January 18, 2023 • 30 mins
In this episode, Eveline Oehrlich is joined by Patrycja Slawuta to discuss her mission to give people and organizations clear frameworks and practical tools to "mine their own minds" to find purpose, clarity and alignment.
Australia-based, NYC-educated and Poland-born researcher, entrepreneur and mindhacker.
Patrycja is a connoisseur of the complexity, nonlinearity and messiness of the human nature. Behavioral scientist by training, nerdy science and its application is her passion and work. After spending 10+ years in academia, Patrycja founded SelfHackathon, a NYC-based global boutique behavioural consultancy of scientists that applies evidence-based research to help organizations and enterprises navigate the complexities of human nature in the face of disruption, change and uncertainty.
Patrycja believes the human mind is the world’s most untapped natural resource. As such, her mission is to give people and organizations clear frameworks and practical tools to meaningfully and efficiently mine their own minds in order to find purpose, clarity and alignment. In her free time she runs marathons (28 so far), reads (audiobooks) and meditates. In that particular order.
Enjoy the Humans of DevOps Podcast? We’re incredibly grateful to be voted one of the Best 25 DevOps Podcasts by Feedspot.
Want access to more DevOps-focused content and learning? When you join SKILup IT Learning you gain the tools, resources and knowledge to help your organization adapt and respond to the challenges of today.
Have questions, feedback or just want to chat about the podcast? Send us an email at podcast@devopsinstitute.com
Australia-based, NYC-educated and Poland-born researcher, entrepreneur and mindhacker.
Patrycja is a connoisseur of the complexity, nonlinearity and messiness of the human nature. Behavioral scientist by training, nerdy science and its application is her passion and work. After spending 10+ years in academia, Patrycja founded SelfHackathon, a NYC-based global boutique behavioural consultancy of scientists that applies evidence-based research to help organizations and enterprises navigate the complexities of human nature in the face of disruption, change and uncertainty.
Patrycja believes the human mind is the world’s most untapped natural resource. As such, her mission is to give people and organizations clear frameworks and practical tools to meaningfully and efficiently mine their own minds in order to find purpose, clarity and alignment. In her free time she runs marathons (28 so far), reads (audiobooks) and meditates. In that particular order.
Enjoy the Humans of DevOps Podcast? We’re incredibly grateful to be voted one of the Best 25 DevOps Podcasts by Feedspot.
Want access to more DevOps-focused content and learning? When you join SKILup IT Learning you gain the tools, resources and knowledge to help your organization adapt and respond to the challenges of today.
Have questions, feedback or just want to chat about the podcast? Send us an email at podcast@devopsinstitute.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Narrator (00:02):
You're listening to the Humans of DevOps Podcast, a
podcast focused on advancing thehumans of DevOps through skills,
knowledge, ideas and learning,or the SKIL framework.
Patrycja Slawuta (00:13):
Old technology, ancient technology,
and new technologies issomething that we need to know
more about because it's allspeeding up and so you can see
systems online are just gettinghot very often when you know we
work with clients, we sayhardcopy hot.
Eveline Oehrlich (00:34):
Welcome to the Humans of DevOps Podcast. I'm
Eveline Oehrlich, Chief ResearchOfficer at DevOps Institute.
When we think about hacking, weimmediately assume it's about
the act of identifying, and thenexploiting weaknesses in a
computer system or network,usually to gain unauthorized
access to personnelorganizational type data, but
(00:55):
mind hacking? Have you everheard of that? Well, I have not.
But today, we will learn aboutwhat a mind hacker is and more.
Today, we have with us PatrycjaSlawuta, founder of UnLab and
self hackathon, entrepreneur andmind hacker. But richer is
Australia based, New York Cityeducated and Poland born
(01:19):
researcher, entrepreneur andmind hacker. She's a connoisseur
of complexity, non linearity andmessiness of the human nature.
behavioral scientist bytraining, nerdy science and its
application is her passion andwork. After spending 10 plus
years in academia, Patrycjafound itself hackathon a New
(01:41):
York City based global boutiquebehavioral consultancy of
scientists, and we'll hear moreabout that in a minute. But
there's your beliefs believesthe human mind is the world's
most untapped natural resource.She actually has that in her
signature in her email. As such,her mission is to give people
and organizations clearframeworks and practical tools
(02:04):
to meaningfully and efficientlymind their own minds in in order
to find purpose, clarity andalignment. In our free time,
which she has actually she hasactually run marathons 28 So
far, and she reads audiobooksand meditates. Welcome to our
podcast. Patrycja, thank you.
Patrycja Slawuta (02:24):
Thank you for having me.
Eveline Oehrlich (02:25):
We are excited to have you here. I'm excited to
speak to you because I'vewatched your TED talk, and have
been trying to get into thatactivity you've done just
recently. But it had to be therein person which I was able to
travel. So I'm excited to haveyou with us. Now, just quickly
for your information. Ourlisteners are a variety of folks
(02:49):
in IT leaders, individualcontributors, DevOps testers,
developers, infrastructureoperations, folks, cloud people,
all kinds of, I would say, nerdsbut that's compliment not the
derogatory in any kind in anytype. I want you to tell them a
little bit about unlap and selfhackathon.
Patrycja Slawuta (03:12):
Sure, so. So Hackathon, both Hackathon and
UnLab, their main idea is thatwe can actually hack and rewire
and upgrade ourselves. It allstarted about 10 years ago, when
I was writing my PhD thesis onshame. And my ex husband
(03:33):
actually came home and he said,"you know, you know so much
about shame. Why don't you teachit?" And I say, "Well, I don't
think anybody wants to learnabout shame.". It's such a
obscured weird topic, thatespecially people in New York
City that are so focused on, youknow, hustle and, and building
their businesses want to knowabout, and he said, Well, why
don't you just try and I put alittle ad on Facebook, actually,
(03:55):
back in the day, and I called itshameless summer. And it was
really the idea was to how do webreak down the science of shame,
so that people can understandit? And it turned out that the
event sold out within two hours.And I had, I think, 25 amazing
human beings in my apartment inNew York City. And people were
coming from Warren saying, Well,why don't you explain this topic
(04:16):
and that topic, you know, topic,basic human topics, like fear
and uncertainty. And it turnsout that even though we use it
on every in everyday basis,those are very complex
psychological phenomena. Youknow, how do you deal with
uncertainty? How do you dealwith betrayal? How do you deal
with risk? How, what is loyalty?Group dynamics, and so it turned
(04:37):
out that actually there was agreat need to take things out of
science. That's why I called onlab, the company that's based
here in Australia, we take itout of lab and we bring it into
life and we break it down intosmall chunks. Now self Hawk got
dawn, the interesting thingabout and we talked about
hacking, I was trying to I wasthinking I was living in Silicon
Valley and working in SiliconValley with a lot of programmers
(04:58):
and a lot of nerds and you know,when they when they think about
psychology, they think it's thisboring, weird topic that you
know, you go on a on a couch ata shrinks office and you know,
and you say, Oh, how do you howdoes it make you feel, which is
part of the therapy, but there'sthat much more to psychology
than just that and clinicalpsychology. And so the idea was
(05:19):
that, you know, programmersprogram us they, they create
tools, but who programmed them.And that was really the idea
that we actually programmabletechnology, we are probably the
oldest technology, one of theoldest technologies. We are
300,000 years as Homo sapiens,which means wonder knows, that
knows, and we interact with newtechnologies. And that being
(05:41):
metaphor, Evers, that being allkinds of new things, that you
know, that interaction, I findthat interesting, absolutely
fascinating. And this is reallywhere Cytec, that term comes
from. And that's kind of spacethat we explore, because I think
that interaction, oldtechnology, ancient technology,
and new technologies issomething that we need to know
(06:02):
more about, because it's allspeeding up. And so you can see
systems around us I just gettinghacked, and that includes our
own system, we are constantlyhacks. And so my bottom line,
very often when you know, wework with clients, we say, How
could be hacked, back in the dayused to be Know thyself. Now, I
would say it's hacked myself,because if you don't, somebody
(06:23):
else will. And there's entireindustries that are built around
hacking us and ourvulnerabilities, if you wish,
just as humans Yeah, that thatwe have as humans
Eveline Oehrlich (06:32):
Love that hack thyself. So how did you get into
the field of behavioralscientists?
Patrycja Slawuta (06:38):
Well, behavioral science, I would say,
is a simplified version ofpsychology and Maestria,
experimental social psychology.But if you tell that to people,
they freak out. And so the fieldthat people are used to the
interface that people mostpeople are used to dealing with
is behavioral science. And so Isay, behavior science. However,
my field is way wider than that,you know, I specialized in a way
(06:59):
in the complexity and messiness,and non linearity of the human
experience, individual and then,you know, we already complex as
individual Now, multiply that bytwo and a couple, or multiply
that by four in a family, ormultiply that by 100, or 1000,
in a company, and you get avery, very complex system. And I
find those systems, absolutely,utterly fascinating how they
(07:21):
work, how we hug each other, howwe can influence each other, how
our behavior changes in groupdynamics, you know, how can we
be one person wiser, onecircumstance, and then
completely different persondifferent circumstance. So
that's, that really is my field.The simplified version is
behavior science, because that'swhat people actually understand.
(07:41):
So the science of humanbehavior.
Eveline Oehrlich (07:45):
So, in we do research every year on skills,
particularly in it, so in our2023, we found that human skills
actually ranked as the thirdmust have skill category, we
have these categories of processskills and technology skills,
and etc. So human skills wasbehind processing framework and
technical but as third, we alsoknow that there are huge skill
(08:08):
gaps. And you know, that I don'thave to tell you, it's not
surprising to you. I was doingsome research, of course, on my
own looking for, you know, somesmart questions to ask you and
I, and you did an event, Ithink, November 29, November 17,
we need to buy Florida School, Ithink it was orchestrated, and
(08:28):
you said, or in the event, itsaid the ability to connect
deeply, rapidly andauthentically with others, is
also a hallmark of greatleaders. And one of the most
important business skills in ourcurrent post pandemic world.
This actually gets me to yourTED Talk, which is how I found
you on hacking humanity, which Iwas absolutely inspired by and I
(08:52):
was, I tried to get you into ourLondon event. I'm sorry, that
didn't work out. Because Ithought that would have been
fantastic. But it reallyinspired me and I was watching
it and anybody who is listeningin go look for her hacking
humanity, TED talk, it'sfantastic. But when you say for
those who might not want to gothere, because they're so busy,
when you say hacking humanity,what did you mean, when you say
(09:14):
that? What do you mean, tell usa little bit more about that,
because I found it intriguing.But your words are so much more
powerful, and you can explain itso much better than I can.
Patrycja Slawuta (09:24):
Well, that was five years ago. So back in the
day, five years ago, now I thinkit's even multiply and it's
happening stronger and deeperand faster. The idea was that
our systems were being hacked onmany levels, our human systems
were being hacked by technology.The idea was that actually every
single event that we havecreated an opportunity for us to
(09:48):
upgrade or downgrade if youwish, and the choice whether
what happens is really up to us.And I think now after COVID This
is actually even more pressing.What a week. In a downgrade and
will turn into kind of againsteach other, and you know, it's
all about me, or are we going toconnect up in a way and create
(10:10):
something that's meaningful now,hacking humanity, the idea was
that actually, at any point, wecan hack, we are an upgrade
ourselves. And every singleevent that happens is an
opportunity to do that, as Isay, we are 30 300,000 year old
technology that's has, you know,throughout ages has been kind of
upgrading if you wish, you know,we've been collaborating more,
(10:32):
we we've been creating more,etc. And every single big event
in in humanity createsopportunity to kind of upgrade.
Now we have had many, many maindowngrades, and that includes
many wars that we have hadgenocides and things as such,
you can think of yourself as acode, and I see us as a code. So
(10:53):
your brain is a code, it has avery simple function. Every
single neuron has zero or one.And so multiply that by 100
billion neurons 100 trillionsynaptic connection and you get
consciousness. But oh, it's avery simple system. It's like
system of dams. It's either onor off. Your DNA is also a code.
(11:14):
It's the we call it code of lifeACTG. So those are the four
letters of life that create allof life. Now, that's also
hackable. And that's alsoupgradable. And we know that
from epigenetics, we know thatthings get transmuted through
generations, and there is nodispute over that. And our
behavior is a code as well. Andyou know, as a behavioral
scientist, I can write down yourbehavior. And it's actually not
(11:35):
that complicated. It's stimulusresponse and reward, we do
things because we want some typeof reward, or we don't want some
kind of punishment. And so theidea was, can we as humanity can
understand how are being hacked,hack ourselves and actually kind
of upgrade ourselves. And Ithink now after COVID, we
actually have ability to dothat, because things slow down.
(11:58):
And they're, you know, one ofyour question is, you know,
these scary times, and excitingtimes, and I think those are
precisely the times thatactually require us to stop and
reflect because this is wherewisdom comes from. And I think
this is where upgrade will comefrom. And so, it is about
practice, it is about tools. Andmost importantly, it really is
(12:20):
about awareness of how wefunction. And that's, that's why
I find those times, soabsolutely exciting and an
amazing opportunity to actuallychange redefine, how things are
being done, and how are we withourselves? Because I think, you
know, a lot of people arereflecting and after COVID, you
know, there's a quiet quittingthis whole bunch of things that
(12:40):
are happening. And I don't thinkthey're happening just like
that, you know, the burnout ishappening. And this is actually
my newest tech talk that I gavetwo weeks ago. And it's not out
just yet, but it will be outsoon. You know, we you know, we
want certainty. And we lookaround and we see the world
radicalizing, we feel burnout.When we look around and we see
(13:01):
the world burning. We getfrustrated, we look around, we
see conflict around us. And sothat connection of what happens
inside and while we actually isbeing reflected, I suppose is a
fascinating one. And, and Ithink looking around and seeing
what's going on, we actuallyhave an amazing opportunity to
upgrade right now.
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Eveline Oehrlich (13:56):
Upgrading sounds very attractive, I am
going to look for your next TEDTalk, of course, but one other
question ever remember you weretalking about in the second
humanity, heart, head and body?Can you elaborate a little bit
on that and be a little bit morespecific if I want to upgrade my
(14:18):
head, my heart and my body? Mybody? I think, yeah, I'm, you
know, trying to do that. Butheart and head is something
which is a thinker to ourlisteners and to myself, very
important, and I'd love to hearmore about it.
Patrycja Slawuta (14:33):
Sure. So as I said, you know, I work, we work
as psychologist, we work withtechnology that has 300,000
years and this technology hasevolved over that time and has
certain rules and has certainschemes and certain system they
runs on and so I think of thisas a back so you have the front
(14:58):
facing kind of a Um, software,user engagement and recall.
That's exactly right. And thenthere's there's the front end.
And there's the back end, right?The front end is the things that
I see this is, you know, kordiaconversation we're having right
now. But you don't really knowwhat's going on in my bucket,
right? There's whole bunch ofthings that are happening
computation stuff that ishappening. Now for most of the
(15:20):
people that runs in thebackground. What we have done,
talking about human operatingsystem is the system that
actually has 300,000 years, andit has four parts. And those are
four big branches of psychology.So the head is the software,
right? This is our thoughts.This is our assumptions that we
have about the world. How shouldthis conversation look like?
(15:43):
This is our biases. This is youknow, what I how I evolved as a
child growing up in Poland,moving to New York City and all
those assumptions what it meansto be a woman when it means to
be a woman in business, youknow, what it means to be a
mother, things are such so ourassumptions and expectations
about the world. And those veryoften are a great source of our
(16:04):
pain, because you know, thingsdon't look as we want it to
people disagree with us. And weknow we are absolutely right. We
want to know what is the truth,oh, we know what the truth is.
But you know, all those idiotsaround us disagree. So this is
really the software. So this isthe head. Then the second part
is the heart. And this is systemone versus system two, as
(16:25):
Kahneman Tversky will call itthose are our emotions and
motivations. And this is how wereally make decisions. Right.
This is what our heart yearnsfor, what our dreams and desires
are. But this is also what keepsus up at night, when we wake up
at three in the morning, if someof us do, right with the
spinning thoughts and thinking,oh my god, what what is going to
be. And so this is really hard.This is the space of emotions,
(16:50):
motivations, what motivates uswhat we don't want it, what our
biggest fears that we're noteven willing to admit to
ourselves. It's a fascinatingspace, because this is, you
know, in my, in my research,this is where the otherness
comes from. This is wheresecrets lie. This is what you
know, when conversations thatshould be have don't don't
happen, because we're afraid ofwhat's going to happen. And
(17:12):
thinks as such. Then the thirdpart is actually the hardware
which so think of the heart asthe electricity that jobs, the
entire system into action, itthen move towards a move away
from the third part is actuallythe hardware, which is the body.
The body is ultimately thehardware, I think what COVID has
showed us is actually we're notonly the brain, but we actually
(17:33):
have a body, the body is veryimportant because it affects
everything else. It's a giant,it's a gigantic communication
antenna, and not only to others,but also to ourselves, how we
stand, how our body is actuallyvery deeply formed our thought
patterns, flex our mood. Othersreact to our bodies, others can
(17:54):
read our bodies, probably veryoften better than we can, our
nervousness, anxiety, angershows in our body. And you know,
even though we can say, youknow, now I'm perfectly fine,
others can read that. So it's afascinating tool that we can
work with. And from myperspective, I actually think
our breath is the most portablemind hacking tool that we have.
(18:14):
Our ability to control,manipulate, withhold, our breath
is a fantastic capacity that wehave as one of few species in
the world. So that's the that'sthe third piece is really
working with the body. Andthere's heaps of research about
embodied cognition that goes,you know, books written about
it. And that is really the fieldthat's, that's blossoming right
(18:36):
now in my field in behavioralscience. And then the four piece
is our network is ultimately weare hardwired to be social, we
grow up in social environment,we need others, and others need
us. And that's beautiful networkof human to human connection is
actually what nourishes us. Andso my, actually, my newest TED
(18:57):
Talk talks about distributedimmune systems. So it turns out
that our immune system is notonly internal, but it's also
distributed others our numberone source of happiness, one of
the major sources of health, butalso they deeply affect our
immune system. And so that isfascinating how actually our
relationship to others affectour directly affect our health
(19:19):
and functioning of the immunesystem. And that's called psycho
neuro immunology. And it's afantastic field of study that is
connecting everything witheverything. But it's very, very
cool. And so those four pieces,pretty much every skill that you
want to learn has to go throughthose four layers if you wish
of, of stacking. So there's themind, very often we make a
(19:41):
decision to do something we getexcited about something but we
never follow through, rightbecause the heart is not there.
We don't know where to start. Sothe hand is not there in a way
you know, we don't have thediscipline and ultimately we
don't have the social support.So very often, you know
decisions are made people go toinspirational event that they
come back to the net work andthen at work pulls up back into
(20:01):
the old South. Right? So I goback home, and suddenly I can
see the old forces working onme, you know, my mom's saying
something that I reacted as if Iwas seven and not 37 or
whatever. And so those are thefour elements that we work with.
And they're very, very nice,because it's a very nice
framework that you can hang anyskill set off.
Eveline Oehrlich (20:22):
So where do I start? Let me ask you exactly
this question. We're going alittle bit off script. But as
you know, we're a community,we're trying to help people to
learn new skills, new behavior,and the community, as you said,
it's the network, right? Thehead, the heart, we at the
DevOps Institute sometimes feellike that, we're working on one
(20:45):
end, where we're trying to gettheir head into the game, but if
their heart is not in the game,so if I'm an individual, and I'm
sitting out there right now, ifit's the end of the year, as we
have new year's resolutions, weall are trying to wade through
something. So what would youradvice be for somebody who says,
hey, 2023 is going to be my yearof success? And I will do x?
(21:08):
Where do I start? Do I startwith the head, the heart, body?
Patrycja Slawuta (21:13):
You start with them, they actually need to
stack up because one, we'rerunning force the other. And so
first of all, it's thereflection awareness. You know,
your awareness is the mostscarce resource in the world. By
far as you probably know, theirentire industries that do
attention merchanting attentionselling our attention is such a
(21:35):
valuable resource right now thatcompanies feed off it. And so
first of all, do you own yourattention? Do you do can we
reflect on the year I wouldactually start with reflecting
on the year? Like, what do Iactually want? And I think what
COVID has caused is molotoPeople change the protests in
the life because it turns out,you know, it's not necessarily
(21:55):
doing the work. It's like, whyam I doing this? And because
things slow down during COVID, alot of people actually had time
to slow down and actuallyreflect. And a lot of those
reflections unfortunate,fortunately, show that Oh, my
God, what I'm doing is actuallya not making me happy. Why am I
even doing that? I understandI'm making money, but my income,
you know, I'm missing how mychildren are growing up, or I'm
(22:18):
a stranger to my partner, or,you know, what I actually do
read my diary. Yes, you know,you will be surprised how common
this is, for so, so many people.And so I actually find it
fascinating because I actuallydo think that the human mind is
the most untapped naturalresource. And so we need to dig
into those deeper and startusing a full brain. But then
(22:42):
second of all, like, bring theheart into it, the things that
people are willing to do,because the heart is aligned.
It's absolutely fascinating. Youknow, this is where resilience
lives. This is where creativitylives. This is where innovation
lives. And so, you know, andit's not only inspiration, but
it's also things that frustrateus, I mean, the amount of
(23:03):
amazing things that started inthe world, because somebody
said, you know, enough withthat, we can do better than
this, I understand this is howthings used to be, but I just, I
don't want it anymore. And so,you know, positivity is
fantastic. But actually beingpissed off with the status quo
is I applaud that, because I'veseen people do amazing things
(23:26):
just by saying, That's it, youknow, we I think we can do
different, and we can do better.So reflect sorry to answer your
question,
Eveline Oehrlich (23:35):
Reflect, bring them in. So feel, so reflect
what has happened, then bring myheart in and feel does this make
me happy? Or am I pissed? Andwhat do I want to change? Okay,
so I'm there, I'm with youwhat's next then.
Patrycja Slawuta (23:49):
And then you do the smallest thing possible.
There's a really good book thatI recommend to everybody, I'm
sure you've read it, it's calledatomic habits. But it's the
smallest thing possible that youcan do. Because what it does is
creates this self auto loop andcognitive dissonance in which
you know, you start doing andthen doing and doing and then
(24:09):
eventually the little habitsbecome little runs that I used
to do because I am a runner andbecomes identity and you want to
go to the identity ever becauseit's the bottom of the stack you
start at the top of the stack,which is a small action I can do
send a newsletter, do somethingspeak up whatever it is put up
(24:30):
the website honestly, you knowthe amount of websites that in
amount of people say you know,the poorer the website, they try
to make it perfect. Dan isalways better than perfect by
far. So the smallest thingpossible literally go for run
around the block. Five minutes,you know, I had the same thing
with meditation. I mean, I amdiagnosed with ADHD. So
(24:51):
meditation is absolutelyexcruciating to me, but I keep
hearing how good meditation isfor you. And so I started with
three minute meditation becausethat's all like my brain could
handle And I remember evenduring even during those three
minutes, I will be had a pen andpaper next to him because I
would get all those ideas. Andthen I'll open my eyes and write
things down, which was fine. Andfast forward, I don't know,
maybe two, three years I've beensitting in, you know, 10 day
(25:13):
silent the task is not to saythat this is, you know, amazing,
and I loved it. But those thingsstack up. And I think Warren
Buffett said that the most onappreciate a lot in investing
and I would say in psychology iscompound interest. Those little
tiny things are compounding.And, and that's, that's what we
actually put our brain is veryhard to notice that right? Like,
(25:36):
we want big change. Morrow, andthat big change, the more just
doesn't happen. Yeah.
Eveline Oehrlich (25:42):
To be fit tomorrow, I want to be
immediately running 10kilometers. Yes, absolutely. I
want to be a DevOps engineertomorrow. So awesome.
Patrycja Slawuta (25:51):
And the final piece is the network. And I
think finding people that willcheer on us or people that we
can learn from, it's absolutelyfascinating to see how willing
people are to help very oftenwe're afraid to ask for help.
And not only that, they cheer onus. And what I always very often
(26:12):
do at the beginning of the year,because I know we're moving into
beginning of the year, or it isalready beginning of the year,
and when you're listening tothis, you know, share the vision
of where you want to go with thepeople that you respect and you
care about and ask them to holdthat vision for you. So that
they interact with you from thatperspective, you're already
(26:32):
there. In other words, theydon't get you off the hook. But
they treat you already as aperson who's a runner, who's a
ops developer, who's this, youknow, who has written a book, or
whatever it is, they createalmost this future self that you
can step into, and they act withyou from that perspective. And
that that is such a strong pullforward. Because we do things
(26:55):
because we kind of don't want todisappoint others, you know, we
like to the social approval. Andso this is kind of hacking the
social approval from so that itworks in our favor.
Eveline Oehrlich (27:05):
You are wicked good. Oh my god, I could listen
and talk to you another many,many, many minutes. But I want
to leave it right there. BecauseI think you gave us fantastic
advice for the next year. Thishas been fantastic. Pretty sure
I really, really love it. Whatelse do you do besides
behavioral scientists when yougo for besides running a
(27:25):
marathon? What do you do for funon the weekend?
Patrycja Slawuta (27:28):
Me? Well, I just moved to Australia after 13
years in New York City. So I'mtrying to learn how to swim
properly. And so been exploringswimming, which is a very
different modality. For me, I'ma very grounded person I like to
be on the earth and running ismy connection running is my
meditation, I always say runningis my prayer as well. This is
(27:49):
how I pray. You know, this ishow I give my thanks in a way.
And swimming is a completelydifferent modality. And I you
know, it's completely out of mycomfort zone. It's hard. I'm a
bad swimmer. Because I grew upin Poland, we own the Great
Plains, there was no water. Andif you go into the Baltic Sea
gets even worse, you don't wantto swim in this thing. And so,
(28:13):
you know, I'm eating humble pie,and I swim and all those kids
next to him because they grew upby the water. They're all swim
like fish. And I'm like,splashing. So but it's a
changing modality is veryinteresting. So I'm seeing
myself learn again.
Eveline Oehrlich (28:29):
Wow, what a challenge. Fantastic. Thank you
very, very much. We've beentalking to Patrycja Slawuta. I
hope I said your name correctly.Founder of UnLab and self
hackathon entrepreneur mindhacker, producer, thank you so
much for your time. I wish youthe best wonderful, wonderful
holidays, enjoy, relax, travelsafely, wherever you go. I know
(28:53):
you love to travel as well. I doas well. I'm traveling, you're
traveling, but we'll godifferent directions. So we
won't cross our paths. But let'sstay in touch. And for our
listeners, this will be really,really exciting to have more
I'll share with you when the newTED Talk comes out. Again,
(29:14):
thanks Patrycja. Humans ofDevOps Podcast is produced by
the DevOps Institute. Our audioproduction team includes Julia
Papp and Brendan Lay. I am theHumans of DevOps Podcast
executive producer EvelineOehrlich. If you'd like to join
us on the podcast, pleasecontact us Humans of DevOps
(29:34):
Podcast at DevOpsInstitute.com.I'm Eveline. Thank you.
Narrator (29:41):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Humans of
DevOps Podcast. Don't forget tojoin our global community to get
access to even more greatresources like this. Until next
time, remember, you are part ofsomething bigger than yourself.
You belong
You're listening to the Humans of DevOps Podcast, a
podcast focused on advancing thehumans of DevOps through skills,
knowledge, ideas and learning,or the SKIL framework.
Patrycja Slawuta (00:13):
Old technology, ancient technology,
and new technologies issomething that we need to know
more about because it's allspeeding up and so you can see
systems online are just gettinghot very often when you know we
work with clients, we sayhardcopy hot.
Eveline Oehrlich (00:34):
Welcome to the Humans of DevOps Podcast. I'm
Eveline Oehrlich, Chief ResearchOfficer at DevOps Institute.
When we think about hacking, weimmediately assume it's about
the act of identifying, and thenexploiting weaknesses in a
computer system or network,usually to gain unauthorized
access to personnelorganizational type data, but
(00:55):
mind hacking? Have you everheard of that? Well, I have not.
But today, we will learn aboutwhat a mind hacker is and more.
Today, we have with us PatrycjaSlawuta, founder of UnLab and
self hackathon, entrepreneur andmind hacker. But richer is
Australia based, New York Cityeducated and Poland born
(01:19):
researcher, entrepreneur andmind hacker. She's a connoisseur
of complexity, non linearity andmessiness of the human nature.
behavioral scientist bytraining, nerdy science and its
application is her passion andwork. After spending 10 plus
years in academia, Patrycjafound itself hackathon a New
(01:41):
York City based global boutiquebehavioral consultancy of
scientists, and we'll hear moreabout that in a minute. But
there's your beliefs believesthe human mind is the world's
most untapped natural resource.She actually has that in her
signature in her email. As such,her mission is to give people
and organizations clearframeworks and practical tools
(02:04):
to meaningfully and efficientlymind their own minds in in order
to find purpose, clarity andalignment. In our free time,
which she has actually she hasactually run marathons 28 So
far, and she reads audiobooksand meditates. Welcome to our
podcast. Patrycja, thank you.
Patrycja Slawuta (02:24):
Thank you for having me.
Eveline Oehrlich (02:25):
We are excited to have you here. I'm excited to
speak to you because I'vewatched your TED talk, and have
been trying to get into thatactivity you've done just
recently. But it had to be therein person which I was able to
travel. So I'm excited to haveyou with us. Now, just quickly
for your information. Ourlisteners are a variety of folks
(02:49):
in IT leaders, individualcontributors, DevOps testers,
developers, infrastructureoperations, folks, cloud people,
all kinds of, I would say, nerdsbut that's compliment not the
derogatory in any kind in anytype. I want you to tell them a
little bit about unlap and selfhackathon.
Patrycja Slawuta (03:12):
Sure, so. So Hackathon, both Hackathon and
UnLab, their main idea is thatwe can actually hack and rewire
and upgrade ourselves. It allstarted about 10 years ago, when
I was writing my PhD thesis onshame. And my ex husband
(03:33):
actually came home and he said,"you know, you know so much
about shame. Why don't you teachit?" And I say, "Well, I don't
think anybody wants to learnabout shame.". It's such a
obscured weird topic, thatespecially people in New York
City that are so focused on, youknow, hustle and, and building
their businesses want to knowabout, and he said, Well, why
don't you just try and I put alittle ad on Facebook, actually,
(03:55):
back in the day, and I called itshameless summer. And it was
really the idea was to how do webreak down the science of shame,
so that people can understandit? And it turned out that the
event sold out within two hours.And I had, I think, 25 amazing
human beings in my apartment inNew York City. And people were
coming from Warren saying, Well,why don't you explain this topic
(04:16):
and that topic, you know, topic,basic human topics, like fear
and uncertainty. And it turnsout that even though we use it
on every in everyday basis,those are very complex
psychological phenomena. Youknow, how do you deal with
uncertainty? How do you dealwith betrayal? How do you deal
with risk? How, what is loyalty?Group dynamics, and so it turned
(04:37):
out that actually there was agreat need to take things out of
science. That's why I called onlab, the company that's based
here in Australia, we take itout of lab and we bring it into
life and we break it down intosmall chunks. Now self Hawk got
dawn, the interesting thingabout and we talked about
hacking, I was trying to I wasthinking I was living in Silicon
Valley and working in SiliconValley with a lot of programmers
(04:58):
and a lot of nerds and you know,when they when they think about
psychology, they think it's thisboring, weird topic that you
know, you go on a on a couch ata shrinks office and you know,
and you say, Oh, how do you howdoes it make you feel, which is
part of the therapy, but there'sthat much more to psychology
than just that and clinicalpsychology. And so the idea was
(05:19):
that, you know, programmersprogram us they, they create
tools, but who programmed them.And that was really the idea
that we actually programmabletechnology, we are probably the
oldest technology, one of theoldest technologies. We are
300,000 years as Homo sapiens,which means wonder knows, that
knows, and we interact with newtechnologies. And that being
(05:41):
metaphor, Evers, that being allkinds of new things, that you
know, that interaction, I findthat interesting, absolutely
fascinating. And this is reallywhere Cytec, that term comes
from. And that's kind of spacethat we explore, because I think
that interaction, oldtechnology, ancient technology,
and new technologies issomething that we need to know
(06:02):
more about, because it's allspeeding up. And so you can see
systems around us I just gettinghacked, and that includes our
own system, we are constantlyhacks. And so my bottom line,
very often when you know, wework with clients, we say, How
could be hacked, back in the dayused to be Know thyself. Now, I
would say it's hacked myself,because if you don't, somebody
(06:23):
else will. And there's entireindustries that are built around
hacking us and ourvulnerabilities, if you wish,
just as humans Yeah, that thatwe have as humans
Eveline Oehrlich (06:32):
Love that hack thyself. So how did you get into
the field of behavioralscientists?
Patrycja Slawuta (06:38):
Well, behavioral science, I would say,
is a simplified version ofpsychology and Maestria,
experimental social psychology.But if you tell that to people,
they freak out. And so the fieldthat people are used to the
interface that people mostpeople are used to dealing with
is behavioral science. And so Isay, behavior science. However,
my field is way wider than that,you know, I specialized in a way
(06:59):
in the complexity and messiness,and non linearity of the human
experience, individual and then,you know, we already complex as
individual Now, multiply that bytwo and a couple, or multiply
that by four in a family, ormultiply that by 100, or 1000,
in a company, and you get avery, very complex system. And I
find those systems, absolutely,utterly fascinating how they
(07:21):
work, how we hug each other, howwe can influence each other, how
our behavior changes in groupdynamics, you know, how can we
be one person wiser, onecircumstance, and then
completely different persondifferent circumstance. So
that's, that really is my field.The simplified version is
behavior science, because that'swhat people actually understand.
(07:41):
So the science of humanbehavior.
Eveline Oehrlich (07:45):
So, in we do research every year on skills,
particularly in it, so in our2023, we found that human skills
actually ranked as the thirdmust have skill category, we
have these categories of processskills and technology skills,
and etc. So human skills wasbehind processing framework and
technical but as third, we alsoknow that there are huge skill
(08:08):
gaps. And you know, that I don'thave to tell you, it's not
surprising to you. I was doingsome research, of course, on my
own looking for, you know, somesmart questions to ask you and
I, and you did an event, Ithink, November 29, November 17,
we need to buy Florida School, Ithink it was orchestrated, and
(08:28):
you said, or in the event, itsaid the ability to connect
deeply, rapidly andauthentically with others, is
also a hallmark of greatleaders. And one of the most
important business skills in ourcurrent post pandemic world.
This actually gets me to yourTED Talk, which is how I found
you on hacking humanity, which Iwas absolutely inspired by and I
(08:52):
was, I tried to get you into ourLondon event. I'm sorry, that
didn't work out. Because Ithought that would have been
fantastic. But it reallyinspired me and I was watching
it and anybody who is listeningin go look for her hacking
humanity, TED talk, it'sfantastic. But when you say for
those who might not want to gothere, because they're so busy,
when you say hacking humanity,what did you mean, when you say
(09:14):
that? What do you mean, tell usa little bit more about that,
because I found it intriguing.But your words are so much more
powerful, and you can explain itso much better than I can.
Patrycja Slawuta (09:24):
Well, that was five years ago. So back in the
day, five years ago, now I thinkit's even multiply and it's
happening stronger and deeperand faster. The idea was that
our systems were being hacked onmany levels, our human systems
were being hacked by technology.The idea was that actually every
single event that we havecreated an opportunity for us to
(09:48):
upgrade or downgrade if youwish, and the choice whether
what happens is really up to us.And I think now after COVID This
is actually even more pressing.What a week. In a downgrade and
will turn into kind of againsteach other, and you know, it's
all about me, or are we going toconnect up in a way and create
(10:10):
something that's meaningful now,hacking humanity, the idea was
that actually, at any point, wecan hack, we are an upgrade
ourselves. And every singleevent that happens is an
opportunity to do that, as Isay, we are 30 300,000 year old
technology that's has, you know,throughout ages has been kind of
upgrading if you wish, you know,we've been collaborating more,
(10:32):
we we've been creating more,etc. And every single big event
in in humanity createsopportunity to kind of upgrade.
Now we have had many, many maindowngrades, and that includes
many wars that we have hadgenocides and things as such,
you can think of yourself as acode, and I see us as a code. So
(10:53):
your brain is a code, it has avery simple function. Every
single neuron has zero or one.And so multiply that by 100
billion neurons 100 trillionsynaptic connection and you get
consciousness. But oh, it's avery simple system. It's like
system of dams. It's either onor off. Your DNA is also a code.
(11:14):
It's the we call it code of lifeACTG. So those are the four
letters of life that create allof life. Now, that's also
hackable. And that's alsoupgradable. And we know that
from epigenetics, we know thatthings get transmuted through
generations, and there is nodispute over that. And our
behavior is a code as well. Andyou know, as a behavioral
scientist, I can write down yourbehavior. And it's actually not
(11:35):
that complicated. It's stimulusresponse and reward, we do
things because we want some typeof reward, or we don't want some
kind of punishment. And so theidea was, can we as humanity can
understand how are being hacked,hack ourselves and actually kind
of upgrade ourselves. And Ithink now after COVID, we
actually have ability to dothat, because things slow down.
(11:58):
And they're, you know, one ofyour question is, you know,
these scary times, and excitingtimes, and I think those are
precisely the times thatactually require us to stop and
reflect because this is wherewisdom comes from. And I think
this is where upgrade will comefrom. And so, it is about
practice, it is about tools. Andmost importantly, it really is
(12:20):
about awareness of how wefunction. And that's, that's why
I find those times, soabsolutely exciting and an
amazing opportunity to actuallychange redefine, how things are
being done, and how are we withourselves? Because I think, you
know, a lot of people arereflecting and after COVID, you
know, there's a quiet quittingthis whole bunch of things that
(12:40):
are happening. And I don't thinkthey're happening just like
that, you know, the burnout ishappening. And this is actually
my newest tech talk that I gavetwo weeks ago. And it's not out
just yet, but it will be outsoon. You know, we you know, we
want certainty. And we lookaround and we see the world
radicalizing, we feel burnout.When we look around and we see
(13:01):
the world burning. We getfrustrated, we look around, we
see conflict around us. And sothat connection of what happens
inside and while we actually isbeing reflected, I suppose is a
fascinating one. And, and Ithink looking around and seeing
what's going on, we actuallyhave an amazing opportunity to
upgrade right now.
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Eveline Oehrlich (13:56):
Upgrading sounds very attractive, I am
going to look for your next TEDTalk, of course, but one other
question ever remember you weretalking about in the second
humanity, heart, head and body?Can you elaborate a little bit
on that and be a little bit morespecific if I want to upgrade my
(14:18):
head, my heart and my body? Mybody? I think, yeah, I'm, you
know, trying to do that. Butheart and head is something
which is a thinker to ourlisteners and to myself, very
important, and I'd love to hearmore about it.
Patrycja Slawuta (14:33):
Sure. So as I said, you know, I work, we work
as psychologist, we work withtechnology that has 300,000
years and this technology hasevolved over that time and has
certain rules and has certainschemes and certain system they
runs on and so I think of thisas a back so you have the front
(14:58):
facing kind of a Um, software,user engagement and recall.
That's exactly right. And thenthere's there's the front end.
And there's the back end, right?The front end is the things that
I see this is, you know, kordiaconversation we're having right
now. But you don't really knowwhat's going on in my bucket,
right? There's whole bunch ofthings that are happening
computation stuff that ishappening. Now for most of the
(15:20):
people that runs in thebackground. What we have done,
talking about human operatingsystem is the system that
actually has 300,000 years, andit has four parts. And those are
four big branches of psychology.So the head is the software,
right? This is our thoughts.This is our assumptions that we
have about the world. How shouldthis conversation look like?
(15:43):
This is our biases. This is youknow, what I how I evolved as a
child growing up in Poland,moving to New York City and all
those assumptions what it meansto be a woman when it means to
be a woman in business, youknow, what it means to be a
mother, things are such so ourassumptions and expectations
about the world. And those veryoften are a great source of our
(16:04):
pain, because you know, thingsdon't look as we want it to
people disagree with us. And weknow we are absolutely right. We
want to know what is the truth,oh, we know what the truth is.
But you know, all those idiotsaround us disagree. So this is
really the software. So this isthe head. Then the second part
is the heart. And this is systemone versus system two, as
(16:25):
Kahneman Tversky will call itthose are our emotions and
motivations. And this is how wereally make decisions. Right.
This is what our heart yearnsfor, what our dreams and desires
are. But this is also what keepsus up at night, when we wake up
at three in the morning, if someof us do, right with the
spinning thoughts and thinking,oh my god, what what is going to
be. And so this is really hard.This is the space of emotions,
(16:50):
motivations, what motivates uswhat we don't want it, what our
biggest fears that we're noteven willing to admit to
ourselves. It's a fascinatingspace, because this is, you
know, in my, in my research,this is where the otherness
comes from. This is wheresecrets lie. This is what you
know, when conversations thatshould be have don't don't
happen, because we're afraid ofwhat's going to happen. And
(17:12):
thinks as such. Then the thirdpart is actually the hardware
which so think of the heart asthe electricity that jobs, the
entire system into action, itthen move towards a move away
from the third part is actuallythe hardware, which is the body.
The body is ultimately thehardware, I think what COVID has
showed us is actually we're notonly the brain, but we actually
(17:33):
have a body, the body is veryimportant because it affects
everything else. It's a giant,it's a gigantic communication
antenna, and not only to others,but also to ourselves, how we
stand, how our body is actuallyvery deeply formed our thought
patterns, flex our mood. Othersreact to our bodies, others can
(17:54):
read our bodies, probably veryoften better than we can, our
nervousness, anxiety, angershows in our body. And you know,
even though we can say, youknow, now I'm perfectly fine,
others can read that. So it's afascinating tool that we can
work with. And from myperspective, I actually think
our breath is the most portablemind hacking tool that we have.
(18:14):
Our ability to control,manipulate, withhold, our breath
is a fantastic capacity that wehave as one of few species in
the world. So that's the that'sthe third piece is really
working with the body. Andthere's heaps of research about
embodied cognition that goes,you know, books written about
it. And that is really the fieldthat's, that's blossoming right
(18:36):
now in my field in behavioralscience. And then the four piece
is our network is ultimately weare hardwired to be social, we
grow up in social environment,we need others, and others need
us. And that's beautiful networkof human to human connection is
actually what nourishes us. Andso my, actually, my newest TED
(18:57):
Talk talks about distributedimmune systems. So it turns out
that our immune system is notonly internal, but it's also
distributed others our numberone source of happiness, one of
the major sources of health, butalso they deeply affect our
immune system. And so that isfascinating how actually our
relationship to others affectour directly affect our health
(19:19):
and functioning of the immunesystem. And that's called psycho
neuro immunology. And it's afantastic field of study that is
connecting everything witheverything. But it's very, very
cool. And so those four pieces,pretty much every skill that you
want to learn has to go throughthose four layers if you wish
of, of stacking. So there's themind, very often we make a
(19:41):
decision to do something we getexcited about something but we
never follow through, rightbecause the heart is not there.
We don't know where to start. Sothe hand is not there in a way
you know, we don't have thediscipline and ultimately we
don't have the social support.So very often, you know
decisions are made people go toinspirational event that they
come back to the net work andthen at work pulls up back into
(20:01):
the old South. Right? So I goback home, and suddenly I can
see the old forces working onme, you know, my mom's saying
something that I reacted as if Iwas seven and not 37 or
whatever. And so those are thefour elements that we work with.
And they're very, very nice,because it's a very nice
framework that you can hang anyskill set off.
Eveline Oehrlich (20:22):
So where do I start? Let me ask you exactly
this question. We're going alittle bit off script. But as
you know, we're a community,we're trying to help people to
learn new skills, new behavior,and the community, as you said,
it's the network, right? Thehead, the heart, we at the
DevOps Institute sometimes feellike that, we're working on one
(20:45):
end, where we're trying to gettheir head into the game, but if
their heart is not in the game,so if I'm an individual, and I'm
sitting out there right now, ifit's the end of the year, as we
have new year's resolutions, weall are trying to wade through
something. So what would youradvice be for somebody who says,
hey, 2023 is going to be my yearof success? And I will do x?
(21:08):
Where do I start? Do I startwith the head, the heart, body?
Patrycja Slawuta (21:13):
You start with them, they actually need to
stack up because one, we'rerunning force the other. And so
first of all, it's thereflection awareness. You know,
your awareness is the mostscarce resource in the world. By
far as you probably know, theirentire industries that do
attention merchanting attentionselling our attention is such a
(21:35):
valuable resource right now thatcompanies feed off it. And so
first of all, do you own yourattention? Do you do can we
reflect on the year I wouldactually start with reflecting
on the year? Like, what do Iactually want? And I think what
COVID has caused is molotoPeople change the protests in
the life because it turns out,you know, it's not necessarily
(21:55):
doing the work. It's like, whyam I doing this? And because
things slow down during COVID, alot of people actually had time
to slow down and actuallyreflect. And a lot of those
reflections unfortunate,fortunately, show that Oh, my
God, what I'm doing is actuallya not making me happy. Why am I
even doing that? I understandI'm making money, but my income,
you know, I'm missing how mychildren are growing up, or I'm
(22:18):
a stranger to my partner, or,you know, what I actually do
read my diary. Yes, you know,you will be surprised how common
this is, for so, so many people.And so I actually find it
fascinating because I actuallydo think that the human mind is
the most untapped naturalresource. And so we need to dig
into those deeper and startusing a full brain. But then
(22:42):
second of all, like, bring theheart into it, the things that
people are willing to do,because the heart is aligned.
It's absolutely fascinating. Youknow, this is where resilience
lives. This is where creativitylives. This is where innovation
lives. And so, you know, andit's not only inspiration, but
it's also things that frustrateus, I mean, the amount of
(23:03):
amazing things that started inthe world, because somebody
said, you know, enough withthat, we can do better than
this, I understand this is howthings used to be, but I just, I
don't want it anymore. And so,you know, positivity is
fantastic. But actually beingpissed off with the status quo
is I applaud that, because I'veseen people do amazing things
(23:26):
just by saying, That's it, youknow, we I think we can do
different, and we can do better.So reflect sorry to answer your
question,
Eveline Oehrlich (23:35):
Reflect, bring them in. So feel, so reflect
what has happened, then bring myheart in and feel does this make
me happy? Or am I pissed? Andwhat do I want to change? Okay,
so I'm there, I'm with youwhat's next then.
Patrycja Slawuta (23:49):
And then you do the smallest thing possible.
There's a really good book thatI recommend to everybody, I'm
sure you've read it, it's calledatomic habits. But it's the
smallest thing possible that youcan do. Because what it does is
creates this self auto loop andcognitive dissonance in which
you know, you start doing andthen doing and doing and then
(24:09):
eventually the little habitsbecome little runs that I used
to do because I am a runner andbecomes identity and you want to
go to the identity ever becauseit's the bottom of the stack you
start at the top of the stack,which is a small action I can do
send a newsletter, do somethingspeak up whatever it is put up
(24:30):
the website honestly, you knowthe amount of websites that in
amount of people say you know,the poorer the website, they try
to make it perfect. Dan isalways better than perfect by
far. So the smallest thingpossible literally go for run
around the block. Five minutes,you know, I had the same thing
with meditation. I mean, I amdiagnosed with ADHD. So
(24:51):
meditation is absolutelyexcruciating to me, but I keep
hearing how good meditation isfor you. And so I started with
three minute meditation becausethat's all like my brain could
handle And I remember evenduring even during those three
minutes, I will be had a pen andpaper next to him because I
would get all those ideas. Andthen I'll open my eyes and write
things down, which was fine. Andfast forward, I don't know,
maybe two, three years I've beensitting in, you know, 10 day
(25:13):
silent the task is not to saythat this is, you know, amazing,
and I loved it. But those thingsstack up. And I think Warren
Buffett said that the most onappreciate a lot in investing
and I would say in psychology iscompound interest. Those little
tiny things are compounding.And, and that's, that's what we
actually put our brain is veryhard to notice that right? Like,
(25:36):
we want big change. Morrow, andthat big change, the more just
doesn't happen. Yeah.
Eveline Oehrlich (25:42):
To be fit tomorrow, I want to be
immediately running 10kilometers. Yes, absolutely. I
want to be a DevOps engineertomorrow. So awesome.
Patrycja Slawuta (25:51):
And the final piece is the network. And I
think finding people that willcheer on us or people that we
can learn from, it's absolutelyfascinating to see how willing
people are to help very oftenwe're afraid to ask for help.
And not only that, they cheer onus. And what I always very often
(26:12):
do at the beginning of the year,because I know we're moving into
beginning of the year, or it isalready beginning of the year,
and when you're listening tothis, you know, share the vision
of where you want to go with thepeople that you respect and you
care about and ask them to holdthat vision for you. So that
they interact with you from thatperspective, you're already
(26:32):
there. In other words, theydon't get you off the hook. But
they treat you already as aperson who's a runner, who's a
ops developer, who's this, youknow, who has written a book, or
whatever it is, they createalmost this future self that you
can step into, and they act withyou from that perspective. And
that that is such a strong pullforward. Because we do things
(26:55):
because we kind of don't want todisappoint others, you know, we
like to the social approval. Andso this is kind of hacking the
social approval from so that itworks in our favor.
Eveline Oehrlich (27:05):
You are wicked good. Oh my god, I could listen
and talk to you another many,many, many minutes. But I want
to leave it right there. BecauseI think you gave us fantastic
advice for the next year. Thishas been fantastic. Pretty sure
I really, really love it. Whatelse do you do besides
behavioral scientists when yougo for besides running a
(27:25):
marathon? What do you do for funon the weekend?
Patrycja Slawuta (27:28):
Me? Well, I just moved to Australia after 13
years in New York City. So I'mtrying to learn how to swim
properly. And so been exploringswimming, which is a very
different modality. For me, I'ma very grounded person I like to
be on the earth and running ismy connection running is my
meditation, I always say runningis my prayer as well. This is
(27:49):
how I pray. You know, this ishow I give my thanks in a way.
And swimming is a completelydifferent modality. And I you
know, it's completely out of mycomfort zone. It's hard. I'm a
bad swimmer. Because I grew upin Poland, we own the Great
Plains, there was no water. Andif you go into the Baltic Sea
gets even worse, you don't wantto swim in this thing. And so,
(28:13):
you know, I'm eating humble pie,and I swim and all those kids
next to him because they grew upby the water. They're all swim
like fish. And I'm like,splashing. So but it's a
changing modality is veryinteresting. So I'm seeing
myself learn again.
Eveline Oehrlich (28:29):
Wow, what a challenge. Fantastic. Thank you
very, very much. We've beentalking to Patrycja Slawuta. I
hope I said your name correctly.Founder of UnLab and self
hackathon entrepreneur mindhacker, producer, thank you so
much for your time. I wish youthe best wonderful, wonderful
holidays, enjoy, relax, travelsafely, wherever you go. I know
(28:53):
you love to travel as well. I doas well. I'm traveling, you're
traveling, but we'll godifferent directions. So we
won't cross our paths. But let'sstay in touch. And for our
listeners, this will be really,really exciting to have more
I'll share with you when the newTED Talk comes out. Again,
(29:14):
thanks Patrycja. Humans ofDevOps Podcast is produced by
the DevOps Institute. Our audioproduction team includes Julia
Papp and Brendan Lay. I am theHumans of DevOps Podcast
executive producer EvelineOehrlich. If you'd like to join
us on the podcast, pleasecontact us Humans of DevOps
(29:34):
Podcast at DevOpsInstitute.com.I'm Eveline. Thank you.
Narrator (29:41):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Humans of
DevOps Podcast. Don't forget tojoin our global community to get
access to even more greatresources like this. Until next
time, remember, you are part ofsomething bigger than yourself.
You belong
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