The Neuroscience Of Awe, Distraction and Anxiety - Beau Lotto | Modern Wisdom Podcast 376

1. 0:00 – 2:21

   Intro

   1. BLBeau Lotto0:00

      One of the most attractive features of another person is their authenticity. We're highly wired, highly tuned to detect someone's authenticity. Why? Because to be lied to, to be tricked, during evolution, it was a really bad idea. And also, the authenticity of a company. It's not enough just to have a purpose. You know, you can have these wonderful purposes, but unless you're authentic in it, it's just a slogan, and people will detect that inauthenticity.

   2. CWChris Williamson0:24

      Ohlotto, welcome to the show.

   3. BLBeau Lotto0:26

      Thank you very much, Chris. Good to be here.

   4. CWChris Williamson0:29

      We were just talking about what happens if you can hear your own voice briefly after you say it. So it's like your mom's old phone on loudspeaker, and you're speaking, and then her microphone catches the audio out of the speaker and sends it back to you. What happens with your brain? What were you talking about there?

   5. BLBeau Lotto0:46

      Uh, well, if your, um... If you actually hear your voice a fraction of a second after you've spoken, your, your brain doesn't know what to do. And eventually, if it keeps happening, you'll just stop talking. You'll literally... Your brain just says, "Shut up." You just stop talking, and not just because of the content. I mean, part of, part of it is-

   6. CWChris Williamson1:03

      (Laughs) You're boring.

   7. BLBeau Lotto1:04

      ... to actually hear what you're actually saying. So you actually bore yourself. But it's, it's more than that. It's actually the, um... It just can't cope with that because, of course, we are used to hearing our voice immediately. So now if I hear it almost like an echo, uh, your brain can't deal with it.

   8. CWChris Williamson1:20

      That's-

   9. BLBeau Lotto1:21

      And so it just, just stops.

   10. CWChris Williamson1:22

       That sounds-

   11. BLBeau Lotto1:22

       Just gets worse and worse.

   12. CWChris Williamson1:23

       Sounds to me like the audio version of when you see a face that's got two sets of eyes on it. Have you seen this where they stack two eyes over each other and you're... When you look at it, there's a skull on a wall on my drive to the gym in Newcastle, and there's a skull with two sets of eyes, two eye holes, perfectly done.

   13. BLBeau Lotto1:43

       Ah.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:43

       And even looking at that, my brain just isn't quite happy.

   15. BLBeau Lotto1:48

       Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson1:48

       It knows there's something amiss here.

   17. BLBeau Lotto1:50

       Knows that there's something wrong. Yeah, yeah.

   18. CWChris Williamson1:52

       Yeah.

   19. BLBeau Lotto1:52

       Uh, absolutely. I mean, we're, we're... People don't realize, of course, how strongly, and we'll get into this I'm sure, how strongly we're wired to see what's familiar. Uh, and how, in that sense, we're actually wired to detect the unfamiliar, because your brain is constantly sort of adapting to what's average. Uh, and there's a, there's a really good reason why that's true. But it also, there's some really strong consequences to that from, from political onwards.

   20. CWChris Williamson2:19

       How would you describe what you do for work?

2. 2:21 – 13:32

   Beau’s Experiments

   1. CWChris Williamson2:22

   2. BLBeau Lotto2:22

      How do I describe... (laughs) How long do you have? Oh, wait, we haven't... Um, what do I do for work? So I'm sort of like professionally a neuroscientist, okay? So I study perception. I study how the brain makes meaning, how it makes meaning of itself, how it makes meaning of the world, of other people. So that's what I, in some sense I am. Uh, but we're kind of like lunatic fringe neuroscience in the sense that, um, the world becomes our lab. So what I do is we, me and not just me, my lab who I call the Lab of Misfits, and what we, what we do is we basically try to understand the principles by which we, we see, the prince... And hear and touch, the principles by which we make perception. And then we try to give people insight into those principles, uh, through immersive experiences and so they can actually embody it. Uh, and then through that hopefully give them understanding, which then gives them freedom to then do something about their perception. So, I mean, you, you do amazing things in nightclub immersive experiences. For us, that becomes a lab, right? The world is effectively... The world isn't a stage for us. The world is a lab, literally.

   3. CWChris Williamson3:30

      You started a nightclub in one of your labs.

   4. BLBeau Lotto3:33

      Yeah, yeah. So we turned the... We've, we actually have turned the lab into a nightclub. We booked an underground Victorian prison in, uh, Clerkenwell in East London. It's an absolutely brilliant space. Uh, and we, you know, sold out within minutes on time out. We had the people come and, you know, they, they're, they, they come, they're separated from whoever they came with. They're meet, met by this person in a, in a bee outfit, as in a caretaker bee, not like dressed up to stripes.

   5. CWChris Williamson3:58

      (laughs)

   6. BLBeau Lotto3:58

      Um, so the space is filled with actors and everything. And, and then the first thing they do there, they have to spit into a vial, uh, because we're gonna measure their cortisol levels before and after. And everything in the space becomes measured. People know this is not an act, and it's not done surreptitiously. I mean, um, they know that they, they're being measured even from the way they dance. Uh, we have primatologists watching people dance. Um, the way that the food that they eat, how they eat, whether they eat by candlelight, everything. We had them going into prison cells, and then we had someone going into a panic, but they didn't know it was an actor who was going into a panic. And then we were measuring to see how people respond or-

   7. CWChris Williamson4:34

      Like a pretend other participant.

   8. BLBeau Lotto4:37

      Yeah. And then we're measuring everybody's heart rate, how they respond, but then also the personality profiles. Who steps forward to help? Who starts panicking themselves? Who c- gets contaged? Or you just stick 20 people into a dark room and shut the door and then just wait (laughs) . It's amazing how-

   9. CWChris Williamson4:51

      (laughs) Oh my God.

   10. BLBeau Lotto4:52

       ... long people will just sit there and they eventually just say like, "Now what?" And they, they don't, often don't occur to them, "Well, maybe we should just leave." And (laughs) so we're sort of measuring these types of things. Um, all that kind of stuff. It's brilliant. It's wonderful. Um, but-

   11. CWChris Williamson5:08

       How many people went?

   12. BLBeau Lotto5:10

       In this instance, so some... That one was, uh, 75 people. So sometimes they're very intimate, sometimes they can be massive. Um, but for us, it's, it... These experiences, um, they're not just an attempt for us to better understand, uh, the human mind, uh, but for people to better, get a better understanding of themselves. So our, my personal deeper motivation is to give people a sense of agency and, and humility and compassion and creativity. Um, but you don't have a choice unless you know you have one, and choice begins with awareness. So we also give the data back to people so they walk away with a deeper understanding of themselves. Uh, and that's really what I'm after. Um, we don't then say what to do with it because that's up to them. If you tell people what to do, you've actually taken it from them. But you give them the agency of choice, but you give them the information from which to make a decision.... and how you do that reveal can actually be really challenging, because if you tell p- someone something different from what they think to be true about themselves, that can actually be a real challenge for them. They could actually completely resist it. In fact, you can make them go in the opposite direction.

   13. CWChris Williamson6:19

       Hmm, like a reverse self-fulfilling prophecy.

   14. BLBeau Lotto6:22

       Well, in a way. So if I tell you something about you, or if you tell me something, right? And, and we're seeing this all over the place right now. I mean, we've seen it for years, but we're seeing it very strongly in politics, especially in the US. Um, but if I tell you something about y- uh, you tell me something, right? And I show you, give you all kinds of data to show that you're wrong, right? Uh, there's a very good chance you'll actually hold stronger to your view than you did before, right? Why? Well, it depends to, to the extent that you've actually identified with the thing to which I'm now contradicting, right? Uh, well, I'm- the data's contradicting. So you'll hold stronger because actually to doubt that piece of information is to actually doubt who you are. And that is possibly the strongest s- um, system or strongest, uh, context for uncertainty. And we, we as, you know, we'll talk about, we hate uncertainty and we loathe it often. Not in all situations, but in almost every situation, we hate uncertainty.

   15. CWChris Williamson7:26

       What were some of the best things that you learned from your nightclub experiment, or the most interesting things?

   16. BLBeau Lotto7:31

       Uh, (laughs) well, um, a couple are s- just come off the top of my head. First of all, um, the, uh, that people dance, they're prom- promisc- people are promiscuous in their dancing, right? But they dance in the s- in the same way they have conversations. So you, you dance with the same number of people as you do when you have conversations, but you switch your partners more often. So it's as if you're having a conversation with someone through the physical movement, which is kinda cool, I think. Um, another aspect is, uh, this was a great experiment, I thought. Um, w- I love designing experiments 'cause th- it's, to me, it's like an art form. I think it's a beautiful thing. Uh, and so, but this one actually had to be designed because we were trying to get around alcohol licensing. (laughs) So we couldn't actually serve alcohol. We couldn't get a alcohol license, right? You'll know all about this, right? So we couldn't get a alcohol license, but turns out you can give alcohol away for free. I didn't know this, right? (laughs) You know this, right?

   17. CWChris Williamson8:33

       That's the work around- that's the work around, man. If you've not got a license-

   18. BLBeau Lotto8:35

       That's the work around.

   19. CWChris Williamson8:35

       ... to sell it. Just give it away and put it into the ticket price.

   20. BLBeau Lotto8:37

       Just give it away.

   21. CWChris Williamson8:38

       Yeah.

   22. BLBeau Lotto8:38

       Ex- ex- um, well, in, in our case, we said, "Well, how do we turn this into an experiment?" So we decided to turn it into an experiment on donation. So people could g- could donate publicly or they could donate privately, and if they donated it privately, again, we turn it into a theatrical experience. My, the creative director of, of my lab was previously a- s- artistic director of Cirque du Soleil, and you know, so he can turn these things into wonderful, um, experiences, or she can. So, um, but in this case, uh, you went and you crawled through this thing. There's a Punch and Judy thing, and you, you know, so it was all theatrical and it was very, very secret how much you donated, right? Um, and then you got a raffle ticket, and with that raffle ticket, you could then get a drink. Um, or you donated publicly, and if you donated publicly, you went into this wonderful m- massive photo booth with a very well-known portrait photographer, and you got your picture taken with how much you donated, and then you got projected 10 foot by 10 foot above the dance floor with how much you donated, right? So it was really public, okay? Turns out men donate more publicly than they do privately. Maybe not a surprise. Women don't. They donated just as much, okay? Then all those photographs of the men got sent to a bank of computers, and women rated the physical attractiveness of the men. And in half the pictures, they could see the donation, in the other half, they couldn't. So they weren't asked to make any comment about the donation, but how attractive, physically attractive were these men? And what do you think, who was more attractive in terms of donation? What do you think?

   23. CWChris Williamson10:07

       Man with more resources.

   24. BLBeau Lotto10:10

       So it turns out the more you donated, the less physically attractive you appeared to be.

   25. CWChris Williamson10:15

       Interesting. Why do you think that is?

   26. BLBeau Lotto10:17

       Yeah. Showing off, right?

   27. CWChris Williamson10:19

       Too much conspicuous consumption.

   28. BLBeau Lotto10:21

       (laughs) Or yeah, and also just m- one of the most attractive features of another person is their authenticity. We're highly wired, highly tuned to detect someone's authenticity. Why? Because to, um, to be lied to, um, to be tricked during evolution was a really bad idea, right? It really, you know, to, to, that's why, um, we're s- and also the authenticity of a company. It's why, in fact, the Lab of Misfits works with brands to say it's not enough just to have a purpose. You know, you can have these wonderful purposes, but unless you're authentic in it, it's just a slogan, and people will detect that inauthenticity. Think of that Pepsi cr- advertisement, uh, a year or two ago. You might be familiar. This was in America, where, uh, I forget the, the, um, celebrity that they had come and it was on Black Lives Matters. It was building basically, um, very opportunistic on the current, uh, cultural climate at the time, and they created this sort of extravaganza, s- uh, uh, music video type thing. It completely bl- backfired. Um, and in fact, it took them over a year to get back to where they were simply because they were detected to be inauthentic but opportunistic. So when a guy is actually donating, and we're not talking about some money, you know, 10, 15 quid or something like that, the women are detecting, it's like, "So what are you trying to compensate for? You're, you're, you're being au- inauthentic. You're trying to show off." And it literally manifests in being less physically attractive.

   29. CWChris Williamson11:53

       Fuck.

   30. BLBeau Lotto11:54

       So authenticity is super important, um, in, in personal, uh, um, one-to-one relationships, but also corporate relationships.
3. 13:32 – 21:28

   Maintaining Authenticity

   1. CWChris Williamson13:32

      You see this in startups that are growing as well, but the founder often gets kept on. So a buddy of mine who I had on the show recently, Aubrey Marcus, his company, Onit, just got purchased by Unilever for a incredibly large undisclosed amount to take it global, but he's being kept on.

   2. BLBeau Lotto13:50

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson13:50

      Why? Because that's a very public show of authenticity-

   4. BLBeau Lotto13:54

      (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson13:54

      ... that if you just get bought out by some huge, big corporation and then you rip the figurehead out of the company, it's a lot harder to find that authenticity as opposed to perhaps step by step, slowly pull Aubrey's face away from the branding and blah, blah, blah. I don't know what the plan is, but that seems like a plan.

   6. BLBeau Lotto14:12

      Yeah. So that, that's part of it. So I actually have two startups myself, and, and the, um... Historically what often happened is that these big companies would buy up a startup because they're buying, they're trying to buy in the creativity, and then they break up the startup. What they don't realize is that's the team, it's the group of people and the culture that actually often enabled that success. So you get a lot of less, um, VC investors, but a lot of angels and super angel investors. They're investing not in your idea. There's a, there's a very significant investor I know out of Israel. He's, he's got 80 different investments. He doesn't care what your idea is. He invests in you, right? And so that's one aspect is that these large companies are realizing that it's actually that team that made it successful. If they break up that team and they dissolve it and they, they sort of bring e- you know, diffuse it into the company, they've lost the actual, um, beauty that was created in the first place, which is one of the reasons why you could argue WhatsApp, Instagram, et cetera, they've remained, um, teams within Facebook.

   7. CWChris Williamson15:15

      Mm.

   8. BLBeau Lotto15:16

      That's one point. Um, the other aspect is what I call the host effect. So you put on dinner parties, right? So the, um, when you go to dinner parties or the nightclubs, right? The, um, the personality of the f- of the host infects the party, right? If you're a quiet host and you're like this and very introverted, the whole party is quiet. But if you're an extroverted host and you're sort of celebratory, the whole party is extroverted and, and celebratory, right? So the, the group takes on the personality of the host, okay? And as soon as the party becomes a h- about the host, you're no longer hosting. It's now all, it's now about you, okay? So a brilliant host infects the party with their own energy, for better or for worse. Well, what's true for the party is also true, I believe, for a company. The personality of the founder, the personality of the, of the people who run the company, but in particular the founder, will infect the whole company. So which is one of the reasons why you see Facebook the way it is. It is, in some sense, the manifestation of the personality of its host, okay? A classic, uh, a very good example, another classic one is between Target and Walmart, Walmart in, in the States. Uh, they are two companies that were formed around the same time in the same part of the States in Minneapolis. One of them was a, the host, the founder was a nickel and dime corner store, as cheap as possible, right? The other one was founded by a department store where, where service that mattered, the c- the customer mattered, right? They both start in the same place. Both of those, um, hosts are now dead. The companies live on. Target has one of the highest loyalty, um, of any other store in America. It's like 80%. Outrageous, right? Why? It's because that personality, that host continued l- well beyond. Think about New York. New York was not founded by the British and the Purit- the Puritans. It was founded by the Dutch. It was New Amsterdam. And at that time, hundreds of years ago, Amsterdam was the place that people went to for religious freedom. So if you, as long as you, uh, professed loyalty to Amsterdam, you could practice whatever religion you wanted. So it was a real place of freedom, which is still kind of true for Holland and Amsterdam in general. Think of New York. New York is not like America. It's not like anywhere. New York's New York. I used to live there for the last five years, right? Um, and it still has that personality of its founders, of its host. So I think that's the other reason why they keep on the founders, because they want to maintain, or they should at least maintain that personality, maintain that, um, that host effect.

   9. CWChris Williamson17:56

      What about awe? I know that you've spent a lot of time looking at that.

   10. BLBeau Lotto18:00

       Awe. Um, so awe is a wonderful thing. I think awe is possibly one of our most powerful perceptions. Uh, so what is awe? Um, so other people have, have defined awe to be that moment where we think a surprise-We can't understand it, but then to understand it means I probably have to shift my current understanding of myself and the world. So surprise is surprise. Wonder is, "That's amazing, but I bet this fits with what I already know," so a magic show gives wonder, right? "I bet if I understood the trick, it would still make sense to me," right? But awe is something else. It's like, "I... That's amazing, I don't get it, and I'm gonna have to shift my views." So that's kind of like a formal thinking about awe. But what does it do is really powerful. So we, we did an experiment with Cirque du Soleil, uh, which is a wonderful group to, of course, be working with. And we measured people's brain activity, and we measured what changed in their perception and behavior of themselves in the world before and after their experience of awe because who better to work with than Cirque du Sol- Cirque du Soleil to create awe, right? And what we found, uh... Well, actually, we, we found a couple of things what other people found, which is your prosocial behavior increases. So you want... You look after other people. You're more likely to open a door for someone else. You're more likely to listen, et cetera. But also what happens is your tolerance to risk increases. You're more willing to take risk, and you're better able at taking it. Um, your need for what's called cognitive closure, your need for certainty decreases. You're more willing to sit with an uncertainty. And even your whole perception of yourself changes. So when asked afterwards, "Are you someone who is more likely to experience awe in the past?" you're more likely to say yes. In other words, you start reframing yourself as someone who experiences awe. Your ego diminishes. You feel small but connected to all those around you, including nature, right? And I would argue that, in some sense, that's what people are often referring to when they, when they think about being in the, in the zone, um, being in the moment. You're actually getting yourself out of you. And in some sense, this is what psychedelics are all doing. This is what psilocibin or ayahuasca... It's getting you out of you. Uh, and I think in some sense that's our most powerful perceptual state, ironically, is not thinking of yourself.

   11. CWChris Williamson20:28

       But in a world where everyone's far more neurotic, spending too much time in their heads, a lot of time-

   12. BLBeau Lotto20:34

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson20:35

       You know, what- what we celebrate is cerebral horsepower, you know? Sort of along with s- the scientific method and rationality and utilitarianism and a meritocracy comes everyone thinking, "More IQ points, more time inside of my head is the solution to me getting more of the things that I want in life," you know, love, money, status, whatever.

   14. BLBeau Lotto20:53

       Mm-hmm. And all of that might be true depending on the context that you're in. So you're... If you're in a society, in a culture where that's actually celebrated, yeah, you will be more successful. Um, will the society itself be more successful in the long term? Possibly not, right? So if you create a society which says that's a good idea, well, then that is a good idea, at least for the short term.

   15. CWChris Williamson21:12

       It works on the, um, collaborative, uh, upholding, right? If everybody considers it to be prestigious to have these things, then by its very nature it's like a democratically elected, um, set of status metrics. But what about-

   16. BLBeau Lotto21:27

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson21:27

       So let's

4. 21:28 – 26:24

   How To Be Less Neurotic

   1. CWChris Williamson21:28

      say that someone is spending a little bit too much time inside of their own heads, they're being too neurotic-

   2. BLBeau Lotto21:32

      Mm.

   3. CWChris Williamson21:32

      ... and, and they really are just too up here.

   4. BLBeau Lotto21:36

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson21:36

      What are some of the things, I'm gonna guess, that trying to find an experience of awe would be one of them, things to take them out of their heads?

   6. BLBeau Lotto21:43

      Yeah. That would be one. Um, there are also other examples that I would s- say, um, call, um, being a sandbar. So being a sandbar is to be there to enable someone else to step into uncertainty. Um, so for instance, there's increasingly n- You know, the m- Meditation's a wonderful thing. Um, yoga's wonderful. All these things are wonderful things. Um, but often they are taken out of the context in which they actually in some sense evolved. Um, meditation, um, uh, mindfulness, for instance, comes out of a Buddhist tradition. Okay? And the Buddhist tradition comes out of a culture that was actually very socially oriented, and one of the reasons is because it comes from a certain physical environment in which that arise, um, monsoons, et cetera. So social is very important, and we've done experiments where people who from the Far East actually look at images differently than people from the West. They're more li- Their eyes more likely to look at the background, whereas your eyes are more likely to look at the foreground. Okay? The illusions that I make are stronger for people in the East than they are for people in the West 'cause they use context, social context and actually physical context more. Um, so what a recent study has shown that if you practice mindfulness within a context of being more socially and oriented towards others, it increases your generosity. If, however, you practice mindfulness in a context of individualism where your focus is yourself, it actually decreases your generosity. So it would have... At least in terms of generosity, it would have been better not to be mindful, right? It actually makes it worse because what's happening is you become more and more focused on self. And often with anxiety, that is where it's, it's, it's coming from. It's that constant focus on yourself where often, and we all experience that, as soon as you get yourself out and you start thinking of someone else, you start giving, suddenly things become a little bit better, right? So in some sense there is a... Not a solution, but there is a strategy, and I apply it myself when I'm feeling pretty rubbish. I will purposely go out of my way to... Sometimes you have to force yourself to go and do something that's useful to someone else. Do something that's kind. And it s-... Maybe sounds like a cliché, but it actually is shifting your p- your attention away from yourself because I can get you... I mean, um, you know, y- you think about pain and chronic pain and, you know, I could put a piece of sand in your hand, and if I got you to focus on that piece of sand as much as possible, it would become eventually very painful.So, which means the whole of my skin, the sensation of my skin becomes focused on this tiny little bit, right? And that can be- that can be what starts happening to people. And yet it's all in the guise, and I don't mean intentionally, but it all feels like it's in the guise of- of, um, in service of the- a larger sense of self or larger world. So there's this alignment between what we say, our intentions, and what we do.

   7. CWChris Williamson24:56

      What about dread? Have you looked at the other side of awe?

   8. BLBeau Lotto25:00

      Dread? Oh, I haven't, but I like that idea. Um, but you mean as in terms-

   9. CWChris Williamson25:06

      Is dread opposite to awe? What would you say is polar opposite?

   10. BLBeau Lotto25:09

       The opposite of awe would be in some sense what we were... I think the opposite of awe in some sense is narcissism, right? Because see, I have a particular view of awe, which is people think that it diminishes your ego because you feel connected. I think in some sense it expands your ego. What I mean by that is now my ego, if I define my ego, and you can define your ego in- in some more formal ways, more sort of cloaky ways, but if I define my ego very loosely in terms of to whi- that to which I identify, if I start identifying with nature, with the animals that are around me, or with you, then in some sense my ego has expanded, and it's expanded to include things that aren't just within my own skin, right? So in some sense, I think it's expanded. So the opposite of that is contraction where you're completely self-focused, completely focused on yourself, um, lack of generosity, not wanting to take risks, completely fearful of uncertainty. That's where we get anxiety. That's where anxiety lives. That's where depression lives, which doesn't say they're the opposite, but in necessarily in a formal sense, but in some sense, in a behavioral sense, in perceptual sense, they are.

5. 26:24 – 35:26

   Focus & Distraction

   1. BLBeau Lotto26:24

   2. CWChris Williamson26:24

      You mentioned about focus, focusing on a grain of sand specifically, but focus and distraction are just two of the most common desires and ailments I think for people at the moment. Smartphones and social media and too much electronic devices. Have you ever done any work on focus and distraction and attention?

   3. BLBeau Lotto26:42

      (laughs) We're- we're actually in the middle of a study of that just now, where we're actually focused, ironically or coincidentally, on, um, on silence and the power of silence. Um, and it's a fascinating topic. It's a fascinating topic. Um, and I can't go into necessarily all the findings that we have so far, but from what we already know from other people done- have done, silence is one, an understudied, um, phenomenon, but it's also a deep human need, but it's also something that people thinking of your- the word you used before, dreaded. So there's a study, for instance, showing that at least for, um, this group of people they studied in a young group, people would rather be physically harmed than sit in a room for about 16 minutes and do bugger all, right? So when they... So they had to do that once, and when asked to do it a second time, they said, "You could do it a second time or you could shock yourself." They chose the shock, right? Rather than sit and just... and not meditate, just sort of sit and do nothing, right? And yet we know you get increased neurogenesis, i.e. brain cells start being born, uh, if you're in silence. Um, we know that your heart rate goes down. There's some estimates from the European Union that literally millions of, uh, years of wellbeing have been lost across the European countries. Um, it's even more recently been associated with the- the poten- the potential for Alzheimer's disease, the lack of silence. Um, and of course it's very interesting to ask what is silence? 'Cause there's no such thing as silence, right? And what's more, your brain is super active when you're in the dark or when you's in silence. And in fact, I went... I did a dark experience for four- four days, um, uh, last month. And that was a fascinating experience we could talk about, but the, uh... And so to... Your- your- you have cells that are active when the lights go on, but you also have cells that are active when the lights go off, 'cause your brain... You know, darkness is not the lack of light, it's... or lack of activity, it's your brain saying, "Things are dark." It's telling you, "Things are dark." And then when things are light, it's another set of cells saying, "Things are li- light," right? So things are very dark, it's just that different parts of your brain are active-

   4. CWChris Williamson28:59

      When you-

   5. BLBeau Lotto28:59

      ... and we are underusing those.

   6. CWChris Williamson29:01

      When you were talking about silence, is it... have you defined it as complete silence or have you looked at things that are undiscernible noises? So like white noise or driving in a car without music or podcasts on, for instance?

   7. BLBeau Lotto29:14

      So the... It's- it's- it's a- it's a com- it's a difficult question to answer. I can give you some- some- some aspects of insight into this. So the- the most... and when it comes to say urban spaces, the most important noise that seems to impact people is not your neighbors, it's the, um, industrial noise, it's transportation, it's airplanes, it's cars, it's- it's building works. In terms of decibel levels, those are the source, those are the noises that are actually causing the most challenging. And yet the ones we spend most time focused on are the neighbors, right? And it's like, why those? They're actually... they're- they're doing less for you. Um, and it's partly because-

   8. CWChris Williamson29:52

      Shout it... Lean out of your window and scream at the people driving past in their car.

   9. BLBeau Lotto29:57

      Yeah. (laughs)

   10. CWChris Williamson29:57

       That's what you should be doing.

   11. BLBeau Lotto29:58

       Yeah. Well, the irony is that there could be a massive building site with jackhammers going across the street, but the person's gonna open up their curtains and tell their neighbor to turn down their music, right? Um, and yet, decibel wise and continuous wise, it's actually the across the street. Maybe it's partly because it gives you that sense of agency that you're in control of something.

   12. CWChris Williamson30:15

       Mm-hmm.

   13. BLBeau Lotto30:16

       Um, and how am I gonna stop this construction site, right?

   14. CWChris Williamson30:19

       Sniper rifle.

   15. BLBeau Lotto30:19

       So that's one source.

   16. CWChris Williamson30:20

       Sniper rifle will fix it. (laughs)

   17. BLBeau Lotto30:22

       (laughs) Yeah. Well, that's your idea. But, um, so the- that's, uh, um, so that's one source of noise, but actually it might be far more important noise is internal noise.What I mean by that is the jitter that's in your head. Uh, and so that's one, one point is that, that, that noise that's constantly, I can't focus, or... That's possibly a more powerful noise than the others. So, you could imagine, for instance, tho- those remarkable meditators, Buddhist monks, whatever, I'm sure they could sit on the middle of an air field and feel no sense of lack of distress by the noise coming past, whereas you or I would. So, what's interesting is that our sensitivity to noise varies depending on who you are, your state of mind, and the noise that's going on inside your head, but equally for silence. And what is silence? Um, I think silence has something to do with unpredictability, um, a lack of agency. Someone just suddenly comes in and interrupts you in your mid-thought, right? Um, this type of stuff. And there's also an, uh, element of nature. We do- we have evolved to be in nature as well.

   18. CWChris Williamson31:38

       Which is quiet.

   19. BLBeau Lotto31:40

       It's- but it isn't, is it? I mean, it's- I mean, in- if you go camping, and, you know, up on the hill here in, in Ibiza, I mean, I- there's this- like, it's not a cricket and it's not a cicada. I don't know what it is, but at 4:00 in the morning, it's basically saying-

   20. CWChris Williamson31:53

       (laughs)

   21. BLBeau Lotto31:53

       ... "My house, my house, my house, my house, my house," over and over again. And it's like, on the one hand, I'm thinking, "This is beautiful. It's nature." On the other hand, my head is like, "Shut the fuck up."

   22. CWChris Williamson32:01

       Shut the fuck up.

   23. BLBeau Lotto32:03

       Right? And it's really annoying, but it's nature. So, you know, not-nature isn't actually that quiet, but we find it peaceful.

   24. CWChris Williamson32:11

       What's happening inside of our brains if we are used to a high level of input? If we're used to a high level of stimulation?

   25. BLBeau Lotto32:20

       Yeah, we adapt to it. You adapt to it. So, it's what I- what we're referring to in the very beginning of redefining normality. Your brain is constantly redefining normality. So, um, you go into, uh, you go into a cinema. Everyone will know this experience. You go into a- once upon a time, actually, I don't- in Britain, can we go into the cinemas yet?

   26. CWChris Williamson32:37

       Yes.

   27. BLBeau Lotto32:38

       I- yeah, I can't remember. Okay. Um, so you go into a cinema. And initially, you know, the cin- the, the, the lights are off. You know, you can't see the steps, you can't see anything, and you're, you're like, "Shit," and you sort of pause there and you're waiting for it, right? And what are you waiting for? You're waiting for your brain to redefine normality. In other words, to reset itself to the average level of illumination. And then you- if you- it's a matinee, for instance, and you walk out, and now in your brightness, it's like, "Whoa, that was overwhelming." And then you, again, your brain's resetting. Why? Because we can only be sensitive to a small range. Your brain cannot be equally sensitive to the massive range. Illumination, in terms of intensity, varies a billion to one. We can't be sensitive to that whole range simultaneously, equally. So, we have to pick our windows, and we're constantly adapting. Why? Because we wanna- we- what we really want to detect is change. So, if I reset myself, then I can detect change around that, around that average. Okay. So, if you have lots of noise and lots of things going on, you will se- reset yourself, and that will become an expectation, which means that if you- you need to keep that level of noise in order for it to be normal. But this is also true in terms- if you think about not just, say, the physiology of, of brightness, but also the physiology of ideas. One of the- you could argue one of the most challenging consequences of what's happening, say, in the States, and not to go political, but in terms of, say, neuroscience, in terms of adapting normality, is that your brain will reset itself. It will say, "Ah, this is normal." What was previously not normal, what was previously like, "I can't believe this is happening," will eventually say, "Oh, yeah, this is normal." And so the whole of society will shift to that new normal, and then we'll have fluctuations around that. Now, if that shift is in a negative direction, it will then become normal and it will no longer be seen as negative, right? And then it will take another shift down and another shift down, right? Because to not adapt requires energy. So, my point to people often is decide beforehand if you want to adapt to this thing, whatever that thing is, a relationship, a, a level of light, a level of sound, a political situation, whatever it is. Decide beforehand if you want to adapt to it, because you will. Because to not do it is hard. And that's, you could argue, what a protest is. A protest is the energy required to not adapt, right?

   28. CWChris Williamson35:05

       Right.

   29. BLBeau Lotto35:05

       But you also see this in complex systems. It literally requires energy to not change to the common average. Think of people who are eccentric, who rebel. It's very costly, emotionally, socially, but also physically, to not adapt, in some sense.

   30. CWChris Williamson35:24

       I saw a study about

6. 35:26 – 47:47

   Power of Familiarity

   1. CWChris Williamson35:26

      people who usually live in the city and then move out to the country, and people who live in the country and move to the city, and both of them said that it was pretty unbearable in terms of the amount of noise.

   2. BLBeau Lotto35:36

      Hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson35:36

      You think, "Well-"

   4. BLBeau Lotto35:37

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson35:37

      ... "Well, surely one of them has to be better than the other one." You know? There's got to be a, a more optimal... And it's like, no, no, no, no.

   6. BLBeau Lotto35:43

      No.

   7. CWChris Williamson35:43

      The issue is this sort of Overton window of, of, um, normal experience, and then somebody's been picked up and moved outside of that, and change. Change requires energy.

   8. BLBeau Lotto35:53

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson35:53

      Adapt.

   10. BLBeau Lotto35:54

       T- yeah. And, and we find that really challenging because we love familiarity. Why do we love familiarity? Because it's predictable. And even when that familiarity is awful, we will often go for the familiarity that's awful than the unfamiliarity that we don't know. You know, the, the old adage, "The devil you know is better than the devil you don't." Right? Um, in fact, that is not necessarily literally true. But we find that... Even to the extent that when someone is- has a physical ailment, so it's lots of studies have, uh, looked into this. We haven't, but lots of studies have shown- have looked into this. You have a physical ailment. You don't know the cause of this ailment. It's massively uncertain what this cause is, what the cause is. You finally get... And it's, and it's, you know, you're feeling awful, you're mentally feeling awful, all this kind of stuff. Then you're given the diagnosis. That diagnosis is a terrible diagnosis.... there's this element of relief. It's like, "Oh, well, at least I now know, even though what I now know is an awful thing." That's how much we want and need that sense of knowing, that sense of uncertainty.

   11. CWChris Williamson37:01

       What did you do? I mean, uncertainty is, like, your specialist subject.

   12. BLBeau Lotto37:04

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson37:04

       What did you look at to do with this?

   14. BLBeau Lotto37:07

       Everything. Everything we look at is in- is about uncertainty. Um, in fact, even my studio, when we design, we only have a design along a single axis. This is the axis of uncertainty. Um, sometimes we want to increase it, sometimes we want to decrease it. Almost every one of our behaviors, almost every one of your behaviors is an attempt to decrease uncertainty, except in one context, okay? So, I would argue that, you know, in some sense, that's why Uber is successful. Uber's successful not because they tell you when a, you know, they enable you to get a taxi easier or faster. You know, that, that's true, but it's because they tell you when the taxi is going to arrive, right? And to the extent that that they get, they get that wrong, people will stop using Uber. And this has actually started happening in some South American countries, where, you know, you Ub- you order your Uber, it says eight minutes, five minutes, four minutes, canceled, 12 minutes, duh-duh-duh, and people go, "Oh, fuck it," and then they just order a taxi or wait for a taxi, right? But if I say, you know, "It's, you know, it's five minutes. I'm gonna show you where it is even," your cortisol levels stay low, right? You're, you're no longer stressed because you have certainty. It's why in Britain, we, people, they put the, um, time the bus is going to arrive up on the bus schedule, even though it says 45 minutes, right? And it's like, "Ah, that's a pain for me, but at least I know," right? Um, so everything that we, almost everything we do is an attempt to decrease uncertainty. And then we apply that in business and, and all kinds of aspects of our life. And, and we can actually e- even use that to, people use it to manipulate as well, um, so both in a positive and negative sense. So, in the positive sense, it's why cliffhangers work. It's why Game of Thrones works. Because what they're doing is they're, they're building up uncertainty, and at the end of every episode, they finish on a minor chord. And it's like, "Ugh." I mean, you know what it's like, right? Well, I, I work with DJs here in, in Ibiza, and, you know, it's, they call it dropping the beat. You know this better than I, right? What, what's the power of dropping the beat? Well, what they've done is they've built up uncertainty. They've built up expectation. That expectation, your dopamine levels are going up and all this kind of stuff. And what's the brain's greatest need? It's for that closure. It's for that uncertainty to be resolved, and then they drop the beat and your whole body starts moving. You've seen it. The whole rhythm of the whole room, everyone goes crazy. But then sometimes the DJs will play with you, right? And they'll drop it to a minor chord, and be like, "Oh, no." And then they ramp it back up and they drop it right, and they're waiting, they're waiting, and then they finally drop it, right? Game of Throne's the same. What they're brilliant at is knowing which minor chord to finish it at, so you have to get that closure. But personal relationships will also do that. So, if I create a sense of uncertainty in you, and I'm the only source of resolving that uncertainty, I now have a power dynamic over you, because I'm the only one who can give you closure. So, you'll find that often people will even purposely create this. You see this in corporates. They'll say, "I don't know if you're gonna buy h-" You know, "You're j- you have a job for now. I don't know about next week." You know, they're, they're constantly creeping that uncertainty, and they're the ones that now have a power dynamic over you. Um-

   15. CWChris Williamson40:17

       But think about the worst message to receive from your partner. "We need to talk."

   16. BLBeau Lotto40:21

       Yeah (laughs) . Dot, dot, dot, right? It's-

   17. CWChris Williamson40:24

       Well, do y- well, just ring me. Like, if we need to talk-

   18. BLBeau Lotto40:26

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson40:26

       ... then fucking ring me. Don't tell me that we need to talk. I'm just gonna wallow in this anxiety for the next hour.

   20. BLBeau Lotto40:31

       (laughs) Have you got those messages a lot? The... (laughs)

   21. CWChris Williamson40:34

       No, it's, I'm, I'm a, an ascended being now.

   22. BLBeau Lotto40:37

       Wait-

   23. CWChris Williamson40:37

       That's not happening anymore.

   24. BLBeau Lotto40:38

       Well, no, I, we all get them, right?

   25. CWChris Williamson40:40

       Yeah.

   26. BLBeau Lotto40:40

       We all get them. And, and it's possible, in fact, that we've all delivered them too, right?

   27. CWChris Williamson40:48

       Yeah.

   28. BLBeau Lotto40:48

       Um, because we, in some sense, we all kind of do this. The question is, um... And, and because in some sense it's natural, right? But this is why what the lab is trying to do, is give people awareness. And we call it perceptual intelligence. Once you're perceptually intelligent, when you ha- once you have an understanding of how and why you see what you do, now you actually have agency over that, because otherwise, you're just behaving reflexively, and then you're telling yourself post hoc rationale for why you did it. And usually, that post hoc rationale puts you as a hero, or puts, uh, the responsibility onto someone else, right? But now, as soon as you realize, "Okay, everything I'm doing is, is grounded in, in my assumptions, my bias, et cetera, many of which I've created, many of which I've hi- inherited," now you actually have a choice. The natural response is to do X. That's fine. But now I actually have a choice to not do X, right? Um, so that's, that's the power of, of knowing, because otherwise, you're also gonna create this power dynamic on people, right? Uh, and you're not gonna know that you're doing it.

   29. CWChris Williamson41:56

       There's a quote that-

   30. BLBeau Lotto41:57

       Not only you. Anyone.
7. 47:47 – 1:02:25

   Seeking to Understand

   1. CWChris Williamson47:47

      It sounds like an equivalent between optimism and pessimism here that you're talking about.

   2. BLBeau Lotto47:53

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson47:53

      We often tell ourselves, we rationalize that we were either the victim or the, uh, unintended, uh, criminal perpetrator in a situation. A lot of the time, if we do something that is good, it's because we hold ourselves up high. And if we do something that is bad, it's because-

   4. BLBeau Lotto48:09

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson48:09

      ... the world forced it upon us somehow.

   6. BLBeau Lotto48:11

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson48:12

      Is there an inverse of that? Because I have a bunch of buddies who seem to self-berate or, um, they attribute their successes to fluke, and they attribute their downfalls to themselves.

   8. BLBeau Lotto48:26

      Mm-hmm. Yeah. So there is a space that's in between those two. So the first one you're describing is ironically the measures that we use for o- that, uh, that Seligman and others have devised for the measurement of optimism. So optimism as measured, I would just, uh, argue against this, but optimism as measured is when something good happens, you think it's gonna last forever, it's gonna affect the whole of my life, and it's largely because of me.... when something bad happens, it's going to be very specific, it's not going to affect the rest of my life, and it's kind of your fault anyway, right? That's an optimistic person. And we know if you're optimistic, that you're light, you live longer, you're happier, and all that kind of stuff. Well, who wouldn't be? Because all the good things are m- for me and all the bad things are because of you, right? Whereas the more sort of stoic, the more, the more sort of realist is like, "Actually, this good thing that happened is kind of not just because of me, it's also because of you. This bad thing that happened is not just 'cause, it's also because of circumstance." So, the concept of the daemon was actually... and which then became a familiar and was actually the basis of the muse. So, the daemons were like this thing on your shoulder that sort of, in some sense, took some responsibility for the bad things that happened, but they also took responsibility for the good things that happened. So, it kind of diminished your ego. It kept you humble. So, that en- engaging the world with that humility, um, and openness to the possibility that you had some agency in whether it went wrong or whether it went well is actually, I would argue, one of the distinctions between wisdom and intelligence. Wisdom, to me, is far more interesting than, say, intelligence. Um-

   9. CWChris Williamson50:11

      Dig into that for me.

   10. BLBeau Lotto50:12

       ... because-

   11. CWChris Williamson50:12

       What do you mean?

   12. BLBeau Lotto50:14

       Well, first of all, wisdom fr- in my view, i- i- you can't get it from a book. It comes from experience, it comes from, um, uh, it comes from realizing that the world is contextual. This is what I would, again, equate to, say, perceptual intelligence. It has humility, it has compassion in it. Um, it engages with, in conflict with the desire not to win, um, but with the desire to understand. And we can come to the distinction between understanding and, and conflict, if you like. Whereas intelligence is different. It can be... we often teach intelligence in school. We don't teach wisdom. In the school we're trying to create, it, we're looking to teach wisdom, i.e. seeking understanding rather than seeking knowledge. Rather than seeking knowing X and X happened on this date, it's, "Why did that happen? What was the significance of that? What was the context in which that can then generalize?" Right? Um, so that to me is loosely a distinction between them. But when we enter not knowing with either a desire to stand still or even worse, with the desire to validate... So, if you are in conflict, often what we do is we're seeking validation. "I want you to agree with me or you want me to agree with you, and so I need to validate you." But what you really want is to be understood, right? And so often when we, when people are dealing with conflict management, they often, psychologists will say, "What you want to do is find common ground. Oh, you like football? Oh, I like football. That's great." Now, I know that actually what I'm trying to do is convince you on something else. So, I'm trying to get you to, "Oh, what kind of buddies? Oh, you both like Arsenal. Uh. Well, you probably like Newcastle. I used to like Newcastle, but anyway..." So, we're trying to find that common ground and then it's like, "Now let's talk about politics or something." Well, actually this is called manipulation, but if I went to you and said, "You know what, Chris? I disagree with everything you're saying, but I truly want to understand why you feel this way because I truly think that I might learn something, but what I really want is to understand you." Because everybody makes sense to themselves, just not to other people. There's an internal law of physics inside you that is the basis of your rational decision. It's just that your physics are different from mine. Your data is different from mine, and so often I come to the point it's like, "Oh my goodness, if I had that data, I would have that view too."

   13. CWChris Williamson52:41

       But everyone's convinced of their own view, right? Like nobody's-

   14. BLBeau Lotto52:44

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson52:44

       ... nobody's fighting the corner of a view that they don't believe in, for the most part. There are some people-

   16. BLBeau Lotto52:48

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson52:49

       ... that, that are misaligned or sort of willfully ignorant, but even the people that are willfully ignorant, like they're ignorant, if they were convinced of something el-... if I convince you, if I managed to convince you that two plus two equals five, you are now convinced of that until somebody convinces you a different way. Are you familiar with Chris Voss's work, the FBI's ex-head negotiator for kidnapping?

   18. BLBeau Lotto53:11

       Oh, no. I, I, I know of it, but no, not in detail at all, but I-

   19. CWChris Williamson53:14

       So his-

   20. BLBeau Lotto53:14

       ... go ahead.

   21. CWChris Williamson53:14

       ... his book Never Split the Difference is you would... I, I, I would recommend, super accessible read, you'll, you'll chew through it, and he does a lot of the things that you're talking about here. So, one of the key tactics he has is called, uh, "That's right." So you, um, steel man the other side's position as obsessively as possible. Painful, m- second by second, the most detail that you can get, every single thing, and what you're aiming for... "So this is what I think's happening, and you are this way because of this, and this is your view, and this is your view, and this is your view."

   22. BLBeau Lotto53:51

       Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson53:52

       "That's right." That's what he wants. That's the response that he wants. He tells this story about a guy, um, that was a kidnapper that was holding a bunch of people in Vietnam hostage, and this had been going on for months. Months and months and months. And they just, they couldn't make headway, and the guy that Chris was there coaching, the actual negotiator himself, Chris said, "Look, we need to get a 'that's right' out of this guy 'cause we're not getting anywhere and we're worried that he's gonna kill the people that he's with."

   24. BLBeau Lotto54:20

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson54:21

       So he says, "We need to get a 'that's right' today." So this guy takes two hours of explaining, "I understand that you believe that Vietnam was taken over by imperialist powers. I, uh, I appreciate why this is coming from. This is why you think this, this is why you think..." Two hours, "That's right."

   26. BLBeau Lotto54:38

       Yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson54:38

       The next day, all of the hostages were freed. This guy-

   28. BLBeau Lotto54:42

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CWChris Williamson54:43

       It, it... completely done. And another one, the other one that he does, um, that I thought was interesting is a lot of the time when people notice an issue with the other side, they'll say, "What's wrong?"

   30. BLBeau Lotto54:53

       Mm-hmm.
8. 1:02:25 – 1:14:00

   Fundamentals of Leadership

   1. BLBeau Lotto1:02:25

   2. CWChris Williamson1:02:25

      Talk to me about leadership. You have a- an interesting framework for how people can be better leaders or the, the fundamental elements of leadership.

   3. BLBeau Lotto1:02:34

      Yeah, so leaders, um, leaders effectively, as we were talking about before in terms of the host effect first of all, you know, they determine the, um, the... not just the culture as such, but the, almost the hard to measure aspects of a company that sort of enable people, for instance, to s- to be uncertain, to ask questions. Uh, so often leaders are thought they're supposed to have the answers, and, "This is where we're going," where in fact the best leaders lead others into uncertainty as opposed to create uncertainty or think that they themselves have to solve the uncertainty. What they do is create an environment in which others can actually ask questions, and then we can prosecute those questions. So, I'd argue, for instance, in terms of science or laboratory, science is not about iterating to better questions. It's about iterating... Sorry, iterating to better answers, it's actually iterating to better and better questions. But you need an environment in which you can actually have that iteration process where not knowing, asking questions is celebrated. Uh, we also know, for instance, that, uh, there are three qualities of a leader that are associated with success of any one company. It's lead by example, admit mistakes, and see qualities in others. So, lead by example is a space, um, that creates trust. Now, you can't, um, engage in uncertainty outside of space that is trusting. So, that's lead by example. Admit mistakes is a space that says, "Hey, not knowing is good here." And see qualities in others is a space that celebrates diversity. But what's interesting, there's a lot of talk about diversity. Diversity by itself is not necessarily a good or bad thing. What often people forget is you also have to integrate across that diversity. It's not just ha- having-

   4. CWChris Williamson1:04:15

      What's that mean?

   5. BLBeau Lotto1:04:15

      ... a lot of different stuff. So, this is actually comes down to physics. So, um, and in some sense science. What your brain is constantly looking for... Understanding is finding a principle that transcends context. So, when you understand something, you actually understand it at a deeper level where now you can apply that understanding to multiple environments. Okay. And that's because you've been able to integrate across the diversity of those environments. You've been able to find something common, right? Um, so w- whether it be w- talking to a woman or a, a man or whatever it might be, right? And then of course you're trying to find what's specific to that person, for instance. But what you're trying to do is find, um, the thing that integrates across diversity. So, E equals mc squared. Doesn't care if it's a planet or a bowling ball or a chicken, right? It's just, it's gravity, right? Doesn't care. Doesn't depend on the... all that. So, you're trying to find those principles, and that's because you're integrating across diversity. So, in terms of a company, you're trying to not just have diversity, you're trying to find, um, how, how these different people of different kinds of backgrounds, whatever, can integrate, can communicate, can share.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:05:31

      It makes me think a lot.

   7. BLBeau Lotto1:05:32

      So those are... Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson1:05:32

      It makes me think a lot about the, about the way that, that leadership works, about the way that companies that are very effective... The asking questions thing and the... What was the first... like competence, what was the first one? How did you frame that one?

   9. BLBeau Lotto1:05:48

      So, lead by example, admit mistakes you-

   10. CWChris Williamson1:05:48

       Lead by example, yeah.

   11. BLBeau Lotto1:05:49

       Yeah.

   12. CWChris Williamson1:05:49

       So, I had Will Storr on the show recently talking about the status game, and-

   13. BLBeau Lotto1:05:54

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:05:54

       ... in that he said that there's three primary routes to s- well, technically two, but three, kind of three primary routes to status. Uh, and one of them is fear, basically kind of force. Um, another one is trustworthiness, and the final one is s- of usefulness or competence or virtue, something along those lines. And these are the three fundamental ways in which people find status.And the reason for this is-

   15. BLBeau Lotto1:06:20

       Hmm.

   16. CWChris Williamson1:06:20

       ... makes a lot of sense. Like, those would be three ways that somebody could become renown, powerful, admired, whatever you want to call it, within a tribe. And it makes me think about-

   17. BLBeau Lotto1:06:32

       Mm-hmm.

   18. CWChris Williamson1:06:32

       ... the person at the top of the tree that there is a... there's a requisite amount of competence that's needed. So for instance, we use in our, um, events company, we have quite a vertically, um, sort of stratified company in terms of managers. We have junior managers and event managers, and then senior event managers and city managers, and then we have directors. And it's not a tremendously big company, but we draw these guys out so that it gives them this sense of progression, and it also allows us to sort out pay packages efficiently. And the guys that have the most respect...... from the team below them often have a number of different elements together, but one of the ones that they almost always do is that they have the biggest guest list totals. So, if these guys are regularly putting in the hard yards, this is the fundamental thing that everybody does. It's the sales, right? It's, let's say that the director of the sales company still does sales, and you can see him on a board. And yeah, maybe he's got more experience than everybody else, and yeah, maybe his contacts are better than everybody else, but he's still got to put the sales on the board, right? And his board's the same as your board, and he makes, you know, that's, that's the way it works. A lot of the guys that have been our most successful managers throughout time have been the ones that have displayed competence that are seen by everybody else. Everybody else gets to see it. It's on the same score sheet that they're on, and they can compare their performance with theirs. You'll see this in CrossFit as well. This is one of the reasons I think that the CrossFit Open has had so much uptake. It's the first fitness competition ever where the world champion, you get to compete against him. You do the same workout with the same weights, the same movement specs, and you get to go, "Oh my God, he did it in nine minutes and 40 seconds. I did it in 20 minutes. Like, how, how stupid am I?"

   19. BLBeau Lotto1:08:07

       Mm-hmm.

   20. CWChris Williamson1:08:07

       "Like, I'm so s- blah, blah, blah." You get to, uh, you're right, because we can see competence. It's very, very clearly displayed in front of us. And I think, um, as a small business owner, it's one of the interesting things thinking about as you rise up through the, through the ranks. I'm a big proponent of people earning their bread and butter and really understanding each of the different levels of their business. Maybe when you get to the stage where you've got, like, board members that are kind of more like advisory or specialized, perhaps this becomes, because you're less of a figurehead, you're not actually interacting with the people. Um, but for instance, with podcasting, a lot of guys that start podcasting, if they want to build a big channel, they'll try and get an editor on board quickly or a video guy, and you're like, "Well, hang on. If they come to you, if, if you're unhappy with something to do with the audio..." And you don't know what you're talking about, if you say, "It's a bit this," and you're just using vague language, that person's not going to have as much respect for you if you're able to actually really use the correct terminology. And the same thing goes for houses. So, if you have a property portfolio, my advice is you should manage your properties for perhaps a year or a couple of years, and then you can get a letting agency in. Why? Well, because if you need to sit down with somebody in a meeting and have a conversation about why your properties are being mismanaged, and you don't understand the processes, even at least on sort of a, you know, a broad level, you have no idea what you're talking about, it's going to be much more difficult to command respect. So yeah, competence appears to be a pretty impressive drug.

   21. BLBeau Lotto1:09:35

       Uh, very much so. It's, uh, I'd also think about competence in terms of reliability as well, which is hugely important when, when people are reliable, whether it be at a personal relationship level or, or in a corporate and, um, company level. Um, that reliability and competence, you're right, creates a sense of trust. Um, with that said, a- and also there's, because there's a sense of earning it, but it also enables you, I would argue, that the best, um, leaders enable others to become competent, okay? Um, but in order to do so, that's where I think a leader becomes a mentor in more sort of the traditional sense. Instead of telling them what to do, you create an environment for them to become competent, and actually it will make the organization more successful. Um, rather than each individual competing over competence, they're actually, in some sense, competing over the ability to enable others to become competent. But in order to become competent, you have to understand the space in which the person is engaging, right? Now, there's also a flip side to that though, because the leader can also, the person who's very competent can also become an expert. And experts are really, they're very efficient, but they're really bad at asking a good question.

   22. CWChris Williamson1:10:48

       Why is that?

   23. BLBeau Lotto1:10:49

       Because they know what they're not supposed to ask. So, over and over again, the experts will say, "No, we don't do it that way. No, that can't be done. No, it hasn't been..." et cetera, et cetera. There'll be, "No, no, this is the way you do it."

   24. CWChris Williamson1:11:00

       Uh, so it's too constricting for the people that are below them-

   25. BLBeau Lotto1:11:02

       It's too constricting.

   26. CWChris Williamson1:11:02

       ... because they don't get to learn by failing.

   27. BLBeau Lotto1:11:05

       Yes, that's one, and two, that the, um, the expert is focused on efficiency, which is why I'm a huge celebrator of being naive, not ignorant, but naivete, because people who are naive can ask brilliant questions, but they don't know they're great questions. So, it's not that they're thinking outside the box, they're just in a different box. Okay? They're experts in this box, and this is the way we do it in this box, and we're gonna be very efficient. And that's a great idea if the world didn't change, right? But then the world changes, and what the, what the leader has to do is change with it, which means they have to actually balance creativity with efficiency. That means balancing naive with expert. So, in my own team, uh, in my own, our own, um, work, we try to have a diversity, but that diversity in this... Well, we have lots of different kinds of diversity, but in this instance, it's diversity between naive and expert, because a brilliant expert can, can't ask a great question, but they can recognize a great question when asked, right? Because they're open. It's like, "Ah, shit, I thought we should have done it this way. This whole last 20 years we've been doing it this way. But now that you mention this, I've never thought of it that way, but let's go in that direction." Now I'm enabling you to be competent, right? Um, and that's where the self-awareness comes in that I have, knowing that you have biases, that you have assumptions that come from a history and often a history that you inherited. Um, so it's being also willing to step away from that as well, which is, I would argue, a very strong sense of being competent, because competence is also about having courage. And when, uh, you know, as my mom used to say, "A black belt doesn't have to say he's, he or she is a black belt. They just are." So, when you have that sense that, of competence, it means you're no longer trying to prove yourself. You're no longer trying to prove your competence. You just are. You just live it, and you enable others to live it, right? Um, and part of that is to, to understand that sometimes you get it wrong.... and not that you got it wrong, but being able to expand your own sense. And that's how you get resilience. That's how you get agility in, in an individual or in a company. And think about personal relationships. If that personal relationship isn't moving, if a romantic relationship isn't, I would argue, expanding, then in some sense it's dying. But so often, the people want to stay still, and initially that's okay. But after a year or two or three years and you're still standing still, it's like, "Ugh." You know? And then eventually one wants to move. I don't mean move on, but they want to expand, and the other's like, "Oh, no, but that's scary because I kinda like it the way it is 'cause that's, that's kinda, I don't know what that's like over there." But now, things that don't move, things that don't expand literally just die.

   28. CWChris Williamson1:13:58

       What new experiments

9. 1:14:00 – 1:17:32

   Upcoming Experiments

   1. CWChris Williamson1:14:00

      have you got coming up? Anything fun that you can tell us about?

   2. BLBeau Lotto1:14:03

      So we're doing a set of experiments on, uh, we're hopefully starting a set of experiments on touch, the power of touch, which I think is a fascinating topic. Um, and we're also just finishing a set of experiments on the power of home.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:14:17

      Oh, right.

   4. BLBeau Lotto1:14:18

      Yeah. Um, and, and I can't go into the details of it, um, uh, but we're finding some powerful, wonderful, um, insight into the importance of home for your brain, um, and how we feel about home. And so, uh, so touch and home and silence, we're, we're currently working on. And then, um, we're hopefully going to be working with, uh, a wonderful person called Perry, who, who also runs a very, like yourself, an important podcast, et cetera, and he works on chronic pain. So we're going to be doing some experiments on chronic pain, and then we're also working with another group of, um, w- war veterans with PTSD and, and trying to better understand how we can facilitate and help them, uh, um, and measure this, the impact of certain treatments on PTSD, including, uh, ayahuasca.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:15:11

      Why are you in Ibiza?

   6. BLBeau Lotto1:15:13

      That's a, I (laughs) ... It's kind of a short question and a long, a short answer and a long answer. Um, why am I in Ibiza? Because, um, I found myself here, um, and now creating life here in some sense. But about a year and a half ago... So the longer, but I'll try to keep it brief, answer is that about a year and a half ago, um, I packed up my... I was living in Manhattan, so I've been in Britain for 25 years, and then I, I moved to B- to New York, and then j- as the sec- as the l- second lockdown was about to start, I packed up my house in Manhattan, put everything in storage, rented a ragtop and what I call a turn left, and I drove across America. Um, my mom was just diagnosed with Parkinson's, so I went to stay with her. Then I cycled down the West Coast, uh, of the States, and then I drove back across, and basically for the last year and a half, two years, I've been living out of one bag. Um, and why? It's in some sense because, well, I study uncertainty, and, and I believe in being a trope. I believe you should be the thing that you talk about, or at least try as much as possible. And, and also it's research for a new book I'm writing. So I've just been in movement, and now I found myself here. And so now, um, that we're doing some wonderful things. We just created a new space here, and, and we'll run experiments and events and things like that here. Uh, and, uh, and so that's why I find myself in Ibiza.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:16:36

      Is that for the foreseeable now?

   8. BLBeau Lotto1:16:38

      Uh, for the foreseeable, but I travel, probably like yourself, I travel a great deal, and so it's a wonderful place to then come back to-

   9. CWChris Williamson1:16:45

      You are miles away-

   10. BLBeau Lotto1:16:46

       ... and a lot of our-

   11. CWChris Williamson1:16:46

       ... 'cause we were, I was in Ibiza and we were gonna do this in person, but then I looked at where you are on the map, and I've been to some pretty wavy afters. I've been to some naughty after-parties in Ibiza, but I've never been as far north as you are. You are off the top of the island.

   12. BLBeau Lotto1:16:59

       Yeah but, but for crying out loud, f- n- far north is like 40 minutes away. It's a small island.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:17:05

       Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.

   14. BLBeau Lotto1:17:06

       (laughs)

   15. CWChris Williamson1:17:06

       Whatever.

   16. BLBeau Lotto1:17:07

       No, but isn't it funny how relative that is? Like-

   17. CWChris Williamson1:17:10

       Yep.

   18. BLBeau Lotto1:17:10

       ... it's all the way on the other side.

   19. CWChris Williamson1:17:11

       Yeah, I know.

   20. BLBeau Lotto1:17:11

       It's so true.

   21. CWChris Williamson1:17:12

       Yeah.

   22. BLBeau Lotto1:17:12

       Um, and it's the north, and the north of the island is very different from the south. I'm, I'm new here, so but, um, there's a very different feel, and it's beautiful and all that. So yes, I'm in the north, uh, but it would have been fun to do it, uh, together.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:17:26

       Yeah.

   24. BLBeau Lotto1:17:26

       But, um-

   25. CWChris Williamson1:17:26

       Well, next time, man. Next time. If you're-

   26. BLBeau Lotto1:17:28

       Next time.

   27. CWChris Williamson1:17:28

       ... still there, if you're still there next year, then we can do it. Look, Beau Lotto, ladies and gentlemen. People who want

10. 1:17:32 – 1:17:58

    Where to Find Beau

    1. CWChris Williamson1:17:32

       to keep up to date with what you're doing, where should they go?

    2. BLBeau Lotto1:17:35

       Well, um, they should go to thelabofmisfit.com, uh, labofmisfits.com, and they can actually find we... like my traveling and the I don't know stuff and all that. Well, I, I post something every two weeks on, uh, a blog. We also run experiments on people so they can take part in experiments and better understand themselves. Uh, we also have a Lab of Misfits Instagram page, and I just started my first personal Instagram.

Episode duration: 1:18:51