Helena Boschi
Appearances
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
Hi, Mike. It's great to be here.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
Well, we live a lot of our lives and we do a lot of things without really thinking about why we do what we do. We use language without being really intentional. We make decisions and we don't know what's underpinning them. We are frightened and we sometimes don't know why.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
And we tend to use habits and we don't really think about the habits we have and why we have resorted to those particular habits. So as soon as we start really thinking about why we're doing what we're doing and paying attention to our behavior, even the small stuff, we become much more intentional about the decisions we take, the behaviors we use, the language we deploy around us.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
Whenever we say anything, we need to remember that the brain is very visual. And so the brain likes to try and convert words to pictures very quickly. So whenever we use a word like elephant or dog or tropical beach, the brain starts to see these things straight away, not the word, but the visual association of the word. But the brain doesn't see every single word.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
And so we've got to, if we want to try, and different words, of course, light up different parts of the brain. So when you're using very visual words, the back of the head, which is our visual cortex, that starts to become more active. If we're using words associated with movement, our motor cortex lights up more. And the same thing happens with words associated with taste or smell.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
And those areas light up. So the brain responds to different words very well. The brain also responds to words that carry a high emotional component. And that starts to activate lots of different areas of the brain. So when we have words that are
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
more sentimental or associated with the home or family, for example, then the brain starts to activate the areas of memory, which are to do with personal memory, as well as the visual cortex. So the more we really think about language and the more descriptive or vivid our language becomes, the more we're activating different parts of the brain.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
So if I said to you, don't look behind you, Mike, you might immediately want to look behind you or don't take this personally, Mike, you might think, oh, no, what's coming? we sometimes use words in the opposite way to what's intended. So we say to young children, don't go over there, don't play with that, don't spill that drink, don't touch that.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
And then we wonder why they're being so disobedient, because the brain will turn as much as it can into something visual, except when it can't. But the key thing to remember is the brain is negatively wired. So the brain tends to hook to negatively salient information over positive.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
And when we hear things like any bad news or gossip about other people, or receive negative feedback, it sticks, it becomes very cognitively sticky in the brain. And it takes quite a lot to dislodge this. So for example, if you're
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
if you're trying to give someone feedback in a meeting and you think, well, I'll start with a positive, I'll then give the negative, I'll end on a positive, and that's typically called the feedback sandwich. What we don't take into account is that the negatively loaded information will tend to stick much more strongly in the brain.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
So the positive information that you've given, even though it's twice as much, won't be held by the brain. And we tend to walk away from discussions like that and conversations like that, only holding onto the negative. So language is quite a complex thing.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
And we've got to really think about how we put conversations together, what we want to get out of the conversation, how we want someone to leave feeling at the end of a conversation.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
Well, there are lots of different tools to use for different outcomes. So if you want someone to feel more motivated, then you need to focus on the behavior that you want repeated, then you need to lock that in with them. So you focus on that. We think we're being motivational when we try and give them praise and then we give them criticism at the same time.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
Brain can't handle that because it holds only onto the negative. So if we really want to motivate someone and make them feel good about something, the first thing we've got to do is be very specific about what's gone well so they know exactly what they did well and so that you get that repeated response. forever more.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
If you want someone to improve their performance, the best thing you can do is focus on what you need them to do, but time it so that it's just before the next event. We tend to put everything all together immediately after an event. So that poor person can't do anything with any implied criticism because they have nothing to throw the advice at.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
And even though we mean it as a developmental piece of advice, that person's still holding it as a criticism. So I would say simplify the conversation, separate the feedback, keep people feeling motivated by focusing specifically on what went well and wait until the next event before advising them or guiding them into how to do something better.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
Yes. We aren't born with language. We have to learn language. But you could argue that we're all born very curious and to adapt to our surroundings. And then you could argue. So very interesting experiments have been carried out with children. And George Land was probably one of the most famous pioneers of this.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
And he wanted to see how creative, and he calls it divergent thinking, where the brain just goes off on a limb and starts exploring possibilities and ideas. And one idea leads to another, leads to another. And he decided he was working with NASA at the time. And I think this was around the 1960s. He was working with his colleague, Beth Jarman.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
And he wanted to see how creative, how divergent would children be at the age of five. And he followed them for 10 years to see how education would affect their creativity, how teaching would how growing up would affect their creativity. And when he found that at the age of five, children are naturally very curious, very creative, very divergent in their thinking, and nothing really phases them.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
Children just plunge headlong into something and give it a go. Now, by the age of 15, well, he did it again at the age of 10, and he did it again at the age of 15. This ability to think divergently had reduced children massively. And, you know, you could point the fault at the education system or the way that we narrow down our expertise.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
We think we become good at something, so we stop trying other things. But he found that by the age of 15, I think 95% of children at the age of five were able to think divergently and creatively. But by the time they'd reached 15, it had gone down to about, I think it was around 12%, probably even less, which is terrible if you think about it.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
And so we get these adults who've had creativity bashed out of them. And then we tell them to think creatively at work. And of course, they're not used to it. We're taught in education to come up with a right answer. We're rewarded and praised for the right answer. We're told off for daydreaming and letting our minds wander, which is what the brain needs to do.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
And so we lose this ability to think creatively. And then we put people in a room and we say, right, brainstorm. And of course, when people are forced to be creative, you get the opposite effect because the brain then gets anxious and it switches off. And a happy, relaxed, daydreaming brain is, of course, a more creative one.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
And we don't create the right environments to get the best out of people's creative potential.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
we have a very ancient system inside us we're designed to switch on our stress system for uh to to deal with immediate stresses in our environment and then these this stress system is designed to switch off again this system is not designed to switch on and off and on and off or stay on continually And you see the modern world, the world we're designed for is not the modern world.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
The world we're designed for is when a saber-toothed tiger came into our immediate vicinity and we had to make a quick decision. Do I turn and fight? Do I run like crazy? That's the world we're still designed for. But the world we're now in, is switching on the system.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
It's being switched on with modern stressors, you know, a boss that wants to give us some feedback or 600 emails on our server or a friend who's rejected us. Even anything...
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
anticipated even if we don't know what's coming it could be good but just not knowing is stressful and even anything imaginary the brain doesn't have to it doesn't have to be real for the brain to respond as if the stressor were actually real now the big problem about stress of course is that we sometimes wait to feel okay again so anxiety rises and anxiety as we know is contagious and
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
So stressed people make other people stressed. And we wait to feel not stressed again. We wait for the feelings of anxiety to disappear. But sometimes they don't. And so when we are feeling stressed, the best thing we can possibly do is to do something. Do something that is physically active. So physical exercise is, of course, one of the best things we can do.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
It's probably one of the last things we feel like doing, keeping our hands and feet busy and active. Sometimes we have to do something, anything, and then the feelings come later.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
Memory is one of the most fascinating areas of the brain and memory works and memory is notoriously unreliable. We cannot really, and people who think they've got a good memory may well have a good memory, but it's never going to remember exactly in absolute detail what happened because every time we revisit a memory, we add something to it.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
The environment that we're in might trigger a memory, but we're now adding to that memory with a new experience. Our memories, every time we replay them, something else is being added all the time. We embellish it and we add to it and we make more of it or we make less of it. So the best way to make sure that we remember absolutely is write things down in real time.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
So if we want to have a good record of something, make a note of it or record it in some way. So that you can revisit. I guess this is why people keep journals. And they then will remember the detail of what happens. The more emotional a memory is, the more it's highlighted in the brain as a memory. But even then, we don't always remember exactly. And memory does decay over time.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
It's called decay. And so it decays quite a bit. And if we don't revisit memories, we don't replay them, then we do lose them. So it's often good to go back and play memory games to keep the memory part of the brain really active and stimulated because if we lost our memories, I mean, who would we be?
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
It's horrible to think of a world where we couldn't attach to the memories that we formed and we rely so heavily on our memories. But the one thing to remember, and this is Daniel Kahneman, who wrote the book Thinking Fast and Slow. He talks about this, and he says our experiencing self is very different to our remembering self.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
So we have an experience, and we will have the experience in real time. But the way we remember an experience is very different to the experience itself. And an experience is often remembered as, in a way that's clouded by the last thing that happens or something that somebody said.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
So we have to remember that the experience, when we recall a memory of an experience, we're not recalling the actual experience, we're recalling the memory. And this is why we need people around us who remember different things to us and who see the world differently to us because they take from an experience something different to what we take. And so it's often good to share that.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
The relationship with the gut and the brain is becoming more and more important for us to know about because the brain, the cranial nerves, that we have 12 cranial nerves and one of them links the brain and the gut and messages go brain to gut, gut to brain.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
But a lot of our happy chemical serotonin, which promotes feelings of well-being and relaxation and feeling that all's well with the world, that's called serotonin. A lot of that sits actually in our gut and not our brain. And most of the messages don't go brain to gut, they go gut to brain.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
People with mental disorders and diseases like depression or schizophrenia often have gut problems that are comorbid with the psychological problems. So the gut doesn't sit on its own. We can't look at the brain in isolation. We have to look at the body and the brain as an entire system. And so when people talk about mental health, I think we've got to look at the whole health.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
We can't just look at mental health because what we actually choose to eat will affect our mental health. So we have to really think about what we're putting into our gut and make sure that the food we're putting in, they're not containing empty calories. They're actually going to do something of good for us.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
And to maintain the body's balance, because everything, the brain and the body are designed to stay in balance. But when the world is out of balance, our systems go out of balance too. So we have to find ways of consciously balancing rebalancing our systems by being more conscious about the food we eat, trying to get better quality sleep and taking regular exercise.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
The brain loves the body to move. It's designed for the body to move. And real brain development started as we started to learn to move. So we've, especially our memory, our memory really started to grow. Our memory structure started to grow when we learned to walk. So the brain needs the body to move and to move often.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
And yes, the brain loves cardiovascular exercises, quick bursts of activity where we're pumping blood around the body and we're creating more oxygenation in the brain. But we do need to get regular natural movement into our day-to-day activity as well.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
Thank you very much, Mike.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
For 11 years, every night women slept illegally on the Common.
Something You Should Know
How to Master Small Talk & Why We Do Things Without Knowing Why- SYSK Choice
For instance... The key thing to remember is the brain is negatively wired. And when we hear things about any bad news or receive negative feedback, it sticks. It becomes very cognitively sticky in the brain. And it takes quite a lot to dislodge this.