What's Shaping Your Perceptions?

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The sciences behind human behavior are complex, yet the practical applications are what truly matter in our daily lives. In this illuminating discussion, we peel back the layers of scientific theory to reveal how concepts like gestalt psychology, emergence, and reification shape the way we perceive and interact with the world around us.

Our brains are constantly working to create order from chaos, organizing visual information into patterns that make sense to us. This natural tendency explains why eyewitnesses can be utterly convinced of details they never actually saw, or why we might misinterpret objects based on context alone. As Greg describes through compelling real-world examples from combat zones to everyday situations, "The untrained mind believes what it expects, not what it sees."

We explore how these scientific principles translate into practical frameworks like "baseline plus anomaly equals decision" - a formula that allows you to quickly identify threats and opportunities in any environment by understanding what's normal and noticing meaningful departures from that norm. Rather than getting bogged down in academic terminology, we focus on how these concepts can be applied in high-pressure situations where quick, accurate decision-making is essential.

The power of emergence - that "aha moment" when everything suddenly clicks into place - becomes a cornerstone of effective learning and observation. When you experience these moments of clarity on your own rather than being told what to see, the lessons become hardwired into your consciousness, available even under extreme stress. Through storytelling and practical examples, we demonstrate how you can sharpen these skills in your everyday life, from workplace interactions to personal relationships.

Ready to transform how you observe and interpret the world around you? Subscribe to our podcast, check out our Patreon for exclusive content, and remember: training changes behavior.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Human Behavior
Podcast.
Today, greg and I are exploringsome of the deeper scientific
principles behind human behavior, pattern recognition and
analysis, things like gestalt,psychology, emergence and how
our brains fill in the blanks tomake sense of the world.
Now, don't worry, we're notgoing to overload you with
academic jargon.
Instead, we'll show you howthese concepts actually work in
real life, whether you're on thejob or simply navigating daily

(00:44):
interactions.
We hope you enjoyed the episode.
Don't forget to check out ourPatreon channel for additional
content and subscriber-onlyepisodes.
If you enjoy the podcast,please consider leaving us a
review and, more importantly,sharing it with a friend.
Thank you for your time andremember training changes
behavior.
All right, greg, we arerecording, so we're going to go
ahead and jump in.
Hey, everyone, we got a goodone today.
So, greg, today I want to talkabout some of the scientific

(01:07):
principles behind what we teach,without getting it too sciencey
, and the reason being.
You know we have our ownprocess and method that we talk
about, especially on the podcastand in class.
A lot of times we get questionsabout like well, where are you
citing this from?
Or where is it, and it's likewell, hey, this has been

(01:30):
standardized, well-known areasof study for a really long time
and we're taking thefundamentals of it and applying
it.
And even though we stick to thescience, we don't always get
into every single nuanced area,meaning we don't state it
explicitly, they're not alwaysfront and center in class or in
podcasts.
Because why I'm more focused onyou utilizing the information

(01:53):
correctly in a way that anyonecan understand.
Right, it's about the outcomeand what you're doing with the
information, not just being ableto recite something.
I mean, anyone can go to schoolor read a book and cite all of
this different stuff or talkabout these different theories,
and that's just absolutely nothelpful in the application of it
Like we know it or we have tounderstand it because we're

(02:14):
teaching it in our way, so weknow where it comes from.
But that's not the importantpart of what we get into and
that's why we do a lot of thestorytelling, because that's
obviously easier to learn andremember.
It's the oldest way to learn,but they're not always sort of
front and center.
And then what I see a lot isthen now, especially on social
media LinkedIn and Instagram andall this stuff is like people

(02:35):
talking about these differentscientific principles and it's
like, okay, great, like you reada book and you studied this,
that's awesome.
But so what?
And it's everything from.
You know whatever, somepsychological theory.
Psychology is the one that'sthe worst, because it's all pop
psychology and some new thingcomes along and everyone gets
excited.
And then a few years laterpeople are like, oh well, you

(02:56):
know, maybe that didn't reallywork out so well, and it's like,
yeah, these are just ways thatpeople came up with to explain
something that they foundinteresting.
And since you related to it,you also found it interesting.
And now we're going to use this.
It's like well, hang on, that'sone thing that you're looking
at.
Let's look at the big picture,the sum of all the parts, but we

(03:19):
have to start with the littlethings in there, I guess.
To start with the little thingsin there, I guess.
So, just to kind of, you know,kind of, I wanted to frame it,
at least the discussion, in that, because we are going to be
talking a little bit aboutemergence, gestalt psychology
and some of the theories behindit, because you know which is a
wide area of study, which numberof people fall under and how we
explain these things.

(03:40):
But it's all about perceptionand processing.
So we're going to talk about itwithout even getting into the
eye and the brain.
I mean, we are talking aboutthe eye and the brain, but we're
talking about the process onwhich we perceive things.
So you know, first of all, whyscientific principles matter but
aren't always front and centerin class or podcasts.
Why is that from yourperspective, greg?

Speaker 2 (04:01):
No, so you brought up a bunch of great things.
So to street it up, Brian issaying that when we go to the
range to qualify instructorfirst, doesn't ask us to lands
in the grooves on the weaponwe're about to fight.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, what's the model velocity that?

Speaker 2 (04:12):
doesn't have anything to do with what we're about to
do.
So in class we move it at fastpace.
We assume that you're going tounderstand some of these
principles and when you don't,there's a lot of source
documentation that's out there.
So we rely on science, becausescience relies on evidence.
We rely on science because itprovides a systematic, reliable

(04:32):
method for understanding theworld, for solving problems and
for making better informeddecisions, especially in
extremis.
So science leads to everything.
Science leads to advancementsin technology and medicine,
overall quality of life.
So why wouldn't we lead?
That's our heavy hitter when wego in.
But we don't have to dig sodeep, brian, that everybody has

(04:53):
like reintegration.
You know, holy crap, there's atopic, or or even when we go
into heuristics.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Brian, you could spend the rest of your life
studying heuristics and not playgrasp, and that's why we use it
.
We look at sort of HBPRA andwhat we do as a living system,
rather than these bullet pointtheories where it's like, okay,
this comes from here, it's like,well, but it also comes from
over here.
And then people are like, well,that's confusing.
Which one I was like it's allof it, like it's these things
are complex, interactions,interactions and what a lot of

(05:26):
these different theories orprocedures are.
It's like everyone stops, takesa snapshot in time and looks at
this right here and goes, see,I'm going to explain everything
through that lens and I go, yeah, but the second the situation
changes, that's no longerrelevant.
So so you can't just rely onone thing.
So what do we mean when we saylike hbprna is like a living
system rather than just a listof bullet pointed theories?

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, and you know the funny thing you just said
again.
So every time that you see abook that Brian or I own it's
dog-eared and it's gothighlights and it's got sections
with arrows, that's onlyconfirmation bias internally,
we're reading things and going,yeah, well, that makes sense
because of what we know.
I don't take then a picture ofthat and send it to Sean and go
did you know this?
Because Sean is going to sendback.

(06:08):
Yeah, because it's science.
So it's just a funny side notethere.
So look, if you're thinking ofHPPRA as a structure.
Think of it as a structure likethe US Constitution, another
living system.
Okay, so that's an absolutelyaccurate way, brian that you
just brought up, of looking at,because science never changes,
but the system is, and wasdesigned to be, adaptable and

(06:30):
evolve over time.
And what does that mean?
That means that it can allowfor changes based on the
application, but it can meet theneeds of a changing society.
It's not Iraq anymore and it'snot Afghanistan anymore.
So, as much as those stories tome are vital for me to remember
a principle and pay it forward,that might not be important to
you and you make thoseconnections with people all the

(06:52):
time through your stories, butyou said it best one time.
As a matter of fact, you saidan hour ago on a different
business call that look, one dayyou were speaking to a church
group that afternoon, tostudents in elementary,
elementary school, and laterthat evening the navy seals.
You didn't change the thingabout the science.
You might have changed yourdelivery methodology.
You might have had a touch mehere, elmo or whatever, to hold

(07:12):
up to entertain I don't thinkthat's what that's called.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
The seals, yeah, but that was for the seals, yeah
right, but?

Speaker 2 (07:18):
but the idea is, at the end of the day, brian the,
the principles, thepsychological, sociological,
physiological underpinnings havenever changed.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Okay, so let's jump into some of the ones that we're
going to talk about today, andthe big one being kind of this
gestalt psychology, and so I'lllet you sort of define it.
But it's kind of like Imentioned, it's where the whole
is greater than the sum of theparts, meaning there's a few
things involved with it.
I don't have to see everythingto know what it is that I'm
seeing, but also my brain issearching for an end state to

(07:52):
what I'm seeing, and it willguide it in that direction,
based on what I know andeverything and what I, what I,
what I've learned throughoutlife, even sort of if it's wrong
, or even if it's not there,right, and so that's the
overarching thing.
But I'll I'll let you kind ofjump into that and explain the
Gestalt psychology and why it'sso powerful.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
And you just again nailed it right on the head,
brian and I refer to Gestaltpsychology.
There's a Gestalt theory that'svery deep and goes on and it's
like the second law ofthermodynamics.
It goes on forever.
Okay, but in psychology,Gestalt psychology explains why
we tend to see the world throughorganized patterns.
What happens is interrelatedevents and structures may not be

(08:31):
, but our brain organizes them.
Why?
Because our brain is constantlytrying to make order out of
chaos.
So in German, Gestalt literallymeans form or shape, and it
helps us because what we do isour visual information says okay
, these are patterns, theseshapes fit together, and even if
the final outcome is wrong, ourbrain will go there.

(08:51):
So it's designed to be helpful.
But this is where eyewitnessescan be wrong.
This is why visual evidence candeceive us, and your comment
that the whole is merely the sumof its parts is more important.
That's so important tounderstand from the concept of
theory of close enough.
What happens is I had to inventsomething to name what I was

(09:12):
seeing happen on the stance.
Cops would testify and then allof a sudden, a witness would
testify and then you'd haveanother witness testify and it
didn't even sound like thepeople were at the same story.
So then the defense attorneywould jump in and go there's a
bunch of scrum there.
This obviously means thatthey're lying and I would go.
No, it's a theory close enough.
Your brain tends to group thingstogether, whether they fit
together or not.

(09:32):
So the other problem is thatyou anticipate certain things
being an environment, so thething you saw fits that pattern.
So therefore you have todeconstruct your memory.
You have to deconstruct whatyou saw to make sure you're
actually seeing what you thought, Because they didn't conduct a
detailed investigation, theymerely grouped things together
under stress and the untrainedmind believes what it thinks.

(09:53):
It believes what it expects,not what it sees.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
And I'll give sort of one example and then you give
another one that we've usedbefore in the past, but you just
brought it up as perfect as aseyewitness testimony.
Everyone was like I wouldn't,his testimony is terrible.
And people are like, well, no,I know what I saw.
It's like you, you really don't.
And there was a great one wherethey had someone who claimed

(10:26):
that they went through it, blewthe red light and t-bone that
other car and then the camerafootage revealed that the person
heard the crash, turned andlooked and saw the, that it was
red where the person should havestopped.
And their brain created thatentire story, which was the
actual story.
It was what actually happened,but they didn't actually see the
events take place.
But they didn't know that they.
They literally said, well, yeah, I, I did.
Brain went oh, wow, I justwatched this truck run into it.

(10:46):
It's like, even though you werelike a quarter or half a second
behind, you just heard thenoise and then oriented in that
direction and your brain said,okay, I know what happened here.
Now it was absolutely correct.
But they didn't actually seethe accident.
You know, I mean that's howpowerful this stuff is, because
we have to make that order outof chaos.
So I know you've got some, youknow noticing those.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
The early days of Combat Hunter was me bouncing
around, you know, wearing myshitty Walmart jacket and my
untucked pants, and I wasprobably hitting you up before a
pre-deployment somewhere atsome base on one of the coasts
that was just the norm, base onone of the coasts, that was just
the norm.
Or in country, in a Connex,wearing an amazingly large

(11:28):
one-piece fire-retardant marinebodysuit in tan color.
That did not look very good onme at all.
And what happened is I wouldshow pictures that I took.
You know that I take a lot ofpictures and tell a lot of
stories.
So I would show a picture of ahairdryer the same exact
hairdryer in every photo, butthe first hairdryer would be on
the counter in the bathroom of ahotel.
Everybody knows the blueFormica counter mirror in the

(11:49):
background and everybodyimmediately could associate that
.
Well now, have that in yourmind right now and set it to
your left.
Well then, the next photo thatI would take is a photo of the
same exact hairdryer, but it'spartially revealed under the
passenger side of the car seat.
Now, the people that I showedthat to, on the right-hand side,
where it's partially concealedby the car seat, all said gun
and everybody that saw the hotelbathroom all said guess what?

(12:12):
Hair dryer.
Okay, now let's take thatfurther and take the hair dryer
photo from the left and insteadof on the right having a gun,
what we did is we put it in awood shop up there with some
clamps and saw and somedifferent things.
And guess what?

Speaker 1 (12:25):
they said, they said drill.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
So the idea is that priming is so strong in your
brain and guess what?
The theory of close enoughcomes up, and so you have
Gestalt literally says we can'tbe comfortable with a missing
piece of the puzzle.
So I have to make sense of whatI'm seeing in this situation.
So my brain helps, but whatwe're saying from the very basic
of this conversation issometimes that brain is

(12:50):
unhelpful because theinformation it provides you get
fixated on it might not be thetruth, brian.
That's the key.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Well, and you brought up is, which is why we always
talk about when we get into,like baseline plus anomaly
decision.
It's like that context, context, that baseline is the most
important part to fullyunderstand because that shapes
every single perception you have.
And you just gave two perfect,perfect examples, like the, you
know, okay, here on a, you know,I remember, like the slightly

(13:18):
blurry photos just blur it out alittle bit right it's like,
okay, that's a hair dryer at ahotel, okay, that's a drill on a
workbench, like, oh wait,that's like a little submachine,
a little Uzi or something likethat.
And this, when I put it next toother weapons and it's like but
to your brain it just it sayswhat should fit here.
Okay this is cognitively closeenough, and that's why we use

(13:40):
the theory of close enough,which is why it's so important
about understanding that contextand where you're starting that
from.
And this is again.
We've never really talked aboutthis one a lot.
You know the gestalt, but thisis where a lot of this stuff
comes from, and it's a complexinteraction between your eye and
your brain, your visual cortex,your memory, the context, the
environmental indicators andcues that you're getting, your

(14:02):
mood that day, how nervous orscared you are, how happy or
excited you are.
I mean, there's so much.
Your emotional state reallyplays into it as well, and so
that kind of like.
You know, we, we show peoplehow to do that and how to
recognize patterns quickly andand then act on them sooner so I
can say, oh, wait a minute,that is the gunner.

(14:23):
You know, don't worry about it,that's just a drill.
Now.
That that's just that example.
But there is this concept withinsort of gestalt theory about,
about emergence, and so you knowthis emergence and behavior is,
is I would sort of call it likethat when, when that clicks,
when that oh my god, I know whatthat is.
It's the oh, it's a piece ofcandy kind of thing, almost, but
it's like this is where thatcomes from.

(14:45):
So, so, you know, can you sortof to illustrate emergence,
right?
This is where all of thosethings from the environment come
together, right, and we getthat click, that aha.
So when it manifests, it'sthat's when we talk about
recognizing that threat oropportunity before you know it's
aware, either before thatperson's aware of it, before

(15:08):
someone else's, or earlier on inthe sequence of events that I
find myself in, those ahamoments, those clicks.
I mean that that's that's whereit's at.
So, like, how do we?
I guess I kind of I kind ofspoiled a little bit like, well,
how do we talk about that?
Just because I'm so I'm so usedto it?
Like, how do we talk about thatJust because I'm so used to it?
How do we talk about that inthe classroom?
Because I can sit here and like, oh, wow, you want me to learn

(15:30):
about emergence and call thatemergence.
It's like that's great if youwant to go read a book about it,
but then how do I use that?

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah.
So let's play a game first.
So let's deconstruct it firstand talk about two things.
Let's say that you've neverbeen a copper before.
What I want you to do is go inyour kitchen right now, bring
your trash can out of thekitchen and dump it on your
floor.
And you're going to go throughthat and I want you to put
things together in your brainuntil you decide what was for

(15:57):
breakfast.
And has the person a cold?
What emergency thing did theyhave to do to sew on a button?
It's all there, it's all inthat trash can.
Now, cops, you'll have a chanceto go out and do a trash pull
and do the same thing.
Make sure you've got yourgloves on and you lay out
something so you're nottampering with the evidence and
pour it onto that tarp.
Okay, so now you have in yourmind everybody that's listening

(16:20):
to my voice.
You've got on the left sideyou've got that trash bowl, and
on the right side you've got thetrash can.
So what?
So Brian's example a piece ofcandy from Family Guy Peter
Griffin's trapping James Woodsin that old deadfall trap with
the stick and the string, andhe's got the box weighted, you
know.
And then he uses Reese's Piecesand as James Woods go by the
alley, he goes ooh a piece ofcandy and he follows that candy

(16:42):
right in.
What happens is the joke thereis that he doesn't see the
forest or the trees, he doesn'tsee the deadfall trap and James
Woods gets under it.
So if we go back in all of theelemental sciences of psychology
and we look at giants likeKafka and Metzger from the 30s,
we see that they understood thatpeople didn't understand the

(17:04):
aha moment, the, the, the, thelinchpin was that emergence hits
people at a different time andand they referred to it back
then as the laws of seeing.
So so now we call it the, thefog of war.
Right, and there's a millionterms.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
That came out of it right.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
But what's the idea and I love that laws of seeing
thing.
So visual perception is definedby the emergent properties of
the whole.
So the pieces of candy which wehave to gather then have to be
put together, spun around andtaken apart, and until we put
them together again, we don'tunderstand exactly what we're
seeing.
So that's the gift of time anddistance.
That's on one hand.

(17:39):
On the other hand, is ourinitial perception battlefield
inertia that makes us form adecision quickly, and that that
seat hip is the theory of closeenough.
So they're in a constant battletogether.
The whole cannot be predictedfrom the sum of its parts.
They can't.
The idea is that if we setthings together, that could mean
any number of things.

(18:00):
So there's gotta be the, thegladwellian tipping point where
enough things would suggest it'sone and not the other.
So there's enough puzzle piecesto come together and go.
Holy shit, the Eiffel Tower isjust in the background.
They're trying to show me thesetwo cats with the ball of yarn.
And that's emergence.
That's when the brain finallygoes oh, I see now, and it can

(18:22):
grasp the entirety of thesituation.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
You're in and from a learning, from a teaching and
training standpoint, that's anextremely powerful concept to
understand, because now, whatyou do well, that's the whole
thing.
If you lay it all out and thengo, brian, this is leading to
the deadfall trap.
I go oh, okay, yeah, I got it.
But that's not as powerful asme getting to that aha moment on

(18:48):
my own, and some people mayneed a little bit longer than
others.
But if you create that sort ofyou know hook, I mean this is
even like you know, thosesuspenseful movies, or even
sometimes with comedy, with thattoo, it's right.
It's going like, where's thisgoing?
I think I know where this isgoing.
Oh, I get it now.
I see, that was the guy thewhole time.
He was the insider threat.

(19:09):
I had that insight, I put ittogether.
So now I'm hooked in andentertained, but from a learning
, you know and trainingstandpoint, like that's so
powerful.
Because if I just lay out thebreadcrumbs, if I lay out the
pieces, and then you come to theaha moment on yourself by
yourself, well, guess what?
That lesson is sticking withyou?
that's not just me saying someinformation, you writing it down

(19:30):
and trying to memorize it.
That's in there, man, that's,that's hardwired.
Now, in a sense, your braingoes god, I love that.
And and and.
Part of the part of the problemis kind of what you mentioned.
It's hard to see what it is asyou're putting things together
right, so you have to be able toto it.
It would be like almost youknow, puzzles would never work
if they didn't show you thefinished product on the front of

(19:52):
the box.
If you just dumped out piecesthat put something together,
you'd be like I have no idea.
All right, I can get the, I canfind the four corner pieces,
but then how long is it going totake me to fight every you know
to try and fit those piecestogether, and how many times do
they put the wrong one together?

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Right, you will be able to do it, but think of the
discovery learning that you'llbe going through.
You're exactly right.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
It would take forever .

Speaker 2 (20:13):
You're going to be sitting on your knees and it's
going to take way longer thanlooking at it and sensing the
themes.
So that's why the brain gave ussomething.
Gestalt named it, but you knowthat didn't never happen.
What happened is that somebodygoes.
Why is this so?
Why did I come up with the term, the theory of close enough?

(20:34):
Because I had to talk a defenseattorney off the wall and
explain to them, and then thejury goes hey, that makes sense.
And now you're winning the case.
So here what we have is deepscientific principles that have
been around forever and peopleare still conducting studies on,
and what we do is we streetthem so you can use them, we
give them to you, so you go.
Oh, I got it, because you knowwhat the other danger is, brian,

(20:56):
that if I show that variouslyand in pieces, that you're going
to watch the family guy episodeand you're only going to come
up with, well, there's somerelationship between peter James
Woods and candy, okay, well,that's too perfunctory.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
There's nothing there .

Speaker 2 (21:10):
And then you're going to say, well, this is about
Skittles.
Well, no, and it has nothing todo with James Woods' love of
candy.
The idea is that that's wherewe're going right and it's
spending a lot of time, like you, with the upside down puzzle
pieces.
You know, with only thecardboard side.
What we're doing is the brainhas to survive in a complex
environment, so Gestaltnaturally wants us to tendency

(21:33):
to put things together, but wealso have to understand with
that comes danger.
So, as long as we understandthe balance on it, most
instructors I run into go hey, Ilove listening to your podcast,
but some things I don'tunderstand Exactly, exactly, and
so so you know what brian and Idon't either, and that's why
we're still doing this andthat's why we're on the call.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
Talking about it right now is so you truly can
grasp these deep concepts yeah,no, and, and you know, that was
the skittle one got me to in the, the simpsons episode, where he
goes, hey, walks into thequickie mart, hey, you got any
of that skittle.
Brow, I don't know what you'retalking about.
He's like we don't have that.
He's like, oh well, just giveme a six pack of Duff and a
package of Skittles.
What was he doing?

Speaker 2 (22:11):
So actually what was happening there is?
He was not only involved inGestalt, but he also got to the
point where he was reified.
So reification comes where apast memory is so strong.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
So Homer drank Skittle Brow past memory is so
strong.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
So.
So homer drank skittle brow,okay, but, but he ate it.
But he forgot that you couldn'tjust go to a store and buy a
skittle brow.
I love that.
So there's so much science.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
The two, the two tv shows that you and I watch yeah
that have the most science inthem are family guy and simpsons
by far yeah, well, you and you,you brought up sort of the kind
of the next part, thereification, the filling in the
gaps, right, our tendency to seemore detail or completeness in
an image or concept that isliterally present, right.

(22:57):
So, you know, reification kindof is that part that helps you
fill in the blanks, right, asyou watch behaviors, interpret
environment and anticipateactions.
As you watch behaviors,interpret environment and
anticipate actions.
But, like we, this is where youget into practicing, you know,
understanding in thedistinguishment between real
patterns from assumptions orbiases, so you don't wrongly

(23:18):
fill in missing info.
So so, again, and for peoplelistening to us know, like, a
bias isn't a bad thing, it justit's, it's, it's not what, what
is meant by that term bias.
It's just it's, it's, it's notwhat, what is meant by that term
bias?
It's been using, correctly, alot.
You know really really subjectmatter experts and people are
really good at what they docreate and inform these really
great bias that allow them tomake quick, fast, you know,
intuitive decisions.

(23:38):
However, right, we can stillfall into that trap as, oh, I've
seen this before.
I know where this goes and itcould be wrong.
So we have to balance it out,but that's actually kind of part
of reification.
So maybe you could kind ofexplain that concept for
everyone.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
Yeah.
So let's take a history lessonagain, because I love historical
perspective.
So when I got into these ethosarguments on the stand or
working with attorneys and theynever really understood like
they'd be great at the law butthey never had a street
application.
Or you and they never reallyunderstood like they'd be great
at the law but they never had astreet application.
Or you'd be great on the streetbut you didn't understand.
There's not a law for that.
It doesn't work that way.
And so there was turbidity.
So this turmoil.

(24:14):
I try to end by saying hey, look, your confirmation bias is that
you'll tend to go out there andlook for evidence that supports
your theory.
It's not science.
What you have to do is go wherethe science takes you.
So remember that garbage thatwe dumped out.
Take a look at that garbage anddon't read into it.
Tell me what it shows.
So if it shows mostly peels fromcarrots and a bandaid, then
guess what?
Maybe you cut your fingerpreparing a salad.

(24:36):
Okay, that's not to say thatthat.
Hey, you had a blood testearlier in the day and came back
to get vitamins.
What we're doing is we'recreating that reality.
So reification is the earliestexample of a psychological
explanation for whatconfirmation bias does Not what
it is, but what it does.
And so we define these abstractconcepts, one said, concepts

(24:56):
that leave us with a missingpiece.
By filling in those blanksunconsciously, the brain hates
chaos again, so it hates apuzzle with missing pieces.
So what does it do?
It forms something that's closeenough, and even if it has to
push a little bit, it'll pushthat in.
And that's why we say stuff likedon't put a round peg in a
square hole, because when you'refaced with that conundrum, when
you're faced with that mystery,your brain is going to fill in

(25:17):
that missing information withthings that you've experienced,
or things that you think, orthings that you know, or what
you anticipated.
You primed yourself to believeit was going to be there.
I expect this at a crime scene.
So I'm going to add it, Brian,and guess what?
Those facets of emergence canbe harmful or dangerous.
The two things that we holdvery, very important to us when
we come to your zone and giveyou training is the Hoberman

(25:40):
sphere thinking of a thing in360 before you get there and the
jack-in-the-box.
Nobody wants a surprise.
You get there and the, the, thejack-in-the-box nobody wants a
surprise.
So we'll tend, as humans, tofill in missing bits of
information, even if it'spatently and blatantly wrong
yeah, and that's a there's.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
There's just questions.
I mean, that's like where, likekind of, if then statements
come from right, if I see this,then what else should I expect
to see what's likely, what's themost dangerous?
Right, and we, we use degreesof likelihood because, like you
just said, with the carrotexample, right, there's peeled
carrots or the carrot peels, andthen there's a bloody Band-Aid
in there.

(26:16):
It's like, okay, well, thatmakes more sense.
Just going off of just what Isee right there, it's likely
that, okay, did they cutthemselves while they were
peeling carrots?
Versus what you said, oh, theywent out and got blood drawn
today and that's the bandaidfrom.
It's like, well, you see noother evidence.
I'm not saying that didn'thappen.
I'm saying, based on what weknow, what can we, what can we,

(26:37):
you know, likely, assume what'swas where?
Where are we at?

Speaker 2 (26:40):
here, and so logic and and and reality, and and
tendency, and all of theseagencies that are in our brain
already.
That's why the one, one of theother things that Brian and I
bring to class all the time isthe funnel.
Listen, look at that funnel fora minute.
What's much more likely thanthese?
And, and I remember those twoyoung Marines on the East coast
that day said, well, anythingcan happen.

(27:00):
And, brian, we're the, we'rethe staunchest people, people.
And no, not anything can happen.
That's not the way life worksyeah, certain things happen.
It's not true more likely tohappen.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
So let's stick with science and likelihood and we'll
come to better decisions fasterokay, so one of the you know
and part of the reason why wetalk about the stuff on this
podcast, because because you canlisten to it and you can find
out some of the backgroundinformation on some of the
things we discuss and where itcomes from and and how to use it

(27:28):
.
but you know, kind of want totalk specifically on why we
don't, you know, memorize theoryin class now, why we're not
like, hey, write down gestaltand remember that.
Hey, write down emergence,write down reification, like no,
like the, where we can hit onthat without getting it.
And so the idea.
Idea is about with HBPR-8, thedesign is about it's practical

(27:50):
sense-making, under pressure,especially, or usually.
Even if it's not, it doesn'tmatter, it still works right.
We don't drill down to theacademic language of this.
We have our own lexicon to useto articulate things, but I
don't need to remember all that.
Right, we can go into themwithout calling them by name,
because it's important for me tounderstand the concept and how

(28:15):
to apply.
It is more important than whatit's called, and I almost do the
analogy, especially for our lawenforcement listeners.
You don't have to memorizeevery single case that you're
going to use for case law andprecedent.
As long as you're acting withinthe letter of the law, within
the intent of the law, you don'thave to go.
Well, I know that that's Grahamv Conner, I know that that's

(28:38):
Mims.
I don't have to remember that,as long as I'm doing what those
cases allow me to do, what thelegal precedent is, if I'm
staying within that, that's farmore important than being able
to, you know, remember what youknow.
You brought up the range examplein the beginning with, like,
how many feet per second, my, myweapon system is like well,

(28:58):
okay, I don't know what thatround is traveling at, it's fast
, it's faster than I can moveand it's going to kill me if it
hits me.
Like I don't need to know thespecifics right In order to use
that effectively.
So it's the most effective use.
And that's also where I seesome things kind of kind of go
wrong.
Does that make sense?
So you have your own way ofsaying it.
It makes too much sense so.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
So what's more important at that point, at that
time?
On the range, do you need allthose things?
Do you understand nomenclatureand terminal velocity and all
those things?
Yeah, you need that.
Okay, but if I'm going to be ina firefight, I don't need that
right now.
Okay, there's certain thingsthat are survival-based, split
second choices that impact mysurvival that I need first, and
so those things that I needfirst are the things that we

(29:38):
like to train your brain on.
So the idea is that the examplesthat you give are consistently
great examples, but I would telleverybody that's listening to
us how many times have you heardmy voice say do your homework.
And what I mean by do yourhomework is look at your
situation, examine your baseline.
I don't know where you work, Idon't know the people you work
with, but you do so to make thebest decision.

(29:59):
If you do your homework, youdon't.
For example, roygbiv, it helpsus red, orange, yellow, green,
blue, indigo, violet but youknow what God, buddha, vishnu
Allah, gave us a better thinggave us a rainbow.
We look up at the rainbow andwe go wow, that's interesting.
And then, when we look at aprism, we make a comparative
analysis and go.
Did you notice that thosecolors were in that same order?
And then guess what, brian,that's called learning.

(30:20):
Now I've learned something?

Speaker 1 (30:22):
Pink Floyd invented that right With their album
cover.
It was Dr.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Floyd.
So I'm more a street magicianthan I am a scientist or a
doctor.
But what I do understand is howto take these concepts and make
them more digestible.
So if we listed out all thescientific principles that we
cover in class, you might nevercome.
You might not understand thatthis higher learning has
involved both Brian and I'sentire lives and we're still

(30:46):
learning every day.
Now we're really, really goodat it.
That's why we're noticed andnotified and regarded as the
subject matter experts in thisfield.
But I just read something theother day on LinkedIn.
We joke about LinkedIn but welove it.
Don't get me wrong.
Linkedin is a perfect way toget your ideas out there and to
get work and to find similarwork.
But I read a guy that put onthere.
Now go by my Roy G Biv example.

(31:07):
He goes well.
The first thing I learned isbivouac to the Rockies mate and
I'm paraphrasing because I don'twant to call my dear friend out
.
But then he took each letter ofyou know bivouac to the Rockies
mate, and each one meant a thingthat he had to have in his
rucksack.
Holy shit, do you get what I'msaying?
If it's past three, you'rewalking on thin ice.
And why does stuff like holmes,huron, ontario, michigan, name

(31:31):
the great lakes?
Why do they work?
Why does roigy work?
Because you just have to jam itin your head over and over and
over.
Well, that's not a recallablememory that you want, because
it's no fun anymore and it's forone thing, it's for only the
great lakes.
What you want to do is you wantto have a whole bunch of
memories that you can puttogether and pay it forward.
So it's not a closed set.
Shooting, driving, self-defense, they're all closed set.

(31:54):
The Great Lakes it's a closedset.
There's an end to the number ofGreat Lakes Colors in the
spectrum.
Well, we now understand thatthere's many more colors we'll
never see.
But guess what they all comefrom?
Roy G Biv.
Every single one of them has anorigin story.
That's there.
So, under stress, your brain andbody are going to react the way
that you're programmed or theway that you're trained.
What do I mean programmed?
You're hardwired when you comeout of the chute with certain

(32:16):
things.
Some people got them, somepeople don't.
Well, there's always that thirdchoice.
If you're not programmed thatway and you haven't been trained
that way, then there's thecrapshoot.
And that means that thirdchoice is that you chose poorly
and you're going to die andpeople are going to go.
Well, that's a fatalistic view.
No, what I'm saying is that notraining in the world can
overcome split second stupiditythat interrupts a major

(32:37):
component of your survival.
If you lose your ability torespirate, you are going to die.
If your heart is pierced by apiece of shrapnel, you are going
to die.
You know, there's certaininevitabilities and, brian, we
call those evolution.
So we're saying, if youunderstand a couple of these
principles that God, buddha,vishnu Allah and science
combined for us anyway, and youunderstand to play within them

(32:59):
much the same as you would on a,I would say, game with the
paddles where the ball goes upand lights up the shit, if you
do it on that at the pinballgame, that you'll generally be
right more than you're wrongplaying within the left and
right lane markers and you'relimited of advance.
So understanding science ismore important than being able
to recite the scientificprinciple and, by the way, brian

(33:20):
made a great precedent rightthere because the US Supreme
Court has said even if you namethe wrong court case, as long as
the elements of the case thatyou were acting under were right
, then they'll accept it.
It doesn't have.
You don't have to rememberGraham versus Conner, as long as
you were going with the spiritof it.
So that's a great comment, andscience is exactly the same way.
Science is very forgiving.
You might not know what that'scalled, but that you know.

(33:42):
Pythagorean theorem is stillgoing to work.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
And your, your analogy of the, you know the,
the visible light spectrum,right, roy J Biv is a great one,
because, you know, at a certainpoint in the history of of of
the world, that's all we thoughtexisted.
We only thought there was red,orange, yellow, green, blue,

(34:11):
indigo, violet.
Well, it turns out, and wefound out later on well, there's
something called infrared thatwe can't see, but we can if I
have right, right, if I have theright tool, and there's
something actually calledultraviolet, and you know what
you know then.
Then there's other parts outthere too that we can see or we
can't see, but we know exist.
And then you know, light itselfis actually, you know, it acts
as, like a wave and a particle,and then it's so.
So, as things develop, there'smore and more.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
But here's the but my point is too it's all in this,
not in the class, because wedon't have time in the class to
go through every one of thosethings, so we had to put it
somewhere.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
But my point of that, though, is what still stands
and that I can see every day.
Well, roygbiv and that stoodthe test of time, and maybe
we'll find out that lightdoesn't act that way when we get
a different type of a sensorfor it, so it's reinforcing.
What I mean by this is thatwhen we slam onto these
different things that pop up,it's going to continue to evolve

(34:59):
.
So we're working with what weknow today.
Might there be something betterout there.
Sure, maybe 10, 20, 50,000years from now.
I don't, I don't.
I don't know, and neither doyou.
You know what I'm saying.
It's like we don't know wherethat's going to go.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
The great thing about science is, it's science will
adapt to it.
Like, like Brian, one of thethings.
Let's go back to what ourfriends teach all the time.
They teach shooting, and nowit's whatever type of site that
guns have where-.
Yeah, so Red Dot site, it's athat's it and and their whole
agencies are going to that andeverything else.
So really good with my ironsights.
So I stick with what I know andI hate change because I'm a

(35:31):
human.
Do you get what I'm trying tosay now?
Does that mean that I can'tspar with you?
Does that mean I can't havethese discussions with you or
work the road or defend myfamily?
No, because I can take a longtime to glam onto that.
As long as I understand thescience behind it.
And as long as I understand thescience behind it and that's
the key I don't have to makesome paradigm shifting, life
altering change.

(35:51):
As long as I understand thatgravity exists and that gravity
will pull Centrifugal force, andcentrifugal force are important
to me and you know those typeof things are much.
And guess what?
Before Roy G Biv?
That Oogluck and Mukhtar werestaring at the sun, brian, and
they knew there was somethingthere.
They just didn't know how toname it.
They knew there was somethingthere.
Yeah, yeah, always been thereit's always been there.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Just someone is is with everything we're talking
about, and then someone comesalong and says, well, I'm going
to name it this, and then ifit's good enough and it's and
and and enough people adopt it,it sticks around.
And then someone else comes inand goes well, it's more like
this, and then maybe that theorysticks around for a couple
years and they go back.
It was back even when I wasdoing different, different work,
academic work, and I was like,well, you know, I was using, you

(36:36):
know, york stodson from ahundred and something years ago.
And they're like well, you know, you should really be using
kind of newer stuff.
And I was like, but why this?
These guys nailed it 100 yearsago, just as relevant today as
it is.
It's like, well, yeah, butthere's better.
I was like, but is there?
Because this is the, this is,this is where it comes from.
So the then how?

(36:57):
I sort of ask you, but when weoversimplify it, it's not
oversimplified, it's actuallyvery complex, but it's seemingly
oversimplified or people don'tunderstand the significance of
it.
When we we use practicalframeworks, right, we talk about
things that are incongruent oranomalies, but but coming down
to like when we say hey,baseline plus anomaly equals
decision, and people go oh, okay, got it.

(37:18):
It's like but do you though?
Because this is whereeverything lies at, and so you
know what I mean.
It's.
It's almost like no, no, but no.
So what does like gestalt andemergence and reification, like,
what does that have to do withbaseline plus anomaly equals
decision?

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Yeah.
So the idea is that stories arethe best teaching tool.
So let me give you an exampleand then you deduce from that or
induce what you need.
So, iraq, kinetic Iraq, duringthe time I was hired to make our
soldiers safer Air Forcesoldiers, marines safer in that

(37:58):
environment, because they weregetting killed by two things,
and the two things that were thenumber one things on their list
were snipers at that time andIEDs, you know, homemade devices
with things that would blow up.
So first, to find the type ofpeople bombs, yeah, people said,
well, we need this surveillancetechnology and we need that.
And this is before I even knewwhat a G-Boss was and stuff.

(38:19):
And so what we did to find theperpetrators in a certain area
is we hosted a Christmas in July.
Now in Detroit, we do that byparking a truck and in the back
of the truck.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
We have a TV box.
You're explaining a Christmasin July, yeah, Let me explain it
very briefly.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
So you see this truck that's broken down on the side
of the road and inside the backof the truck, where I'm sitting
in the shade trying to call thewrecker, you see the boxes for
the plasma TV and for the thisand that and the other.
The boxes are all empty.
There's a couple of rocks inthem to give them some weight.
And what I do is I stay on thephone and I walk away from the
truck like I'm going to thelocal gas station, and I leave
the truck.
Now, brian, what's happening?

(38:55):
There is, I've createdopportunity, and now a normal
person would go hey, I'll keepan eye on this truck and if
anybody messes with it I'll call911.
But those criminal elements inour society will look and go
whoo-hoo, piece of candy, freeTV.
So what happens is when theyjump in the back of that semi to
go and grab that box, the semiback opens up to a hidden
compartment and there's a bunchof cops and they go, yahtzee,

(39:17):
and now that becomes a Christmasin July.
If it's too good to be true, itprobably is.
So all I did is take thatself-same thing that we had done
on Detroit streets many, manyyears and say, okay, who's got a
shoe box?
We took the shoe box, a toiletpaper roll on the end of the
shoe box and then a shoelacehanging from the back of the
shoe box, and we made a securitycamera.
Understanding the theory ofclose enough, reification and

(39:39):
gestalt allowed me to duct tapethat to a pole and have people
come by and try to destroy it,thinking it was a surveillance
camera.
It wasn't.
It wasn't even close to that,but it was close enough so you
can use Harry Potter's magicwand for good or evil, it's up
to you.
Same thing spilling into aplace that looked like a butcher
shop because it had a drain inthe floor and it was covered

(40:01):
with blood, but then trying tofigure out why are they keeping
all these VHS tapes and why isthere a tripod there and all the
other things, and figuring out.
That's where they were doing.
The brothers, al and Joe Kida,were doing all their beheading
videos.
Okay, brian, it took me time toread.
I had to conduct a reificationand a redenigration in my brain

(40:24):
to figure out why would thesethings be here?
Well, before, I watched the VHStape and now I was able to come
back, fly back before my nextdeployment and teach Marines
about that.
Hey, if it looks like this,guess what?
Jack in the box moment do theHoberman 360.
Afghanistan we're sitting at anECP and watching all day long on
binos and all I'm seeing isthese pink prayer clocks coming

(40:45):
across from Pakistan andAfghanistan.
And so finally I go, I can't beon a Bonos anymore.
So I walked down and I grabbedone of the prayer clocks and you
know what it had?
At a 10 foot extension cord onthe back of it, brian, and I
look and I go okay, they mustnot have a lot of power or they
must have to have that prayerclock running outside to the
generator.
So I asked a couple of peoplesome questions and they go no,

(41:06):
just like your house, our clockis close to the outlet.
And I was thinking why wouldthey have holy smokes they're
smuggling in the copper wire sothey can use them on the bombs.
So, brian, a clever hood, aclever criminal on the street,
has to use unconventional meansto fool me because I'm on the
lookout.
So I have to have that trapdoor in the semi to hide the

(41:28):
illegal.
I have to have a compartment inmy vehicle to hide the cocaine.
Well, it's no different.
So I could go on all day withexamples.
So those examples were how Ilearned.
So what did I do?
I turned them into teachablemoments for the Marines by doing
two things.
One, in class, I would showthem those theories by showing
them certain videos or photosthat I recreated.

(41:50):
Then I would take them outbehind the place that we're
teaching and hide an RPG by justusing a couple of simple
devices in the backyard andputting it with things that
didn't belong with, like with ashovel and a hoe, you get what
I'm trying to say.
And then put the observer outthere holding another shovel,
but you know what?
Nobody's digging, nobody's'sharvesting.
And then what would happen is,once your brain came to that

(42:10):
epiphany moment and it had theaha, you would never forget it.
Guess what?

Speaker 1 (42:14):
immediately those units in combat were spotting
those snipers and those triggermen and those dangers and that's
also why we, you know, havethings like we call things urban
masking and social camouflageand street tools right that's up
, that's that, that's it.
That's a better name and it'smore real, and I can come up
with my own examples.

(42:35):
Then go hey, greg, you know,give me some examples of
reification that you've seen.
It's like well, shit, hang on.
This is kind of a complex thing.
What do you?

Speaker 2 (42:42):
mean it's like no, no , you've seen this before with
the reintegration.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
And the next thing you know you're sitting there.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
I don't have enough yellow pads, Exactly.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah, so it's like it's a keep it simple.
I have to.
You know the way my braincategorizes things and the
context in which I see them andhow they're laid out, and it
creates a story, and so thatstory has to make sense to my
brain, so it will force it tomake sense, no matter what.
Whether I'm right, wrong,indifferent, doesn't matter.
Like it's going, I'm notwalking away without knowing the

(43:14):
ending of this story.
I have to know it.
Otherwise I can't handle it.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
So let me take you back to that example and give
you one more.
Okay, so we've got the garbagepiled up in our living room if
we're not a copper and if we'rea copper, we've got the dumpster
tipped over and we're out therewith the flashlights, we're
taking looks at stuff.
Okay, you and I had set up forthe years that we worked
together, and before, when youfirst met me, you saw this
example.
I took a simple photo, turnedit into a video of a traffic
stop and had the copper walkingup on a vehicle and I stopped

(43:43):
the tape before you notice, andpeople are yelling stuff at the
screen.
You were one of those youngMarines yelling stuff at the
screen and when I got to a point, I let some stuff hang in the
air and I said what's the matterwith this?
And I pointed to the rear ofthe car and the brake lights
were on.
Well, guess what?
If your foot's on the brake andthe brake lights are on, brian,
that means something, andnobody was seeing what it meant

(44:09):
specifically the cop, and thatmeant that the person might be
ready to drive away.
So once that epiphany moment hitin that class, those marines
were on to that.
And then the next few pieces ofcandy that we put on the the
floor of the carpet in front ofthem were easier for them to
pick up and assume what wasgoing to happen next to to to
think about the process, andthat's advanced critical.
To happen next to to to tothink about the process, and
that's advanced criticalthinking.
Being able to throw those itemsaround from that garbage and

(44:32):
say these are the most likely.
Now, these are the things Idon't know and they become my
unknowns.
So I have a pile of knowns, Ihave a pile of unknowns and
guess what I have.
If I have an unknown, I get anextra set.
I mean, there's so few thingsthat I have to think about now,
and that's survival-basedthinking.
Everybody thinks survival-basedthinking is what you eat and
flipping the tire and having thefastest gun draw.

(44:54):
Yeah, that's all important, Iagree and stick to that because
you're really good at that.
But let us handle the criticalthinking stuff and how your
brain works in those dynamicsituations.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yeah, and then the biggest well, not the biggest
one of the issues with this andeven with the theory of close
enough what we talked to andthat intuitive decision-making
and seeing a pattern emerge froma few simple cues or clues or

(45:26):
things that I'm picking up on inmy environment is one of the
things that I hear too.
It's then people have that thathard time going well, I think
this is it, but I may be wrong.
Or people go I know what thisis and it's that, and they are
wrong.
Right, so there's either that,that.
The hard part then, too, issort of this, this avoiding
pitfalls and ethical dimension,think you tell me I would.

(45:51):
I would say the best way toanswer, that is to you know, to
guard against, you know, snapjudgments or incorrect, faulty
biases, right, is that it's?
It's more about thatcontextually based process of
doing it right.
I have to have a way to look at,I have to understand and sort
of try to see what that front ofthe puzzle, you know box, would

(46:13):
look like, even though Ihaven't seen it yet and I've got
the pieces laid out of mebecause you know there's only so
many possibilities.
It's like okay, I see somewhiskers and an ear.
Okay, that's a cat.
So there's it's, it's a sceneinvolving a cat, what, what,
what could possibly be involvedin that?
And then I can start to kind ofput it together from there.
If that makes sense becausethat's one of the biggest things

(46:34):
to see is either a failure toact, because it's like, well, I
don't want to be wrong, becauseI don't really, maybe I'm not as
confident in my observation oran overreaction, like yeah, dude
, I've seen it before, I've seeneverything there is, I know,
like I know what it is right,and they're both equally as
dangerous.
I would say right, the failureto act or overreacting.

(46:55):
So it's like that's, that's oneof the toughest, that's one of
the toughest things with any ofthis, with any observation and
predictive analysis, right, isthat fear of being wrong or fear
of being too right?
You know what I mean, where ahundred times that would be
correct, but in this situationit's different.
Well, why is it so?
How can I understand thisbetter?
Or what do I do to avoid someof that?

Speaker 2 (47:17):
Yeah, so stay away from the more study is necessary
mentality, because that's foracademics.
That's the principles and everyone of your friends will hate
you, but conduct experiments allthe time.
So when I was younger, growingup on the street, halloween
really meant something.
In Detroit, detroit metro areayeah, devil's Night before,

(47:39):
which I won't go into, but therewas a lot of smoke and arson
and death and mayhem and thenthe night of Halloween.
So what I saw when I was a kidand growing up from being a kid
to an adult, is that kids wouldhave a mask that had Dracula or
Frankenstein or some zombiecharacter or something else and
they would have it on their face.
But the problem was that youwould constantly see them tip up
the mask and have it off oftheir face and everybody's first
thought was, oh well, it's toohot, or they were looking around

(48:01):
or anything else.
Yeah, that's what it was.
What it was is they werescaring themselves when they had
the mask down and they saw theface on the mask, they scared
themselves and they didn't likeit as much when they could have
that mask ready, but they had itup on their face and then I saw
the interactions with the otherlittle kids.
So let's protract that.
If you get where I'm going,let's protract that to the first
time you saw a baseball game.

(48:21):
First time you saw a baseballgame you had no idea what you
were watching and you sat thereand you saw that there was a
form and a rhythm and there wascertain things that happened to
it.
And you heard that some thingswere good because you heard the
crowd scream and some thingswere bad, that you heard the
crowd boo.
So the same thing as me,watching those kids and trying
to figure out what was in theirhead on Halloween, happened to

(48:42):
me, my first Tiger downtownDetroit baseball game.
I had questions, and so what Idid is I looked and I said these
are the logical answers, that Iwas based on the reality.
Well, we go counterclockwise.
Well, what do you mean?
Well, nobody ran to the thirdbaseline.
Well, there's a hits that arereally good, but the longer hits
are caught much more frequently.
And the hits infield guess what?

(49:03):
If they can beat that run at afirst base, you're out.
So I start establishing thearchitecture of the observation.
But where does both of thosethings start?
From a baseline.
I have to fully understand thebaseline and I have to compare
the knowns and the unknownsagainst the baseline and what I
expected to see and I have toanticipate and I have to have

(49:23):
curiosity is what I'm explaininghere to be able to walk across
and go.
Why does your kid want to be awolf man?
But when he sees the wolf manhe screams.
So these are the type of thingsthat we're talking about.
So what we do when you come to aclass is we take all that
wonderful science that we useand we make it practical in your
life so you can see it showingup at school, you can see it

(49:45):
during the HR interview, youunderstand walking to church.
And now, by understanding thebaseline, we give you these
conundrums, we give you theseconflicts and and and different
ways that you can test them, andwe'd say, okay, well, this
exterior schema occurred here,but we don't call it a schema.
We go this guy is carryingwhatever right and by trial and

(50:06):
error, you start coming to theepiphany moment on your own.
So we crawl, walk, run itthrough until you now say pass
me the baton, I'm in the end ofthe race.
Now, that was a long way to getaround a tent, but the idea is,
there's no better way than tothink about something that you
don't understand.
How long would it take you tosit and watch and then conduct
little tests before youunderstand it.

(50:27):
And that's how you learn to ridea bike, that's how you learn to
go swimming, that's how youlearn all the lessons that
lasted your entire life, and allwe're doing is recreating that
in a classroom in an exciting,fun, educational, entertaining
way, because if we didn't, brian, it would just be like high
school.
You forgot 90% of the shit youlearned in high school and
you'll never, use it.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
Yeah, and it's, it's, you know it, it it's, it's
really you know.
What we're talking about islearning to see the whole
picture right.
How do, how do I see that wholepicture?
So you know, it's like allright, well, the, the,
everything we just talked about,you know, with gestalt and
emergence, reification,re-denigration, everything we
mentioned, like that's, that's aconstant, that's in your life,

(51:09):
that's always going on, that'ssomething that's happening.
So what?
Going on, that's somethingthat's happening.
So what I always like to do islike all right, well, how do I
get better at that?
Or how to get better atunderstanding is it is, you know
, use your own life experiencesof something you've gone through
before or seen, and you go backand go well, why did I choose
option a when I should have gonewith option c, or what was it

(51:30):
about that situation?
And then it's easier, obviously, in in hindsight, to go back
and reflect on those.
And especially it's easier ifit's personal to you, because
you were there, knowing that,like you maybe didn't get the
full picture, but but let's,let's break it down.
What were the all of theelements that happened?
And then I always find the mostvalue out of doing that is
going back and being like, oh, Iget it.
You know, this is why, you know, my wife had such an attitude

(51:54):
when I walked in.
And nothing to do with me.
I should have known, well, wait, she just got.
This happened at work, and thenthis, and then Max was sick,
and then this, and then that I'mlike, oh I, that that was what
it was.
These were all of thesecontributing factors to that
negative interaction we just had.
It had nothing to do with whatI said or did, right, we, you
know.
And so what it's, what it's easyto do, is then you can go back
and pull out those pieces, andthen it just builds your own

(52:17):
library, builds your own schema,your own mental file, folders
of, of, of going forward in,especially if it's for a
specific context, right, you're,you know, doing interdiction,
you're doing fugitiveapprehension.
You're, you can go back and go,wait a minute, there's all
these commonalities between allof these.
What are those things and whatelse would they look like?
And then you build that sort ofmental Rolodex, so you have an

(52:40):
infinite amount of examples thatyou can draw back on.
And now you're building thatwhere your brain is using all of
these concepts to its advantagegoing.
Hey, wait a minute, this isn'tfitting here because you've seen
this before.
It wasn't exactly the same, butit was cognitively close enough

(53:00):
.
So now I have something to gooff of.
Now I have a comparison that'saccurate because it happened to
me.
It actually was something thatoccurred in a situation I was in
.
So I can draw from thisexperience and go well, how is
this the same, how is thisdifferent?
What else should I expect tosee from that?
I knew what the outcome wasthere and that was bad.
Or I knew what the outcome wasthere and it was really good.
So how do I, how do I mirrorthat?
Or what?
What similarities can I drawfrom to?

(53:22):
To get me to a more reasonableconclusion?
Just just seeing the wholepicture Is that I don't?

Speaker 2 (53:27):
know if that kind of makes sense.
And so let me let me throw thisat you we don't.
Ever we use behavior and we usehuman behavior in interaction,
interaction with the baseline.
We never use race or religionor ideological differences or
those types of patterns.
And when we do use context,context is relative, because
context gives us a way to take alook at a situation and go well

(53:48):
, there's something I didn'tunderstand.
So the way like, for example,I'll give you this example it's
much easier for me to tellstories.
I'm getting older and I'mforgetting that sometimes it's
easier just to give you apractical example.
So I get everybody lined up inthe classroom and I take half
the class outside and I goJohnny Cash is a Hasidic Jew, I

(54:09):
need you to take a minute andcome in and prove it to us.
And then I take everybody intoclass I'm Ms Carmi, by the way
and I say these guys are goingto come in and say Johnny Cash
is a Hasidic Jew.
Why is that wrong?
So the first thing is what'sthe postulation, what's the
hypothesis?
What are we working on?
Well, every time I've seenJohnny Cash, he's wearing black.
Matter of fact, he's called thetheory of close enough, I'm

(54:31):
jumping to an unreasonableconclusion and I'm putting a
round peg in a square hole.
Well, what about a Hasidic Jew?
Well, because of their religion.
Now here's where culturebecomes context.
Religion becomes context.
I add that to my baseline andgo.
They have to wear certainclothes over other clothes, and
this and a hat and those things.
So what I'm doing is I'mframing learning, not about

(54:53):
religion.
I'm learning from comparison.
Do you understand what I'mtrying to say?

Speaker 1 (54:57):
What do?

Speaker 2 (54:57):
I have to compare it against.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
I am comparing it with the baseline.
And you're learning how to drawa reasonable assumption.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Conclusions based on artifacts and evidence, and when
I don't know something, I'm notgoing to rush to an
unreasonable conclusion.
What am I going to use?
I'm going to use the gift oftime and distance to go.
There's something happeninghere.
Why does this person wear blackall the time?
And you know what, brian?
It might be something as simpleas a fashion statement, but
I've run it through scientificrigor, I've run it through

(55:24):
academic rigor, I just didn'tknow.
I did so.
That baseball game, brian.
Something's going to happen inthe baseball game and that guy's
going to hit a rope and you'regoing to wonder why isn't he
running?
And then your dad leans down oryour mom and says because it
was out of bounds.
What do you mean?
We see that line in the paint.
You see so through our lives.
We need that coach, we needthat mentor, we need that

(55:44):
trainer to teach us about buntsand to teach us about ground
rule doubles.
But we don't have to have thatto play baseball or to enjoy
watching baseball.
So what we do is we bring thescience based evidence that's
been vetted and we bring it toyou and we just allow you to sit
and have a hot dog and watchthe baseball game, but you're
still learning.
You're learning a bunch ofvaluable stuff.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Yeah, and those are.
Those are simple things, kindof you can practice even
throughout your day.
All right, you know what?
What are the?
What are the pre-eventindicators?
I see to what you know when theinsurgent comes home from
school.
It's different when she comesright up to me versus when she
goes straight to her room orsomething, or when you know when
they do this.
What are those things that tendto show that I know where this

(56:30):
is going?

Speaker 2 (56:30):
This is where you become the genius and take over
the entire company andcorporation, because you don't
need me anymore.
What's it look like around yourcompany before lunch?
What's it look like before Jimand Tammy take their smoke break
?
Give me the pre-eventindication that you see, so you
can tell 15 minutes before thatyou're 15 minutes out from
whatever it is.
Olsens are going on vacation.

(56:52):
Prove it.
You owe me those things and,brian, those artifacts and
evidence abound.
They're there every single day.
What we don't understand is wedon't understand how to increase
the likelihood by using ascientific methodology of
comparing them against knownsand unknowns and a baseline to
determine what's relevant andwhat's more likely than not.

(57:13):
And all we got to do is makebetter decisions.
We don't have to make the bestdecision Many times.
We'll never get to that.
We won't have the time.

Speaker 1 (57:21):
Yeah, there's well, that's the thing.
It's what's.
You know, there is no bestdecision right.
I look at it as what's the bestdecision now, or what's good
enough, because that's a win,and over time, though, that's a
win.
Over time, though, that's ahuge win.
I mean, you don't have to knockout of the park.
You're looking at at singlesand doubles back to baseball.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
You gotta get out of base, don't you?
Yeah, well, you gotta you.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
You got me on the baseball one, so now I want a
hot dog.
Yeah, you're getting hungryit's lunchtime for greg, all
right.
Well, we we covered a lot and Ithink we'll.
We'll add in some more and do afew more examples for everyone
on our patreon page.
Folks can check it out.
You can even check it out forfree for a while.
We got a ton of information onthere.

(58:04):
We've got even more and it's agood centralized location
putting more of our content outthere that we even put on like
linkedin and other places.
That's like you can just accessall in one place.
I'm trying to get it all thereJust that way if you want to
follow along.
There's articles, there's blogposts, there's videos.
I do a lot of summaries of thedifferent podcast stuff for

(58:26):
little takeaways so you canpractice on your own too.
It was all on there so you cancheck that out, but I don't know
Any other final comments Greg.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
No, I was just thinking of Shelly when we were
doing the baseball example.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
You're hungry.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
Yeah, I am.
And at work somebody approachedShelly with the brackets and
you should have heard her.
She ranted for 45 minutes onbrackets.
Why?
Because she understands nothing.
She doesn't understand theconcepts about her or anything
else, and Shelly likes knowingeverything.
So what do you think she wasdoing all last night?
Putting together brackets andtrying to figure out the math
and where's the angle.
So look, when we say do yourhomework, we are in a group of

(59:00):
people that are constantlyintellectually challenging
themselves to be the best thatthey can be.
And improve your cognitionimproves your overall safety and
survivability.
So part of it's on you.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
All right.
Well, I think that's good andthanks everyone for tuning in.
Don't forget to share theepisode with a friend if you
enjoyed it, and give us a.
Give us a thumbs up or a like.
It really helps out a lot.
We do appreciate that, anddon't forget that training
changes behavior.