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David Robson: How to Build Instant Connection with Anyone · The BEYOND Podcast

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  Unknown: What the research shows us that sometimes people do just click and we can see that
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  in brain scans. The people who felt closest to each other were showing the most similar
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  brain activity. Does it count if you have a pet? Even having a connection
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  with a pet is better than nothing. Pets are VIPs in our life and they need to be treated
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  accordingly. How dangerous is loneliness? The lonier people are more likely to die
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  at an earlier age. I'm David Robson. I'm an author and science writer. I've
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  written three books. The intelligence trap, the expectation effect, and the laws of connection.
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  The intelligence trap that is about why smart people make stupid decisions. The capacity
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  to update our beliefs is really fundamental to rationality. What is a genuine connection? We come
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  to form a shared reality with the other person. Why do so many high achievers end up feeling so
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  disconnected? Successful people are going to face the same challenges as the average person and they
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  become very dogmatic my way or not at all. There's lots of benefits to being introverted. Extroverts
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  often are perceived as being quite shallow. What they could really learn from is how to listen
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  more attentively to people. Why is it so hard for people to admit they're wrong? We begin to attach
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  our expertise and our performance to our ego. Why do some people seem more naturally charismatic
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  than others? If you really want to see who gains the most respect, it is having for the viewers,
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  if they can take away one thing from the research that you've done that can really help turn their
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  lives around, what would that be? Evidence backed and very powerful. And that is I'm an expert in
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  psychology and neuroscience and um the ways that we can improve our behavior to increase
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  our well-being, both mental and physical. David, lovely to have you on the show. We love experts
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  that help us improve our minds, our mindset just to be better at everything that we're doing,
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  to be braver, just a a allround better performing human and that's why you're on. Can you help us
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  with this? I certainly hope so. You certainly hope so. you know, that's really um the main kind of um
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  inspiration and driver for my career has always been a kind of personal curiosity for what I can
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  do to improve my own thinking and how I can change my own behavior to um be more productive but also
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  kind of happier, more relaxed, healthier and you know then that's what I want to communicate to
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  other people. So every article I write is really it starts from some personal question that I've
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  got and then I want to tell people what I found out about that. Okay. So, so if you don't mind,
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  and you don't have to answer it if you don't want to, but why is it personal? Yeah, I guess
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  like when I was a kid, you know, I was just always interested in the workings of the human mind and
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  kind of, you know, how I could be kind of the best um the best possible version of myself,
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  you know, at school, at university. Why Why were you thinking like that as a young kid? That's not
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  normal, is it? No, it's not. But you know what? I was like I was probably quite insufferable as
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  a kid, actually. It was and it's something that emerged like very early on. I remember coming
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  home from school and complaining to my parents. I was like I just learned nothing today and I
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  was so frustrated by that because I just there was something that I felt like if I was spending
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  my time on something I wanted to do it well and I wanted to it was like personal growth was always
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  just really fundamental to me. Yeah. Okay. And and was there something that you were personally
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  besides not being taught, you know, at school, was it something you were struggling with or was there
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  something you wanted to overcome or what was it? I guess that kind of crystallized into a concern
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  about mental health in my teens um when I did start to get um really depressed and really shy. I
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  just had like terrible social anxiety from around the age of 15 onwards. And so that was when this
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  kind of general interest in the human mind became a bit more um kind of existentially important for
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  me I guess because I could just see like the whole of my life playing out and I was like I don't want
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  to feel like this in my 30s or 40s or 50s like I really want to find a way through these feelings
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  that I'm experiencing. So in that stage you know I got into a lot of things like mindfulness you know
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  and even self hypnosis which um you know back then um there wasn't so much scientific evidence for
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  that but actually you know now we do know that the kind of hypnotic state can actually be very useful
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  for overcoming um certain barriers like anxiety um and then when I started my um career in science
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  journalism well that's when I really started delving much more into the literature so um
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  you know really trying to find like the evidence based strategies that could help me to overcome
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  some of those problems. You know, I still suffered depression into my 20ies and and anxiety. And so,
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  um, you know, I just love that approach. I think it just really clicks for me having a scientific
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  background. You know, I I don't just want to kind of hear platitudes and I don't want to give them
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  to other people. I want to know that it has been tested and to really understand the nuances of
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  those findings, too, because there's never going to be one technique that works for everyone.
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  But it can be really revealing to work out well why does it work for me or why doesn't it and
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  what other approach might be useful. So I'd say over those you know like 18 years now I've really
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  developed this kind of toolkit that I can go to when I'm in a you know low point or when I'm
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  facing some kind of barrier with my work and you know I can pick and choose which tools are most
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  appropriate for that particular situation. Yeah, I love that you've Well, thank you for sharing
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  that. And uh social anxiety is a very real thing and a lot of us suffer with it. I mean,
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  I had a degree of social anxiety when I I went out of work for a period of time to, you know, bring
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  the kids up and and I I went into that world and I just didn't see many people apart from, you know,
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  the the play club or whatever was dropping them off at nursery, but really I was more, you know,
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  dare I say hermit, you know, at home and I just was in that world. And then when you propelled
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  out of it, it's really scary. Suddenly you think, you know, you've what's this feeling? Why am I so
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  anxious to be around these people and I'm being asked questions and there's eyes on me and I feel
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  uncomfortable and it's a very horrible feeling. Yeah. It's not nice. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
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  Like I feel at its worst it's almost like you're kind of you don't have a skin. you've just got
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  kind of cellophane or something kind of covering your internal organs and it's like everything
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  feels like it's on display and you feel kind of embarrassed by that, shame by that. And every
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  kind of move you make, every time you try to um account for your shyness, it feels like you make
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  it worse and worse. And then the problem with that is you then because you know you feel like that
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  you avoid the situations. You see, oh no, there's a group of moms. Oh, I'm not they're going to ask
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  oh I don't want to talk to and you avoid them. you avoid that situation and then it reinforces
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  that yes that's scary you don't go near it and it just becomes worse and worse and in a way you've
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  got to do the opposite unfortunately horribly but that's the only way it is yeah I mean avoidance in
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  in general in psychology is considered to be a bad strategy to deal with the bad strategy yeah like
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  it's a very counterproductive way to deal with the things that um scare us because ultimately
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  by avoiding it you kind of build it up in in your mind to be even worse than It really is. Whereas
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  actually we talk about approach and avoidance and approach is the better um response. But
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  obviously we also need the kind of cognitive tools to be able to approach a situation and to be able
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  to manage the stress that we're feeling. And so that's what um a lot of what I write about really
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  is giving us those tools to do so. Yes. So you you see and this is why I love having you on as well
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  because you hear a lot of this misinformation going around on the internet. people advising
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  that have no real qualifications whatsoever to be advising and they really shouldn't. Um,
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  saying things that aren't necessarily helpful, that haven't been tested scientifically. And I
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  am careful to bring on experts, people that really know their stuff, that believe it,
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  and also even better, someone that's experienced it themselves. You really know, you can understand
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  and read with people, and that's why you're on. And I'm hoping that and I have a lot of questions
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  to get through but I'm hoping that um whilst you know you answer these we can answer some of the
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  questions that these people have that we have I have and um we can all get better together through
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  science and tested techniques. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that is what I strongly believe and it's what I'm
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  trying to do in everything I write is to yeah to help as many people as possible to kind of
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  um live up to their potential and to not be held back to not be avoiding those situations. Yeah.
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  Okay. So the first question I have is about genuine human connections and why they're so
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  powerful in everything in our success in our health in our happiness. What is a genuine I
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  mean we can Yes. A connection. Does that mean you you know each other really well and you
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  speak a lot? What is a genuine connection? Yeah. I mean so you know what I think what we've all
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  experienced is that actually you can feel a very strong genuine connection with someone who maybe
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  you've only spoken to for 5 minutes. Like it just clicks. And I had that with my friend Allesia in
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  um I was doing some filming in um Sardinia for a documentary for the uh BBC and she was
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  the producer. had never met before, but it's like within 5 minutes we knew we were going to be very
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  good friends and you know uh six years later like I call her my sister, she calls me her Fredella,
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  you know, and so I really strongly believe in that and that is what the research shows us that
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  um that sometimes people do just click for other in other relationships that can take you know a
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  long time but the one thing that all of those relationships have in common is that we come
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  to form a shared reality with the other person and that is this um kind of deep conviction that We're
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  processing the world in the same way. In a similar way. Yeah. Exactly. At a very kind of visceral
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  level. So you might be laughing at the same jokes or you know you see the same event happen and you
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  you're both thinking the same thing. You're finishing each other's sentences or you know
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  interrupting each other is sometimes considered rude but with these people it's natural because
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  you're on the same wavelength. And we can see that in brain scans. Um, which I really love that
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  there's this kind of neural literal truth to the idea that you're on the same wavelength because
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  what you see is when you scan these people's brains, what they're watching in the experiment,
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  it was like a series of YouTube clips of music videos, comedy clips, documentaries, you know,
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  all of these things. Um, but what you saw was that the people who felt closest to each other
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  were showing the most similar brain activity. that their brains were somehow in sync. You know,
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  at each point in the clip, they were showing the same responses, whereas people who weren't
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  really that good friends, you know, they were showing very different neural responses. Okay.
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  Does that where we're on the same wavelength come from? Oh, yeah. Exactly. I mean, I think we kind
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  of literal wavelength. Yeah. We understood it kind of intuitively before it was proven scientifically
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  and now it's proven scientifically. So, our brains operate in a similar way or we want so desperately
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  to be understood. Yeah. Don't we? Yeah, we do. I mean that I think is um the kind of core of
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  connection is feeling understood and feeling seen. And so actually when we look at all of these
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  studies showing that um social connection is so important for um kind of our health and longevity.
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  I think really the one of the best measures for that is just do you feel understood by the people
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  around you? And people who do feel understood and supported, they're the ones who have the better
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  mental health, but also better physical health. Wow. You could take that further and put it
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  into government and say, "Oh, do these countries understand each other? Are they working together
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  or they're completely on a different wavelength, you know, wanting different things? It expands,
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  doesn't it?" Yeah, I think it does actually that, you know, sometimes the dynamics that are working
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  at an individual level also make sense at kind of um a societal level level or even internationally
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  like you say. Yeah. Like sometimes I feel like knowing this and and I agree with it. Let's have
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  a little tea, a little tea sip that it would be better to trap leaders who are arguing in
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  the same room. You know, give them food and everything and say right now you guys come to
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  an understanding. We'll leave you alone, but you sort it out. Stop affecting your entire country
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  with this toxin. Just sort it out. We'll we'll see you in whenever you decide to be Yeah. Well,
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  funny enough wish that. Funnily enough, I was at a neuroscience conference about 10 years ago and
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  this um neuroscientist was telling me that, you know, her personal theory is that we just need
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  to get world leaders into like um relationship counseling. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. And go through
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  all of those honestly because they're sending all these other people on their behalf and they never
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  really sit down and chat. But they need to be that. In fact, every country should demand you to
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  have to get in a room and talk. Yeah. Stop using other people to communicate for you. Yeah. Yeah.
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  Yeah. Totally right. I mean, okay. So, so we're going to go to the other end of it. Loneliness.
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  Yeah. What what how dangerous is loneliness? Um, so loneliness is incredibly dangerous. Um
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  so I kind of alluded to this earlier but actually you know there's now you know more than a hundred
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  um of these longitudinal studies where you um follow populations of thousands of people over the
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  course of their lives and you look at the kind of risk factors that there are for different diseases
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  and mortality overall and what you find it doesn't really matter how you measure loneliness whether
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  it's you know asking people how supported and understood they feel ask them simply how many
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  friends they have what their daily interactions are. You know, whatever measure you use, you
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  find that the lonlier people are more likely to develop short-term illnesses like catching a cold,
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  long-term illnesses like cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer's disease, and they're just more
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  likely to die at an earlier age because of all of this. So, it's it's kind of a cumulative risk that
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  the longer you feel lonely for over the course of your life, the the more likely you are to suffer
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  from all of those negative outcomes. Does it count if you have a pet? pets can really help. And so I
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  think that's also the important thing to remember is that you know loneliness can be experienced
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  differently by different people. So for for me for example like I do quite like having a
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  broad social network but it's even more important for me to have just a few people who I feel very
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  connected to. Other people might want might put much more value on you know just the sheer number
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  of connections they have. For some, it could just be having like a spouse that really understands
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  you. Um, they're all good in different ways. And, you know, even having a connection with a pet is
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  better than nothing. But, um, gosh, a connection with pets is brilliant. Yeah. I mean, sometimes
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  I think we undervalue those relationships. And also, we don't have a way of talking about the
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  grief when a pet dies when actually they can be such a stable and core part of your life. And yet,
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  society as a whole is kind of like, you know, we don't really have funerals for pets. We don't
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  Stop that right away, immediately. And we're putting it out there on this podcast. Pets are
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  very important, like VIPs in our life, and they need to be treated accordingly. Right.
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  Exactly. Yeah. And people's emotional responses to that should be respected. Should be very much
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  respected. And it's a serious thing to be grieving after a pet. Yeah. Okay. on high achievers. Why do
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  so many high achievers, really successful people actually, um, end up feeling so disconnected,
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  you know, despite having all these people around them, advisers and everything,
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  they're kind of like on an island sometimes. Yeah. You know, I've been thinking this a lot um because
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  of Taylor Swift's like huge success. And and then people were saying about her latest album like,
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  "Oh, well, she doesn't seem that happy." And I'm I kind of feel but she's a human being.
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  she's doesn't matter how much material success she's got, there's still going to be people
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  who are kind of dissing you, who you don't feel connected to. You know, like successful people are
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  going to face the same challenges as um kind of the average person and also they maybe they find
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  it harder to form that shared reality with people because there are so few people in the world who
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  kind of have the particular set of circumstances and pressures that they're experiencing. Um,
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  so I think that does um kind of, you know, I think it's not just like Taylor Swift,
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  it's not just pop singers. I think that's probably true in lots of different spheres. Yeah. I mean,
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  it's even CEO. So, for example, if you have, let's say there's a big company, a corporation, and then
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  at the top you've got the CEO. So, and and that's there's lots of people in the company, high high
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  level manager, mid-le manager, whatever you want to call it, and then the employees and everyone's
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  there and and then let's say you've got a party after work and everyone's sort of chatting amongst
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  themselves cuz they're on a similar understanding on a similar level and then the CEO walks in and
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  it's like, oh, the CEO and people are too scared, you know, and the CEO is feeling awkward and it's
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  totally a vibe like bad vibe. the power dynamics can be very difficult um yeah because um you know
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  because people do feel that fear and you know they shouldn't feel fear but I think it's it's kind
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  of right in some ways that there is a you know that if you've established a hierarchy within an
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  organization there's benefits to that but there's also kind of costs personal there's also costs
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  personal costs and it is that then people feel a bit awkward around you or and then you've got
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  people like Oprah and that who then say you know I've learned to say no and to put those barriers
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  in because when you are very successful then everyone comes to you for things and that's nice
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  because you can help with a lot of things but then sometimes it's also not nice because you just been
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  flooded with requests. Yeah, exactly. And I think one of the main problems I imagine for someone in
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  that situation as well is it it's very difficult for you to kind of talk about the pain that you're
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  feeling and the loneliness you might be feeling because the assumption is well you've achieved
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  so much what do you have to complain about your situation can't be comparable to my situation but
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  actually I think we do need to have compassion for these people you know because doesn't matter
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  you know what situation you're in if you're feeling isolated from others that's a terrible
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  painful um position to be in. And so, you know, yeah, we need to separate, I guess,
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  people's material success from, you know, the kind of everyday human feelings that they'll
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  be experiencing. And they deserve just as much compassion and respect as anyone else. Okay. So,
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  the world since co has moved into a lot of this remote working. So,
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  a lot of us are working from home. Maybe not the whole week, but most days of the week,
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  some days of the week. And that can also be lonely but you're not really seeing anyone. Um so how do
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  you build connection when you're actually isolated physically? Yeah, it's um you know it's a big
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  problem I think that has emerged in the last 5 years and you know I feel it as a freelancer
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  as well. So you know all of my work is remote um I would say the research shows that those remote
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  conversations that we have are still valuable. So you know there's some Yeah. So there's some some
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  kind of cynics think that you know connection doesn't happen unless you're kind of having a
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  face tof face conversation. But actually the research shows you know um video calls give
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  you a pretty good sense of being connected with someone because you can read their body
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  language. You know phone calls are still pretty valuable because you can hear their tone of voice.
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  But even like a short text message you know can establish some kind of connection with someone.
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  um especially if you've already established that shared reality with them. So you already have that
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  rapport and then those like quick texts are just kind of reminding you of that. So it could just
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  be a funny gift that reflects a kind of shared joke and reestablishes that connection or just
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  sharing the news in your life. You know, all of these things are valued. Um so I think we can
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  be conscious of that and try to make the most of it. But I do think we do also have to think
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  carefully about our schedules to try to get the um uh the kind of the face tof face connections
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  where we can as well and you know maybe even if the traveling is inconvenient you know we have
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  to recognize that is a price we have to pay to get that it's you know like paying for premium
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  foods that are more nutritious like it's worth the investment to do that. It's worth the investment.
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  It's why I love an in-person conversation as well for podcasts because it's just better. It's it's
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  a it's it's deep. It's a deep especially for deep subjects. You want to see the person and
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  how they're responding, you know, you you want to have that. And but there's friends that I have
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  that are very good at that. They will always be the ones that schedule the next thing. And that
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  even if you're not reaching out cuz you're in your own little world, they'll always tap in and go,
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  "Hey, you free for lunch? Let's do this." And they they'll always reach out. It's it's almost
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  like really good habit that they've got. Some people just have that. I don't know. Yeah. No,
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  they do. Um, I have to say I'm not one of those people actually. I'm uh a little bit too passive
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  um with friendships. But um you know something I'm working on especially after having written
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  the laws of connection um because I guess with that book I I learned that there were there's lots
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  of kind of psychological barriers we have that prevent us from um reaching out to other people.
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  And one of them is just that we're very kind of pessimistic about how much other people value us.
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  So I think for someone like me who's a little kind of socially anxious anyway, I'm kind of just a bit
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  too reluctant to suggest to someone let's meet up because my assumption is it will be an incon
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  inconvenience for them. But the research shows, you know, this is quite a common bias and it's
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  probably wrong like they probably they're probably feeling like I am like they want someone to reach
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  out and they're maybe feeling a bit shy too. Yeah. So you know if we can try to become that person
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  um it's better for everyone. Oh, I love that. I love that. But I love also what you said earlier
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  about reestablishing a connection. So even that little funny joke or whatever it is, you're just
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  tapping in and you're showing someone you care. And you're saying the connections are are good.
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  They're good for all of us. They're good for our health. They're good for our brains. Yeah. Yeah.
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  They really are. Um so there was a huge uh meta analysis. Now what we mean by that in science is
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  where you kind of gather all the evidence to date, look at all of the studies, perform statistical
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  tests to make sure that the effect that has been reported is reliable and robust and to measure the
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  average size of that. So across lots of studies. Um and what these um this meta analysis showed was
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  that actually loneliness can be as dangerous as um lots of other health factors that we just take for
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  granted. So whether you smoke, whether you drink, um uh whether you um are vaccinated, take blood
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  pressure medication, you have as dangerous as if not more than most of those. Yes. Most of those.
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  Yeah. And I think we just don't fully accept that at the moment. But I think that's changing.
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  So the World Health Organization has set up a task force to try to promote this message and to get
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  people to take it as seriously as diet or exercise for example. Um the former US um surgeon general
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  did the same. You know it's breaking through but I think we need much more public health messaging
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  on that. Yes. And and also because the more we communicate and interact with people and spend
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  time with people the better we get at interacting with people and spending time. It's like working a
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  muscle. It really is. Um and actually you can see big benefits quite quickly. So there was one study
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  um that it it basically took the form of an app. So it's giving people what was called a scavenger
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  hunt and it was just saying talk to strangers but you know like the app gave people goals like talk
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  to someone um with a cool pet or great hair or who's doing something artistic in public.
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  Um and you know they kind of tracked like how often people were doing that and also how they
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  felt afterwards. And what they saw was that on the first day lots of people felt very shy. They
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  were experiencing this thing called the liking gap which is you know that gap in um perception where
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  you you think that the situation is going to be more awkward and more painful than it really is
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  and then actually afterwards you know you find that you did build that rapport quite easily.
• 24:28
  So people had quite a big kind of uh perception gap at the start you know where they were feeling
• 24:33
  very anxious after just 5 days that gap had already closed. So they were already coming to
• 24:39
  um recalibrate their expectations and to recognize that more often than not those interactions were
• 24:45
  going to be fulfilling for both parties and they were going to get this mood boost you know um just
• 24:51
  from reaching out to someone and I think that's incredible just you know 5 days of exercising that
• 24:56
  social muscle is enough to bring about a change in the way we feel. Wow. Wow. So, what if you're not
• 25:03
  naturally a um you know an extroverted person? Because there are some that have got that have
• 25:08
  no problem talking to anyone and anywhere. But what if you're not? What if you're analytical and
• 25:12
  you're introverted and you are painfully shy and it's scary. You don't want to speak to strangers,
• 25:17
  you know. Yeah. Um you know, there's lots of people who feel like that. Um myself included. But
• 25:23
  I I suppose what this this study that I mentioned kind of what that already shows us is that even
• 25:28
  people who were feeling pretty anxious beforehand were benefiting. And there have been others that
• 25:33
  have specifically measured people's introversion and then encouraged them to act more gregariously.
• 25:39
  And what they found was that the people who scored higher on the personality trait of introversion,
• 25:45
  they did feel more pessimistic than extroverts to start with, but they gleaned just as much benefit
• 25:52
  from that afterwards. So pushing them pushing through their introversion helped them to feel
• 26:00
  um kind of greater reward at having had this social interaction. And I would say, you know,
• 26:05
  lots of people are proud introverts. And if you don't want to change your personality,
• 26:08
  maybe you feel like you're getting enough social connection as it is, there's no reason why you
• 26:12
  should feel obliged to change your personality just to fit with society's expectations. And I
• 26:18
  think Susan Kane's book, Quiet, kind of helped us to realize that there's lots of benefits to being
• 26:22
  introverted. But what I find encouraging about that research is that shows that if you want
• 26:26
  to if you feel that your introversion is actually leading to loneliness, then there is a way through
• 26:32
  that. And you can choose which situations you act introverted in and which situations you act more
• 26:37
  gregariously and extroverted. It doesn't have to be one or the other. You have that power. At
• 26:42
  the same time, you probably have some extroverts that probably shouldn't be speaking to everyone.
• 26:45
  They're talking to too many people and they need to bring it down. Well, so that's the other side
• 26:50
  of this research. I know some people like this, right? Yeah. And that was something that surprised
• 26:54
  me with researching the laws of connection was that um yeah, extroverts often are perceived as
• 27:00
  being quite shallow actually. So they might think they've got great people skills, but often they
• 27:05
  don't. Um, and what they could really learn from is how to listen more attentively to people. Uh,
• 27:10
  because um, the perception of extroverts is that they often they'll say platitudes,
• 27:15
  but you're not really establishing that shared reality because they're spreading themselves too
• 27:19
  thinly maybe. Yes. And they're possibly saying things they shouldn't because they're maybe not
• 27:23
  they're so extroverted that they're not actually reading. Maybe an introvert would be a little
• 27:26
  bit more careful and read the body language and perhaps assess the situation a bit more carefully.
• 27:31
  the extrovert will dive in and then possibly say something they shouldn't say or it's a bit
• 27:37
  they just haven't read the room as well. It's too much. You don't always have to speak either. No.
• 27:40
  Yeah. Yeah. And that is I think that's almost the kind of tragedy here is that introverts are maybe
• 27:46
  better equipped to form those really authentic deep relationships but they they avoid the
• 27:52
  situations in which they might be able to avoid it. They avoid it. It's fascinating actually.
• 27:59
  So can mindset actually alter after measurable things like fitness, immune response or pain?
• 28:07
  Can your mindset actually change these things in all of these factors of your life? It can.
• 28:13
  So that was the big question that I set out to um to understand in the expectation effect. Um,
• 28:21
  and you know, there's a century of research looking at an expectation effect called the
• 28:26
  placebo effect, which I think we all know. You know, positive expectations about medications
• 28:30
  often bring relief even if you're actually taking a sugar pill. Yeah, it's a real thing. You know,
• 28:35
  we know that it has physiological effects on the body. So, it can change things like the
• 28:41
  um expression of the indogenous opioids in the brain that will help to reduce inflammation and
• 28:46
  pain, for example. So, you know, we've known for a long time the placebo effect is a real
• 28:50
  thing and that it can be powerful. Um, but what this latest research covers that I was looking
• 28:55
  at for the expectation effect that showed that our mindset can have a similar it can produce
• 29:01
  this kind of placebo type effect in other areas of life. So, fitness, how we respond to a diet,
• 29:09
  how we deal with sleep loss, how we cope with a stressful situation, even how we physically
• 29:14
  age as we get older. And it sounds incredible, but it's all backed up by really robust research. And
• 29:21
  there's always these kind of very um well accepted plausible biological mechanisms. You know, this
• 29:28
  isn't kind of calling on the law of attraction or something pseudoscientific. You know,
• 29:32
  we we know what the connections are between the brain and the body that could produce those. So
• 29:38
  there's things happening with mindset. This is how in layman's terms here. So there there are literal
• 29:44
  things happening within the body that are helping you just by changing your mind about something.
• 29:51
  Yeah. Exactly. And that shouldn't be as surprising as it is when you if you just think about it in
• 29:57
  terms of like what happens during your day. You know, you start thinking about your favorite meal,
• 30:02
  your mouth starts watering. Yeah. Your stomach starts rumbling. Well, that is a change in
• 30:07
  mindset has changed your body in those ways because your brain is controlling the release
• 30:12
  of enzymes that will help you to digest your food and or if you think about an upcoming
• 30:17
  um job interview for example, you might start getting butterflies in your stomach. Um you you'd
• 30:23
  find that your blood pressure was increasing a little bit. You know, that is another case
• 30:26
  of our mindset shaping our physiology. Yeah, what the research is doing is just kind of adding more
• 30:32
  nuance to that and looking at well, how can we change our mindset and in what ways to produce
• 30:37
  the the biggest benefits for us in each of these specific situations? Yeah, I've had things where,
• 30:41
  you know, as a child, I used to run a lot and if my mindset was I'm going to do so well in this
• 30:48
  race, I would just have that mindset for a race just no real reason why this race, but I just knew
• 30:52
  I would do really well in this race and I would know even, you know, before the race started,
• 30:56
  I would I'm going to do so well in the race. I did really well in the race. Then today if I think, oh
• 31:02
  no, that's going to give me anxiety. That's really not. I get so anxious. If I I almost know what's
• 31:08
  going to happen. But you're saying that your mind is programming you in that direction. You've
• 31:13
  decided something. So therefore, all hormones and blood systems and heart and everything is going
• 31:19
  to the sail is set. Yeah. Uh yeah, it is. But but you so I think stress and anxiety is a really good
• 31:26
  example here because um what I'm not saying is well just um repress your stress like just ignore
• 31:34
  it. Yeah. You can't actually the research shows if you just try to kind of stamp down on stress
• 31:38
  you actually feel even more stressed because it's another responsibility. So what we can do rather
• 31:44
  than trying to kind of remove it is just think is is change the way we think about stress and
• 31:51
  its effects. So, um, a lot of us, and I think this has really been promoted in our culture,
• 31:56
  we see stress as just this inherently bad thing. It's like this monster that we have to avoid or
• 32:02
  it's going to be bad for our health and it's going to be bad for our performance. So, we we
• 32:06
  see it as inherently debilitating. So, when you start feeling those butterflies in your stomach
• 32:11
  and your heart racing, you become even more scared because you're like, well, I can't I can't do this
• 32:16
  interview now because I'm going to be performing worse. Um, so you're adding another layer of worry
• 32:21
  and it gets through this kind of vicious cycle of catastrophizing that actually that then impairs
• 32:28
  your performance. Now there's another perfectly rational way of viewing stress and that is that
• 32:34
  it's an adaptive response that was um that evolved to help us to boost our performance in
• 32:41
  the situations where we needed it. So, not just running away from like the lion in the forest,
• 32:47
  but also hunting for our own prey or, you know, um trying to impress the other people in our group so
• 32:54
  that we would maybe rise the ranks in the social hierarchy. And what the research shows is that
• 33:00
  you actually you tell people about this and you explain some of the benefits of stress. The fact
• 33:04
  that when your heart is racing, it's pumping a lot of oxygenated blood around your body which is
• 33:09
  leaving you energized. um the fact that you know those jangling nerves well that's actually a sign
• 33:15
  of cortisol which is kind of waking you up and making you more alert and more focused. Now you
• 33:21
  tell people about those benefits. You've changed their mindset. So stress is no longer this monster
• 33:27
  but something that can be maybe not enjoyed but something that you can accept is a necessary part
• 33:33
  of dealing with the challenge that you're facing. A tool. It's like your AI. It's a tool. Yeah.
• 33:37
  Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. AI. And what you find is that then you know you change people's mindset just
• 33:43
  like that just through education that they then first of all they perform a lot better. So this
• 33:48
  has been shown in like really difficult graduate records examinations in the US for example or you
• 33:53
  know you have people with high maths anxiety who then take their um high school exams and
• 33:58
  they perform much better because they've managed to see that their stress is actually enhancing and
• 34:04
  energizing their performance. They perform better at public speaking. they perform better on the
• 34:09
  sports field. You know, all of these ways they're performing better and physiologically their bodies
• 34:15
  are responding to this stress differently. So, yeah, they're still having that racing heart,
• 34:19
  but their blood pressure isn't spiking so dramatically. Their cortisol levels aren't
• 34:24
  spiking so dramatically. They're actually having a more muted stress response. So,
• 34:28
  it's kind of more more adaptive to the situation at hand. And then afterwards,
• 34:33
  they're better able to relax. So the body goes more quickly into the rest and digest um state
• 34:39
  that it needs to kind of maintain your organs, which is really important for your long-term
• 34:43
  health. And that's really powerful just from a reappraisal of you know how you're feeling. So
• 34:49
  you're not changing how you're feeling. Exactly. You're just changing how you think about what's
• 34:52
  going on. Yeah. You've mentioned expectation effect. So just so we all are clear on you've
• 35:00
  written a book about expect the expectation effect. So can you just tell us what is the
• 35:06
  expectation effect? Um so we understand and how is that different to manifestation? Okay. The whole
• 35:12
  manifestation culture. Yeah. Um so the expectation effect is um this phenomenon where our beliefs
• 35:20
  create self-fulfilling prophecies. And so that can be through changes to perception. You know it just
• 35:26
  changes your kind of mood um essentially or it can change what you focus on in your environment. Um,
• 35:32
  you know, if you focus on like a a happy face in the crowd or the kind of angry face in the crowd,
• 35:38
  what you see. Yeah. So, what you see the yellow car. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Um, through
• 35:42
  changes to your behavior. So, changing moving you from avoidance to approach, for example,
• 35:49
  encouraging you to just do the workouts that you've been avoiding. And then physiologically,
• 35:54
  which we've spoken about. So that kind of mind body connection um in which our mindset is
• 36:00
  actually changing the way our body responds to a challenge. So that's the expectation effect. It's
• 36:05
  got those free mechanisms. Now manifestation I'm sure is very useful for lots of different people.
• 36:11
  Um but I do see a lot of pseudocience around this as well and because I don't think it's as
• 36:16
  specific as the science on the expectation effect. So I don't think it's looking at these particular
• 36:23
  situations and kind of determining when it can help and when it can't. And sometimes with these
• 36:29
  ideas like the law of attraction where you're you're thinking well I will just imagine my
• 36:34
  bank account filled with money and then somehow that money will just come to the religious well
• 36:41
  you call them religious but I won't name just in case I get into trouble but there's some that say
• 36:45
  you know yeah just think of that car think of your Ferrari and you'll just have the Ferrari. Exactly.
• 36:51
  And I don't want to insult people who believe in that. Um, it's just I personally don't think
• 36:55
  that has any scientific basis for it. Now, I still think actually, you know, sometimes it might work
• 37:00
  for some people because if they're changing their mindset in that way, sometimes it might be shaping
• 37:05
  their behavior, for example. So, it could be that if you're really like um focused on getting rich,
• 37:11
  you're also more likely to notice opportunities to start your own business or to apply for a job that
• 37:17
  maybe beforehand you wouldn't have felt confident enough to apply for, but you just think, well,
• 37:21
  you know, I'm manifesting this, so I might as well go out and get it. I think that is healthy. But
• 37:25
  what I don't think is healthy is kind of sitting at home visualizing all of these things but not
• 37:31
  really then having any means of actually achieving that actions and physical happenings I'm going to
• 37:40
  call them now in a non-scientific way. Okay. So, can negative expectations then damage your health,
• 37:47
  damage your performance? Having negative thoughts? Because I had someone in here um a a facialist to
• 37:53
  the royals who built an empire, global empire in skincare. And um the one thing she captured wants
• 38:01
  nothing to do with is that negative what mindset, let's call it negative mindset. And if she spots
• 38:10
  something even remotely negative, she goes, "Never do that again." H interesting. And I just thought,
• 38:16
  "Whoa, relax." But she's right. And she's, you know, what's that then? Yeah. Um to my that's a
• 38:25
  little extreme. Um but I um it is certainly true that negative expectations can have um you know,
• 38:35
  a real influence on important outcomes. Yeah. And so, you know, in in medicine, for example,
• 38:42
  we've spoken about the placebo effect, but um there's also uh what's often known as the kind of
• 38:47
  evil twin, which is the nosibo effect, and that is where negative expectations create noibo effect.
• 38:54
  Nosibo. So, it comes from Latin to mean kind of um I will harm rather than I will please. Um wow. And
• 39:02
  you know um a lot of drug side effects um are kind of amplified by a noboa effect. So you're warned
• 39:09
  by your doctor that your pills might create you know headaches or nausea and then through the mind
• 39:16
  body connection your brain is then creating those symptoms and they're you know physically real.
• 39:21
  So for example when people are warned that they might get a headache even though they're taking
• 39:25
  a sugar pill. Um yeah and you can see that there are changes in you know like neurotransmitters
• 39:32
  things that would change the vascule of the brain you know make those vessels a little
• 39:36
  more dilated which might be behind the pain you can see those kinds of changes just like we saw
• 39:41
  with the placebo effect and I experienced this myself when I was on a course of anti-depressants
• 39:46
  um and this was actually what inspired um the expectation effect for me so my doctor had
• 39:51
  warned me you might have you know bad headaches because of these and you know within a few days
• 39:57
  had the same I read that and take it seriously. Exactly. And um but luckily I was writing a piece
• 40:04
  about the mindbody connection for the BBC at the time. And so that made me think, well,
• 40:09
  I'm just going to actually look at the scientific literature, like, you know, how much of this is an
• 40:13
  inevitable um biological reaction to the chemicals in the pills and how much, you know, might it
• 40:20
  just be an expectation effect? And what I found from that was, well, actually, when you compare,
• 40:26
  you know, people taking the drugs with people who believe they're taking the drugs, but they're not,
• 40:30
  actually, you see that there's a really sizable nibbo effect there. Sizable. Yeah. So, you know,
• 40:36
  I'd say the majority of people who experience the headaches, you know, are probably experiencing it
• 40:42
  because of their expectations. And opening my mind to that possibility. It is that is powerful. And
• 40:47
  opening my mind to that possibility um kind of made the pain disappear almost immediately. So,
• 40:53
  that then made me think, you know, well, what else can our expectations do? And that was why
• 40:58
  I started collecting you know a whole body of like 400 papers um that eventually became the
• 41:05
  expectation effect. Wow. This is very empowering. You realize how strong your mind is. Yeah. Yeah.
• 41:12
  Exactly. Okay. And then you wrote a book called The Intelligence Trap. Yeah. That
• 41:18
  was my um first book in my first book. So tell us about intelligence trap. What what's it about? Uh
• 41:23
  so that is about um why smart people make stupid decisions and how to avoid doing that ourselves. A
• 41:31
  nice title. Do do smart people make stupid or bad decisions? Um yeah, worryingly frequently. Yep. Um
• 41:41
  and so there are what I discovered was that there are lots of reasons for that. one is the fact that
• 41:47
  um so you know IQ I'm not going to bash IQ because I think it certainly you know has
• 41:51
  its place in scientific research and it does correlate with some important things like
• 41:55
  um um educational achievement primarily but also then you know how people do in their careers um
• 42:01
  so there is something in IQ that matters um it's it is reflecting the kind of efficiency of our
• 42:07
  neural networks to a certain degree but I kind of compare that to the engine of a car so you could
• 42:13
  have like a super fast engine, but but it's if you don't have like a good suspension, good steering,
• 42:20
  a GPS to guide you on the right route, like that can just drive you off a cliff really quickly if
• 42:25
  you don't have checks and balances to kind of keep it in control. And that's really what happens with
• 42:30
  um the intelligence trap is that, you know, we need all of these other traits that I write about.
• 42:36
  So things like um intellectual humility, open-mindedness, um uh and the ability to take
• 42:45
  other people's perspectives, you know, things that aren't measured by Q that um can prevent us from
• 42:53
  um from driving off that cliff. I love that you I love that you're writing about this and
• 42:58
  talking about this because the other day I was actually looking into I don't know what I was
• 43:04
  doing it for. I think research research um and uh I looked at different types of how how are
• 43:10
  intelligence types categorized and yes you've got the the more academic intelligence which is a lot
• 43:18
  of it is is what you've learned memory retention but then there is another that's a a pillar and
• 43:24
  um some people have you know everyone has some level of it but you might have more or less but
• 43:29
  another massive pillar is emotional intelligence and I suppose some of the things that you were
• 43:34
  mentioning there would fall into that. Yeah. And um it's possibly one of the most powerful forms
• 43:40
  of intelligence. Um and then there was another one which is it's almost like an intelligence
• 43:46
  that allows you to adapt and learn on the fly. So nothing taught nothing memory retained but solving
• 43:55
  on the problem. Yeah. Kind of I don't remember flexible intelligence or something like that.
• 44:00
  Yeah. Exactly. I mean cognitive flexibility is hugely important and that doesn't automatically
• 44:04
  go with um um kind of IQ style intelligence, analytical intelligence. No. And so there was some
• 44:11
  great work by this guy called um Keith Stanovich who was working in Toronto. And so he came up with
• 44:18
  something called the rationality quotient and that was essentially looking at how susceptible people
• 44:23
  are to cognitive bias. So those things that the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Carnean looked into. So
• 44:31
  anchoring which is where you know you're buying a house and your estate agent shows you a super
• 44:37
  expensive house first of all and then shows right and then they show you something not so good um
• 44:44
  but because they've anchored your idea of what a reasonable price for a house is you then pay more
• 44:49
  for the second term cruel. So um he looked at all of these kind of things and what he found was that
• 44:55
  um um you know the the two are just imperfectly correlated and so what that means is that you can
• 45:02
  have some people who are highly intelligent but also highly susceptible to cognitive bias. And
• 45:08
  he calls this discretionalia. So it's a kind of akin to dyslexia where you know dyslexic people
• 45:15
  can score really highly on all kinds of areas of intelligence but it's a kind of isolated issue
• 45:21
  with um with reading. Well with discretionalia it's the same. You can score great on cognitive
• 45:27
  tests but then when it comes to actually making a rational judgment you're failing. Um now the the
• 45:34
  good thing about that is that well first of all he thinks that by measuring it you know you can
• 45:39
  identify you know who might be most suitable for particular roles and who wouldn't be suitable
• 45:44
  because the potential for cognitive bias to do damage would be so much greater. But also
• 45:49
  the the good news is that often we can by learning about those biases we can increase our rationality
• 45:55
  equation. So there are ways to become more rational whatever your intelligence. I've never
• 46:00
  heard about that. That that's a fascinating way to think about human behavior. It will
• 46:05
  also explain to a large extent why some people choose the partners they do and get influenced
• 46:11
  by people the way they do, you know, dragged into things and conned and Exactly. Yeah. And so one
• 46:17
  of those biases that he looks at that I think is especially important is something called
• 46:21
  um the sunk cost fallacy, which is once you've put a lot of investment into a project, you don't
• 46:28
  want to let that investment go. So you might know like everything might be you know everyone might
• 46:33
  be telling you this is failing like pull out but you don't because you can't bear to see all of
• 46:37
  that money wasted and I think you know with like you were saying with relationships I think often
• 46:42
  we've put in a lot of emotional investment there and so we we don't want to leave that person even
• 46:47
  though we know they're not good for us. No but yes and I've got this I encounter clients like this
• 46:52
  you know sometimes they're very precious about something that they've invested in. It's a lot of
• 46:56
  money's gone into it, people's time, everything. It's an emotional thing as well. Yeah. And then
• 47:01
  you kind of you do the the research that shows Yeah. possibly not a good idea. And then you've
• 47:07
  got to be um a good business person, you know, you got to do the the right thing to sort of say,
• 47:12
  but you've also got to manage personalities and be delicate and try and gently steer without sort
• 47:20
  of destroying the relationship with a client. I mean it's which is where emotional intelligence
• 47:25
  comes in. I think to be able to do that and on the side of the client I think they have
• 47:30
  to use their emotional intelligence to recognize that okay it hurts but I'm going to feel better
• 47:35
  in the long run if I scrap that and that's not an easy decision to come to. Not at all. Not at all.
• 47:43
  It's a very difficult one. I find facts sometimes help but it's a presentation of facts that's the
• 47:47
  more the more difficult thing. So um so do these successful people let's say business owners fall
• 47:56
  into different types of thinking errors like do they do they make certain types of errors? Yeah.
• 48:04
  You know I think there's such a wide span of potential cognitive errors that we can
• 48:09
  make that we're all probably falling into some of them. But I'd say that one thing that seems
• 48:14
  to afflict people with expertise in particular is this phenomenon called earned dogmatism. And it's
• 48:21
  like you've reached a certain point in your career where you've kind of proven yourself. And so you
• 48:28
  you come to to trust too much in your judgment because of that. And obviously expertise does help
• 48:34
  um you to make better predictions for the future. But these people just close their minds to any
• 48:40
  new information. and they just forget the fact that you know situations change they
• 48:45
  lose that flexibility that we spoke about. So they become very dogmatic. It's like my way
• 48:50
  or not at all. Um so that does seem to come with expertise and it's incredibly inhibiting because
• 48:57
  um you know the the capacity to update our beliefs is really fundamental to rationality and so it's
• 49:04
  exposing you to lots of different biases this process of earned dogmatism. I mean, I love
• 49:10
  the way you you word things, the way that you just said the ability to update your beliefs. It's such
• 49:16
  a beautifully it's it's just you've coined the term because that is what it is and yes, we have
• 49:22
  our beliefs and we should be updating them. Yeah. Based on the information and we should never stop
• 49:28
  growing. So, I love the update. It's like updating your apps and updating everything. You should be
• 49:32
  updating these beliefs. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. you know in business it's a market can change
• 49:38
  very quickly and you need to be prepared for that. You need to accept that sometimes everything that
• 49:42
  you've thought you know is no longer applicable and so you have to start again um like in Zen
• 49:48
  Buddhism you call this the kind of beginners's mindset and actually we we lose the beginner's
• 49:53
  mindset when we accumulate our expertise but we should always retain a part of it always be ready
• 49:59
  to learn more to grow like you said because that makes us more flexible and better able to deal
• 50:04
  with new challenges. So why are we then so why is it so hard for people to admit they're wrong? All
• 50:10
  of us included. It's difficult to say, "Oh, I made a mistake. I'm wrong." Why? It is. And I think a
• 50:16
  lot of it is because we um we begin to attach our expertise and our performance to our ego and to
• 50:25
  our identity. I think that's the main thing. It's like, well, if I no longer can predict,
• 50:30
  you know, what's going to happen in my business, like, who am I essentially because I've I've I've
• 50:36
  established so much of my identity around the fact that I'm a successful business person who knows
• 50:40
  this market inside out. Um, and then it's it's just really painful to admit that maybe, you know,
• 50:46
  you don't know as much as you did, um, as you thought you did. Um, but there are ways around
• 50:53
  that. Um so one is to develop this growth mindset and to recognize that when you make a mistake that
• 50:59
  is actually just a sign of growth. It's a it's giving you the potential for further improvement.
• 51:04
  So if you you focus on your trajectory, it's not so scary if you make one mistake because it's not
• 51:10
  going to bring you crashing down. It's just going to mean that you can actually um you know build
• 51:15
  on your expertise and become even better. Um so that can be really powerful. Another is a process
• 51:21
  called self-affirmation which um I don't like the term because it sounds a bit like manifestation
• 51:26
  self affirmation. Okay. But but actually what this is is more just recognizing that there
• 51:30
  are you know you're multifaceted as a person. So your whole identity doesn't have to rest on any
• 51:35
  particular expertise or trait. And what you find is that when people you ask people to essentially
• 51:41
  list like you know what are my best qualities and to explain why the you know top three are so
• 51:46
  important for them. And it could be, you know, in addition to being an entrepreneur, I'm also um a
• 51:51
  devoted uh mother or father or, you know, that I, you know, play music in my spare time. And that's
• 51:57
  really essential for me, like that creativity. Um, you find you remind people that they're more than
• 52:02
  just this one single trait and then they they find it easier to then recognize that they may
• 52:08
  have made a mistake because it suddenly it doesn't feel like their whole identity is crashing. It's
• 52:12
  just one part of them that that they can then grow and build again. Do you know why why I like to be
• 52:18
  um a business owner, let's say? Um I and I really loved to be an employee as well and and do a job
• 52:25
  really well. Okay, I loved that. The thing about the job that I did was I never quite thought that
• 52:30
  I was good enough to do that job. It was very technical. I'm not that technical, you know,
• 52:36
  lot of numbers. I mean, maths for me, but I had to do it all the time and details and everything. And
• 52:42
  I thought, but I'm better at comms and I wish I did more people things. But I did that job.
• 52:46
  I did it for a long, long time, but it really relied on me. And when I didn't do something
• 52:51
  well or I wasn't able to do something as well as some other people that came really naturally
• 52:55
  to them and they loved then, you know, number crunching all the programming and everything,
• 52:59
  I it took a lot out of me to do it. I could do it eventually, but it just took so much energy out
• 53:04
  of me. And then I would be hard on myself as well and I would um I would almost suffer in the fact
• 53:09
  that I'm not I don't have this skill or I don't have that skill and I wish I was better at these
• 53:15
  things. And it's like you you look at yourself in in in isolation in a way of the job that you're
• 53:20
  doing. The good thing about having a business and working with other people is that it's then
• 53:26
  okay to not have expertise like the detailed you know down to the most granular level expertise in
• 53:34
  something specific. You bring in someone that's better than you. Yeah. about that thing and you
• 53:39
  know you need to know enough but you have that it's almost like help in all these areas and
• 53:44
  you bring these people and you you you realize the power of a team and it's just the most empowering
• 53:51
  amazing thing and in a way you've got to let go of your ego you've got to then admit I can't do
• 53:55
  everything I'm not good at this thing they are more skilled than me you've got to accept and
• 54:01
  value that and I it it's that is a mind mind um set change. It's something I've It's like been a
• 54:08
  journey. I've had to learn that. Yeah, definitely. It's not easy, but I think it is is demonstrating,
• 54:15
  you know, what I referred to as intellectual humility there to recognize it's okay for me to
• 54:20
  accept I don't know this and someone else knows it better because you can't know everything,
• 54:24
  right? My identity isn't built around knowing everything. What I'm doing is bringing all of this
• 54:30
  together and kind of helping to set the overall vision for what I'm creating. Yeah. Yeah. And then
• 54:36
  you can appreciate the ones that love the numbers and that's what they want to do but they don't
• 54:40
  want to do the talking necessarily with a client and then you all realize how beneficial it is to
• 54:44
  work together and actually then you're a whole and then it's complete and everyone's skills are used
• 54:51
  in the way that because everyone's got something to bring when you when you actually sit with a
• 54:55
  person that's why I love the podcast you realize how much there is in in each person and you think
• 55:01
  wow you know I I don't think about things that way and it's just incredible. I just find when
• 55:06
  you give people that time and you open up to them what they bring, it is it is I mean it's
• 55:12
  interesting. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And I think it's just really fundamental for leaders to understand
• 55:18
  that you know acknowledging that there's a gap in your knowledge like that doesn't have to be
• 55:24
  um a sign of weakness and that people don't read it as a sign of weakness. You actually get more
• 55:28
  respect for doing that than for bluffing. um and you set a kind of culture where everyone then is
• 55:35
  a bit more willing to be intellectually humble and the knock-on effect of that is that you then avoid
• 55:41
  um those cognitive biases that I spoke about. So you're actually kind of by modeling that behavior,
• 55:47
  you're really protecting your company from going down, you know, that terrible route of like a
• 55:54
  company like Enron where there was very little intellectual humility. Okay. Do you want to just
• 56:00
  tell people about what happened with Enrog, just in case someone doesn't know? Yeah. So, I'm no
• 56:04
  expert at all, but I think like it was a company that was famous for, you know, having the smartest
• 56:09
  people in the world working for it. And everyone was going to be the smartest person in the world.
• 56:14
  Um, but they were also all covering up, you know, mistakes, dubious work practices, you know,
• 56:19
  that ultimately led to the collapse of the company with like a huge knock on effect for the economy.
• 56:25
  Um and so that's often in psychology and business psychology that is taken as this kind of example
• 56:31
  of of the dangers of intellectual arrogance and you know you want to be very different from that
• 56:37
  and I think someone like Warren Buffett is actually you know he's quite famous for his
• 56:41
  intellectual humility and for his ability to update his beliefs based on new information
• 56:46
  and so he's you know I'm sure he has flaws but he's often taken as you know better example of a
• 56:54
  um a wise means of doing business because of this. Yes. And investing in yourself. That's
• 56:59
  something that he always, you know, if you his tip to anyone starting off or anyone at all actually,
• 57:04
  doesn't matter what age you are, is to take that time to invest in yourself. Do some courses,
• 57:08
  work on your communications, the soft skills, you know, that that sort of interacting with people.
• 57:13
  Yeah. Yeah. Which I wish we didn't call them soft skills because they're easily as important as the
• 57:18
  hard skills. Um so I think we need to almost have a kind of image change here of what how we
• 57:25
  value those other elements that actually in the expect in the intelligence struct I show it you
• 57:30
  know just as important for making good decisions as say intelligence or expertise which would be
• 57:35
  considered like hard skills. M I actually bring in um public speakers and trained actors onto
• 57:42
  the show to help with coms, you know, to even how you speak on camera in a Zoom call and what you do
• 57:50
  with your hands and what you do with your camera and your body language and what you even what you
• 57:54
  wear, what you know, how you how you behave and um or whether you're standing on a stage. How do
• 57:59
  you do that? Are there any hacks? Anything you can do with your voice? you know that wobbling
• 58:03
  voice just before you the nervous swallow. It's a major problem for me. It's a major problem. But
• 58:10
  there's things you can do. There's there's you can actually you really can and you can also hire a
• 58:15
  personal coach. You can get training in that and they'll sit with you and they'll watch what you
• 58:20
  Yeah. You know, we even have intelligence officers and people like that for body um body language
• 58:25
  reading cues. you know what you do with your hands, how you sit, how you you know, he would,
• 58:28
  for example, say you're sitting very confidently because you you've got your chest, you know,
• 58:32
  you're not hiding your your body. So the way that you sit and you're open to receiving information
• 58:37
  and it's it's important even how you sit. Yeah. Exactly. No. And we, you know, we're giving off
• 58:43
  all of these cues that we don't realize. Um, I would say body language is really important, but I
• 58:50
  think the substance of what you're saying is also so essential that um that if you are someone who,
• 58:56
  you know, you're going into a meeting and you're really self-conscious of all of the way that
• 59:00
  you're holding yourself, don't feel too nervous or worried about that. Don't catastrophize that
• 59:04
  because actually if you have the competence and the warmth, those are the two things we
• 59:09
  need for charisma. Competence and warmth. So, you seem like a genuine, honest person who's
• 59:16
  willing to cooperate and you know what you're talking about. Those are the fundamentals that
• 59:20
  people are going to be judging you on when they appraise whether you're going to be a good leader,
• 59:24
  for example. Wow. I love this. I love this. Um, so we spoke a little bit about um the mindset of some
• 59:33
  of the high achievers, they make mistakes and and um they're sort of closed off to to information.
• 59:40
  Um, which is interesting, but I love the updating your beliefs. Um, so what's the most
• 59:47
  surprising research you've seen on confidence and self-belief? Um, so there it's actually something
• 59:56
  I'm researching for my next book. Um and it's basically it it's kind of extending what I wrote
• 1:00:06
  about in the expectation effect but it's looking at this um quality called selfefficacy. So that
• 1:00:12
  is your confidence. Can I you know do what needs to be done to reach my goal. It's as simple as
• 1:00:19
  that. And so you can have self-efficacy in you know all different areas of your life. And it
• 1:00:24
  might be different. Um, you know, you might have low self-efficacy in working out, for example,
• 1:00:30
  but high self-efficacy in starting a new business. Um, but we also have, you know, there do tend to
• 1:00:36
  be correlations between them. So that would mean that some people, you know, lack self-efficacy in
• 1:00:40
  lots of areas in their life and some have high self-efficacy in um most of the areas of their
• 1:00:46
  life. And what you see is that this is basically the number one psychological factor for predicting
• 1:00:52
  who will um achieve what they want in that particular domain. It's you can look at all kinds
• 1:00:59
  of different um factors that might influence it. So like education levels for example um you know
• 1:01:07
  um self-esteem which is slightly different. That's about how you value yourself. So do you feel like
• 1:01:12
  you're a worthwhile person or not? which isn't quite the same as feeling confident that you can
• 1:01:16
  execute the right actions. Um, it just, you know, knocks the socks off of all of those other things
• 1:01:21
  that we might think were important. Um, and so the big question is, well, how do we get become more
• 1:01:28
  self-efficacious? How do we build that confidence? And there are a few different ways, but one of the
• 1:01:34
  things that um is so important is just to make sure that when you're going kind of step by step
• 1:01:38
  through your goal, you're kind of building up your competence slowly and at each point you have
• 1:01:44
  a mastery experience. So you proved yourself that I was able to do this. Can I do the and then that
• 1:01:50
  gives you the confidence that I can do the next thing well. So it's very relevant for example in
• 1:01:54
  learning new skills. I think I've seen it say in public speaking you know like I didn't start kind
• 1:02:00
  of giving talks to thousands of people to start with I would you know just practicing alone at
• 1:02:07
  home to prove to myself that I could get through a talk you know get it actually store it in my
• 1:02:13
  mind and produce it you know that built up my self-efficacy so that I could then practice giving
• 1:02:18
  a talk to my friends and then to my colleagues and then giving you know bigger talks at literary
• 1:02:24
  festival festivals and then a TEDex talk. So, you know, it's really important and I think one of the
• 1:02:29
  big um reasons for failure is often we're just too ambitious. So, we're trying to do something that
• 1:02:36
  um that is beyond our current skill set and that really damages our self-efficacy and leaves us
• 1:02:41
  driver give up or just damages our confidence. So, we're having all of those terrible nerves. But
• 1:02:46
  what the research shows is that everyone can build up their self-efficacy if they just take that slow
• 1:02:51
  stepby-step trajectory and really plan it out accordingly. That's beautiful advice. That's
• 1:02:56
  absolutely wonderful you said that there's a a a marathon runner. I don't know if you know him,
• 1:03:01
  Elliot Kipchigi. Oh yes, I do. Yes. And um and they asked him, "Why don't you get nervous or
• 1:03:07
  do you get nervous or what's going through your mind?" And you know when you're standing there and
• 1:03:10
  you have to perform there's all these expectations on him you know to like he has to be the best all
• 1:03:14
  the time and he's not always the best but he he has to go through that every time he stands on
• 1:03:19
  that start line and he said what you just said which is I always remember the training that I
• 1:03:25
  did. Yeah. All those mornings that I had to get up every run and how that's built up over time.
• 1:03:31
  I know what I've done the work I've put in. Yeah. And that's easy to forget when and so reminding
• 1:03:37
  ourselves of that journey is also a way to kind of boost our self-efficacy just before the important
• 1:03:42
  event. And that's what I do before my book talks for example. It's like I remember is that I've
• 1:03:47
  done this before. I've given talks. I've never had a disaster. I've done the research. I know
• 1:03:52
  the material. You know, one time like I had a few notes on my iPad and then it ran out of battery
• 1:03:59
  and you know and that was ah moment right it was actually the it was transformative in fact because
• 1:04:05
  after that I felt so much more confident because then I just had to do it all from memory and I did
• 1:04:10
  it fine and actually my publicist came up to me afterwards and she's like that was amazing
• 1:04:14
  what's your secret you've improved so much and it was because you know I was in that moment spoke
• 1:04:18
  naturally. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I I reappraised my stress response as well. So I was just telling
• 1:04:24
  myself, you know, it's fine. You feel nervous, that's natural, but you you can do this. And is
• 1:04:30
  actually helping you to remember more if you feel more alert than, you know, the worst thing would
• 1:04:35
  be to give a talk and you're feeling quite so chilled, you're actually a bit drowsy and you're
• 1:04:40
  not on top of it. So Okay. So I'm just going to ask you now, but I'm going to roll these two into
• 1:04:46
  one. So um why do some people seem more naturally magnetic or charismatic than others? Yeah. Um so I
• 1:04:55
  think this comes back to those two key factors. Um I think we can over complicate what charisma
• 1:05:01
  is. But I think if you really want to see who gains the most respect, it is having confidence,
• 1:05:06
  proven confidence in what you're saying and um warmth. And so I think warmth. Yeah. So,
• 1:05:14
  you know how do you seem like the kind of person who is going to cooperate, who's genuine, who's
• 1:05:21
  telling the truth um or do you seem like someone who is very polished and holding themselves back
• 1:05:29
  and actually that is often what we mistake for charisma but it isn't what people the average
• 1:05:35
  person is responding to. And so that that kind of makes me think of a finding that I found very
• 1:05:40
  powerful while researching the laws of connection which was something called the beautiful mess
• 1:05:44
  effect. Okay. So you look at someone like Princess Diana who I think we all agree had tons of
• 1:05:49
  charisma. I mean totally incredible how popular she became when she gave her um interview to
• 1:05:57
  Panorama. Like a lot of the royal family thought she had basically provided her own character
• 1:06:03
  assassination because she had revealed her vulnerability. um she you know had said things her
• 1:06:09
  own she had openly admitted to a lot of mistakes herself as well as the you know kind of general
• 1:06:14
  problem she was facing with the royal family. So they were quite chilled about it actually.
• 1:06:18
  They thought, you know, this is the end of Diana basically. But her popularity increased massively
• 1:06:23
  after that interview. And it was because she had been open and honest and showed her vulnerability
• 1:06:29
  that she actually gained a lot more respect. And I think that's a powerful demonstration,
• 1:06:34
  you know, which has also been kind of proven in scientific experiments that actually showing your
• 1:06:39
  vulnerability can actually be a way to charisma. Yeah. And she still did so in a very nice sort of,
• 1:06:44
  you know, in a in a very elegant way, you know. Yeah. Um, yeah, she's incredible. I did see some
• 1:06:50
  some social media about her how she interacted with the little kitties that she went to go
• 1:06:54
  and see, you know, in all these these areas and she'd sit with them and be very warm and tactile
• 1:06:59
  and just Exactly. So, I think all of, you know, and I know she's still a very divisive figure,
• 1:07:04
  but I think it's kind of undeniable that she did have charisma and I think her vulnerability was
• 1:07:08
  part of that is what helped so many people to relate to her and respect her. Yeah, it sort
• 1:07:14
  of comes back to that emotional intelligence as well. Um, yeah. And the ability to read a room,
• 1:07:19
  to read the the temperature of a country, to read the the temperature of an issue that's
• 1:07:24
  going on and possibly how to react to it. I know that, right, is risky sometimes, you know, um,
• 1:07:30
  to reveal your vulnerability, but, you know, there is research showing that it works for leaders,
• 1:07:34
  you know, in business. Like I said, like kind of recognizing you your kind of intellectual
• 1:07:41
  humility, you know, is respected, but also, you know, opening up to mistakes is respected too for
• 1:07:46
  the same reason because people suddenly see like there's a human being behind that. Someone who is
• 1:07:52
  warm and honest and cares about what they're doing and that's charismatic. Yeah. But then again,
• 1:07:57
  you also have the celebrities, the tabloid things where they releasing absolutely everything. Every
• 1:08:01
  bad, you don't even know if these things are even valid or some of them are making it up to get the
• 1:08:06
  PR. Some of them take it so far. Every single bad thing in the whole universe has happened
• 1:08:10
  to them and they're coming up with something new every week just to get into the papers and
• 1:08:14
  it's almost too much of it and then it's, you know, yeah, sometimes this can be exploited
• 1:08:18
  as well. I think it can and I think people do have quite a good filter, you know. It's like
• 1:08:23
  um you can the worst thing is if it looks like you're lying or trying to be manipulative because
• 1:08:28
  then that takes your warmth rating right down. If it looks like you're playing on people's emotions
• 1:08:34
  just to kind of rise the hierarchy people is kind of an evolved response that we're very skeptical
• 1:08:40
  of anyone who might be manipulating us. So I think it has to be a kind of you know genuine
• 1:08:45
  authenticity. That's what you have to be aware of. you know, however you're acting, you know, is this
• 1:08:51
  going to be perceived as authentic or is it going to be seen as some kind of power play? Um, that's
• 1:08:56
  that's the kind of big rule I would say that um and anything that will be seen as manipulative is
• 1:09:01
  going to backfire and we've seen that happening. We've seen it and even within the royal family,
• 1:09:07
  we don't have to go into mentioning, but we've seen that happening happening a lot. Okay. So if
• 1:09:12
  if for the viewers if they can take away one thing from the research that you've done scientifically
• 1:09:19
  backed um that can really help turn their lives around, change their career path if that's what
• 1:09:24
  they want to do. What would that be? Um so forgive me because this is going to sound very soft, but I
• 1:09:32
  mean I it's evidencebacked and very powerful and that is to treat yourself with self-compassion.
• 1:09:38
  Um, now we kind of I think you know you hear the word self-compassion and it seems like I don't
• 1:09:46
  know it seems like you might be just talking about kind of luxuriating in your sorrow or you know
• 1:09:53
  um indulging yourself. Um, and we kind of pride ourselves in having very high standards and being
• 1:09:58
  my you know lots of people say I'm my I'm my you know my worst critic or like you can't say
• 1:10:04
  anything that I don't know already because I'm so critical to myself. Um, but self-criticism
• 1:10:09
  just really backfires. Like there's such a huge body of evidence showing that when we we think
• 1:10:16
  we're being productive when we beat ourselves up about something because we we think that's the
• 1:10:20
  best means of changing to punish ourselves for having made a mistake. Um, but the the opposite
• 1:10:27
  is true because when you're overly self-critical, it creates this kind of in um really inhibiting
• 1:10:33
  stress response that um is bad for your cognition. So, your decision- making and your mental health
• 1:10:40
  and it quickly becomes this kind of spiral. You're actually less able to think about ways out of your
• 1:10:46
  problem when you're being overly self-critical and like um taking your mistake very personally.
• 1:10:52
  Whereas if you're self-compassionate and all that means is you're accepting that you know making
• 1:10:58
  these errors is this kind of you know is part of the human experience that no one can be perfect
• 1:11:03
  100% of the time and recognizing that you can acknowledge your error while still being kind to
• 1:11:08
  yourself. You don't have to have your inner critic calling you all of these horrible names. You don't
• 1:11:13
  have to start questioning your whole um uh kind of credibility just because you made one mistake. So
• 1:11:20
  you start you can make excuses for yourself. You can look for the other factors that might have
• 1:11:25
  influence influenced what you did while still also recognizing that fundamentally there was something
• 1:11:29
  wrong with your you know with your actions that you can improve on. Um people who do that are just
• 1:11:35
  much healthier. They have lower levels of things like inflammation which we know is related to our
• 1:11:41
  overall health. Um you know they're less likely to suffer from kind of cardiovascular disease uh that
• 1:11:47
  kind of stuff. But also they are just better at changing. they're much better at self-improvement.
• 1:11:51
  By being kind to yourself, you're putting yourself in this um position where you have more cognitive
• 1:11:58
  flexibility. You're better able to solve problems and to to make the changes that you need to avoid
• 1:12:04
  the same mistake happening again. Gosh, we can help ourselves after all. Stop being so
• 1:12:11
  mean to yourself. That's what you're saying. Stop being so horrible. Yeah. Treat yourself like it's
• 1:12:15
  a kind of cliche, but you know, talk to yourself like, you know, a friend or family member might.
• 1:12:19
  And that would involve maybe telling, you know, recognizing the mistake, telling you some home
• 1:12:25
  truths about what you did wrong, but not judging you eternally for that mistake and not, you know,
• 1:12:32
  dealing in like name calling or questioning, you know, your whole future based on one
• 1:12:38
  error. Some of us are definitely very strict with ourselves. you know, loosen up a bit. Yeah. Be
• 1:12:45
  easy on ourselves. It's the way to success is to actually to treat ourselves with kindness. It's
• 1:12:51
  been very educational. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for coming on and I hope
• 1:12:57
  people listen and benefit and realize that this is sciencebacked and we do have power
• 1:13:04
  over our minds. Yep. Yeah. No, we really do. Thank you for your time. It's been a pleasure.