#80 Chantel Prat: The Neuroscience of You

Episode Transcript
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Intro (00:02):
Lynn, Welcome to Creative spirits unleashed, where we talk
about the dilemmas of balancingwork and life. And now here's
your host. Lynn Carnes,

Lynn (00:19):
welcome to the creative spirits unleash Podcast. I'm
Lynn Carnes, your host. My guestfor this episode is Chantal
Prat. If her name is not alreadyfamiliar to you, she's the
author of the book TheNeuroscience of You. So what got
me excited about having her onthe podcast was her willingness
to play with ideas aboutlearning from two different

(00:41):
sides. On one side, the scienceof it from her academic world,
and on the other side, theexperience of it in my world as
a lay person, we met in 2023 atthe journey on podcast summit
where we were both fellowpresenters. And in the last
year, I've been putting togethereven more pieces about learning

(01:02):
on how to stay present underpressure, even when the body
starts saying, danger, danger,some might be completing that
sentence. Danger Will Robinsonif you're old enough. Anyway,
some of what I'm experiencingflies in the face of the typical
coaching around managing stress.
It's made me curious about howthe neuroscience of it works. So
at the 2024 podcast summit thenext year, I spontaneously asked

(01:25):
her to help me make sense of it,and she agreed just to
spontaneously, thank goodness.
After our first conversation, wesaid, well, we've got to do a
podcast. So that's the backstory of how this podcast came
to be. Now, as you will hear,this episode is all about
learning. So in ourconversation, we really geeked
out, I mean, together about howhumans learn, grow and change.

(01:48):
So in that, Chantelle asked twovery relevant questions, these
questions that I love about whathappens when we start getting
the physical signals of stress,that feeling of discomfort. And
she says, What is the feelingfor and what is the story for
boy? Are those empoweringquestions. So what most

(02:09):
impresses me, though aboutChantelle is how she models what
she teaches. She is truly alearner, and that's what makes
her a great teacher. So therewere several quotable moments.
I'm going to go ahead and shareone with you right now. Perhaps
my favorite was when she said,the feeling is the fuel that
catalyzes change. Now, if youfollow any of my blog posts,

(02:30):
social media, all that stuff,you're going to recognize that I
could not agree more. So now letme tell you a little bit more
about Chantal, and then we'llget you to the podcast.
Chantelle Pratt, author of theneuroscience of you is a
professor at the University ofWashington with appointments in
psychology, neuroscience andlinguistics and at the Institute
for Learning and Brain Sciences.
Her interdisciplinary researchinvestigates how variable brain

(02:53):
designs combine with ourlifetime of experiences to shape
the unique way each personlearns understands the world and
operates in it. She is therecipient of a Pathway to
Independence award from theNational Institute of Health.
Speaks internationally at eventslike the World Science Festival,
and has appeared in a number ofmedia outlets, including PBS,

(03:13):
Scientific American RollingStone, Popular Mechanics and
travel and leisure. I hope youenjoy this episode of the
creative spirits unleashpodcast, and as always, be sure
to share it. If you think it'ssomething that you have a friend
or colleague that would find ituseful and it also helps when
you rate it, it helps otherpeople find the podcast. I so

(03:34):
appreciate your you, mylisteners for following me on
this podcast. Please enjoy thisepisode with Chantelle Pratt.
Chantelle Pratt, welcome to thecreative spirits unleash
podcast. Thank you so much forhaving me so happy to be here. I
have been looking forward tothis conversation since I

(03:55):
spontaneously ask you to justgive me some from a scientific
basis, neurologic orneuroscientist coaching around
my lay person experience ofworking with learning and
learning under pressure in mynervous system, and we had a

(04:16):
preliminary conversation. Firstof all, you immediately agreed,
which I thought was incrediblygracious.
And second, I really appreciatedour first conversation. So as we
kick off, a lot of my listenersknow I never really know the
question I'm going to ask at thebeginning until it appears at

(04:38):
this very moment.
And writingso you don't know what it's
going to be. We don't preparelike that. But you did say
something as we were speaking,before we got on around the
distinction between feelings andemotions, and you said it at a
time where it's actually been a.

(05:00):
Something that I have beenreally playing with the
landscape of myself. So what isI have sort of started coming to
my own conclusions, but I thinkthat they're constantly moving
conclusions. Where are you withthat distinction right now?

Chantel (05:21):
Well, first, let me say, of course, I would agree to
have a conversation with you,and that I think one of the
things that we have in common, Ihope I'm not making too many
assumptions, but I think we bothreally see ourselves as lifetime
learners, as people who are likepassionate you just said, this
is where I'm at right now onthis idea that, in and of

(05:44):
itself, you just so casuallysaid, this is where I'm at right
now, but in that is so muchknowledge about ourselves as
dynamic beings, right? And, and,and I think that I just want to
acknowledge that once we make upour mind about a thing, we close
the door to taking in newinformation and learning, right?
And I just think that that's aconnection that you and I really

(06:06):
shares, a lot of openness, a lotof understanding of ourselves as
dynamic beings and as our of ourunderstanding of these
complicated things, humans,these complicated people in
lives that we have as dynamicand we change, and we take in
new information and we changeour minds. So that's really
cool. And I you know you and Italked, have talked previously

(06:32):
about this work around learningto be comfortable under pressure
and and learning through bothsort of a cognitive or an
understanding space and throughan experiential or feeling space
to expand your capacity underpressure, which I think is

(06:53):
fascinating. So now I'm going toactually answer the question
about the difference betweenfeelings and emotions from my
perspective, and give you maybea little bit of scientific
background on on like a studythat I think exemplifies this
really well. So I will first saythat I am a cognitive
neuroscientist, so all of myboots on the ground research is

(07:13):
about how we understand things.
It's about meaning making andnot about feelings. But it's
fascinating, because there's nospace in which our feelings
don't affect our emotions don'taffect the way we make sense of
things like only in the books dowe set are we able to separate
out thinking and feeling. Imean, it's all mushed together
in this massively Amazing Brainthat we have. But that being

(07:33):
said, I do think a lot and reada lot about feelings and
emotions, and so what I wouldsay is that feeling is the way
we take in information from ourbodies, right? So we might feel
heart, our hearts racing, wemight feel elevated arousal. We

(07:53):
might feel heat. We might feel,you know, so eat hungry, a
feeling is is a the way that ourbrains detect signals from the
body, and an emotion is the waywe describe, Understand, label,
experience that feeling in theprevious context of what we've

(08:21):
learned, how we've learned toname our feelings in the context
of, importantly, storytellingthe So, so an emotion is like a
feeling plus cognition, right?
So my favorite example of thisis a study that was done
probably, I wish I would haveactually brought you the study,
but it was probably 70s 80s, asan old study that was looking at

(08:44):
what we called the chameleoneffect, or how we catch one
another's feelings or emotions.
And in this study, what they didwas they told participants that
they were getting a vitamin Bshot the signing up for a study
on the effects of vitamin B, butactually what they got was
epinephrine. So that creates afeeling that you don't know how
to explain, right? It createsthe feeling of this elevated

(09:07):
body response, elevated arousal,without an explanation. And what
these scientists found was thatif you put a person after giving
them the vitamin B shot that wasepinephrine, in a room with
another happy person, and thenlater, you know, you ask them
how they're feeling, they wouldsay, I'm excited, I'm happy. And
if you put them in the room withan angry person or an anxious

(09:30):
person, they would report they'dbe more likely to report those
feelings, those emotions,

Lynn (09:38):
so angry, they would say they were angry. Yes, yes. So
that.

Chantel (09:41):
So the way that people talk about that study is is to
talk about how feelings arecontagious, or how emotions I
keep using feelings and emotionssimultaneously, but how we catch
each other, one another'semotions. But another way to
think about that, I think, inthe context of what you do, and
what I'm interested in, is wehave a feeling, and it's. Our
instinct to interpret thatfeeling, to label it, and then

(10:04):
to decide what to do accordingto how we have interpreted that
feeling, that emotion. And inthis case, if you a part of that
storytelling is looking aroundyou and seeing how other people
are behaving, right? So thatthat's that study is used to
talk about the contagion ofemotions. But we might just as

(10:28):
well as say we have a feeling,and then we look for a way of
explaining that feeling. And theemotion is kind of the result of
the feeling in our body and theway our brains have interpreted
the why, the why? Story behindthat yeah,

Lynn (10:43):
which I have found is essential for people to like.
Our brains will not, not ask forwhy like that story, that story
comes so close to the sensationis to almost be inseparable,
correct, yeah

Chantel (10:56):
and yeah. And I think a power, an empowering piece of
knowledge is for people tounderstand that this is an
interpretation, you know, thebody, that you have a body, and
that you are labeling this, thisexperience, but that it is an
interpretation, and that there'sa lot of physiology. Even at the

(11:19):
neural level, you know, peoplewill say, Oh, the amygdala is a
fight flight. But at the even atthe neural level, if you look at
what somebody reports feelingand what the signal is, there's
a lot of ambiguity. There's alot of fuzziness in terms of,
like, what's happening in thebrain, what's happening in the
body, and how you're reportingthat experience, how you're

(11:39):
labeling it.

Lynn (11:40):
There is no question I have. I tell the story. And I
think it was my second book, Theelegant pivot of, you know, I'm
a tournament water skier, and Iwas driving to ski, not for a
tournament, but, you know, onthe course in the middle of
winter in Florida, one night, Iwas on my way down to the ski

(12:02):
site, and I happened to hearabout a study about how people
labeled their sensation. And thestudy was, and you probably know
the study better than I do, butit was, I think, ambush karaoke.
So they divided people intothree groups to do ambush
karaoke. And the first group,they said, You're gonna, you

(12:23):
know, feel some stuff, and, youknow, we understand the nerves.
And they said that'snervousness. The second group,
they said, be calm, no matterwhat. Just calm yourself down.
And the third group said, You'regonna feel some stuff, but it's
excitement. And then theymeasured how they did with some
kind of device that tells youhow close to the notes and stuff

(12:45):
like that, like shakiness of thevoice and accuracy of the notes,
I think, or whatever? Well, youprobably can, especially given
your background already know whodid the best. By far were the
people who said they were

Chantel (12:57):
excited and is the worst calm, the one they told
them,

Lynn (13:00):
because ma'am by far. And what was interesting is you
can't just

Chantel (13:05):
you can't don't feel your feelings. Don't feel your
feelings, don't

Lynn (13:09):
feel the and I've been playing with the word agitation
a lot. You know, I like the wordfroth. Froth and agitation go
together. But if you don't, ifyou don't feel it, what you're
actually telling your body is,it's even worse than you
thought. It was, shut down. Shutdown. Yeah, in my body, that's
what happened. So I had all of asudden, like, had this epiphany
that the ski tournament that I'dbeen at in the fall, where I had

(13:32):
done the worst I'd done, wasbecause my brain went into the
space while I was standing onthe dock. Of you are a coach,
this should not make youexcited, you or this should not
make you nervous. You should becalm. So I fell into the calm
bucket or the calm story, and itwas by far the worst I'd ever

(13:55):
performed skiing. So the nextmorning, I remembered this
little it was probably a PBSstory or whatever I listened to
on the radio on the way down,and I was standing on the dog,
and I felt my heart start topound, and I'm about to drop in.
And any water skier will tellyou, if you haven't skied for
it's very intense sport. If youhaven't skied for a few weeks or
even a few months, you kind ofgo, can I even still get up? I

(14:17):
don't know. So there's a lot ofnerves, even if there's no no
no. People around, and thedriver goes, how you feeling?
And I said, I'm so nervous. AndI said, Wait a minute, I'm
excited. Yeah. And I ran thatpass off the dock, which is not
that normal for for me. Anyway,a lot of people can do that, but
I ran, I skied so well, and I'veremembered that ever since,

(14:41):
because the what I kind ofrealized is the feeling, is the
feeling, the the empowerment forme is the story I tell about the
feeling.

Chantel (14:52):
Yeah, there's a lot there. And then I would also say
that, like, calm is so what manypeople know, there's this
phenomenon called the. York seesDodson law, which is about
arousal and performance. Andactually, you know, calm is not
the perfect performance state.
It like if one could totallythere's one thing which is like
trying to ignore your feelings,which usually makes them

(15:14):
amplified. And there's anotherthing which is being able to
regulate your nervous system,which is good, but there are a
lot of opportunity, a lot ofthings, whether you're public,
you know, giving a publicspeech, or water skiing or
whatever, in which you want adecent amount of arousal,
because that actually energizesyour body and your brain and

(15:35):
improves performance, right? Sothere's this kind of, it's a U
shape where, like, complete nonarousal, depression, or
whatever, is not your bestperformance. And then if you're
completely over in the red zone,and you can't think and you're
choking under pressure, you knowyou're not going to do your best
performance. So that, like, youknow the and I think that that's

(15:56):
where the opportunity for yourphysiology and your story to
resonate with one anotherbecomes very important, right?
Because that you said, and Ican't remember if this was when
we were just, I can't rememberthis is probably at the
beginning of this conversation.
Live use I was like, Was thisbefore or now? But you know, you

(16:18):
talked about how intimatelyintertwined our experiences. The
story is, is such a integralpart of our experience that it's
hard to say, Oh, this is just,this is a layer that I'm adding
to the feeling and and in fact,the the story and the feeling
will influence one another,right? Like the the story is not

(16:40):
devoid from the feeling, oh, andit can change the feeling, but
it can change the feeling,right? So if you and I've done
this, because there, you know,there are places in my life
where I have anxiety, like manypeople, I hate driving on
bridges, like slightlyclaustrophobic, and I can
sometimes feel myself like I'mgoing to go over a bridge. I can
feel my palms start to getsweaty, and all I have to say

(17:03):
is, like, okay, like, this is,you know, I'm freaking out
because I'm driving over abridge. Like, this is okay, this
is just about, literally, I haveno reason to take a hard right
and go off the edge of thisbridge. Like, I can just keep
going forward, but you can, youcan, you can also spiral like,
Oh God, I'm freaking out, youknow,

Lynn (17:23):
yeah, but what if we did turn

Chantel (17:25):
right? Yeah. And it wants to plan for that, because
we like to have control, right?
It wants to play that out for meand like, Thank you. We've
already played that out. Like,it doesn't end well. Thank you
for playing that out for me. Infact, I will not make a hard
ride over the edge of thisbridge, because I I'm fairly
sure it won't end well, but youcan sort of do these anxiety
spirals. And I think theinteresting thing for me is the

(17:47):
way that my, my first horse, whowas an off the track
thoroughbred, taught me this.
She taught me this by being thisincredibly, you know, 1200
pounds, 16 two hot, athleticFerrari horse that was

(18:10):
completely reciprocating myenergy, right? And so it's like,
when you don't know that you'readding, you know, when we add
story and it affects ourphysiology, the horse is like,
Oh crap, we're dying, right? Andso, like, when she would get a
little bit hot, and I wouldstart to get tight in my legs,
tighten my hands, she would belike, Oh crap, I was right.

(18:30):
Something is going to eat us.
And so, like, I experienced thatfeeling, story, feeling
escalation with a 1200 poundrocket between my legs. And that
was, that was a wonderful mirrorto learn. Like, okay, I am
actually screwing this up. LikeI am, I am totally, you know, I
am here to, you know, partnerwith this amazing creature. And

(18:54):
like, I'm completely screwingthis up. But we can do it. We do
it all the time. I think toourselves. And it's only when I
had this opportunity, this veryembodied other, that I was so
clearly sort of vibing with orinfluencing that I could see the
way the anxiety story, yeah,makes it worse, makes the

(19:17):
experience worse. Like I'm she'smaybe alert, maybe excited,
maybe afraid, but my fear of herfear, and my response to that
was sending us both down thisspiral,

Lynn (19:32):
yes, and it's not just with horses, it's the story we
tell about other people'sintentions, right, right? And
how many times have I watchedsomething that just a little
moment of clarification wouldhave created a bridge across
some kind of conflict, butinstead, somebody assumed the
worst, and then they lived intothat story, and then things

(19:55):
escalated, and next thing youknow, you got two people who
can't work together. Or livetogether, or Yeah, and, and it
all started with a story aboutwhat they were feeling, and what
I find in my self and in myclient base, to some degree, is

(20:17):
a desire, sometimes to stop thefeeling, but not necessarily to
stuff it. And so, because I'mpretty practiced, it took me a
long time to come out of what Iwould think of as shut down,
like I was a non feeling person.
25 years ago. I had to do a lotof things to get my body to feel
things again, but it's like,okay, I want that feeling to
stop. And rather than try tochange the story. They try to

(20:40):
change the feeling, or, moreimportantly, they try to change
the thing creating the feeling.
And that's what's gotten meintrigued about this whole idea
about pressure, is we startlooking outside of ourselves to
make the pressure go away,rather than to recalibrate our

(21:03):
system to make the feelingsactually work for us instead of
against us. Mm,

Chantel (21:08):
yeah, I think there's two four. It seems like there
are two forks there. So I wouldsay, like, one is the story. So
like, you know, it's like theinterpretation of the feeling,
like, this is back to theexcited versus nervous. Yep,
work, right? And the other was,is quite interesting. And so I

(21:31):
would say, like, I think we canuse this for storytelling. What
is the feeling for? Right? So Ithink we should acknowledge and
honor that our bodies are tryingto help us both the white what

(21:51):
is the feeling for and what isthe story for? Can we do that?
Can we do both? Oh, I love that.
So I think you know, becauseunpleasant feelings are
unpleasant. And if you thinkabout, if you really think about
it, sometimes extremely pleasantfeelings. Like, have you ever
felt so much love that it hurt,yes, or just so grateful that it

(22:12):
hurts, right? Like, I thinksometimes feelings are actually,
if you just talk about

Lynn (22:19):
that, can totally be a pleasant at

Chantel (22:21):
the extremes. Yeah, at the extremes, like your joy,
there's like this, some part ofthe joy that hurts, because, you
know, it's going to betemporary, right? So, so, so I
so in that space where peoplewant to make the feeling stop,
what I try to do. So I have,this is a post it note on my
screen at home that I look atevery day, and it says, Have the

(22:41):
courage to feel all of yourfeelings. And the reason for
that is that I believe thatthere's information. What is the
feeling for? The feeling is theway that your brain and body,
your brain and body are takingin information about the
situation you're in, and they'retrying to prepare you in some

(23:05):
way. And so you know, to thepoint where you know, to some
point, there's a point in whichit makes sense, like, if I'm
being poked or burned, I want tomake that feeling go away. And
that's what that feeling is for.
It's for motivating an action,move your hand, yes, for
motivating an action, but, butsometimes the the the

(23:29):
opportunity for, like, exploringthat feeling is like, what is
that feeling for? Or why am Ifeeling that feeling is, is? I
mean, most of the time, I thinkwhen there's, like, an
uncomfortable situation and youwant to make it go away, I think
there's an curiosity opportunitythere to say, like, Why do I not

(23:49):
want to have this conversationwith this person, or what aspect
of this am I afraid of? Am Iafraid of looking bad? Am I
afraid of not, you know, ofhurting myself. Am I afraid? You
know? So I think that what isthe feeling for? Where is it
coming from? I think that havingthe courage to stay in your

(24:10):
feeling long enough to ask aquestion about, what is my brain
trying to tell me, or what is mybody trying to tell me, is
really good, and that's where,you know, the the interpretation
comes in. But I still think likethe feeling of the feeling is
important. And in your case, youcan exercise the feeling right,
and the feeling, your yourexperience of a feeling, changes

(24:32):
with with repeated exposure.
Now, what is the story for Ithink this is also really
important, because, you know,people do differ in how much
they need to know why. Somepeople are like, I know A causes
B and that that is, I canpredict the future. We all want
that. But the why piece of thestory, the interpretation, is

(24:56):
very powerful, because it allowsus to go out of a stimulus.
Wants kind of mindset, and itallows us, if we don't like a is
causing B, if we don't like theway our life is turning out.
This why? Story gives us someidea of the knobs that we can
turn to change things, right?
Like, just like I said, I mybrain likes to envision going

(25:17):
off the bridge when I'm drivingthis is not a thing that I want
to do. It's not a thing that Iwant to try in the real world,
but my brain is playing out theif then kind of scenario that
allows me to build all theseelaborate causal stories that
then empower me to figure outhow to do something different
without having ever done it, orhow to change something without

(25:40):
trying infinite, without tryinginfinite number of things right
now. So I think that that'simportant. But again, in the in
the beginning space, where youand I were talking about moving
through the world, beingdynamic, learning and so forth
and so on, once you've there's apoint in which we close our our

(26:01):
minds. There's a point at whichwe accept a story without
evidence, and especially if Ithink this goes back to the idea
of threat or froth or whatever,and when you were talking about
clients or people who haveinterpreted something as
aggressive, as dismissive, asanything that's like a threat

(26:23):
mindset. It closes the door tothis openness to learn. It
closes our taking in of anyinformation. It closes the
feeling, it closes the thinking,it closes the storytelling. And
so I think the why story servesan important function, and I

(26:44):
think it's important for peopleto understand that we won't
naturally feel curious aboutother options if we feel threat,
if we don't feel safe. So Ithink, like the best tool I I
could give somebody would be tosay, like, is there, this is the
way that I have interpretedthis, but are there other ways

(27:07):
to interpret this, or what isthe best possible intention this
person could that could havedriven this thing, even just
saying, like, let's get reallycreative. What's the best
possible reason? You know thisperson could have behaved this
way? Because once you get out ofthat, I've been attacked, I have
been disrespected. Yeah, I'vebeen, you know, whatever. Once

(27:29):
you even just kind of plant thatseed a little bit, it just
relaxes the walls and opens upthe questioning, the questioning
piece of that story. You

Lynn (27:41):
just gave the whole premise of the elegant pivot by
book, The elegant pivot, see,because you it does that, but
you know you're exactly right.
It we shut down when we think weknow. And the common story that
often, as I drill myself downand drill with different people
in my world, mostly coachingclients or whatever the story

(28:04):
comes down to. The sensation hasbeen attached to a lifelong
feeling, I'm screwing up or I'mmaking a mistake, as opposed to,
I'm getting a signal. And youjust said, What is the feeling
for? It's to tell yousomething's off. And so then you

(28:25):
can say, all right, I it's off.
Now the story is, I've got to gofigure out what to do. But, but
I don't have to, like,automatically know, because if I
think I know, I've shut off allthe other possibilities of what
might really be happening,

Chantel (28:47):
that's right, that's right. And you're everything you
just said, the elegant pivot,everything you just said is
consistent with my worldview,and I think it's one of the
things I like best about mybrain, is that the more I learn,
the more I realize I don't knowanything. And if you just think
about this, from what there's somuch, there are cultural ideas

(29:12):
that I think, make everybodyfeel inadequate. There are
cultural ideas that there is aright and a wrong, that there is
a true and a false and and thatis inconsistent with actually
how I understand the universeand humans. It really is so like
you know, so where our brainsare are mighty powerful signal

(29:32):
detectors. We have86,000,000,080 6 billion neurons
in our brain, but they exist inan infinite universe that is
constantly changing, and despitethe way you perceive the world,
it looks like it seems to uslike we're seeing a movie that
we can perceive things in realtime. It is not the case your

(29:53):
brain is taking in sick,discrete yes or no, little
signals, and it's. So filling inthe blanks based on what it
thinks is going to be happening,what is most likely to happen
based on your lived experiencesand your in your biological
wiring. And so, like, one of myfavorite quotes is from
Stanislaus de Haines book how welearn. And he says, in the real

(30:17):
world, things are rarely true orfalse. It's all essentially
probabilistic, right? It'salways we're taking in an
incomplete signal, and we'remaking our best guess, and I
think like this, at the sort offeeling storytelling at every
level, the biggest favor ourbrain does for us is to remove

(30:41):
that sense of ambiguity. Itmakes it it makes us very
convinced that our reality, ourunderstanding, is reality,
because if it didn't, we wouldjust be so confused. We could
never cross the street withoutgetting hit by a car. We never
could if we, even if we stoppedto take in all of the
information, we'd be making adecision about the world 10

(31:02):
minutes ago, and that wouldn'tget you across the street,
right, right? So, so I thinkthat, like, for me, just
understanding that we're reallyconnecting the dots all the
time. I mean, I love to showlike, remember this? Do you
remember this internet dressthat people couldn't decide if
it was blue and black, blue orwhite

Lynn (31:20):
and gold, blue or white or white and yeah, there's blue or
blue or gold, right? Yeah, blueand

Chantel (31:25):
black or white and gold and like that is such a salient
example, because most of uslearn at some point that color,
the color we perceive, isrelated to a physical property
of the universe, light,wavelengths, right? But it's not
that straightforward. Our brainsmake inferences about color
based on the context that we'rein. Otherwise, we would all see
things changing color in thesunset, and when we go into a

(31:47):
shadow, our brains are inferencegenerators. So if even something
that is as directly related to aphysical property of the
universe as the color of adress, is open for
interpretation, and by the way,people who live in warm, sunny
places like Florida, people whowake up early and see lots of
things in natural light, aremore likely to see that dress as

(32:08):
white and gold. Are more likelyto think it's in a shadow,
whereas people who live in darkplaces like Seattle, spend a lot
of time in artificial light, aremore likely to see it as blue
and black because they thinkit's lit from above. So this is
just an example of like, if yourprevious experiences with light
and shadows shape something asfundamental as the color that
you perceive something, imaginehow this scales up to

(32:31):
interpreting your feelings.
Absolutely, am I afraid? Am Iexcited? Am I Yes, both. We
don't have a word. The Germansprobably have a word. They have
great feelings, words, but like,for both, like, I'm excitedly
anxious, you know, I'm like,that's, that's a thing we just
don't, if you don't have a labelfor it, you don't know how to
think about it, right? So thinkhow that kind of scales up.

Lynn (32:54):
I mean, it scales everywhere. And that explains,
by the way, I was like, Well, Ifit the Florida, you know, light
and all that, and I saw it asgold and white. Yeah, I that
explains my worldview. And, youknow, this is so simple,
because, like, one of the mostpractical things that I help
some of the leaders I work withdo is to start every meeting

(33:17):
they have with context. Youwould not believe how many
people sit down at a room andstart in the middle of the
meeting and don't take 30seconds to say, Okay, everybody,
we're here to decide on XYZ, andthey'll just start working on
the thing. And I often have toraise my hand when I enter in
one of those sessions and go,can we just put me on the same
page? What are we here to do?
Yes. Yes. Yes. You know anypresentation, anything is like,

(33:41):
give people a way to get on thepage, because all those little
different angles that you'retalking about that infinite
possibilities are coming in theroom with them, the anxiety of
the last meeting, the thenervousness about the next
meeting, the question about whatthe boss is going to do with the
performance review, all of thosethings are floating around like
in a cloud, at least, just letthem land for this moment and

(34:04):
say, this base, this is, this iswhat we're doing. It's been one
of the most powerful tools I'veever learned and then taught.
And this I struggle with,

Chantel (34:16):
you know, and this, this makes perfect sense in the
in terms of what I how Iunderstand the brain, because
context is something we use toconstrain this infinite
possibility space, right? And italso like that very while
constraining sounds could soundbad. It's very powerful because
it allows us to be flexible.
We're flexible. Humans areflexible. We don't respond the
same way to a thing in differentcontexts. We don't talk to

(34:39):
people the same at work as we doat home. If we're a bilingual,
we have a whole differentlanguage for talking to people
at home and at work oftentimes,right? And so it's a whole
different repertoire ofbehaviors. And so for that
reason, the context is part iskind of like the story. It's
part of what we use to constrainour possibilities. In the way we
understand things

Lynn (35:01):
well, and I just got this insight as you were describing
it, because when I'm workingwith people, a lot of my clients
are leading people through bigand scary change, you know, and
you've probably experienced thisin your world a lot, where
there's an uncertainty, anduncertainty has a sensation, and

(35:22):
our I feel like our brainsreally like to converge on
certainty as soon as yes, wewant to know. And what I just
connected the dot for is atleast, if you give somebody
context, you may be making, youmay be making a decision that,
like leads to uncertainty, butyou're certain that you're
making that decision, right? Soyou're a little bit of certainty

(35:45):
in the mix, so that people canput their feet on the ground and
not feel this vacuum, becausethat's the sensation, almost, of
uncertainty is a vacuum. And youknow, I feel like right now, I'm
looking at what's happening inLos Angeles with all the people
that have become homeless, andI've experienced it right here
in my backyard, with theflooding that we've had and all

(36:05):
the people that became homeless,and now there's just different
levels of uncertainty here,which is, when are they going to
build the road back? When is thelake going to be back? Those
kind of things, but that thatuncertainty creates a sensation,
that creates a story that thencreates a behavior, and a lot of
times those are not in alignmentwith our values.

Chantel (36:27):
That's right, that's right, yeah, I think that this
is, you know, when people youknow there are two sides to the
coin, and I believe thatreducing uncertainty is one of
the ways your brain definessuccess, like, I think that
being able to predict the futureis a brain a you know. So I

(36:48):
think your brain has a fewgenerate general operating
principles. Just our animalbrains. All mammals share this.
And that is like these kind ofoperating principles. They guide
our decisions. They guide whatwe learn. And one would be like,
move toward good things. Youknow, how do you learn to find
the good things? How do youlearn to find rewards? One would

(37:10):
be, move away from harmfulthings, right? That's a very
strong instinct. And one wouldbe, learn about these kind of
probability, learn how topredict the future. Because,
again, like, if I can make adecision in real time, I'm going
to be more successful than ifI'm making a decision about five
minutes ago. And if I can make adecision, that's going to set

(37:30):
set me up for success in 20minutes or 20 years. Like,
that's a huge that's a huge win.
So it's our brains. Are thesemassive statistics generators
and storytellers. Those are kindof like parallel, parallel
mechanisms. One is like learningthrough experience. One is like
learning through a podcast or abook or a class. You know,
somebody tells you how thingswork, and you put that into your

(37:54):
huge database to try and predictthe future. So trying to predict
the future is a goal of yourbrain, and it feels good when it
can do that, and it feels badwhen it can't. But I think it's
really important in this spaceof change for people to
acknowledge and understand thatwhen your brain does do this
prediction of the future, whichit does all the time, it is

(38:16):
constraining your possibilityspace. It is, again, this,
predicting the future is good.
Um, in this reducing uncertaintyis good, it is removing options
from your consideration so yourbrain thinks limiting your

(38:38):
possibilities is success. Yep,

Lynn (38:42):
yep. And, I mean, I will tell you, I've, I've done so
many brainstorming sessions inmy career with people where I'm
trying to get them to have asmany possibilities as they
possibly can. And you'veprobably done this, it is so
difficult to get people to keepgoing. It's like, Yeah, let's
keep going, guys. And they'relike, but I like idea number

(39:02):
three, let's converge on that,you know? And it's like, yeah, I
want to keep diverging people.
And they Yeah, it's, there's afew people who tend to be okay
at it and like it, but there aredifferences as a general
population. That what you justsaid, we like to start
constraining and driving towardsthe answer, and then we can move
on and and by the way, let'stake that to our horses. When I

(39:24):
first started getting back onthe horse, what did I always
want to do? Yeah, go catch thehorse. Hurry up, get him in
there. When can I get on? Whenare we going to get the saddle
on so I can get on? So, youknow, it was like all of the
other stuff before that wasnothing. Boy, do I think
differently about that. Now, youknow the ride is it? I don't
know about you, but my ridestarts, and even if it's not

(39:46):
going to be a ride, it's this,the minute I'm in the presence
of the horse, even if there areacross three paddocks, the
minute I'm on, quote, unquote,on property, are we're starting,
we're communicating. Mm.

Chantel (40:00):
Hmm, it's so funny that you say this is a little bit of
a tangent, but I have a threeyear old and and, you know, I'm
intending to start him myself,probably when he's closer to
four or four, but I had all ofthese stories about him. He's a
very athletic, very talented,very beautiful horse. And I was

(40:21):
telling myself all thesestories, like, if I don't do
this, am I, you know, is it afailure? You know, talking about
feelings and stories and allthis and and I just had this, I
told myself a story that Ibelieved to be true, that
relieved all of this pressure.
And that story was, I love myrelationship with my horses, and
even if one of them I can ridequite, quite decently. But I was

(40:43):
like, even if I never rode them,and they were like large dogs.
They are the they are incrediblyhappy, and I am incredibly happy
with them. And I never, it neverceases to amaze me how that
relationship allows me to, youknow, in many ways, my horses
are much more sensitive to me,and much more I'm doing all this
stuff with my hands that no onewill hear, but much more in

(41:06):
partnership, I guess, than mydogs, who are great too. But,
you know, yeah, and so just thatwhole like is writing the goal
exactly, you know, just that,just examining that piece of the
story, the feeling and thedecisions that it guides, right?
Because there, there's apossibility, you know, like,
What decisions do you make abouthow to spend time with your

(41:28):
horses and how do you feel?
Yeah, as a as a result of thatone piece

Lynn (41:37):
of the story, yeah? And what? What is the point? What is
this? What does success looklike? What am I trying to
achieve here? And one of theprinciples that has dramatically
helped me in this game ofraising my pressure threshold is
the language I think about it asis to learn to take everything

(42:00):
one step at a time, in tiny,little slices. And I'm trying to
remember if you were still atthe journey on podcast summit
when Jesse Osborne was there.
Yeah,

Chantel (42:12):
he talked about the baby just, he just, like, showed
you

Lynn (42:15):
stood up and said, you know, he because he's, he's just
so the audience can get acontext. He's like a world
traveling sailor, and does theseamazing trips that a lot of us
wouldn't even think. I couldn'teven get out of the harbor, much
less, you know, sail across theworld. But he made it really
clear, just because I have donethat doesn't mean it was easy

(42:38):
for me, and he had this justbeautiful description of what
happens. If you will just takeone baby step, one one little
tiny, it's like, but what I'vediscovered by breaking it down
versus chunking to the end,which is, what another thing I
think our brains do, thatprediction machine, you know,

(43:01):
you're giving me scientificlanguage for what I've known is
like, I call it gulp. Is, iswhen we take it, when we sip
instead of Gulp, we realize wecan do anything, because then
the next, if the next step wetook is too much, just break it
down into a smaller step, sip,even, and then we can do it, and

(43:23):
then you start to recognize thepossibilities in the world, and
that things that that scare youare only because you've tried to
gulp too much. Break it downeven further.

Chantel (43:35):
And I think that there's like a like, what I
would call meta cognitivelearning or and that's what I
think about with my horses, too.
It's like learning aboutlearning. And I think that
Hannah Betts, at that samepodcast Summit, said something
to the effect of confidencecomes on the backside yes of the
decision, right? So when we'refeeling pressure and we make a

(43:59):
decision, right? So, so first,have the courage to feel the
feeling. I think in yourlanguage, there's a piece. And
Hannah also said, sometimes Ijust say I'm freaking scared,
you know, like, just like, I'mscared. Okay, we're feeling the
feeling. I'm a seven. This is,you know, like, investigate, get
curious about the feeling, andthen, you know, what is this

(44:22):
What is this feeling for? Sothis feeling is for shaping a
decision. So is this feeling forgetting me ready to do something
hard? Is this feeling gettingme, you know, telling me this is
not okay with me, if this is notokay with me, what's the next
step? Right? So what'sinteresting is you're going to
learn from that decision,whatever that decision is, do
you do? And I think that this isthe a critical thing when it

(44:44):
comes to just, I avoid thepressure, right? So if, if you
feel a kind of way, and you thenmove out of that space, what you
have learned is something callednegative reinforcement. Negative
reinforcement is. Is a is a wayof increasing the likelihood
that you will quit, step away,choose not to do a hard thing.

(45:06):
You know, reinforcement meansyou've increased the likelihood
of that behavior. Negativereinforcement is something where
you remove something noxious toincrease the likelihood of that
behavior. So if you're like Ifeel uncomfortable. I don't want
to do that. What you've learnedis, oh, I can. I can move away
from hard things, but the butthe threshold for what will be

(45:30):
hard the next time is probablyeven smaller and smaller. And I
think this happens with a lot.
That's how we shrink our world.
We shrink our world. And I thinkthis happens unfortunately with
a lot of elderly people righttheir comfort zone, as your
capacities, inevitably, whetherthey be physical or mental,
start to decrease in those 1% 1%1% and you feel like, oh, I

(45:50):
don't want to be the slowestperson at the ATM. I don't want
to, you know, this is societynot having tolerance for our
wise leaders as we should, youknow, and it's like, and they
feel uncomfortable becausethey're not where they were, you
know, five years ago, 10 yearsand so they stop doing things,
and as they stop going intosocial circumstances, hearing

(46:11):
gets harder. It's harder to hearin a restaurant, so you don't go
out and and again, like, astheir inputs and as their
willingness, you know, they'resort of decisions to go outside
of that comfort zone decrease.
So does that do all of thecognitive capacities and all of
the social capacities, they justtank because you've sort of

(46:32):
stopped stretching yourself. Andso on the other side of that is
like, you know? So, so let's sayyou say yes to the little thing,
and you do it. You don't die,you don't embarrass yourself.
Maybe you didn't crush it, butyou you succeeded, right? So,
like, what you've learned is, Ican be I can you know this,

(46:54):
this, this uncomfort can bepreparing me to do something
new, or, like, everything that'snew because of the same thing we
were talking about, wanting topredict the future. Everything
that's new is a little bituncomfortable into your brain
period, so like knowing that,oh, but I can be successful here
builds that confidence inlearning. I literally just, I

(47:16):
just gave my students backthere. I'm teaching a class
based on my book, theneuroscience of you, and I think
that my students, I mean, Ithink I'm very easy going, I
think I'm very personable, andalso I have very high standards
for what I want. I mean, theyhave an opportunity to learn how
their brains work and leave thisclass within totally, much more

(47:38):
empowered in their lives. And soI just kind of gave them back
their first homework assignment.
And lot of them did not getgreat grades. And I know that it
was going to be, like, ashocking experience for them to
not get a, you know, like theythink, Oh, she's very friendly.
It's going to be easy or but,but, like, it wasn't right. And

(47:59):
so to me, I talked to them, andI was like, we're setting
expectations right now. And someof you really met and exceeded
my expectations, and some of youdidn't. But I want what I want
you to learn to do like you'rereading these really hard
things, and I think that thebest gift I can give you is
teaching you how to walk throughthe reading of these really hard

(48:20):
things, how to try, try again,and you might not get it the
first time. And, and, and so,you know, it's like, I'm going
to give you the opportunity torespond to my feedback and do
this again. And together, we'regoing to learn how to read, how
to under, you know, it's like, Iwant to reward the authentic
try. I want to re, you know, toacknowledge that not everybody

(48:40):
has time to do this thing. Butlike, we're going to keep doing
hard things, and we're going tomove forward together, maybe at
different paces. But like, youknow, here's the expectation,
here's what I want you to do,here's how you can take that
into your own level and, like,try again. Like, I want them.
You know, there are some peoplewho are in the class who are,
like, really into the U part.

(49:02):
They really want to understandthemselves. They're like, I
don't do brains. I was like,well, you're going to. And it's
so interesting, because thereare some people who just have
just decided that they can't,that the brain is hard and that
they're a psychologist. Theywant to be a clinical
psychologist, while I need thebrain, but I'm really interested
in the neuroscience of you part,like, and these, I'm seeing
these students. I'm actuallyjust challenging them to, like,

(49:23):
think critically about this. Anddo you want me to tell you how
your brain works? Or do you wantto be able to learn and evaluate
it yourself? And like, I'malready seeing them. Some of the
people who who self identifiedas not sciencey types or not
brainy types. I'm already seeingthem grow in the questions that
they ask in the way theyapproach these hard tasks. So I

(49:44):
think that's the metacognitivelearning how to learn and
learning how to not get itright. Yeah, not quit, not get
it right and say, like, I'mstupid. I don't understand this.
Like, No, you didn't get itright because you're just, this
is the first time you've taken aclass like this, and this is
hard stuff, and we're going totry again. And here's the
specific. Fix and where to grow.
And

Lynn (50:02):
there's a what you're describing is like a tolerance
for what I call the froth, whichis that it's that learning space
where we are agitated enough toneed to change something, but
not so agitated that we're we'rehaving to tap out right, right,
and not so flat that there'snothing to make us change. And

(50:24):
what I've experienced for myselfin modern society and in this
push button world is that my owntolerance for for the froth, for
frustration, for being in thatlearning space has shrunk at
some level. Like the other day,I was returning something from
Amazon, and now you don't evenhave to package it up. You walk

(50:47):
in with your phone to a UPSStore, and

Chantel (50:50):
someone wraps it for you. Yeah, they scan it or
something. In five seconds.

Lynn (50:55):
They scan the thing, hand you a receipt, and you walk out.
And I was recalling when Ithought, how, you know how
amazing it was. And I could walkinto a UPS Store, stand up line
for a few minutes, fill out aform and hand something to them,
you know, and now I would havelost my mind over that little,
you know, three minute wait asopposed to 32nd Wait, yeah, and

(51:16):
I wonder how much that'simpeding our ability to learn,
because we're not willing to bein the space of agitation and
froth. Now

Chantel (51:29):
there's a book. I wish I remembered the name of it, but
it's something about it'ssomething to the extent of the
convenience trap that might evenbe the name of the book was it,
was it? Is it the comfortcrisis, the comfort crisis,
that's it. That's okay. Yeah, sothis is it. And it's like, you

(51:49):
know, so we're, we're developingthings all of the time that are
supposed to make to remove thisfrustration and froth, right?
But it's also like you exactlyas you said. It's removing our
tolerance for things that aredifficult in any way, shape or
form, and and, you know, so likefor my students, it's an

(52:11):
enculturation process, right?
And so what I do is I speak totheir brains need for
motivation, and I and I explainit to them. So I say, like, you
know, in my class, I am notgoing to tell you the answers. I
am not. I say, your brain isnot, it was not designed to
passively consume information.

(52:34):
Now I understand you spent fouryears in this university
passively consuming information,because that's most of what you
do. You sit in a lecture,someone talks at you, facts at
you, and you're supposed towrite it down and remember and
regurgitate it. And they're liketwo dimensions, you know, the
shallowest form, A, B, C or D.
And I was like, that's not theway your brain was designed to
learn. And here with me, we havethe opportunity to make a real

(52:55):
change. So, you know, and Ithink that that that it brings
them to the party, right? It'slike, this is not how you're
this is not what you weredeveloped for. You were
developed, you know, your brainwas developed to move around the
world. Break a stick and seewhat happens, kick a rock and
see what happens, take a rightturn and see what happens. It's
active. It's action. And I said,reading is an action, thinking

(53:17):
is an action. You know, justsitting here and letting me tell
you what's important and how itworks is not an action like I
want you to go read, I want youto think, and I want you to come
back and tell me what happens,and then I can so brilliant. I
can guide you. I can, you know,we can toss the ideas around,
but they're not used to it,

Lynn (53:38):
no, and, and I've actually wondered where did the idea that
that was a great way to createlearning come from? Because, you
know, when I took over credittraining at the bank I worked
at, I looked into like, how arethey teaching people to make
credit decisions? And that's howthey did it. They sat there and
said, fill this block out. Andfor hours they'd have to, like,

(54:00):
listen to passively, and Istumbled on a company that gave
me a lot of these learningprinciples, gave me and my team,
and we designed something thatwas much more active, because we
also found when they showed up,you know, out of a fancy college
with, you know, having been toldthey were the greatest thing

(54:21):
since sliced bread and pry ournext CEO. You know, just if they
wait a couple of years, they'llbe CEO of the whole bank. Don't
worry. You know, that they werevery entitled and difficult,
difficult to teach. And weflipped everything on its head
and started them out with thetreasure hunt. And we said, you
know, we said, show up yourfloor is XYZ, and this thing,

(54:46):
once you reach the 20th floor,find your desk, and the rest of
the instructions will be there.
And so they had a treasure hunt.
Here's where to find therestroom and the coffee machine.
And, you know, back there. Wehad fax machines, and then we
everything we did was prettymuch experiential, and put them

(55:06):
in live situations. We gave themreal credit files and said, go
figure out how to, you know, getthis loan approved. And, you
know, did mock loan meetings andall those kind of things that
put them in in those but we keptthem in the froth almost the
whole time, you know. But theyactually, once they figured out
what was going on, they lovedit.

Chantel (55:25):
Yeah, it took me a really long wait, yeah, yeah.
And, I mean, it took me a longtime to realize in my, like,
mentoring, you know, becausesometimes I work with students
for six years, like, a closerelationship with my graduate
students and stuff and and whatwas, what's interesting in that
sort of exchanging ideas, orthat teaching and learning, I
think this would be the samething for anyone who's teaching

(55:47):
writing or teaching water skiingor whatever. What's interesting
is sometimes you think yourstudent knows what you know,
because they can repeat what yousaid like you've given them the
answers. Like, What the hell isa half halt. Like, who you know,
like, I know now, but you have,you can hear someone talked
about that you know for years,until you're like, oh, and you

(56:08):
can repeat it, and you can,like, do a thing, but like, it's
a feel, and it's an experientiallearning. And so, like, what I
realized is, I'm incrediblyquick, I'm experienced, and in
these spaces I was providing theanswer and that, and they were
nodding their head, or likeparroting the answer, and I
thought they understood, andthey didn't. And it wasn't until

(56:31):
they went to an exam situationwhere I had to shut up and they
had to demonstrate theirknowledge, I was like, Oh no,
that was me in that gap betweenthe known and unknown. So it,
when it comes to fraud, what I'mit's, it's quite interesting to
try and accomplish this on the35 student level, but in my
small student meetings, I askthem questions I know they don't

(56:51):
know the answer to all the time,and I force them to practice
being wrong out loud, like, andit's not, and they're, they're
still, like, quiet forever. AndI was like, here's why I'm
gonna, like, come up with thewrong answer. Like, you have a
lifetime of experiences thatwill allow you to generate an
answer to this question. Itmight be like oranges when I'm

(57:12):
looking for apples, but I wantyou to start generating answers.
And I want, I don't care if 95%of them are wrong, because
that's how you learn. You'reactive, you're creating, you're
doing and also, I think you'relearning to be wrong, and that
wrong is normal and that that'snot a thing to be afraid of.
You're learning to not have theanswer, and, and, and in my
class, I want them to do thattoo. I want them, even if they

(57:34):
don't know the answer, I wantthem to think about it. And I
want us to, you know, bounce, tocome to some kind of a growth of
understanding together, but theyhave to practice like being
wrong.

Lynn (57:48):
So, you know, I know too.
Oh, I'm, I'm so excited to hearyou say that wrong is normal,
yeah. Because the the thing Iwonder, and I just have a
question for you, because one ofthe things I have to do is help
people help themselves walk outof the thing they do to
themselves when they're wrong.

(58:10):
So a lot of times they're superhard on themselves. And I'm a
recovering self flagellator, Iguess is, you know, I still can
get a little bit hard on myself,but not like I used to more. I'm
more now going, Oh, okay, thatdidn't work. What would work? As
opposed to, oh, come on land,you know better, and you know
that kind of self talk. How doyou help people walk themselves

(58:36):
out of that? Because what I havefound is back to that negative
reinforcement riff we hadearlier, where you start
shrinking your world. I thinkthat also shrinks our world,

Chantel (58:50):
right? Of course, if you don't want to be wrong, you
don't participate. You don't trynew things, that's right, you
don't try new ideas, becausethat's all because you're going
to be wrong. Yeah, yeah. And oreven, like, trying to come even,
like, I just, there's so manymissed opportunities for
connection and conversation inreal life where people can
appreciate that you have twodifferent points of view, and

(59:11):
that neither of you is right orwrong, that you're just coming
from two different livedexperiences, and you're both
right and wrong, and neither youknow it's just like, again, that
fear of being incorrect is, is ais a crippling thing. And, you
know, for and I have to, youknow, I have to think about that
too, and and in a lot of ways,the expectation that wanting to

(59:33):
be to know the future, wantingto be correct is, is, I think,
to blame for that. And for me,it's really just like two
things, something that youtalked about earlier, that I
never touched on, which is youwere saying, I think you were
talking about Jesse and saying,like he said, people can't see
basically all those little stepsthat you take to get to the end.

(59:55):
All right. So part of thatdesire to be right and to be
perfect. Perfect comes from athe fact that other people's
effort is in a lot, almostalways invisible. Yes, the and
we can pin that we want to we'resocial, so we want to compare
ourselves to one another. So,you know, in my in my class, a

(01:00:17):
little bit, in my one on oneinteractions, a lot, I'm very I
am very exploratory, and I amhappy to say something that I
think that could be wrong. Like,I'm happy to model that sort of,
how am I thinking about this?
Well, I said this because I'mthinking about this, but I don't
know this, this or this sort ofmodel that growth mindset kind
of a thing so that they can knowthat I don't know. I mean, like,

(01:00:41):
I we often read and discusspapers together, papers that I
don't know about. And I rememberone lab meeting where we're
like, 40 minutes, I could notunderstand what this graph was,
and everyone was kind oflaughing at me, and I was
laughing at myself. And I'mlike, Wait, so like, up is this,
and down is that? And they'relike, no. Like, I was like, the
last one in the room to figureout what this freaking graph
meant, you know, but I didn'ttry and hide that. I didn't try

(01:01:04):
and show shame for that, becauseI hope that somebody's like,
Okay, well, she's made it prettyfirm, and she can't understand
this freaking graph. So if I canask a question and I cannot
know, and that's a part of theprocess, but, but also I just,
you know, for me, I try and setthe goal. The success is about
growing, not about being at theend. So for me, it's like I

(01:01:28):
would if I felt like I knew allthe answers, it would be time to
be to die. Like, what's thepoint? Exactly?

Lynn (01:01:39):
I actually have I, you know, the coach I work with a
lot says perfection is death,yeah, because where are you
going to go once you actuallyreach perfection? There's no
place to go,

Chantel (01:01:51):
No. And even if, when I've learned, and this is like,
really, really, really true inmy writing, writing, not
writing, course, it's so closeis that some you know
expectation, like just theexpectations that you hold for
yourself. You know it's great toset goals, and it's great to

(01:02:14):
understand what your definitionof success is, and so forth and
so on. But, but you can justhave a tiny expectation, and it
flashes into your head like, Iwant this to be perfect. I want
to win this award. I want to dothis. And it kills every single
bit of the process. Because Ithink for me, the goal really
should be about growth. Itshould be about continuous
growth. Because why else are we?
You know, contrary to popularbelief, we continue to learn

(01:02:38):
throughout our lifespan, and youindeed can teach an old dog new
tricks. I have a 12 year oldbasset hound that learned to
shake after 11 years of doingnothing besides barking and
sitting. She can now shake forher. I've proven that you can
treat teach an old dog newtricks. But we are we have
brains like that. For a reason.
We are lifelong learning, right?
So, like, I think having theanswer, I think again, you can

(01:03:02):
ask the question, like havingthe answer to x or being correct
about X, what does that get you?
It? Ideally, it should get you abetter understanding of the
world that you live in so youcan inform your why stories. Or
it should get you a betterchance of making a good choice

(01:03:25):
with this information. But Ithink that when we feel like
very wed to being right or tohaving the correct answer, it's
usually about something relatedto our identity, our sense of
belonging, our you know, thestories that we tell about our
worth at the end of the day,like, you know, if I'm wrong, if

(01:03:48):
I'm incorrect, then I'm notsmart, or I'm not an expert, or
I'm not this. And when we feelthreat to our sense of self or
our sense of belonging, thatthreat, it works in the brain
exactly like a physical threat.
It does the opposite of openingup curiosity. So again, like,
what I would do in that casewould be to say, like, why are

(01:04:09):
we why this is information?
Like, let's be curious aboutyour need to be perfect in this.
What value you use the wordvalues like, what value is that
telling you like, why is yourbrain giving you that feeling,
and what is the story thatyou're telling yourself around
that feeling? And what's anotherstory that opens up

(01:04:30):
opportunities for you to learnand grow without making you feel
threat to your sense of self?

Lynn (01:04:36):
Yeah, oh, that sense of self, which you know, it creates
like a, it's almost like a wallthat we, you know, live behind,
or a suit of armor that we puton every day. And it's, it's
sort of a, it's sort of a falsesense in general. And, you know,
we, we, I've mentioned, like theidea of having a pressure

(01:04:58):
threshold. And. That what I sortof am still putting together is
there's a there's a moment atwhich that identity gets hit,
like under pressure, and at thatmoment when I go over my
pressure threshold, and I'm surethe nervous system is a big
reason for this, I no longerhave access to things that I

(01:05:22):
need, like my courage andcuriosity, my ability to listen,
my ability to respond, myability to my timing, even my
feel, especially with horses.
You know, we really think a lotabout timing and feel right, and

Chantel (01:05:37):
we just lose you're no longer in the present. Yeah,
that's right. And so we story.
We're

Lynn (01:05:41):
not in the present anymore. And so what's the way
to build that pressurethreshold? And what I've one of
my simple little go tos was tostart going, oh, when I'm in the
froth, reach for my toolsinstead of my rules. Because a
lot of times when you're feelingthat, it's like, Well, what was
I taught or what worked in thepast, as opposed to what's the

(01:06:02):
situation calling for right now?
And do I have the courage toeven ask the question, what's
the situation calling for rightnow? And what I what are the
neurological questions I have?
Is I think the froth is like youwere talking about that study
with the vitamin B andepinephrine, you know, and

(01:06:25):
adrenaline, which I guess iskind of the same thing, but it's
necessary to create motion, butafter that, there's like a when
it's resolved, there's kind oflike a dopamine, serotonin, or
something that happens. I don'tknow the difference between an
endorphin, dopamine andserotonin, but

Chantel (01:06:43):
they're all different.
They're all different. Yeah,they're all different. Things
that are that are happening inthe brain that make you feel
good. So endorphins actuallyreally exist to help with the
immediate response to pain. Solike, if you've Okay, endorphin
gets you, like, overridingphysical pain. Dopamine is a
reward, a pure reward, and andserotonin is really satiety,

(01:07:06):
like, it's a something thattells you you've had enough.
Like, serotonin and dopamine, itkind of often work in tandem.
So, like, why? Like, why wewouldn't gold fish like, eat
until we literally rupture ourstomach like a goldfish actually
will, is because at some pointin that, like craving reward
cycle, serotonin comes in and ittells you you have enough.

(01:07:28):
What's one of the things that Ithink are really cool about
serotonin is that 90% of it isactually created in your gut,
but it's the stuff in your brainthat makes you feel satiated.
Satiated, yeah, I got it. And sothat's like a peaceful, good
feeling. So what

Lynn (01:07:47):
I have found is if I will bank that feeling instead of
wipe my forehead, hand across myforehead, going, whew, I didn't
die, which is different, like, Inever want to do that again,
versus look at that I didn'tdie. That's actually, yeah, if I

(01:08:07):
think the good feeling, asopposed to focus on the the
close call, I raise my pressurethreshold. If I focus on the
Close call and go, Oh, that

Chantel (01:08:19):
was close. And then, because then your brain is like,
then you're,

Lynn (01:08:23):
let's not drive again, because that brain almost pulled
out in front of you, yeah,right? As opposed to, wow, did
you see how I dodged that car?
Who?

Chantel (01:08:30):
Yeah? Gratitude, right?
Gratitude, yeah, yeah. I have

Lynn (01:08:34):
found that helps raise my pressure threshold, yeah. And
that makes, just making thatlittle twist with my clients has
been dramatic for them, youknow, whether they're making a
presentation asking for a raise,trying to lead big change,
starting to learn that theselittle moments where you thought
things were making you wrong,bad off, you know, whatever that

(01:08:55):
that how you recover from thatcould be like a little good
feeling As opposed to a badfeeling, it totally changes
their perspective on pressure.

Chantel (01:09:04):
Yeah, I think, like, that's a really, like, neuro,
chemically complicatedsituation. And one thing that I
think is happening in thatscenario is that you're pointing
attention at different aspectsof the experience. And when you
point your sort of focus, youknow, and that's one thing that

(01:09:25):
story does, too, when you pointyour focus on something, it
enhances that up the opportunityto learn from that, that bit of
the story. And so, whereas ifyou focus on, you know, if you
let the I almost died, like myknees are shaking and
everything, because I waspreparing for death or near

(01:09:45):
death, or whatever, and and ifyou focus all of your energy on
that, because it's a signalthat's turned up really high,
the brain will also kind ofincrease the likelihood that
that's going to happen again,like I. Almost died, and that
happened, and it was an extremeexperience. So now, when I'm
predicting the future, I think,oh my god, if I'm even around a

(01:10:07):
horse, my chances of dying areexcellent. Like, you know,
you've, you've, you'veexaggerated that bit of the
story, and your brain is gonna,is gonna use this, the volume of
your attention on that thing inits estimate of the future. And
if you're like, I didn't die,you know, like I, you know,
there's, there are, in truth,there are close calls all around

(01:10:29):
you. Yeah, and, and all thetime, we survive these things.
And aren't we? Aren't we lucky?
Isn't this a wonderful worldwhere at any moment you could
get hit by a bus and you didn't.
Yeah, that's amazing. My chancestoday of getting hit by a bus
are still very, very slim. Theyare out there, but my chances of
not getting hit by a bus aremuch higher Well,

Lynn (01:10:52):
and what I've actually discovered, and this, this
actually happened with a dog toyon the floor so, and this is how
I knew I had made some kind ofprogress, because if I'm
starting to look for the thegood side of it, if you will, or
the, let me call it the problemsolving side of it, as opposed

(01:11:13):
to the OH SHIT side of it. Justto make a really clear
distinction, I stepped on a dogtoy one day, and I started to go
flying across the kitchencounter. I was carrying
groceries, and it was under thegrocery bags, and didn't see it,
and very quickly recognized thatI needed to control my fall, or
my head was going to hit thegranite counter top, and made a

(01:11:36):
very quick estimate that I hadto control my fall and use my
elbows, my arms against that, asopposed to letting myself do the
full fall, had hit the granitewhat seemed to have occurred in
the sequencing in my brain as Ilook back on it, because I
thought, wow, I never had, ohshit. Now control the fall. I

(01:11:57):
went straight to control theproblem solving and that little,
tiny gap where I didn't go intothe mistake thinking, but I just
went with the problem solving,thinking seems to have made it I
think it made a difference inthe timing. So I had a little,
you know, split seconddifference. And because this was
happening fast, and, you know,it still hurt my arms, but it

(01:12:19):
was a lot better than hitting myhead, and I've noticed that in
several other places, and that'swhy I asked the question about,
what do you do, and how do youhelp people not go into that
self beating up cycle, becauseit seems to interfere not only
with our ability to respond, butwith our ability to connect with
others.

Chantel (01:12:40):
Yeah, you know, that's so interesting, because, and I
wonder, with everything, withevery interesting difference,
you know, some part of it isbiological, and some part of it
is is experiential. And I thinkwhen I was on the podcast with
Warwick Schiller, I think one ofthe things that we talked about
is that I'm a late Panicker, solike in those it's quite

(01:13:02):
interesting, like, in thosekinds of moments, I am problem
solving instantly, and it's onlyat the end, like even I'm riding
a horse. Like, yeah, I wasriding the the very like,
energetic thoroughbred, and Iwas very much in my 40s, and I
was having, she started. A horsecame behind her and started and

(01:13:23):
scared her, and she startedrearing. And in the moment, I
had no fear whatsoever. I wasjust like, Whoa, that was a big
rear. Whoa, that one was bigger.
I need to, like the third one isgoing to be game over. I need
to, I need to eject myself fromthis horse. I need to, I need to
push the eject button.
Unfortunately, one of my feetdid not eject. The rest of me

(01:13:44):
did. So it was kind of a big, abig boo boo. But it wasn't until
many of those incidents I'veeither ridden through or gotten
off safe rolled. You know, I'vehad a moment when I was jogging
long time ago with my dog and Islipped on the ice. And my
husband like reports seeing thisthing like he never knew I was a
ninja, because I had, like, you,I had I had my dog in my hand,

(01:14:08):
and it was ice, and I was movingforward, and I just like, knew.
I was like, I need to turn myhead, tuck my shoulder. And what
wound up happening, because Ihad so much momentum, is that I
rolled and got back up, and itjust looked like I did a flip in
the air, and then I was like, hewas like, what just happened? It
was like, I fell, but I'm fine,you know? And then it's only
like, after that, when the thebody hits, oh, and I start

(01:14:31):
going, I almost died, you know?
But that's a delay for me. And Idon't know if that is something
about temperament or like,because we know, like, there are
these very early liketemperament is something you can
tell in a newborn, and it'srelated to the nervous system
and how excitable they are, howlike, regularly they sleep, how
easily they cry, and and so Iwonder, I mean, that no matter

(01:14:55):
where it falls, experience. Yes,will help, right? And then
getting out of and, andcatastrophizing will not help.
And, and, you know, I just had aconversation with someone I'm
really close to a couple of daysago who was like, getting
negative feedback from theworld, and then adding to that

(01:15:16):
by being very negative withthemselves. And you know, it's
heartbreaking for me when youare the one talking bad about
yourself and and in that sort ofcatastrophizing or story space,
I just said, I know all thereasons, like I hear you, and I
think that's your brain tryingto protect you from this, but

(01:15:37):
ask yourself the question, like,Does that feel good, and is it
going to catalyze change in theway that you want to right? So
to sort of trying to sort ofEmpower, I feel this way, I'm
telling myself this story,what's the how is this going to
shape my decision movingforward? I think just
practicing, well,

Lynn (01:15:59):
that's and it's interesting, because you were
just describing, like, for melater, is not, not a problem,
yeah, it's not a problem. It'salready over. No. It's like, No,
my hat, my Oh, shit happenstypically in the moment, which
has been one of the problemswith my pressure threshold, is
just going having everything gooffline. It sounds like
sometimes your stuff comesonline under and that's,

Chantel (01:16:18):
and that's, I think that's natural, like, I remember
a water skiing accident,actually, and we were on this
boat with an EMT, and it waslike a friend's wedding, and my
friend was water skiing, and hehad a bad fall, and he was going
like this, and they thought hewas goofing around, but he was
like, oh, compound fracture hisarm. And I was just like, you
call 911, you get the skis, youget your thing, you get him and

(01:16:41):
like that, whatever that, Ithink that that is a is a kind
of a personality trait. There'ssome piece in there that makes
that easier for me. I'm verythankful for it. But I do think
that people can practice like, Imean, we know that right, no
question. And that's and I thinkthat you know you and I talked
about this before, and I thinkit's worth saying again, in this

(01:17:01):
learning, in this learningspace, there are two kinds of
learning. One is the kind oflearning that anybody could do
from listening to this podcast,right? So like they were just
hearing our words, they willconnect them, hopefully, to
their real life experiences. Andthat will do have some kind of
organization function on theirmemory. People can give you

(01:17:22):
advice, and it can resonate, orit cannot resonate, and you can
follow the instruction, youcannot follow the instruction,
and then there's the learningthat we do by doing right? And
so I think that the power ofthis coaching froth tolerance is
like, there's a lot ofexplaining, there's a lot of
like opportunity for people tounderstand, to explore, to

(01:17:44):
evaluate their story, but also,like a half halt. You're never
going to learn it. You're nevergoing to really be able to do
it, unless, until you do it,like you and I can talk about
this all day long, but if Inever drove across the bridge, I
would not grow my my froth, mypressure threshold, right? So

(01:18:05):
they, you, you and I can talkabout lifting weights all day
long, and if I don't do it, I'mnot going to get big biceps. You
know, it's the same. So I thinkthat that, yeah, so it's like
talking having a place where youare truly, you know, seen and
and someone else, there's anexpert there to add that
confidence and whatever it isthat you need to, to have an

(01:18:32):
experience that is some degreeof out of your comfort zone. If
you do not take thatopportunity, you will not ever
you just can't. We just can'tgrow our comfort zone from a
book. We just can't. Can

Lynn (01:18:45):
we can? I mean, we can. I don't think we can. And, you
know, I used to, when I startedthe self awareness program, we
would say, you know, it's likethe difference between learning
to ride a bike by getting on thebike or trying to read a book
about writing to ride a bike andexactly what what I wish that
was more in the teaching, and itsounds like it is in your

(01:19:06):
teaching, but you know, early inour childhood, it it's if it
ever was there, it's not thereas much now, which is this
understanding that we do haveThis inner life, this emotional
being inside of us that hasphysical sensations that will

(01:19:26):
inform us and that we need tolearn to understand it, that it,
it will run us in some way, sowe need to learn to manage it.
You know, I've actually watchedmy dog training with I have a
two year old Doberman, and, youknow, I've seen what can. And I
watched the movie Marley and Methe other night, you know, where
they had this wonderful lab whowas really not wonderful. He was

(01:19:48):
cute and great for a movie, butnot well controlled, because
they didn't really know how towork with the way a dog is. So
they kind of just let him runwild and. I work with my
Doberman knowing how a dogworks. So she does. She would
love to run wild. She would beboy. I hate to think if anybody
that didn't know how to managedogs got her, she'd be the most

(01:20:09):
out of control dog they evergot. So I just think of our
inner life sort of like that.
I'm not trying to say we'redogs, but that
we have this we're all two yearold Dobermans.
Well, I probably am, but, butour, our inner, our inner life,
has so much, you know, that canbe good for us and not good for

(01:20:30):
us. But I wish we had beentrained better on what to do
with all of this stuff, youknow, because that's a lot of my
work is helping people get backin touch with those things so
that they can perform theirexecutive duties. And, you know,
they're one of the things that Ifind really interesting is
people lower in the organizationthink the people at the higher

(01:20:53):
levels of the organization haveit out together. They think they
have it all together, and don'thave it solved. I was like, Oh,
honey, you should go to the

Chantel (01:20:59):
executive on the inside, it's just invisible.

Lynn (01:21:03):
I mean, everybody, the point being everybody is there's
not really, none of us have gotthis all together, because this
thing that's inside of us isreally complex, as you've said,

Chantel (01:21:12):
yeah, in the beginning, I think we started, and I said,
you know, I study cognitiveneuroscience, not these, these
touchy feeling things, but thereis no such separation. But we
were taught this way, right? Sothe word we use is cold
cognition. It's like thinkingwithout feeling. It never
exists, not in the lab, not forthe boring tasks we do never it
just never exists. The feelingis the fuel that moves us, that

(01:21:35):
catalyzes the feeling is thefuel that catalyzes change, that
catalyzes learning, that drivesus through the world and and
you're right that we're nottrained in any way, and if we're
trained in any way, it's not toexpress that feeling or to

Lynn (01:21:57):
express the feelings that your parents expressed. Because
if you ask 30 people, lay outwhat was allowed and not allowed
in your house, it's not thesame, but that's how they do it
now, like that's that was theirtrading. It's what was allowed
to be expressed and what wasn't.

Chantel (01:22:14):
Yeah, and I think you know more than that or not. I
don't know more than that, butplus that, and I think these be
this feeling world that we have,that we are not trained, what to
have the courage to feel ourfeelings, how to find the

(01:22:36):
information and the feelings, isalso largely invisible. So this
is one of the things that I loveabout my work with horses, is
that it has made me so much moresensitive to body language in
people and to like how I howthat, how our inner world we
feel that it's private. Butoften we are going back to that

(01:23:00):
contagion study. Often we are inspreading and influencing
others, even if we're not awareof how we feel, we're we're
spreading that feeling. And Ithink that, from a pure
connectedness standpoint, it'sso interesting that I think we
feel more isolated and alonebecause we have this neglected

(01:23:26):
space that others can't see andthat we don't know how to show
and that we don't know how torespond to. It's like an
artificial barrier.

Lynn (01:23:37):
Well, if you, okay, so this is just coming to me right
now. But if you, if you connectthat feeling, anytime
something's off, that feeling ofagitation, right? If you connect
that that there's a problem withyou, I'm making a mistake. I'm
wrong. I am. They think I'mdumb, whatever, then what are

(01:23:58):
you going to do? You're going tohide all that feeling, as
opposed to saying, You knowwhat, I make it, yeah, I'm not
feeling so good about this rightnow. Or something doesn't feel
quite right, you know. And I'vestarted trying, you know, I
shouldn't even say trying, I'vestarted applying this awareness
to my decisions. And it'samazing, if I will just say I

(01:24:19):
need to sit with this for a bit,because I'm not quite there yet.
Something's still off, but if Iwill give myself some time, the
answer comes. It almost alwaysshows itself to me. And now I'm
not mad at somebody because youmade me feel bad because you
said something that's off, likeyou made a decision, let's start
the party at five. And it'slike, man, doesn't feel right,
but you don't want to argueabout it. And then you come back

(01:24:41):
later, and you go, it's gotta besix because, and I knew that all
along, it just now finallybubbled to the surface. Mm hmm,
you know, just trusting thatthat feeling is acting as a
guide, as opposed to anindictment. Mm hmm, is huge. Mm
hmm.

Chantel (01:24:57):
So maybe we can, we can offer. For this advice, and that
is, don't judge your feelwhatever you're feeling. You're
feeling it because you're alive.
Mm, that's

Lynn (01:25:08):
so good. Well, and by the way, you were mentioning working
with the horses when you're justin the moment with them, like
that, and not judging how youfeel or not judging what they're
doing, they can barely stay awayfrom you. They just are like
real magnets connected to you,because they just love the
feeling of you being in themoment. Yeah, soon as that mind
starts, you know, I'm doing itwrong, or I'm about to put a

(01:25:30):
halter on you, either one ofthose thoughts, especially with
the Mustangs we work with. Imean, I can, I swear my body
language hasn't changed. They'renot reading my body language,
but they can read my energyfield and boom off again.

Chantel (01:25:45):
That's my horses too.
And they're, they're so, and Iknow that I have Powerful Goal,
goal energy. So I have to be so.
I have learned to to absolutelyincorporate do nothing time. I
would say probably like 80% ofour time together is do nothing
time. And I always start with donothing time, because as a busy,
goal oriented person, I wouldmake the the correct, you know,

(01:26:07):
my thing would be like, okay, ifI'm only 10 minutes, we're going
to be super focused, and we'regoing to do 10 minutes of
backing up or bubble, orwhatever the heck. And it's
just, I walk in the barn, andthey're like, like, get out of
here with this, like, predatorenergy, like, we're going to
back up. And it's just like,whatever it was, I was just so
singularly focused on the goal,um, that they were like, wow,

(01:26:30):
where are you, yeah, and whereare you? Are not here. You are
not here, yeah.

Lynn (01:26:37):
And that agenda is just like a predator would be, you
know, coming up. They know thedifference between somebody
coming up to get a drink at thewater hole and somebody coming
up to take a bite out

Chantel (01:26:47):
of you. And isn't that interesting? Like, just, we
could take that for a second andsay, like, how much do we move
through the world with thatpredator energy? Like, how in
that goal space and that, like,this is about, again, like,
about being right, about nailingit, about, you know, the
outcome. And so we must havegoals, and we must they organize
and drive us through the world,but like it is, at a cost to

(01:27:09):
being present and to evaluatingthe situation and reaching for
your tools and responding towhere you're at, not like where
you expect to be, what you howyou think your horse is going to
show up, how you think you'regoing to show up, and and how
do, how do people who don't havehorses get that kind of
feedback, but just thinkingabout us, I mean, I guess, like,

(01:27:29):
it's just so rewardedeverywhere, right? Like, you're
a shark, you're a tiger, you're,you know, like you're moving
through the world with a goal,you know, kicking ass and taking
numbers and like, Yeah, but itis, you know, this is why I tell
people like there's a cost andbenefit to everything. You know,
we talk about ADHD ordistraction and paying
attention, but when you use yourgoal to pay attention, you're
actually distorting the world.
You're you're turning up thesignals on the things that

(01:27:53):
you've decided are important,yeah, and you will be less
likely to notice the things thatare not important. So in a very
real way. It's a moving awayfrom the truth as it is,

Lynn (01:28:05):
yeah, and that's one of the bigger challenges I have in
coaching. The kind of peoplethat I work with is that they're
very goal oriented, and it'sserving them in very big ways.
And yeah, you know the theability to, like, have a picture
of where you're going, but thendrop the picture and just move
into it one frame at a time. Andone of the most difficult things

(01:28:26):
for people to learn, and I thinkthis is amazing to work with
horses this way, is I have apicture, but you tell me how to
do it, the horse tells me whatto do, tells me what they're
ready for, and so forth. Andwhat I have found is the leaders
I work with who are willing torent the idea that you can let
the people tell you how to getyour vision done, because you
don't live on the front line.
You don't sit there doing whatthey do all day long with your

(01:28:49):
customers. You don't know whatthe place is, so trust them to
tell you how to get the picture.
But most leaders strugglebecause they're still trying to
justify the picture, and it'slike, no, you have a right to
create the vision. This is yourjob, setting direction, looking

(01:29:09):
out into the future, decidingwhere you're going, and they
need to tell you how to getthere. And when we do feedback
along, you know, I don't get todo this very often, but where I
have one of the biggest piecesof feedback is they make changes
in the executive office havingno idea what impact they've just
had down here at the front line.
And it's because they're notwilling to, like, have that two

(01:29:30):
way dialog which creates theconnection, like we do with the
horses, where the horse isgiving us feedback and we're
giving them feedback.

Chantel (01:29:42):
And a lot of that.
Again, I think that's a like,you know, keep keep reiterating
this. But I think a lot of thatcomes from a culture of needing
to know the answer, and thinkingthat leadership is about having
the right answer, and that ifyou don't have the right answer,
if you allow other people's faceto come up with the answer, if
you just open up the door. Wereto they have a different
perspective, like they have adifferent piece of this job,
that that will be like a form ofweakness, or, you know, oh,

Lynn (01:30:07):
well, you ought to see what happens when I tell them
that the DNA of leadership, as Iunderstand it, is that it's
asking for help. And people whowant to have the answer rarely
think asking for help is a goodidea, because they think it's a
sign of weakness. But then ifthey look at it logically, and
I'm like, Look, if you could runthe bank by yourself, would you
go ask anybody else to be theteller and be the loan officer

(01:30:29):
and be the one that issues thecredit cards and all of that
stuff? It's like, you have tohave help if you're going to be
a leader. Otherwise, why be aleader? Just do it yourself. And
they're like, oh my gosh, I'venever thought that way. And then
they're like, kind of turn theirwhole world upside down. And
then it's like, and that givesyou permission to let them tell
you,

Chantel (01:30:47):
Mm, hmm, what it means.
That's so clever. I love that.
Yeah. So

Lynn (01:30:52):
it's um, it's interesting to think about though, how our
like this conversation, ifthere's a theme, it's how our
brains and this inner world,like we started with emotions
and feelings in thatdistinction, how it influences
the way we move through theworld, who we choose to connect

(01:31:12):
to, how we connect what we'reafraid of, what we're not afraid
of, where we will lean in, wherewe will change, where we will
Learn. It's this unseen part ofus is what's driving all of it,
isn't it? Yeah,

Chantel (01:31:25):
and I think even in that unseen part understanding
that some of it is nameable andsome of it is not nameable,
right? There's like the story,and you hear that some of us
hear it, some of us don't. Andthen there's the feeling. And
the feeling is, is anothernavigational system. It's an
older navigational system, andit's informed. You know, the

(01:31:48):
both parts of the brain, thespeaking, inferring,
storytelling part of the brain,and the feeling moving towards
good things and away from badthings, part of the brain,
they're both informed. They bothhave information, but we listen
to them in different ways, andwe let them, you know, drive our

(01:32:09):
decisions in different ways, butthey're both in there. They're
both, they're both the ways.
They're different ways that ourour brains try and move us based
on our experiences, based on theway we understand them. So

Lynn (01:32:25):
I have a question about that idea you just said about
the brain pulls you towards thegood things and pushes you away
from the bad things. It for lackof a better language. But I
think we can't, you know, wethink about moving away from
pain or things that would hurtus, moving towards things that
are pleasurable and so forth,which

Chantel (01:32:41):
is stronger? Oh my gosh. Well, this is one of my
favorite individual differences.
So there are actually in thehuman brain, there are two
separate pathways where we learnabout reward possibilities and
we learn about punishmentpossibilities. And in fact, I
have a little game on my websitewhere you can learn, you can

(01:33:08):
actually do it and learn aboutyour own I call it carrot and
stick the original paper. It'scalled carrot and stick
learning, and it's actuallyrelated to dopamine, but we have
two separate dopamine paths. Andwhat's interesting is that while
no one likes negative feedback,right? So we always talk about

(01:33:28):
you learn four times as muchfrom negative that's actually
not strictly true, but none ofus like negative feedback.
However, there are people in theworld that learn better from
from just avoiding bad thingsand they move through the world,
you still land on the gooddecisions by learning a lot
about what all the bad the worstoptions are. And in fact, these

(01:33:51):
people are. You know, I jokethat these are the people you
want on your zombie apocalypseteam, because when there are no
good choices and you need tofind the least bad choice.
They're the ones want to sticklearners. You know, most AIS,
and most, you know most likecomputers that are set up to
learn from rewards. It's calledreinforcement learning. You you

(01:34:15):
kind of the reinforcementlearning algorithms and those
parts of the brain, they landpretty quickly on the best
choice, but they don't sample.
They don't know what to do whenthere's no good choice. They
don't sample around the lowerreward spaces. And so there are
genetics that drive the strengthof those two pathways. And

(01:34:37):
what's so some people are goodat both. I should say like some
people are equally strong. Somepeople are equally weak. But
there are these, like, I wouldsay, maybe 10% on either end of
the spectrum that move throughthe world, mostly by carrot or
mostly by sick. And you kind ofknow, if you have these people
on your team, so carrot learnersare, like, going to generate a
lot of possible ideas. Um. Andthe stick learners are like,

(01:35:02):
well, this is this could gowrong. This could go wrong. This
could go wrong. And like, forme, I think I'm I'm pretty okay
on both, but I tend to decisionmake by moving toward good
things. And my husband is verylike, but here are seven things,
reasons that won't work. Andwhile I hate it because he never
gives me another option, itsaves me from wasting so much
time, because he's like, almostalways, right? And I'm like, I

(01:35:24):
have this one. I'm just gonnaput a pole in the ground here,
and we're gonna use this for x.
And he's like, Here are sevenreasons why you can't put a pole
in the ground there, right? Andthere's no tension. All these
things I don't know about, like,the support a pole, and like how
you have to dig and all that,you know. And it's not just
about things I don't know. It'sabout literally all the things
that can go wrong that his brainhas learned about. And I'm like,

(01:35:45):
oh, man, yep, yep. So the answerto your question is that it's a
it's something related togenetics, yeah, and it's
different in different people.
Wow. We learn different thingsfrom the same kind of feedback.
We might learn a lot about thethe choice that we made that was
incorrect.

Lynn (01:36:03):
Yeah, and you know, when I think about the different
horses, because I'm on theboard, of course, we have both
pathways, Sue, yes, because wehave, we've rescued a fair
number of feral horses, and nowsome Mustangs. So both were very
untouchable when we got them.
The ferals were more scared andmore willing to run away. The
Mustangs also scared, but theyhave more of the fight path. You

(01:36:25):
gotta watch them. They'rethey're more willing to move in
rather than move away, at leastthe ones we have. And again, I
think all horses are probablydifferent. But thinking about
this, there are, I could almostdivide the horses up between
which ones kind of go for thepleasure the ferals almost all
ended up once they figured outthat we could scratch them in

(01:36:46):
places they couldn't reach.
Yeah, they're like, You guys aregreat. Yeah, come back. Let me
do it again. Give me some morescratches. You know, they love
the they're kind of carrot, butsome of them are stick. They
need a little pressure to getthem to, you know, move away
from something they shouldn'tdo. Yeah, that's really useful.

(01:37:09):
I'm

Chantel (01:37:09):
glad you asked that question, because I often
volunteer, yeah. And I wouldjust tell people, if you go to
Chantelle pratt.com there's aBrain Games tab, and there are a
lot of different things you cando. One of them is the carrot
and stick, and it will tell youright then, like you're 100%
carrot, or, you know, give youfeedback right there. It's
probably about 10 minutes.

Lynn (01:37:27):
Oh, I'm looking, yeah, I'm on it now. That looks
fascinating. Alright, people goto her website at Chantelle
Pratt com, because this isawesome. Oh, I love your who did
the little drawings with alittle I hired,

Chantel (01:37:41):
I hired an artist to do those. Aren't they cute?

Lynn (01:37:44):
They're brilliant. They're brilliant. Oh, I love it. Luke
Newell, that was his name. Iyou know, I actually was going
to hire somebody to do some ofthe drawings in my book. And
then actually did hire a coupleof different people. And when it
was said and done, everybodyliked the little scribbles that
I had done better than anythingthe drawing people did. It's
like, well, I gave them a littlebit of money towards their

(01:38:05):
drawing, and we're still goingto use my drawings.

Unknown (01:38:10):
So that says something about your scribbles versus
mine, for sure.

Lynn (01:38:14):
I don't know, I don't know you ever you might not have seen
the ones in my book. I sometimeslook at them going, these could
be better, but,

Chantel (01:38:20):
but But what part of your brain that's a feeling part
of your brain?

Lynn (01:38:24):
There, there I go. That's a little bit of that beating
myself up, isn't it? Um, so, soas as we kind of come to a
close, I always like, you know,you you've given us several
pieces of advice, and actuallycalled it out as advice as we
were having this conversation.
But sort of toward the end ofany podcast, I like to give my
guest a chance to just say,okay, based on this conversation

(01:38:46):
that we've had, or somethingthat we may not have even
touched on, that matters a lotto you. What would you have my
audience know or do or possiblythink about changing something
that they could do to eithermake their life better or less
worse, if you think about it interms of carrot stick

Chantel (01:39:06):
better or less worse.
Well, I guess in this space oflearning that we've been talking
about, I think one thing thatamazes me is how most people
feel inadequate in some way, insome space. And I think that
this comes a lot from a illusionof what how easy or hard it was

(01:39:27):
for another person to attainwhat they've attained, or even
that there's like one right, oneright way to do a thing, one
right way to perform a thing,one right way to be. And I feel
like this is not moving peopleforward in the way I like, while
I know our brains kind ofconsider these things and say,
you know, they become part ofour story, I think that they

(01:39:49):
don't motivate most people tomove forward. So I think, you
know, opening up space for.
Yourself and other people tomove through the world in ways
that might be different, but notbetter or worse, is a gift, and

(01:40:11):
like finding ways to use yourfeelings that might be
unpleasant as informationalguides getting curious about the
parts of your story that youdon't like. And I guess just
when we're talking about be bebetter or be less worse, I would
say, before you go jumping intothat, ask yourself, why? Where's

(01:40:34):
the where is the desire to bebetter or less worse in this
space coming from? Is it reallycoming from you? Is it coming
from your navigational system?
Is it coming from your culture?
Is it coming from some idea thatyou've had about what better or
worse looks like? You know, andif you're tapped into your why?
Then I think, you know. I thinkthat what can happen is that you

(01:40:58):
can find a partnership with yourbrain. You can you can align
with the ways that it's definingsuccess, and the ways that you
have identified that you wouldlike to change and grow, that
can feel so much moreinteresting, more empowered than
what can often happen on theother side, which is like a
wrestling match between you andyourself, because you've got

(01:41:21):
some idea that maybe didn't comefrom you about how you want to
be better, how you want to bedifferent, and maybe doesn't
account for the things that yourbrain is doing for you that you
don't appreciate or like, yeah.

Lynn (01:41:37):
So everybody listening, you might want to hit rewind two
or three times and go back andlisten to what Chantal just
said, because there are, like,so many layers in what you said.
Yeah,it wasn't really one piece of
advice. I feel, well, that'sNo that's okay, because the core
about what is our Why is such abig piece. But where is that

(01:41:57):
message coming from that itneeds to be better or be less
worse, and how can you form apartnership with your brain? Or
two things that I took outreally right for myself, and I
already was like thinking, Oh,I'm so glad this is getting
recorded, because I'm going togo back and listen to that
several times. So that wasreally, really well said. Thank
you. Well, so tell people, will,of course, have all this stuff

(01:42:21):
in the show notes and so forth,but some people are going to be
listening and going, I want toknow how to get to her stuff.
How do how do people follow you?
Find out more about you. Whatare your tell them a little bit
about your books again. Thiswill all be in the intro and the
bio, but go ahead and tell themas we close up. Well,

Chantel (01:42:38):
Chantal pratt.com is the website you can go you can
play brain games. I've got someinformation about my existing
book. I need to update it withthe new book, which will be all
about learning, but that won'tbe out until 2026 meanwhile, I
also have a sub stack. So it'sthere. Most of them are Chantal
Pratt, PhD, so sub stack is agood place to read about what

(01:43:02):
I'm thinking about in theinterim. And yeah, so I think
between my website and substack, you should be able to
find pointers to lots ofdifferent things that hopefully
will help you think aboutyourself and where you want to
be in the future. That's

Lynn (01:43:20):
so awesome. So folks, this is somebody who knows how to
read scientific papers, get tothe core of the details and the
truth of the research, and thenturn it into something the rest
of us can understand, and thatis a gift

Chantel (01:43:32):
to the world. So much for saying that, Oh, I

Lynn (01:43:35):
can't tell you how much I've enjoyed this conversation.
So thank you so much for beinghere.

Chantel (01:43:42):
Thank you, Lynn, thank you for helping me to expand,
expand my pressure sensitivityand and and just geek out on
learning and and experience andhow to grow. I think we're both
like, yeah, just all about thatgrowth, all

Lynn (01:44:02):
over it, although I will say, I have not always been a
learner. I was, at one point Ishut down. Please just don't
mess me up person. But somethingbroke open, and boy, has it been
a fun ride. In the meantime, alittle bit of a roller coaster,
but it's been fun

Chantel (01:44:16):
imagine, and just imagine where it's going to go.
I mean, we're still going, still

Lynn (01:44:20):
going. I have, I think that I've, I'm convinced that
learning is the fountain ofyouth. So yes, yeah, I am. I am
all over it and and all the allof you who are listening to this
podcast, you you know thatbecause you hear this, this from
me a lot, and I'm so grateful tohave you as listeners. So
please, if you enjoyed thispodcast, share it with your

(01:44:40):
friends, your colleagues. Signup for the newsletter at the
coaching digest.com and wouldlove to have your feedback and
have you back for the nextpodcast as well. In the
meantime, we'll see you on thenext podcast. Thank you for
listening to the creativespirits unleash podcast. I
started this podcast because I.
Having these greatconversations, and I wanted to
share them with others. I'malways learning in these

(01:45:03):
conversations, and I wanted toshare that kind of learning with
you. Now, what I need to hearfrom you is what you want more
of and what you want less of. Ireally want these podcasts to be
of value for the listeners.
Also, if you happen to knowsomeone who you think might love
them, please share the podcastand of course, subscribe and
rate it on the different appsthat you're using, because

(01:45:26):
that's how others will find it.
Now I hope you go and dosomething very fun today. You.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#80 Chantel Prat: The Neuroscience of You

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#80 Chantel Prat: The Neuroscience of You

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