How Role Models Change Our Lives | Fiona Murden | Modern Wisdom Podcast 223

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   This is another thing.…

   1. FMFiona Murden0:00

      This is another thing. It's, it's this ethical thing again, isn't it? We can't take kids away from their parents. But there's an example I love. I don't, I don't know if you've heard it, but there's a girl called Oksana Malaya who was born in the Ukraine in a really run-down village, and her parents were alcoholics. And one night, they left her out in the cold. They just left her outside. And looking for warmth, she curled up with feral dogs. She was three years old at this time, and she lived with the dogs for the next five years until someone reported it to the authorities. But she couldn't talk. She walked on all fours. She drank like a dog. She barked. And I mean, she's one example. And you know, with science, you'll say you need thousands of examples to be able to say, "This is actually what's happening." But to me, it's such a clear example of (laughs) what happens if you don't have people around you. You don't know how to talk because no one's talking to you. You don't know how to drink or eat or walk.

   2. CWChris Williamson0:53

      (wind blowing) I'm joined by Fiona Murden. Fiona, welcome to the show.

   3. FMFiona Murden0:56

      Hi. Thanks. Great to be here. (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson0:58

      Pleasure to have you on. What is the mirror system?

   5. FMFiona Murden1:03

      The mirror system is a collection of neurons in the brain which enable us to observe what other people are doing without actually carrying out that action ourselves. And how that functions is to enable us to learn, basically, because for thousands and thousands of years, before we had the written word, the only way we could learn was through observing, and actually through storytelling as well, which interestingly is also dependent in part on the neuro- the mirror neuron.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:34

      That's interesting. So how does it work? How do I... I watch you doing a thing. You're whittling a stick, or I don't know what our, our ancestors would be doing, hunting a deer. How does it work?

   7. FMFiona Murden1:46

      So I... It's, it's easiest to go back to where, how it was discovered 'cause it was discovered in Parma by, um, uh, some Italian psychophysiologists or... I've got the name wrong there. But they were basic f... They were looking at how monkeys grasp, and they had electrodes in... This is a bit mean, (laughs) into the brains of the monkeys. And one day, they were eating their lunch, and they noticed that the monkeys were doing the grasping, um, in terms of what electrical output was coming off, but they weren't actually moving. And so they realized that the same part of the brain was functioning when the monkeys were watching as when the monkeys were actually doing it themselves. And so if you think about it, if you think about a baby, for example, watching a mother or a f- a, a mom or dad eating, they're, they might be watching them when they're not eating themselves, but each time they're watching, they're rehearsing it through in their brain, which helps to build up that capability of how to actually do that ourselves.

   8. CWChris Williamson2:54

      And this is just automated?

   9. FMFiona Murden2:56

      Yeah. I mean, it's complex. It's... So some people actually argue against the mirror neuron, but that's going down a really geeky path.

   10. CWChris Williamson3:04

       (laughs)

   11. FMFiona Murden3:04

       (laughs)

   12. CWChris Williamson3:04

       We love, we love a g- we love a geeky path.

   13. FMFiona Murden3:06

       Oh, no, it's very, very geeky. Um, from... There's, there's still... Y- within the brain of humans, we can't generally do single neuron analysis. So that analysis that was being carried out on monkeys was single neuron. Um, within the brain of humans, we use something called fMRI, which is functional magnetic resonance imaging, and it gives us an idea of what's going on in the brain through bo- uh, blood flow, but can't help us get down to that individual level. And there have been some, um, experiments where people have been having surgery for epilepsy, and they've given consent for their brains to be looked at. But what some scientists will say, we haven't gathered enough data to be able to say this is definitely how it happens or this isn't how it happens.

   14. CWChris Williamson3:49

       Is it just because in order to be able to do that single neuron ana- analysis, you got to trepan part of the brain or whatever and then get a neuron in it? Is that... That's literally like an ethical question.

   15. FMFiona Murden3:58

       Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson3:58

       Oh, interesting. I thought it might have been due to like density or complexity or the number of neurons that we have or something like that.

   17. FMFiona Murden4:05

       So I'm not a neuroscientist. I would probably put it to both points, but I think the m- the major point is that we, we can't go around cutting open-

   18. CWChris Williamson4:14

       Drilling holes in people's heads.

   19. FMFiona Murden4:14

       ... people's heads. (laughs)

   20. CWChris Williamson4:15

       I- if you want, if you want to have a hole drilled in your head, comment below, and Fiona will put you in touch with someone who wants to drill a hole in your head.

   21. FMFiona Murden4:22

       Yeah, I know lots of people who, who'd want to do it. I just... (laughs)

   22. CWChris Williamson4:25

       Yeah, whether or not the board of ethics would let it-

   23. FMFiona Murden4:27

       ... wouldn't be doing it myself.

   24. CWChris Williamson4:27

       ... would let it pass. Yeah, exactly. So the advantage that the mirror neuron gave our ancestors with expediting learning, was that it?

   25. FMFiona Murden4:35

       Yeah, I mean, it was, it was how civilization progressed to where it is today. So before a written word, it was the only way there was a progression of, of learning. So, uh, one, one guy calls it, uh, collective learning. He talks about the big history of collective learning. So every generation builds on the learning from the generation before, and it gradually evolves how we learn and what we know. But before we could write things down, that was the only way that we could evolve from sort of just sitting with our stick whittling-

   26. CWChris Williamson5:07

       Yeah.

   27. FMFiona Murden5:08

       ... to actually building a hut or, or sort of creating fire, all that sort of stuff.

   28. CWChris Williamson5:13

       I guess it's more scalable and less open to linguistic restrictions and/or interpretation of someone trying to vocalize the thing that they're doing. Like if I can hunt a deer, you can watch me hunt a deer and take the cues of me hunting a deer, but I might not actually be able to explain what it is that I do.

   29. FMFiona Murden5:34

       Exactly.

   30. CWChris Williamson5:34

       We might not have sufficiently sophisticated language. You might not be able to s- hear the same that I speak that blah, blah, blah.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   I'm gonna guess as…

   1. FMFiona Murden15:00

      from that guy, but, uh, he got in a whole load of trouble from the teachers about that." And, and that, there's a decision point because it's conscious. As soon as it becomes conscious, it's something you can make a decision on. And there must, I mean, there must be times where we unconsciously make a decision on not imitating, but a lot of the time, to make it, to, to not imitate, we have to stop and actually pause and think, "Hang on a minute, do I really wanna behave like that? Or do I want to behave like that?" And you find, like, in business, 'cause I profile a lot of senior executives, and I go through their life from, um, sort of teenage years up to where they're at, and it'll be, "I had this awful boss, and I decided there and then I was never gonna lead like that." And that's a prime example of counter-mirroring. It's saying, "I had that boss. I didn't like what I saw, and so I decided I'm never going to do that."

   2. CWChris Williamson16:00

      I'm gonna guess as well, there'll be a lot of people who might have the, um, the father who, uh, drank a bit much, so decides that they're going to control their drinking, but perhaps only after beginning to move down that path as a young adult and then almost using latent mirroring or latent-

   3. FMFiona Murden16:20

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson16:20

      ... latent counter-mirroring as like, "Here is something I did see in the past. This is something that I know that I should avoid in the future."

   5. FMFiona Murden16:28

      Yeah, and I know people like that actually, who've had alcoholic parents and who've, who've made that decision, "I don't want to be like that." They've, they maybe slipped. They started slipping and, and realized actually, "Well, um, you know, Joey over there, he can drink 10 pints, and he just has an awful hangover. When I do it, I want to do it again and again and again." Um, so there's that recognition. Whereas Joey might end up an alcoholic.

   6. CWChris Williamson16:55

      Have you read Robert Plomin's Blueprint?

   7. FMFiona Murden16:58

      No.

   8. CWChris Williamson16:58

      Oh, I need to get you on this. If you are, if you have space in the reading, uh, list.

   9. FMFiona Murden17:03

      I'll put it on my list.

   10. CWChris Williamson17:04

       So, he is a -- I'm gonna get this wrong -- behavioral geneticist.

   11. FMFiona Murden17:10

       Oh, cool.

   12. CWChris Williamson17:11

       Um, and basically, he's the leading twin studies, adoption studies-

   13. FMFiona Murden17:17

       Wow.

   14. CWChris Williamson17:17

       ... uh, guy on the planet, and his most recent book, Blueprint, is phenomenal. Um, basically, the, the synopsis, the golden rule of behavioral genetics is that everything, every psychological trait that we have, has a significant genetic, uh, factor contributing to it, and that 50% of everything you are is because of your parents.

   15. FMFiona Murden17:42

       Wow.

   16. CWChris Williamson17:42

       50% of everything across the board. And one of the main things that he looked at, one of the key things, uh, uh, key f- areas that he looked at was alcoholism and addiction.

   17. FMFiona Murden17:51

       Mm-hmm.

   18. CWChris Williamson17:52

       And alcoholism and addiction correlates, it's in- it's like 0.8 or like 0.7. It is insane. So what I've been... I'm a big fan of a meritocracy, right? As a lot of, I guess, young sort of entrepreneury-type people, like, "I'll, you know, make it on my own," all this stuff.... um, and upon finding out about just how, uh, sort of deterministic our genes are, and then reading Mirror Thinking, your book, and realizing that a lot of the stuff that we do has been imprinted on us, it's almost like a, like a one-two from our parents and the environment that we grow up in, right? You're given this particular n- uh, nature that is then probably backed up in part by the nurture.

   19. FMFiona Murden18:37

       Yeah, absolutely. Uh, uh, absolutely. And that's where I think it's so powerful because, you know, on one hand people say, "Oh, you know, well, role modeling or observing, it's really obvious." Um, and you think, "Well, it is obvious, but that doesn't mean that we take conscious control of it, or that we use it to help society." So, uh, my, my bugbear, my bugbear is that, um, commercial organizations use an understanding of our sort of limbic system basically, to hook us onto social media.

   20. CWChris Williamson19:09

       Have you watched... I'm gonna guess you'll have seen the most Tristan Harris documentary on Netflix.

   21. FMFiona Murden19:13

       Oh, yeah. I had a few issues with some of that. But, yeah.

   22. CWChris Williamson19:15

       Hmm.

   23. FMFiona Murden19:15

       Just 'cause, just from the s-

   24. CWChris Williamson19:17

       Interesting.

   25. FMFiona Murden19:17

       No, just from, uh, things like when they talked about psychometrics and I'm like, "That's not psychometrics." And, but, but... (laughs)

   26. CWChris Williamson19:23

       It must be a curse to have expertise in a particular area.

   27. FMFiona Murden19:27

       I had to stop watching it, to be honest.

   28. CWChris Williamson19:28

       Oh, wow. See, this is-

   29. FMFiona Murden19:29

       So I think, I think he's brilliant, I love him and I follow him, and I love that he's got such an extreme view. Um, but when I was actually watching this I was thinking, "I can't believe that a psychiatrist from Stanford is saying this," and, uh, what she said was completely correct, but then it was taken out of context within the rest... (laughs)

   30. CWChris Williamson19:46

       Who is, is that Susanna Zu- Zu- Zup- Zupov? Which one was the-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Well, it's not a…

   1. CWChris Williamson30:01

   2. FMFiona Murden30:01

      Well, it's not a correlation, is it? It's an increase.

   3. CWChris Williamson30:03

      Oh, okay. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

   4. FMFiona Murden30:05

      Yeah. So, um, but I just think it's, it's bananas because what it demonstrates is how we sort of... we just absorb things by osmosis. It's... We're absorbing what our friends are doing.... um, we absorb moods, we absorb stress. There's loads of research that shows, you know, even if a teacher goes into a classroom stressed, the pupils become more stressed, their cortisol levels rise.

   5. CWChris Williamson30:30

      That is mad.

   6. FMFiona Murden30:30

      We're just so interconnected, it's just bananas. Bananas! (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson30:35

      So, I'm looking here at the, uh, research from Robert Plomin's Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are.

   8. FMFiona Murden30:44

      Oh, yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson30:44

      So this is average ratings of 5,000 UK adults, and it's the results of genetic research and weight is... (laughs) Weight, people thought that the genetic component to weight was 40%, so that was what most people estimated. It's 0.7. You are 0.7-

   10. FMFiona Murden31:04

       0.7%?

   11. CWChris Williamson31:05

       No, it's 0.7 of one, so it's 70%. You are 70% likely to have the BMI, or 70% is the correlation, your parents' BMI to yours. And he's done this with twin studies, adoption studies, people that are away.

   12. FMFiona Murden31:17

       And is, is that a genetic correlation, or is it-

   13. CWChris Williamson31:20

       Genetics.

   14. FMFiona Murden31:20

       ... that he's certain it's environmental?

   15. CWChris Williamson31:21

       Genetics.

   16. FMFiona Murden31:22

       Genetic correlation.

   17. CWChris Williamson31:23

       So you can take twins that are born to the same parents, uh, either mono or bi, uh, whatever it is, dizygotic or monozygotic, either of them, and you can take them and put them in different households. Their correlation to their adoption parents is zero. Zero.

   18. FMFiona Murden31:42

       That's really interesting.

   19. CWChris Williamson31:44

       I, I would love to hear what you think about the, his book, 'cause obviously-

   20. FMFiona Murden31:47

       Oh, I'm gonna read it.

   21. CWChris Williamson31:48

       ... I don't have the, the, uh, wherewithal to be able to criticize it. But, um, I would be really interested to see how that, how that sort of ties into what we're talking about here.

   22. FMFiona Murden31:57

       I'm not sure I do either, 'cause I'm definitely not... What did you say he was? Uh...

   23. CWChris Williamson32:00

       Robert Plomin. He's a, a g- genetic, uh, behavioral geneticist, um-

   24. FMFiona Murden32:06

       I'm just the behavioral bit, not the genetics, but-

   25. CWChris Williamson32:08

       (laughs)

   26. FMFiona Murden32:08

       (laughs)

   27. CWChris Williamson32:08

       Yeah, I get it. Um, so we've got what friends are for. They, they, they can sort of also mold our, uh, our actions. So if that's the case, if it's both good and bad, is social conformity just part of trying to fit into the tribe? Is it just trying-

   28. FMFiona Murden32:23

       Yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson32:23

       ... to feel part of the group?

   30. FMFiona Murden32:25

       Yeah, and I mean, I think this thing, these sort of things have been discussed quite a lot over the last few years. I did discuss it in my first book that wasn't published before everyone was talking about it, but I won't go there.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   And they don't. Let…

   1. FMFiona Murden45:00

      this, this sort of scenario which is where again, the two million followers, you think, "Well they've got two million f-" Not you, but people think, "Well they've got two million followers, um, therefore I will do whatever they say and like whatever they say, because they must know what they're talking about."

   2. CWChris Williamson45:18

      And they don't. Let me tell you from firsthand experience, those people haven't got a clue. It's interesting as well for me with the, with the show as a really good example. We said that it's not often that you have objective measures of success, but I do with this- this show. I have objective measures of impact. How many subscribers, how many play minutes, how many views, how many messages, how many blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, the show hasn't changed. I've been doing this about three years. This hasn't changed. Got a tiny little bit less shit at- at interviewing people.

   3. FMFiona Murden45:48

      (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson45:48

      But like, for the most part, it's just the same thing. I'm talking to the same people, but it's only now that we've reached about a million plays a month that people actually care and start referring to me as a host and think of me as some sort of authority.

   5. FMFiona Murden46:03

      Oh, really?

   6. CWChris Williamson46:03

      Oh, so much. It's just signaling. It's just that there is a trajectory that people can see the show's on. They think I'm some sort of authority at this now, when I'm- I'm just, I'm swimming in imposter syndrome, and-

   7. FMFiona Murden46:15

      (coughs) Well, all- all my latest podcast, which goes out to about 80 people, um, (laughs) was on imposter syndrome. Um, I- I mean I come across imposter syndrome a lot, but what I also come across is hubris. Have you heard of hubris?

   8. CWChris Williamson46:28

      Can you explain it to me?

   9. FMFiona Murden46:29

      Yeah, so hubris is, again, it's one of these things that's contentious, but there's a guy called Lord David Owen who's a psychiatrist, um, but he studied basically leaders in the US and the UK over 100 year period to see who had hubris. Now hubris is when you tip from being potentially a good leader to starting to believe your own metric. Um, so he uses the example of Tony Blair, and I don't wanna get political, but, um, Tony Blair, whether you agreed with his policies or not, you know, he was a good leader. He was a good communicator. And he tipped into hubris, and I actually written a policy paper on the Chilcot Report and pulled it apart from cognitive bias and all that sort of stuff. But he started believing what he wanted to believe rather than believing what was going on around him. And they say it's the only acquired personality syndrome, and it's- it's basically you become narcissistic. But I see it so often and actually I warn sometimes when I'm seeing people are just becoming CEO for the first time, I warn them and I say, "One thing you've really got to watch out for is becoming hubristic. Because as soon as you become hubristic, you become a bad leader." But the problem is, in celebrity world, which I'm encountering more and more through stuff I'm doing, is no one to say, "Actually, (laughs) you're a bad leader. We're gonna, we're not gonna hire you for the next role, or we're not gonna elect you."

   10. CWChris Williamson47:57

       But who's-

   11. FMFiona Murden47:57

       People keep, keep following them.

   12. CWChris Williamson47:59

       Who's gonna be that- Who's going to be that person that decides to drop an anchor on the rocket ship that's going to the moon?

   13. FMFiona Murden48:05

       No.

   14. CWChris Williamson48:05

       That's precisely the same with- with the show, with my other buddies that are like on upward trajectories, um, no one gives a shit about what you think until you're successful, which is stupid because you think all of the things that you think now are-

   15. FMFiona Murden48:20

       Exactly the same.

   16. CWChris Williamson48:21

       Yeah, precisely. I have a friend, Michael Malice, and he had a book written about him that's called Ego and Hubris.

   17. FMFiona Murden48:27

       Oh, really?

   18. CWChris Williamson48:27

       Yes. Uh-

   19. FMFiona Murden48:28

       Oh, my God. I've got such a long book list from this conversation.

   20. CWChris Williamson48:31

       I'm sorry. Um, I- I think that Ego and Hubris is the cheapest copy you can get now is about 150 pounds. It's not available digitized. It's crazy. Have a look at the- the, uh, things that ... He's been on Joe Rogan like five times. He's wonderful.

   21. FMFiona Murden48:42

       Oh, awesome.

   22. CWChris Williamson48:42

       One of my, one of my very, very good friends, Michael. Um, let's get back to, let's get back to Mirror Thinking before- before we go. I love this quote that you had which was, "Teachers are the guardians of our mind when it is most malleable."... which has got some really terrifying implications for choosing your kid's school and what they're being told by teachers. Really worrying.

   23. FMFiona Murden49:01

       It is really worrying. But, um, there's also a lot of the research around role modeling shows that teachers have a very, very small impact on kids.

   24. CWChris Williamson49:11

       Okay. So what does "teachers are the guardians of our mind when it's most malleable" mean?

   25. FMFiona Murden49:15

       So when a teacher is bad, then, then you see it really having an impact, or when a teacher's exceptionally good. But most of the time, teachers, through no fault of their own, it's through, I think it's through stress in the system, they're not able to be exceptional. So what I hear when I'm profiling people is I hear, I more often hear for the bad teacher than I do of the good teacher. So that's anecdotal, but I'll hear someone say, um, this, you know, you know, it's ridiculous. Things like people who are CFOs of big companies have got a fear around their capability in maths. And you're like, "What? Why?" And it's because a maths teacher said something to them at one point that has stuck with them through life. That's what worries me, because there are lots of examples of where kids have been taken off track, and I think the ones I see are the ones who've made it in spite of that, but have, they've carried it with them anyway. But what about all those kids that then didn't even follow their dreams because they believed what that teacher told them?

   26. CWChris Williamson50:18

       The more and more that I learn, especially this year. This year is like the year of uncomfortable truths, probably for a lot of people, right? But, like, particularly with the stuff I've been reading, Robert Plomin's stuff about the- the sort of, this predetermination of genetics and- and then m- mirror thinking as well. It's like, hang on, so if you're telling me that I want to live a consciously designed life, I need to first overcome all of the shit that I did in life up until the point at which I start to step into my own programming, and then let's say that I managed to- to work my way through that. I've then got just the, like, source code that I'm made up of, the bootstrapped program that's kind of built into my genetics and I've got to try and... And yeah, in a society that's meritocratic, I think that's- it's an uncomfortable truth.

   27. FMFiona Murden51:06

       It is. It is. And- and- and, you know, the whole reason I wrote my first book, which is about helping-

   28. CWChris Williamson51:12

       Just publish the thing, Fiona-

   29. FMFiona Murden51:13

       Oh, no, no, no, no. This is- that's my... So my- my very first book wasn't published.

   30. CWChris Williamson51:17

       (laughs) Okay.

Episode duration: 1:00:03