EP 91- Can You Be Confident in Your Gut Reactions?
Welcome fellow confidence crusaders, neuro nerds and success equalizers. This is your podcast, Real Confidence. I'm your host, Alyssa Dver, and I'll be sharing a bit of basic brain science, some surprising social secrets and a touch of tough love. Why? Because I believe confidence is everyone's fundamental right and choice. So, let's get to it.
Alyssa Dver:
How many times? Many times, have people, probably, including me, told you to trust your gut and just make a reactive decision? Swipe left, swipe right. Well, I'm going to argue that that's not always so smart. You know, we make quick decisions about a lot of things, and sometimes we have to right the amount of information coming at us, or the situation calls for it. Maybe it's a dire emergency and you gotta make a quick decision. Okay, okay, okay, but are you making the same reactive, kind of unthoughtful decisions about your career, about other people, maybe even about yourself. And we are really, really conditioned, if you will, to kind of move fast, do everything in multiplicity. You know this, this fallacy that we now know in terms of being able to juggle multiple things at the same time. So, in some cases, we may not even be aware that we're making those quick, assumptive decisions.
I'm going to give you an example of something that happened recently to me, because I'm so glad that I was not allowed to continue to make that decision. And here's what I mean, I went on this wonderful vacation with my husband, Jeff, and there was another couple on this trip. We went on a very small led tour of Portugal, and right from the get go, and the intro meeting was kind of a hoot, because my husband is Jeff W. and so was the gentleman from this other couple. And I say this other couple, because everybody else there was single, so to speak. So, it was interesting that the two couples had Jeff W.'s, and as the other Jeff W. introduced himself, I kept saying to myself, oh, man, we have absolutely nothing in common. You know, it seemed that religious and political and all kinds of other things that I assumed based on his where he lived, based on the kind of person he seemed to be. I was like, oh, we're not going to get along at all. And then his wife introduced herself, and her background also seemed completely and utterly, I wouldn't say, opposed, but just not related to anything that I was into, have done. And I thought to myself, well, there's other people that we can chat with on the off times of the tours and yada yada.
So as the days progressed, we got to know a lot of people, including this couple. And I will say that perhaps because we had to, you know, we were on the same small buses and trains and planes and automobiles, so to speak. As we went around the country, we got to know everybody. And lo and behold, Jeff and Janice, as her name is, became our best buddies, so much so that we're planning to go away next year together. I'm like, what? And here's the thing, you know, not only did we find we had so many things in common, so many interests in common, but we were just so comfortable together, like we just enjoyed hanging out, doing the same things. Janice was like a shopaholic, like I was, and the two Jeffs are at a bizarre low level of music knowledge and appreciation that is impossible to otherwise find. In fact, my Jeff often intimidates everybody else, and yet the other Jeff not only kept up with him but has been challenging him. And so, despite my initial assumptions, but despite my biases and shame on me for having all that I was lucky enough to get to know these people and realize, man, I really enjoyed them, and as different as they are, that actually made things. Perhaps more comfortable for me, there was no contention. We didn't have to talk about things like work on vacation. It was great. Now, with that said, I think there's a place in everyone's life, and you can learn from everyone else if you give them a chance, but life is short and so, you know, we have to prioritize who we hang out with and for what purpose, of course, but what a pleasant, wonderful thing, a gift as part of that trip, to come away with two wonderful people that are added to our catalog of what I would call wonderful friends.
But you know, I also work in the diversity space, and in and I say the diversity space, I support employee resource groups which do support diversity. So, I don't consider myself a diversity expert, and I know that in the diversity space, there's a lot of courses on things like unconscious bias that work really hard to pull down those walls of assumption to make us not rush to judgment. So I'm going to say something that's going to be a little bit contentious, is that most of those courses are helping you identify certain people or situations that you would make those assumptions, and so they're great for those reasons, but they wouldn't have worked with Janet and Jeff because there was a whole different set of thoughts and reactions I had that certainly wouldn't be covered in a typical class. So, my question is, can we identify in ourselves times where we're making assumptions, when we're making judgments that are preventing us from missing phenomenal opportunities, from blocking relationships and things that are of high benefit and pleasure.
My son, Ben, you've probably heard about Ben and other podcast, the chef, he gets so mad and rightly so at everyone, but particularly me, when there's something that he makes, he cooks or he brews that I don't want to taste because I don't like that kind of thing. You know, when somebody says, oh, that doesn't look good to me, you know, makes some kind of a dish. Or I tried something like that once, and I didn't like it. I hated it. It makes him insane, and I agree with him, because we're using that data from the past that may or may not even be accurate. What I mean by it? Maybe it was a bad version of something that somebody had, or just not a well-prepared version, and yet we're using that as the basis to make our decision for something that could be really yummy. So instead of tasting something that we may really like, we just say, no, I'm assuming that I'm not going to like it. It happened recently. I'm not a big fan of kombucha personally, because I don't like tea, particularly teas like black tea and green tea, chamomile tea, those I just don't enjoy. And so kombucha, the heart of it is black tea. And Ben is a big kombucha guy, and he made this batch of rhubarb kombucha. And he kept saying, Mom, Taste it. Taste it, taste it. And my reaction was, I don't like kombucha. I don't like tea. He said, Mom, it doesn't have a very strong tea taste, taste, taste, taste. And of course, eventually I did taste it. And guess what? Surprise, surprise. It was awesome. Now that doesn't mean I'm gonna like every kombucha, but at the same time, I owed it to Ben. I owed it to myself to give it a try. Why was I gonna pass out dead from trying something like that? Oh, and a small taste convinced me that my assumptions were crap, were bad, we're damaging, damaging to my sense of things that could be great going forward. But also, you know, my kid was asking me to try something that he was really proud he made shame on me.
I'm glad I tried it. Ben, I know you're listening. Thank you for making me try it but thank you for being patient with me too. So why do we do this? Why do we make those quick assumptions? Why do we put up those walls like a default maneuver, right? Somebody wants us to do. Something that we're like, nope, been there, done that. Don't want to do it again. Why do we do that? Well, of course, we're fearful, right? Fear behind everything that is not confident. We don't want to look bad; we don't want to feel bad. We don't want to appear, shall I say, weak so when we are asked to do something new or something that we've done before, and we fear that we may look silly, fail or otherwise just be really uncomfortable, we put up the fear wall, right? And that immediate reaction into our brain stem is the fight or flight, and so either we're going to get combative, I don't like that, Sam, I am, or we're going to get very like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that, scared, maybe even go to another room or just totally retreat.
And that fear of whatever it is, it's it may not even be realized. I said before, because we often contrive truth in our head and and so we may have had something like it, or somebody may have said something to us in the past, or we just have a fear of that particular thing. Maybe you don't eat escargot because as a kid you were terrified of slugs, right? It's a pretty extreme example, but a real one for many people. Or frog’s legs for the same reason, right? And yet, they're a delicacy. They're delicious by a lot of people's standards, but in our heads, we've told ourselves that those are slugs, or those are those slimy frogs that we were terrified as a kid. How could we possibly put them in our mouths, even if they were dead and cooked?
Maybe it is something that we did in the past that we failed at, and we're like, I'm not doing that again. So instead of getting back on the horse, instead of trying again, instead of getting more prepared, more information, whatever that thing is, maybe it's something at work, or maybe it is a particular physical challenge, we retreat and say, No, I'm not going to do that again, because it felt lousy When I failed last time. So, we tell ourselves these truths in our heads that are really not true, but yet they create those fear walls so that we don't overcome that fear or that issue in a way to just take a sip of the kombucha, maybe you'll like it this time. So, what can we do? Well, we're going to take a quick sponsor break. I'm going to come back. I'm going to give you some suggestions for not necessarily recognizing each and every one of those biases, but at the same time allowing yourself the opportunity to make a better decision if it's something that you want to overcome or simply just not bother with we'll be right back.
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Alyssa Dver:
All right, we are going to give some solutions as always, to ways that we can be less assumptive, less bias for ourselves in things that we may have created a false truth or subsequently just don't give ourselves the benefit of the doubt that we might like doing or tasting or or experiencing, a friendship, a food, a challenge at work, a physical challenge, something that otherwise we would be like, no, no, I'm out. So how do we do this? Well, the first thing is, really, remember that all these things are very subjective, right? Whether you can do them or will like them. That's a subject subjective statement. There's no data behind it. And even if there is data, like the past experience you may have had, it's a new set of circumstances, right? I always say life's a laboratory, and subsequently, you may have done something one time with certain conditions, right? Or whatever it is, you know, in a lab, it may be the certain compounds or elements that you put in that thing that you're doing with the certain barometric pressure and temperature and air quality and yada yada. And then you do the same experiment the next day, and you get different results. Well, that's the same here. Maybe you tried kombucha in the past and it was not a good flavor, or it was very strongly teed tainted, so to speak. And yet, when I tried Ben's, it was a whole different experience. So, subjectivity is an important thing to remember things change and you change. And so subsequently, if something new comes into your path, or something that challenges you to say, Do I want to do this or not? Remember that a lot of the data that you're basing your decision on, if not all the data, is subjective.
Second thing to do is push yourself then to say, Why? Why are you making that decision? And that will again challenge kind of the data, ness of that, the truth of it. Why don't I want to try it? Or why? Why am I afraid of this thing? And it may, it should reveal some of the falseness of those assumptions. I'm not going to like it because I was scared of frogs as a child, and you go, yeah, but I didn't eat frogs as a child, so maybe frog legs will be actually good, right? So, question why you're saying no thank you. Question why you are turning away that offer, whatever it is, to do something, and ask yourself, why? Why are you not doing it, and if the why is really legit, you know, I really don't want to do that today, because I don't feel well today. Okay, you can give yourself certainly the grace to bow out, but if you're giving yourself an out because of something that is seemingly preposterous. You know, I don't want to meet these people because they seem to be from the south and therefore have different beliefs than I do from the North. That's just irresponsible. So, ask yourself, why?
Number three, you gotta give yourself time. And what I mean by time is, don't make that swipe right swipe left decision so quickly, but also give yourself time that there's things in life that may not be great the first time or even the second time. By the third time, maybe you can see it's getting better and easier. Maybe by the third time you realize you have more in common with those people than you assumed originally. Maybe by the third time you like wine or beer, which I'm pretty sure most of us on the first or even second taste of either one of those didn't love them when we were excited teenagers to give it a try. And yet today, some of our favorite things to drink. So, we've got to give things time. I joke, because how many TV series have you watched, and you kind of plow through the first second, maybe even the third season, not just episodes, because somebody told you it was really great, and by the time you get to the fourth it's good, but if nobody told you to stick with it, you probably would have given it up. And I will confess to you my late night activities when I'm in bed at like 11 o'clock, and I just watching kind of silly TV. I will tell you, sometimes those are my favorite shows, but the first season or two ridiculous, they had a warmup, and I had a warmup to them. So, give it some time.
So, one, remember, it's subjective. Two, ask yourself, why? Why you're saying no, what is really the reason? Three, give yourself a little time to warm up to things. And four, thank yourself. Thank the person, if there's somebody there that's offering you something for the opportunity, and whether you take it or not, be grateful that you had that offer, that you had that chance to do something, whether you decided you were going to do it or not, it's still a gift. So, thank the person like I did before. Thank you, Ben for encouraging me to try the rubber of kombucha. It really was delicious. Thank you, Jeff and Janice, for being who you are and allowing me to warm up to you as a Bostonian, we don't do that as easily as somebody from the south. So, if you'd listen say I'm grateful that we are now really good friends, and I look forward to our trip next year. And thank you all listeners. I'm hoping that this is not your first Real Confidence podcast, and maybe there was one or two that you didn't love, but you're here now, and I'm grateful for that. So my friends, assumption free, bias free, maybe not possible in the real world, but we can do a little bit better job in our own lives, so that we can appreciate love, have fun with the people, the foods, the things that are presented in our paths without so much rejection.
Before we totally wrap up, I want to let you know that full transcripts and show notes for this and other real confidence episodes can be found on www.AmericanConfidenceInstitute.com/podcast. I also want to remind you once again that the best way to get confidence is to give it to others, and you can do it just by liking and sharing this episode on your preferred podcast and social media channels. You can even give me some confidence by noting topics you'd like me to consider for the future. So, for now, this is Alyssa Dver. Thank you for helping to bring more confidence to the world.
Master editing done by Ben Weinstein with original music performed and composed by Jeff Mitchell. Real Confidence is a production of American Confidence Institute. All rights reserved.
