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TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-09-13
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=infWG5C-trk
I am supposed to remind you to think and turn on your brain and pay attention to subtle cues like what I am wearing how I am speaking the fact that I have worn glasses the colors that I have chosen thank you to my wife for dressing me and then I will ask you how does it make you feel Dr I think it's and in fact the
manner of speaking the entire delivery awkward how many by show of hands would say that this would meet the expectation for somebody speaking on this red dot lots of hints I will introduce you to something that I call the Fink feel conundrum now be an audience participation by show of hands how many people have ever had a time when they feel like they're partner brain just
couldn't agree and I think how many people can't raise their hand right so we know this happens the question is why before we get any further I want to clarify something when you talk about feel today feelers a vague enough term that it's important to identify because emotions are a form of feeling but I'm talking about feeling like that got feeling when you say I just
go with Mike got because I don't want you to get the impression that emotions are somehow negative emotions are exceptionally valuable in how we process and interpret information and how we develop relationships with each other so do keep on the back of your mind the vocabulary of the day when you see feel it means feeling with your got going with your gut and there are plenty
of times when mark got gets it wrong the question is why first understand our brains were you aware that sitting between your ears is a super computer if you major the number of processes per second that the human brain is capable of managing it is that of the most sophisticated supercomputer ever built and the amazing piece of information is that that supercomputer will require up not
been urging the power approximately a thousand households and your brain does it on about twenty watts the bar none superpower winner for processing per walked in the known universe capable of product processing up to ten quadrillion pieces of information per second and that is actually the low estimate you know what that tells me ms were capable of making mistakes really fast I know because I'm guilty
of them understand how your brain operates with ten quadrillion processes per second it's not possible to be consciously aware of all of the data that we're managing in fact our sub conscious mind only manages about five percent of what we're doing the sub conscious mind takes over for the other ninety five percent and we're happy to have a do that in fact for everybody that just
came here after lunch we had a bunch of conversations going on simultaneously how is it that you were able to listen to the person you were speaking with them filter everything else you still heard it if you actively turn the filter off you hear all the conversations and yet our brain is capable of zeroing in on the critical piece of information that we want at that
time the sub conscious takes over you don't even think about it we process information on a number of levels I will define them as mechanical emotional and intellectual mechanic was things that you can manipulate intellectuals things that you will process addition subtraction so forth and an emotional would be again those experience all things that we deal with most of us believe that we process data pretty
well I think I need to make a decision I will reasonably validate this data I will come to a very accurate response and because I'm so talented I'll be right what we really do we go right below the cautious line in our sub conscious takes over and it does the heavy lifting for us and we shortcut the response now the shortcuts are what's dangerous because we
all know shortcuts are convenient but sometimes they fool us so I'm gonna ask the audience to participate in a couple of things so while you were finding the handout I'm going to give you an example of something that your brain does automatically that you're very happy for the first one is the Mexican dinners theory now if you've ever been to a Mexican restaurant and ordered the
burrito because burritos they always bring out the plate and what does the winner universally say careful because the plate is not thank you glad you nailed that one and there are two kinds of people in the world person number one says thank you person number two says who you're right incidentally the difference between wisdom and experience what happens when the person touches the plate you immediately
jerk your hand back before you even know what hurt it soon as it's hot given their dimples traveling at almost four hundred feet per second just shy of three hundred miles per hour traveling up to your mind before you even process it and send it back to him you've already pulled her hand away it's a reflex response is a shortcut it's for safety now how many
people have ever touch something cold and had the same reaction well my favorite how many people have ever waited into the water at the beach in something brushed against your foot and you jumped a mile out of water when you're not expecting something it's a safety mechanism you look out and you realize it's nothing but I over reacted our brains do that constantly so this is
the audience participation part I want you to look can I give everybody a handout for those of you watching on liner on you too we're going to do something clever stop watching that we're going to look at this piece of paper and all I'm gonna do is on the right hand side of the draw quick ex and you can do the same at home initiate a
paper will do and then about five inches to the left of the tax draw a dot were you aware that you actually have a physical blind spot in your eyeball it's where the nerves connect you can't see it but just like everybody smartphone when you take a panoramic picture your eyes take the information that's available to them in a filament blank so that you do not
perceive it but we're gonna find it together okay so what you're gonna do first is let's take the paper gonna hold up Starbuck touching the deer mouse take your right eye and look at the facts and because it and they're gonna pull back staring at the ex there's gonna be a point somewhere and you probably don't want to get it for a spot of the rides
you could see Haldeman and that dot will disappear perhaps a few people get it right it goes away that's the part that you're I can't see when you open the other I. it reappears magic right does it automatically so we've done now we've we've seen that we have a reflex reaction a brain winter productive force automatically let's play another game I'd like to do some math
with everybody because were all shot right amount not lie so let's do this problem together real quickly I have a baseball bat and ball the baton the ball together cost a dollar ten the back costs a dollar more than the ball how much does the back cost as quickly as possible I have heard a lot of answers to set by how much does the buttons which
one was which palaces about cost Pierre ten cents vice crucify sits that's correct it is correct that that costs a dollar more than the ball five cents on the dollar five together casa dollar ten now be honest how we got the math from it's not because you don't know how to do math it's because you take mental shortcuts and we all do it so what does
this mean in real life well first of all it means we need to be aware of how we make decisions because very touchy about mechanical and now intellectual what happens when you make emotional mistakes they can be a disaster well we could try to measure on the social scale and be really difficult so I'm gonna go back to something that I am a little more familiar
with by trade I work in the field of finance so we tracked the numbers and what we found is but investors consistently make mistakes I know because I did this in fact I turned what could have been an in state college fund for all four years into a couple semesters yeah so that is the voice of experience here right the question is what he learned what
we learned in general is that investors underperformed their benchmarks consistently on average company called darbar track this for over twenty years and it's been a study has been going on rolling twenty year period the most recent data came at the end came at the end of two thousand sixteen but you can track this back for almost thirty years now and the results were consistent what happened
well investors consistently made this decision right about the time do you feel good because the economic cycle is doing fine is when everybody decided to buy and in the markets promptly turned around and went down and at first everybody said well maybe to be okay than our own also good and then we do what we professionally called and at that point people would self down here
now how do you make money as an investor this is not a sophisticated question you want to buy Lou and sell high and what were people doing the exact opposite now did they mean to do this no was it the wrong decision yes was that the normal decision absolutely the question is why let's understand how we deal with decisions real quickly first of all when you
are otherwise I'm stressed or maybe a little bit stressed were capable of managing it you process information actively above the line to make a decision what happens when you get really stressed you drop below the line and use shortcuts and the problem with shortcuts is they sacrifice accuracy for speed so if we are sacrificing apertures accuracy for speed we are now in the fight or flight
response it makes sense that we would make immediate reactions and they are reactions not responses to the data our sub conscious is doing the heavy lifting so no problem right will simply make sure that we are making conscious decisions what happens when we find ourselves believe being that we are making conscious decisions but they are in fact being misinterpreted welcome to the data danger zone where
our emotions are filtering things and we are not actively aware of it how do we do this in wide by show of hands how many people believe that you are biased I'm grateful that I'm seeing lots of hands because I gotta tell you if you didn't I will introduce you to our first bias it's called the blind spot we have a biased because our brains are
constantly learning when I started this talk what I use no parts everyone of them flank it was simply to give you an incongruity out a point your expectation was better when you don't know the expectation that you find yourself in a state of cognitive dissonance and your brain is saying where's the cognitive dissonance come from it's all built upon previous experience if you don't recognize that
you're still hurt your blind spot just like that I have all you know there are lots of biases out there just to highlight a few that you need to be aware of nine out of ten dentists agree this toothpicks is the best right remember that's the bandwagon effect what we would call consensus bias and I think we can all agree but the world used to be
nine out of ten people would've told you the earth was flat just because the group thinks it doesn't make it right confirmation bias you've had that are I spoke with your as soon who believes the opposite of your political beliefs and springs all the data and what do you do you brought bring a dozen other websites in that prove your point confirmation bias you only look
for the data that agrees with what you want to see overconfidence bias I'm right because it's me how many people are above average drivers in this crowd great if you're raising your hand you might have been overconfidence bias somebody's below average we can't always our hands I am another favorite of mine the halo effect business professionals be wary if you've ever been golfing with somebody and
they're great at golf and you believe that they're great and everything that's the halo effect it's also the idea that pretty people must be more talented maybe not probably not I don't know but I will tell you that that is a halo effect so what do we do well first you organize new processing data that your sub conscious wants to inform using your experiences have actively
reach below that line pull it back up and scrub the data how I'm gonna give you a very simple process I'm into by data into two primary types object of in subjective subject of doubt is easy you get to measure it hot cold tall short all relative to your own prospective objective data stepping you measure with an independent source and then tell me are you actively
processing that data or you using your gut because when you're actively processing objective data you're a pretty firm ground we can call that stuff Brock metaphorically subject of data that we are processing actively in trying actively to get good decisions with we call it a dirt because it still Fuhrman it will brush off of state but it's not as firm as the rock music that subjective
but when you get below the one we get into the cautions on in the danger zone objective data that we are using our gut on is where we get fooled so be careful subject of data where we are using our god is what we can get trapped and I call this the quickly ends quicksand zone then this is also the step you want to be careful
of if you've ever had a episode of road rage your lashing out your kids because you're mad something like that you're not processing the data you are reacting to it so be aware finally why because when you are actively processing you engage in the process when you are not you are much more easily manipulated we live in a world where the media is busy selling you
everything why if you're not paying for the product you are the product so they editorialize the news to get below the line to attract your attention things like silly little shiny objects why would I point this out because it commands your attention and everyone of you picked up engaged in the process with me why as a credible source you would simply follow me because I asked
you to so I will ask you in the future to do this when processing data slow it down scanned it well slowed down consciously analyze the data keep it above the line reached down here self conscious and yank it back up so that at the end of this I can tell you when you turn on your brain and think and then scanned the data I can
