a reward they would be given $100. What he did not tell participants was that there were two huge time saving opportunities embedded in the newspaper.

“One was a half-page ad with massive type that said “Stop Counting. There are 42 photographs in this newspaper” and the other was another half page ad that said, “Tell the experimenter you’ve seen this ad and collect your $100 now.” Recalls Dr. Wiseman. The findings were extremely clear. Those who considered themselves lucky saw the ad and collected their money immediately. Those who identified as unlucky sat and counted each ad, missing the valuable time saving message.

When those who considered themselves unlucky felt pushed, stressed, or concerned, their attention narrowed, they put their heads down and droned through the task. In contrast, those who identified themselves as lucky expanded their attention to try and grasp the details of what they were doing. Causing them to get “lucky” and spot this time saving message. If we take the time to slow down, pay attention to what we are doing, and believe we’re lucky, studies show, we will be.

Write It Down

In his next experiment Dr. Wiseman set out to see if we could actually change our luck. “We thought, if we take a group of people who are not particularly lucky or unlucky and get them to think and behave like a lucky person, does that increase their luck?” recalls Dr. Wiseman.

In order to shift the subject’s mindsets they were asked to keep a “luck journal”. Dr. Wiseman lays out the rules, “We asked that at the end of each day they write down the most positive thing that happened or most positive thought they had that day. Or, in some cases, something negative that used to happen that no longer happens, or at very least some thought of gratitude.”

The participants who kept these journals reoriented themselves extremely quickly. They began to see the good things in their lives and the opportunities in front of them. “It’s the most simple interventions we found had the biggest impacts,” notes Dr. Wiseman. Journaling and putting thoughts to paper has been proven to have astounding mental health benefits. By focusing on the good that happens each day we rewire our brains to see more opportunity in each day. Thus increasing how “lucky” we feel with each day.

The Silver Linings Playbook

Once you’ve begun focusing on the positive, it can be hard to stop. Carol Dweck was the first to coin the term “Growth Mindset.” One of the key pillars to a growth mindset is learning and seeing the positive in everything. If you try something and you fail, don’t beat yourself up; focus on what you learned and how you can avoid the same pitfalls in the future. This keeps us moving forward and increase how “lucky” we are in the future as we know what not to do.

By constantly thinking you’re lucky it’s incredible how it changes your perspective of everything. Dr. Wiseman recounts a slightly comical but impactful scenario, “A lucky person would take something as negative as falling down the stairs and find the good. Sure, I fell down the stairs and broke my leg, but if I had landed slightly to the left. I would have broken both of them, lucky.”

You may be thinking that breaking one leg is still a poor outcome. It’s those who train their brain to regard themselves as lucky however who do not dwell on the negative but rather find the positive, shift their focus there, and move forward.

Don’t Be Scared of Change

Oddly enough as Dr. Wiseman explains some people enjoy being unlucky. “About 20% of unlucky people rather enjoy being unlucky. Their self-identity is bound up with that.” This 20% enjoy being the clumsy guest at a party, enjoy never having things work out because on some level, it gives them an excuse.

These people according to the experiments are extremely hard to reach. While thinking lucky can dramatically change your life, you have to want to change to make it happen.

So start writing your own luck journal. Shift the way you think about yourself and the rest will trickle down into how you see the world and interact with others. If you want to start being lucky today, believe it to achieve it.

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How Abraham Lincoln Turned Struggle Into The Strength To Change The World

History is filled with tales of great men and women and their triumphs. But rarely do we get a look into one of the largest factors that made them great, their struggles. Specifically their internal, lesser-known struggles, that shaped how they saw the world around them and thus, allowed them to approach changing the world in a unique way.

Dr. Gail Saltz has devoted countless hours to examining some of history’s most prominent figures from the inside out in what is known as a “psychobiography”. Dr. Saltz is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the New York Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell School of Medicine and a psychoanalyst with the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. Her work has been featured on CNN, Good Morning America, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and more! Recently Gail sat down with The Science of Success Podcast with Matt Bodnar and shared some of the results of her “psychobiographies” to give us a look inside some of history’s most well-known figures heads.

“Close to half of Americans struggle with some sort of mental health issue” explains Gail. “In my psychobiography series, we look at iconic figures and sort of what made them tick…what shaped them into the person that they ultimately became.” By studying these figures in this way we get a peek into their view of the world. Not only that but “normal” people can find comfort in the idea that even these great figures were far from perfect. “These struggles, not only did they overcome them, but often what they are remembered for in history that we find so astonishing is in some ways a direct result of the thing they struggled with.”

Many do not know this but one of our country’s greatest presidents Abraham Lincoln waged a lifelong battle with depression. His melancholy and quiet reflective nature is well documented throughout his life. It was this internal battle however that gave him the ability to empathize and be more accepting of others, just as he had had to learn to be more accepting of himself. “The ability to really tap into what other people are thinking and feeling and being very sensitive to that helped Lincoln to be the kind of president that he was,” notes Gail. It was learning to be accepting and forgiving of himself that helped Lincoln guide our country through one of the hardest times in the history of our nation.

Gail points out, “People with depression are often seen as kind of romantic figures, really pondering, really thoughtful…but it really can cause terrible suffering as well. But on the flip side, Lincoln’s ability to tap into what other people were thinking and really be attuned to that allowed him to bring in political partners and work with other groups and not erect a wall but instead extend himself and stand in other people’s shoes in a unique way”

History is filled with figures whose internal struggles in some ways helped them to change the world from Einstein, Vincent Van Gogh, and even Leonardo Da Vinci. Gail is quick to point out that while these figures were able to use their struggles to their advantage, they lived in a different time. If you are struggling with something serious be sure to seek medical evaluation and potential treatment.

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