A wonderful talk on the importance of not ignoring the human element from decisionmaking.
“Silver Bullet Thinking”
This is a term she used which piqued my interest. It’s usually those who think they can find a silver bullet that are most affected by them.
“Oracles never stand alone”
To gain insights, companies should never rely solely on data points; that information is ignoring the human element from its meaning. That’s where the role of the oracle’s team comes in. An oracle can look into the messy information, and their support team can conduct interviews to interpret the oracle’s intuitions.
That’s what makes what I do so powerful; I’m an “information oracle” of sorts.
What does your future hold? Let’s talk!
You’re out in the park catching up on Facebook on your phone when, out of nowhere, you feel the distinct sensation that someone is staring at you. You look up from your phone, and sure enough, you see someone looking right at you. We’ve all had some form of this experience happen to us, and the weird part about it is how real the perception of their eyes on us is feels. We can actually feeeel them checking us out. And it’s spooky.
So, what’s going on?
You’re not actually feeling someone’s eyes on you. Not in a literal fashion, anyway. What you are feeling, however, is the awareness that someone else is aware of you.
Noticing when someone is noticing you has evolutionary benefit. If you’re prey, and you’re completely oblivious to the fact a predator has locked their eyes on you, chances are you’re not going to be around long enough to pass those “Does not notice when others notice me” genes onto the next generation.
Gaze As Communication
We not only understand someone’s gaze as their attention on us. Humans have evolved with a finely tuned sensitivity to what that gaze means. Ever had a conversation with a friend at a party using only your eyes? You know exactly what each one of you is saying, but there were no words spoken. That’s an incredible feat that few creatures are capable of performing.
Also, we’ve learned to understand if someone else is interested in something (as indicated by them looking at it), it’s probably important for us to look at it too. There’s a fun demonstration of this if you can get your friends to play along. Go to a busy sidewalk and have everybody look up. You’ll quickly notice how many strangers will see you, see you looking up, and then look up in that same direction very quickly. It happens without them noticing it, but it does happen.
Non-Conscious Awareness
Your brain picks up so much information every second that if you were consciously aware of it, you’d be totally overwhelmed. Plus, our brains run on about the same amount of energy as the light in your fridge, so it has to cut corners where it can. Our senses don’t do so much funneling info into our brains as they do filtering info out. Most of what you see is never noticed, and most of what you notice never conscious levels. This means you notice a lot of details you’re never aware of.
It’s quite possible that your eyes noticed someone else’s gaze on you (which could mean predatory behavior), but it’s way deep down on your level of awareness. You’re focused on your phone, and the tiny detail of someone else’s eyes aren’t a clear and present danger. Your mind communicates on a low level by creating that subtle uneasy feeling that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
Feels like a superpower, but it’s really the marvel of evolutionary biology keeping you on your toes.
Next Level
There are some martial arts traditions that take this to the next level. They’re assuming that you’re not detecting someone’s gaze, but their intent. If you’re reading their intent, then you should be able to detect it without direct line of sight.
So they claim to test it.
With a sword.
The practitioner being tested kneels on the floor, and the person administering the test stands behind them with a sword raised over their head. The idea is for the swordman to summon “intent to do him harm” before swinging the sword down onto the head of the kneeling practitioner. The person being tested will “feel” the swordman’s intent to do great bodily harm, and roll out of the way before the sword can harm him.
This “intent to do harm” they’re feeling for has a word for it: “Sakki.”
I’d love to test it by putting a sword on a robot arm, and connect its movement to pushbutton. I would stand behind the person, summon the intent to do harm, and then only have to move my finger before the sword is activated.
My hunch is they’re perceiving a lot more than Sakki. Like sound.
Ideomotor Response
We often make the mistake of thinking our minds direct our bodies, but that’s just not the case. As SF Zeigler likes to say, “Our bodies inform our minds.” And there’s a deep dive into exactly this dynamic in the book “You Are Not So Smart: A celebration of self delusion.” It’s a great read, and I highly recommend it.
Our bodies lead the action, our mind catches up, and since your mind didn’t order the movement, it feels like it’s someone else is responsible for it. It’s called the Ideomotor response, and it’s the secret to pendulum readings, dowsers, and any other kind of divination claptrap that relies on easily influenced contraptions.
Confirmation Bias
Another point to consider is how often we feel like someone’s watching us when there’s nobody else around. It’s a false positive, and since it’s not a significant event, you forget it ever happened.
But when you feel it, look up, and see someone looking at you that feels much more significant, so you remember that experience.
When you think back on all the times you’ve felt like someone’s watching you, you only remember the times it happened, and completely forget the times it didn’t. Therefore, you get the perception that you’re always right.
You’re not. You’re only remembering the times you were right, and conveniently leaving out all the times you were wrong.
It’s human nature to want to be right. It’s not a conscious thing you’re doing, but you are doing it nonetheless.
Morality
Did you get weirded out looking at the picture I picked for this article? Probably so. Why is that?
There’s a reason the saying goes, “Character is what you do when you think nobody is watching.”
Experiments show that people behave more honestly when they’re being watched. Not only that, they behave more honestly when they think they’re being watched. Not only THAT, but they behave more honestly when there’s a poster of eyes on the wall nearby!
There’s an “honesty box” where people could put change in for the coffee they take. Above the coffee is a poster with the prices of coffee, coffee+cream, tea, etc. One version didn’t have eyes on it. The other version did.
The version with eyes resulted in 3 times as many donations! That’s a huge impact!
Conclusion
The eyes are a powerful communication device that we’ve evolved to use & understand on many levels below & beyond our conscious awareness. This isn’t a supernatural thing, it’s a subconscious thing.
Try to remember that before you start giving thousands of dollars to some guru who claims to be able to teach you how to dodge swords when you’re not looking. . .
In my experience talking with individual clients and companies, there’s a common thread I’ve seen when they’re stuck in a problem: they value money more than they value time.
Too many clients would prefer to spend time on a problem in order to save money, instead of the other way around. They’ll say, “Whoa, that’s a lot of money to fix that problem. I could solve it on my own eventually, so I’ll do that instead.”
Let’s talk about why this is the exact wrong thing to do.
It’s Logic
Before we get into the time & money discussion, let’s try a little logic puzzle. This is a syllogism which should sound plausible to you:
All X’s are Z’s.
All Y’s are Z’s.
Therefore, some X’s are Y’s.
This logic puzzle seems like it makes sense; both X’s and Y’s are Z’s, so of course some Y’s and X’s are the same! But try this one out:
All dogs are animals.
All cats are animals.
Therefore, some dogs are cats.
Now it doesn’t make sense, does it? (Unless you’re this dog. Probably is a cat, too.)
What’s the Problem?
When we are dealing with topics we know a lot about, we can immediately understand if something makes sense or not. When the logic problem I used above talks about dogs & cats, you were able to see, right away, that it makes no sense.
When we switch to an abstracted unit of measurement, like X’s and Y’s, then it’s more difficult to make an accurate judgement.
This is what happens when we talk about time and money.
Time = Money
In the logic problem, Dogs = X. Cats = Y. And this is the stuff we learn in first year algebra, but it’s frustrating because it’s taking something we understand, and then turns it into an abstraction.
When we think about Time = Money, it’s the same problem; we lose track of its real value.
Most people trade their time for dollars in the form of a paycheck or salary. Then, we spend those dollars on goods, services, or experiences.
When it comes to your business, you’ve worked hard for the cash you earn. You’ve poured your whole life into developing the skills you need to do the best you can for your clients.
That’s why taking any longer than you have to to solve a problem isn’t in your best interests, nor the interests of your clients.
When you decide to spend time on a problem instead of money, you’re essentially paying twice to fix it. You’ve already spent time to earn the money, but then are choosing to spend more time on something other than what makes you money.
This is time you could be spending helping your clients. This is time you could be spending with your family. This is time your could be spending at a conference learning more about what you’re already great at.
You can always get more money, but you can never get your time back. This is the heart of the problem for folks who would rather save a couple dollars by doing it themselves. As long as the money you make is tied to the time you spend getting it, spending time on a problem instead of dollars is costing you the most precious thing you have: your time.
Even when you’re broke, you’ll still have to decide how to spend the 86,400 seconds you have every day. Spend them wisely.
Takeaway
The next time you think, “I’ll save some money and do it myself” ask yourself if this is the best way to spend your time; not money. Don’t be “penny smart, and a dollar foolish” as the saying goes.
If you’re still trading time for dollars, this is doubly true for you, too! (Eventually you can uncouple your income from the time you’re spending, and that’s a conversation for another day. . .)
Growing up, one of my favorite things was going to the grocery store with my Mom. We always made time to check out the magazine aisle, and I’d go straight to the skateboard publications.
Every birthday and Christmas I’d ask for one, and eventually my parents gave me one from Wal-Mart. I spent weeks riding it up and down our street trying to do the most fundamental trick: the Ollie.
The skater jumps up, and the board follows. When done properly, it looks like pure magic.
I could never get it right! I tried jumping while moving. I tried jumping while standing still. I tried facing left. I tried facing right.
I fell down more times than I can count.
Eventually I figured it out: while the board was fine to get around on, it wasn’t designed to do tricks. I wasn’t the problem; it was the board’s fault! Stupid skateboard!
Until One Day
My brother (4 years older than me) and one of his friends came home after school. His friend asked if he could try my board, so I said yes.
He proceeds to do trick after trick. Ollies, kick-flips, you name it he could do it.
I was stunned, and that was the instant I learned a valuable lesson:
Just because I didn’t know how to use a tool doesn’t mean it’s not capable of doing its job.
In Business
I see this all the time in my consulting. People are convinced that:
Email marketing doesn’t work
Facebook ads are useless
Twitter is dead
Nobody reads blogs anymore
LinkedIn never leads to anything
The era of making phone sales is dead
And so on down the list it goes with people who may have dabbled in a particular approach, and failed to get results. It’s easier to believe the tool is broken instead of admitting their lack of skills in execution.
Moving Forward
I continued skateboarding for years after that afternoon (until I had a massive wipeout that left scars I still have today). I never really got good at doing tricks, but it was a fun way to get around campus when I went to college.
What I didn’t do, though, is ever blame a tool for my lack of skills again.
Do you have a tool, technique, or strategy that you love using that other people think is done for? I’d love to hear about it!
In my work, I have the unique pleasure of helping a veritable cornucopia of different people. There are entrepreneurs, full time employees who want to start a side hustle, corporations that want to connect with their employees and prospective customers. Every single situation is unique, and it’s that kind of variety that I thrive on. Every day is different, and I love it.
I’ve noticed, however, that the people who I don’t work with seem to have the same things in common, so I thought I’d share those here as a way to help you see inside the mind of someone who isn’t actually ready to make the changes necessary for massive success.
Without further ado, here are my client disqualifiers:
Excuses
Excuses are boring. They’re not real. Nobody cares about them but the person using them as a justifier for lack of action. Change makers decide what they want, and then they go get it. Excuse makers, however, will find a million reasons why not to do something, and my clients focus on the one reason to do something.
Complaining
Yeah, it is hard work. No, it’s not easy. Yes, you’ve had a lifetime of living one way, and it’s gotten you this far. To get a different result, you’re going to have to overcome years and years of self programming. It’s going to feel unnatural. That’s the point of growth! But complaining about it isn’t going to make it any better. It only further entrenches the behaviors that have gotten you what you don’t want. So stop it.
Cynicism
Being skeptical is important. You should test everything. Evaluate claims. Don’t take anything on blind faith alone. I get it. But, what I don’t get is the excessive doubt, pessimism, and cynicism. I will not dance for you. I’m not going to jump through your hoops. I’m here to help you get results; not be your emotional crutch to compensate for the lack of internal work you refuse to do.
Mollycoddling
If you want someone to make you feel special, get a dog. If you want results, come to me. People who are more interested in being overly protected aren’t ready to for the real work that success requires. I can’t protect you from challenging your beliefs. I can’t do the work for you. I can only show you what you have to do to get what you want. Don’t get mad at the results you didn’t get from the work you didn’t do because you’re uncomfortable.
Timewasters
Show up late? Forget an appointment? If you don’t care about your success, I care less. I make time for my clients. I show up early. I put in the effort. That’s part of being a professional. I care about my clients. I care about getting them results. And I can’t do that if they’re not taking it seriously. You literally can’t pay me enough to care more than you when you refuse to show up.
What I Can Do
I can teach you how to leverage your fundamental psychology to get what you want. I can show you how to build a brand that resonates with your clients. I can help you connect with the people you need to talk with. I will show up. I will be present. I will care.
What I Can’t Do
I will not lie to you. I will not cater to the behaviors, beliefs, and ideas that have kept you locked in prison. I can’t take the blame for your failure to act.
But This Isn’t You
Hopefully nothing in this article resonates. Hopefully you don’t see yourself here. Hopefully this is a strange and peculiar post that makes you wonder if there really are people like that in the world.
If you’re a mentalist, like me, you’d instantly recognize the number 793.8. I’ve often thought of getting it tattooed somewhere on my body it’s that important.
What is it?
The Dewey Decimal number for the library’s Magic & Mentalism section.
First Mentors
The mountains of North Carolina isn’t well known for being a hotbed of magic, so the authors of the 5 or 6 books in the McDowell county library were my first mentors. Every day after school I’d spend 2 hours reading & re-reading every page of each magic book on the shelves.
If you’ve never read an instructional magic book, there’s a peculiar thing you’ve probably never thought about.
How do magicians practice without a volunteer?
The answer in all the magic books from the 50’s I grew up reading is to run through the routine while standing in front of a mirror. This gives you the best approximation of how a spectator would see your trick.
This helps you understand a volunteer’s sight lines, how to hold your hand to make sure nobody sees the card hidden there, and so on.
Mental Hiccup
There’s a peculiar thing that happens, though. When you’re practicing that secret move nobody is supposed to see, your brain “helps you out” by making sure you blink when you do it in the mirror.
It’s the weirdest thing.
To you, the trick looks perfect. Every time you do the “move,” there’s absolutely nothing to see. . . to you. In the mirror, it seems flawless.
You think you have all the moves down perfectly, but you’re completely unaware of your habit of blinking.
Until you try it out in real life, for a real person.
“I saw that.”
You’re more surprised it went wrong than they would be had it gone right.
“There’s no way they could have seen the move!” you think. But there’s no arguing they nailed you.
How?!
It’s a complete mystery to you.
The problem is, you’re completely unaware of your blinking habit. It’s completely subconscious.
Much like using verbal fillers like “uhhh,” “umm,” “like,” “ya know,” etc. They fly right under the radar.
Flash Forward 70 Years
Nowadays everybody has a whole production studio in their pocket; HD video cameras in every phone. They see everything.
Now, you can record your routine, and replay it exactly as you performed it.
The camera doesn’t blink.
Now you can get an unbiased (and brutally honest) view of how you’re actually performing. No illusions.
You need an outside view of your performance to identify your weak areas. Improving is almost impossible without it. Otherwise your tendency to blink will keep you blind to what’s going wrong.
Blinking In Business
How many managers & CEOs have you seen who are driving their business into the ground, but they’d rate themselves as fantastic leaders?
Weird, right?
It’s the same mental hiccup that helps you protect the idea of who you are against the reality of who you are when they’re in conflict.
You don’t know what you don’t know.
Few people are capable of honestly & accurately evaluating themselves.
Fewer still are willing.
Better Than Video
As good as having an unblinking eye is for improving, there’s something that works even better: a real life mentor.
Having someone who is an expert at identifying where you’re “blinking” in business & life, and who can show you what to do instead, will help you improve the absolute fastest way possible.
It’s an unfortunate reality that those who would benefit the most from this kind of help are the least likely to seek it out.
If you, however, are interested in helping yourself get more out of life, let’s talk.
I’d love to help you stop fooling yourself.
The internet is absolutely chock full of gurus, consultants, mavens, and thought leaders who are more than eager to tell you exactly how they made some ungodly amount of money. . .
For the low low price $99 (that’s $500 off the regular asking price!), of course. 5 left!
This is not that kind of story.
The story I’m about to tell you is a peek behind their curtain, and all about how (if you do the math right) I made $9,000 an hour for a project.
Penn& Teller “Fool Us”
A couple years ago I had the absolute pleasure of working with the Penn&Teller crew for their show “Fool Us.” It’s a magic show where magicians try to fool P&T. If successful, the magician is awarded bragging rights in the magic community, and a big-ass trophy with an even bigger “FU” prominently featured on it, too.
Magicians & audience members see it as a contest of skill & a battle of wits between P&T and the contestant.
Really clever people realize P&T love magic with all their heart, and they figured out a dynamic for a show that will get people to watch. But, in reality, it’s a clever platform to share the work of some of the finest magicians in the world.
And they asked me to be on the show.
My segment was going to be 8 minutes. Even better? They were going to pay me $1,200+travel for the opportunity.
Like I said, P&T love magic and it shows. Most people would try to get you to show up for free. Not P&T.
The Math
If we take 60 minutes and divide by 8 you get 7.5. Multiply 7.5 by 1,200 and you get 9,000.
$9,000 for an hour’s worth of work.
But if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice I wasn’t working for an hour. I was working for 8 minutes.
Gold star for you.
The Truth
What’s funny, however, is I was working for 4 days to make that 8 minutes look as good as it could possibly look. I flew in a couple days early. I talked with the producers. I talked with my props guy in Vegas. I talked with the show director. I talked with my creative consultant. I talked with wardrobe. I went to rehearsals.
I wasn’t also getting paid to be in Vegas to film the show. I was getting paid to not be anywhere else in the world. Saying yes to the show meant having to say no to any other opportunity that happened at the same time.
I turned down a couple shows that pay better money for a single day’s work (instead of 4) that were in conflict with the show because I valued the opportunity to add a clip of me on a national TV show to my promo reel.
Final Reveal
Numbers don’t lie, but people do. Any time someone’s bragging about how much money they’re making, you don’t know how much they’re actually making.
You don’t know how much it cost them to bring in that much money.
Who cares if you’re making $1,000,000 if it takes $3,000,000 to do it?
You don’t know what it’s costing their personal relationships. You don’t know what it’s costing their mental & physical health. You flat out don’t know.
All you see are the numbers, so be wary of people who shout the promise of an immediate payday that’s too good to be true.
It probably is.
What Happened?
Turns out, even though I went through the whole filming process my segment never made it to air. I got a very nice letter from the producers informing me that my segment wouldn’t be included in this year’s season, so won’t you please apply for next year.
And that’s a lesson all itself; it’s not done until it airs.
In Schrödinger’s famous torture chamber, thought experiment he puts a cat in a box whose life hangs in the balance of a single radioactive isotope which might, or might not kill the cat. The idea being that the cat is both alive & dead until the situation is observed from the outside, thereby resolving the two possibilities into a single certainty.
Life
Uncertainty is uncomfortable. Answers feel so much better than questions.
(Want proof? Watch any child and see how excited they get when they recognize a character they like on TV.)
We all need certainty in our lives. For example, we need to know that the ground we’re walking on won’t collapse under us.
But there needs to be balance.
If you’re solely focused on certainty, you’ll tend to stay too far in your safe zone.
“Better the devil you know than the one you don’t.” ~Folk wisdom using scare tactics to advocate for the status quo
If you have to know beyond a shadow of a doubt what’s going to happen when you do it, then you’re probably not going to get outside your current frame of reference. Guess where all your growth happens, though; stepping outside your comfort zone! In my own life, I’ve missed out on more opportunities than not because I was more interested in what something is than what it could be.
Of all my superhuman talents, I’d have to say building an extremely high tolerance for uncertainty is one of my most valuable.
Here’s why.
Context
Every time I’ve worked on a TV project, there’s a ton of uncertainty.
What do the producers want to see? How many people will be in the audience? Will I be able to set my own props? Am I supposed to look at the camera during filming? Will I get paid? When will I get paid? When will it air? Will it air at all?
It can be exhausting never getting a firm answer to any of these questions.
But I know the answer I don’t want.
“Thanks for your time, but we’re going in another direction.”
That answer is certain. It’s definitive.
There’s no going back.
The more comfortable you are with the extremely uncomfortable dynamic of not knowing the answers, the farther into the process you’ll get. You’ll learn a lot more from the experience of enduring the situation than you will trying to nail down exactly what it all means.
Takeaway
Embrace uncertainty.
Let a couple unanswered questions into your life, and you’ll instantly increase the number of opportunities you have available to you.
After my mind reading shows and speaking engagements, I invariably have people say:
“You’re living the dream! You get to travel the world, see all sorts of exciting places, meet incredible people, AND get paid to do it all. I can’t even imagine living like that.”
And they really can’t imagine it. That spark of light that tells them life can be full of joy & play has been snuffed out by people who have let their own light grow dim.
This is devastating.
If you don’t realize just how important living your life in all its colors is, take 8 minutes to remind yourself that you’re worth it. Watch this short animated case for living life in color. A bright life is possible, and you can imagine it.
[vc_video ratio=”16-9″ align=”center” link=”https://youtu.be/kQjtK32mGJQ”]
Just like my incredible teachers did for me, I’m going to do for you.
You have my permission to be the amazing person you know is in there.
In my own life, I’ve missed out on more opportunities than not because I was more interested in what something is than what it could be.