#33 Your Brain on Jump Thinking

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Intro: 0:02

Welcome to Creative spirits unleashed, where we talk about the dilemmas of balancing work and life. And now, here's your host, Lynn Carnes.

Lynn: 0:19

Welcome to the creative spirits unleash Podcast. I'm Lynn Carnes, your host. For today's episode, we're doing something completely different. I'm starting a series on my book, The elegant pivot, with the help of Jennifer Maneely. So Jen Maneely, who happens to be my daughter, but is also a thought leader in the addiction community, and is a thought leader and setting boundaries and how our minds work. Jen and I had a conversation today about the ladder of inference, which is chapter two of the elegant pivot, and how we jump up the ladder of inference going from our facts to our fears. This conversation is rich with stories of understanding how no matter what we're going to make up stories, and they're going to be wrong. That's the point of needing to pivot. And it's just full of, I don't know, it's just a great conversation. I'm really looking forward to this series. And I hope you are too. I hope you enjoy this episode. Jennifer Maneely, welcome to the creative spirits unleashed podcast,

Jen: 1:28

thank you, it's always a pleasure to be doing a podcast with us. And several,

Lynn: 1:34

we have, well, I feel like I have an embarrassment of riches to have you, as one of my business partners, in the way you think about things and the way you help me bounce off things and so forth. You know, it's kind of lonely out here, sometimes in the entrepreneurial world. And it's really cool to have you who I think of as a thought leader in many ways around your world, which is helping families navigate addiction, and through having navigated your own. But to have you available to like bounce ideas off of and so forth. And that's what we're gonna do today.

Jen: 2:11

Yeah, it's just fell inside. And I, you know, same same for me is like, I feel so blessed to have someone that, you know, how like, How many times have we just done a walk and talk about each of our ideas? Yeah. Something that we're battling and struggling with, or trying to work through and process, the concepts and the principles? And how often did we do that, with this next subject that we're going, like, we still talk about this all the time, all the different ways in

Lynn: 2:41

this subject all the time. And what's interesting is this subject to me, somebody who does does this well, is a little bit like watching an athlete, which you were in high school. You're an athlete in a lot of ways, but you your your big sport, Well, besides tennis was basketball. And it was so it's so interesting to watch you on the field or to watch your basketball team. The difference between the practice and the performance. You know, the practice was full always of trying things, and failures and failures and failures and failures and failures. And then, you know, eventually a success. And even in the game, you know, think about how many times you would make miss a shot? Oh, yeah. But But you've made make them as well. And I think that that's one of the underlying thanks to everything you and I talk about is, nothing is smooth out of the gate like it looks when we see it. Right? in action. And so we decided before we hit the record button that today, we're going to talk about chapter two of my book, The elegant pivot, which chapter two is about the ladder of inference, which is not a concept I made up I discovered it. I think I read about it first. And Peter Sankeys, The Fifth Discipline field book, yeah, years ago, when I was in corporate, that by the way, the 15th Discipline field book has stood up the test of time, I was looking at it the other day, and for anybody listening, who is looking for ways of thinking for tools for ways to lead change for ways to help people learn that there might be no better book on the planet. So by all means, check out that book, but but the part of my book that's got the most highlights, and yellow stickies, and underlines and notes is the ladder of inference, which is the chapter two of my book. When I

Jen: 4:51

say I think when people read chapter two, that's probably across the board. That is probably one of the most resonated with, it's almost like people have a hard time even getting past that chapter because they're like, this is so big. I feel like I have to master this part before I can even master the rest of it. And so I think that's what's really cool about us talking about this is how, how has it played out in our life? I mean, you, you wrote the book on it, right?

Lynn: 5:23

I wrote the book on, here's all that science. I have a lot of stories about it. So like,

Jen: 5:29

how great are you at putting all of this into practice and never going up the ladder of inference and never making assumptions? Or leaps

Lynn: 5:38

or upgrading? I'm not.

Jen: 5:42

That's the point. Right? That's the point, right? There is, is it this is this is something to really hone in and really talk about is like, Oh, I, you know, I can read it, I can see it in my own life. And yet, push comes to shove, and I still make leaps. I still create stories, I still make assumptions.

Lynn: 6:07

Okay, so here's what I was thinking about. That I felt like is a good illustrative story. And I always am looking for new ones. But you remember, I was about it was about a month and a half ago, when we went down to the barn where I have the two new horses. So backstory for people is mid November, I started leasing a friend's horses that I had been riding with her for the last year or so. Shout out to Tammy Tappan, amazing artist, one of my prior podcast guests, who is in Scottsdale at an art show right now. till March 31 of 2022. For those of you listening in case, she listened to this after that date. And so I agreed to lease her horses, ride them and work with them at a different bar, and then where she had them originally, for until March 31. So So Jennifer and I went down, and we've been down what have we been there? Maybe three or four times at most. So yes, very new is like the first week. And it's not just for us or for me, it's not just new location. I have, as an adult never owned horses. We owned one for like five minutes when I was a kid, I didn't know anything about the backstory or the difficulties. So I have, I've spent a lot of time with friends, horses, but not my own. I had only been to this barn, which has pastures and so forth a couple of times. So this was all new horse ownership, this location, the responsibility, you know, the way things work. And, and those are the times that are ripe for for making up stories. Yeah, so we show up and we had been there, like I said, a handful of times, and the gate was always open.

Jen: 7:54

Yeah. You just, yeah, we just drive right through.

Lynn: 7:59

We write, we show up and the gate is closed. Now, is it locked or not? We figured out fairly quickly we go through we always leaves, I learned this from being a child, you close the gate behind you, you always leave a gate as you found it, especially if it was closed. And then we went to park and walk up to the field and a new other neither new data point was there. The halter that they used to bring the horses out to the pasture, which they leave there instead of hanging on the fence was tied around the post. So not only was there a chain, there's a the way the gate works is there's a chain and there's a little notch that the chain goes in, and the hole to loop it back through. And this hole is very important. So as soon as those two data points happened, I looked at you and said, I bet our horses got out.

Jen: 8:57

Well, because I mean, how many times have we heard stories and even seen, you know, when we go by horse farms every now and then you'll see just the stray horse that has gotten out of their their thing. And it's like how many times have we heard stories about how horses are very smart, and they get out of stalls they have, you know, like one of your friends you have to there's a couple of her horses, you have to do a special thing at night and flip this wood block because they have figured out how to open the barn doors. Yeah, even though they are closed locks, all of those things, they have yet to do three different things to open them, they still have figured out how to get out, except for when you close this, you you know, right? So we've heard

Lynn: 9:45

some very, very important data points, right. And actually, here's what was so interesting in note with just in that moment, up the live moment and this is the important distinction. two data points The main gate was closed, there was a halter around the fence, you know the the gate. Now, then the past came flooding yet. So immediately I got a visual of watching drifter, which is one of the horses on a different day that we had been there when we took Hondo that first horse away, nudging the chain at the gate, like I want to go join my buddy. And it was probably in the middle of the night that I realized that's what the hole in the gate is for. So you can look the chain back through because yeah, it was it just being in the knotch. A horse can easily knows it knows that gate open. Yeah. So then I had the question. Did I remember or even know to loop the chain back through? Well, there's

Jen: 10:49

that self doubt piece. Right. Well, that was so

Lynn: 10:51

that's the past flooding in. It's the wait a minute, did I do that wrong? Did I make a mistake? So that was a piece? And then the other past thing that flooded in was? Oh, yeah. And I have actually heard that these horses have gotten out. Yeah. And so right there in that moment, we had the the horse got out. I had seen judge mentioned the chain in the past. I wondered if I put the chain in the hole? Oh, and by the way, these two current data points. So all of that happened in a nanosecond?

Jen: 11:26

Yeah. And we

Lynn: 11:27

see those pieces, right.

Jen: 11:28

We talked about it, you're like, Oh, I bet. Yeah, these horses got out. We're just running around.

Lynn: 11:35

And then I had this terrible picture of you know, how do they what happens if they get on the road? They don't have a halter and how do you ever get them back? And I don't know how to lasso a horse, much less whatever. So all those fears came flooding in. So it was so funny, because then now as times gone by, I just laugh a little bit at that, because what I've learned is not 100% of the time, but most days. They the halters they do use that as a second thing because horses are smart. And that's a failsafe, they can't unbuckle a halter. So that's just a safety thing they do. We've also been there enough now but every now and then we do show up in the gate is closed. Yeah, that doesn't mean anything. It's it's typically closed on days where the looky loos are around. Right. And and they don't want to see anybody driving through and oh, by the way, there has been a for sale sign at the front of the bar. Right. So looky loos see a for sale sign and open gate say well, I guess I'm supposed to come in here. Yeah. So little, all these things? We don't know.

Jen: 12:41

Yeah. Because we're new, right? Like we don't know what the flow is yet. We don't have enough data points to know that this is just what happens on a regular basis, we just have our data points based out of the facts that we are presented with at the time that we are presented

Lynn: 12:58

with well, as and as you just said, the facts what popped in my head was all we ever have is our facts and our fears.

Jen: 13:06

Yeah. Yeah, we had some facts that day.

Lynn: 13:10

We did. But we also had some fears. And we had right. Our fears or things like, are we doing it right? Are we gonna fit in? Are the horses going to be a problem? What if we do it wrong? How do we get them back? These are not really my horses? How do I explain to Tammy that her horses got out? And those are not, those 1000s of thoughts that are going in the back of my mind are not conscious until I work to bring them to the forefront?

Jen: 13:35

Right? Well, you know, our brains are really magnificent things. And they do not like gaps in in things like our brains will always want to fill in the gaps because it doesn't like holes and needs to have the stories and the question is is what is the story that we're telling it?

Lynn: 13:55

You know, I get that picture. It's funny because I it's true. Our brains do have to fill in the gaps, I think and I think we're hardwired to fill in the gaps with bad stuff. Because you know, you don't if you if you go through life, if your brain was hardwired to go through life, filling him with good stuff, you die almost immediately. Yeah. Right, because rustle

Jen: 14:20

in the tree that could either be a lion or a bunny rabbit, right? Well, if we automatically assumed that it was a bunny rabbit every time and went to go investigate and not be defensive there. It could have been a

Lynn: 14:34

lion. Right, right. No, I mean, that's the that's the hard wiring is that we have to default to what will keep us alive. Yeah. And so then our job is to do that, you know, it's what I call in my book, The elegant pivot. Mm hmm. We start we have to we start on the This Could Hurt me. Yeah. And then we gather ourselves and pivot to this is it so bad and I can leave some space, I can be more generous, I can realize my horses didn't get out, which by the way, the rest of the story is, the horses hadn't gotten out, and was just a few more just to within two weeks, we could see that the pattern was sometimes the gate is closed, most of the time, the halters around there. Always a good idea to remember to put the whole the chain back through the hole. Yeah,

Jen: 15:27

yeah, all of those things because the horse could get out. Right. Like, that's, that's our goal. And, you know, I think it's just really interesting when we start talking about this concept, and like we, we'd like to talk about, like, you know, mastering these things, and people are very quickly go, Oh, I could never master that. It's like, well, what does that mean? You know, and it's like do is, is your qualification of mastering that meaning you don't ever do that ever again anymore? You know? So it's like, well, no, because in order to have a pivot you, you have to plant the foot. And then, you know, like you have, there has to be a pivot. So we're talking about a pivot, it's going to happen, where we will make up stories. And I feel like, this is the important part of the conversation. Mastering this doesn't mean you don't do it mastering this means Can you pivot quickly, before we, you know, start reacting poorly in a situation where we've made up a whole bunch of stories that we don't even realize that we made up like, can we take that pause? And say, Is this a story like, the story I'm making up is? Can we even see it? Or are we so convinced that the story that we just made up is 100% factual and true, based on the evidence given?

Lynn: 16:47

That's so profound? Because I, it's like, how much do I buy my stories? versus how much do I rent them? Do I just say, Okay, for the moment, this is the story I'm operating on of the story I'm making up and actually, years ago, one of my colleagues started using the language. The story I'm making up is, and it was really, I've actually, you've heard me say this a million times, I found it to be a really useful practice, practice. Because if I would say, the story I'm making up, then what I could do is give myself some space to change my mind. Yeah. Yeah.

Jen: 17:27

So, you know, to that point, let's let's go back to your core story about getting out. Based on the evidence even in that day, based on the evidence, how convinced were you that your story was true? Like out of a percentage of 100?

Lynn: 17:46

Oh, over a over 50.

Jen: 17:48

Yeah, you were like, I'm pretty sure. Well, and let's go,

Lynn: 17:51

let's jump to a different horse story that we didn't know. This one was interesting. Remember, when it got cold, and they blanketed the horses for the first time. Yes. And you were you were? We were out in the field. And you said I think they gave drifter a bash? Yeah.

Jen: 18:07

And I was I was away. I was convinced. Yeah. I was convinced. They were still remember. They were still new to the barn. This was early on. Oh, yeah. I only there for like three days. Right.

Lynn: 18:20

Unless and also, let's remember, we are new to the horses. Correct? Not like this is our 20th horses. And we've been around forever and all that. Yeah. So you started. You started saying that and I doubted you. I was like, What is your evidence for that? You simply so silky. And I said. I said that's that makes no sense. So I went over and I reached under the blanket and I felt and I did not feel all the mud in the dirt that's usually there. The then the blanket is

Jen: 18:50

there right off of him. But there was usually mud and dirt. That's the other end. And

Lynn: 18:54

and it's winter. And the code is sort of nappy and not, you know, I would call it Matt versus shiny. Yeah, you know, like matte paint versus shiny paint. But then, when I started, like, and I think maybe even that day, we took the blanket off. And I was like, oh, there's no way they had to have given him a bath. Yeah, I was like, see? Sad. I was like, Yeah, but why would they have given my horse a bath? And so then I asked and learned, they were like, oh, no, no, no, just you know, the blanket tends to bring the oils out and of course is protecting them from the mud and that's it makes them feels soft and shiny. Like they had a bath. Yeah, yeah. And you couldn't have convinced me otherwise, though. I was well on that one. I you know, you asked me for a percentage. I was like, 95% Sure.

Jen: 19:38

I well, I was like, there's no there is no way they did not give this horse a bath. Because the first time I saw them, they were, you know, a little muddy because like that's what horses do. Right? They go out you can give. You can give a horse a bath and the first thing they're gonna do is they're gonna go out and they're gonna roll That's what they do. Right? Especially

Lynn: 20:04

if they're wide or Palomino.

Jen: 20:06

Oh, man, they love why horses love rolling, and in dirt in the mud. So. So it's like when I felt that the horse was so silky and so clean, no dirt. No, nothing. I was like there's, you could not tell me anything different until I had more of the facts about how horses, blankets, cold weather, and oils

Lynn: 20:35

work? Well, and there was and that was our pivot that day was and this is the pivot most of the time is you ask? Yeah, yeah, we said that you give them a bath. Like they're so silky did you give them a bath? Now, what that made me think about that day especially was because at the time, we were also working on the elegant pivot workbook, which is now out on Amazon. And we were so this was very much on our minds. And it made me think about how many times have I been absolutely sure of a situation of what somebody made of a statement that they made of something that happened in an interaction or, you know, frankly, just making a judgment of somebody in the airport, walking down the concourse? Oh, yeah. How many times was I 100%? Sure that I was right. But I never asked. So I don't know. Right? And then I stand on my store. And,

Jen: 21:34

yeah, and how often does that happen? In like the business setting?

Lynn: 21:41

Well, here's what I can't give away. I don't want to give away too much data, because this is a conversation I'm having a lot with clients. And, and in fact, a lot of times the client, this is actually believe it or not the idea of assuming positive intent, which is the core idea of the elegant pivot. And then the book breaks it down into sort of how we make leaps the ladder of inference, and in the five principles that keep you make you able to assume positive intent. This is the reason I wrote the book is because this is a large part of my coaching, and I'm coaching mostly C level executives. So the other thing is somehow somehow I think, I know this was my case, in corporate, we we fell, I always felt like the people above me on the hierarchy, no matter how high I went up, did this kind of thing better than then people at my level, like somehow the higher up you went, because you had a new base salary, or a new level or a new job that somehow you were magically, less human and more superstar. And obviously, that's not true. And the more I, I've coached people, I've realized that everybody's human, yeah. Why they're struggling, they're struggling as much. You know, I've coached people to different jobs, for example, and I'm not going to say any names about who anybody is. But in one particular case, I had a, an executive who was an up for becoming CEO, he was an internal candidate. And he was getting ready to go do kind of a meet and greet with the board. Because the fun thing about being a CEO is you don't have one boss, you have lots of

Jen: 23:33

a lot, a lot more than you know

Lynn: 23:36

the well Yeah, cuz you have a whole

Jen: 23:38

bigger set and bigger stakes.

Lynn: 23:40

It's bigger stakes. And you know, I always I always joke that the CEO role is not the top of the pyramid, but the bottom of the funnel. Because you have a board of directors, you have the investors, you have the community, whatever, we have a lot more people the answer to your answering to a lot more people than you ever have in your entire life. And you've been working, you know, on a narrower audience as you climb the ladder. So this guy has been climbing the ladder. And he's talking about the board meeting great. And he was describing a particular board member who did not care for him in his story. And how am I going to respond when and he gave me some examples, and I can't remember some of the kind of ways that this guy would poke at him. And you know, by poke at him, it'd be like, see if he could get a rise out of this guy. And this was what we coached on, is I took him through the ladder of inference, which we should probably do for people listening, because a lot of times I'm listening in the car, it's not like anybody's sitting there with their book going, Oh, you have a letter of inference that these are the steps, right. But he, this was the coaching and I said, here's here's the ultimate game. I said if you think he doesn't like you, you need to assume he likes you to the point where the that he thinks you just aren't getting the point. And that he is going to look you in your eye and say I just don't like you. Yeah, at that point, you're no longer making up stories, you have a fact. Right. But up until then you need to assume he likes you to the point where he is so frustrated that he can't get his message across and get a rise out of you. That he's just going to come out and say it. Yeah. And what I have found, I have had that coaching in different forms and fashions, again, mostly with C level executives, probably by now, hundreds, if not 1000s of times. And I have never had an executive come back and say, I finally got to say they don't like me. But they do come back and say is, you know what? I realized that it had nothing to do with me. Nothing.

Jen: 25:55

Nothing, even if and here's the thing. Here's the trick, right? Even if they come back, and they say, not that this usually happens, but even if they look at your face and say, I just don't like you, it still has nothing to do with you.

Lynn: 26:08

It's still so good. Why explain that? So have you seen it work that it still has nothing to do with you? Because if somebody looks at me and says I don't like you? Yeah, I do feel like I'm my my, remember I said we have fact right here. Yeah. My are gonna start going, what did I

Jen: 26:27

do? Sure. Sure. Well, so it's just like, you know, one of the principles you talk about, which will go in, in a different podcast in a lot more depth. But one of the principles that you talk about in the elegant pivot is take nothing personally. Right? Right. So even if someone says that they don't like you, it's still never personal, even though it feels so personal. Right? So it's like, um, maybe you remind them of their, I mean, this is just, you know, off the top of my head, that easy one, maybe they remind you of your dad or your mom, right? And or their mom or dad that they didn't have a great relationship with. And you'll say something like, you'll say the same thing, meaning nothing. Bad, right? Like, you don't have any intent. You've never met their parents or anything like that. But for some reason, you remind, it's like the mom face, you walk through the store, and someone gives you that face that your mom, you're like, Ooh, I just immediately you're just like, I don't like you. Because they made

Lynn: 27:30

no right face. I that that is bringing up a story for me that happened in a meeting, back in my day. And we were at a we were doing a design meeting, we were probably designing a learning program or something. And we had hired a firm, my team had hired a firm to help us do learning design. And they were really good at it. And I we were doing a go around the table check in and we were talking about our goals for the session. And one of the professionals on the team said something to the effect of I don't remember what she said that she was going to do. But I remember when when it came my turn, they said, what's your goal, and I said, You know what I would really like to be as good as our color. Sarah, I would really like to get as good at this as Sarah is. And I thought nothing of it. But I got they caught they've really attacked me for that. And the what I later learned is they attacked me because they felt like I was trying to compete with her and take away her job. But in my family, we had four siblings, and that was kind of a normal thing, which is a little inner competition, but in a loving way. Like I was competitive. But my like, like you and your cousin Zach playing basketball that day. Yeah, Christmas. Yeah. You know, remember that when it was like, oh, yeah, we loved each other. A lot was very competitive. That was hysterical, by the way. Yeah. Because he was he was still was he in high school or college but in how he was awfully well, I

Jen: 29:14

think yeah, he was an athlete. You're out of high school and college old person at this point in boots, by the way in boot

Lynn: 29:21

in boots playing basketball on the on the concrete, and you took him to the basket. I mean, he's like, What the heck, how can you do this? Right. So so but but the point being that sort of Intercon competition is a normal thing for our family, but not theirs, right? Like that. For them that kind of behavior was a red flag. Not a good thing. Right and so all kind of hell broke loose. Because I said that when

Jen: 29:51

realize you're like, Oh, I just thought this that was a compliment like I'm because

Lynn: 29:55

I think I just I thought I just gave you a compliment and you're acting like I just attacked you

Jen: 30:00

Yeah, like what? Weird. This crazy?

Lynn: 30:04

Yeah, right. But but the point being because of my past because of their past, it wasn't personal. But they took it personally. Now, very quickly, once they took it personally, I start taking the person.

Jen: 30:16

Well. So here's the other part of the pivot, where it's like if we can really. So in your book when you finally get the person, they never say this, but if they did, I just don't like you. Right? Now at that point, you have risen all the way up to a fighting Francis. Right? That's right. And so then how do you deal with someone that is legitimately going, I don't like you. It's that if you can look at them and not take anything personally, because here's to two ways you can handle this right? Aha, I knew it. I knew they were after me. And now you are justified and whatever comes out of your mouth after a bit, right? All the anger and frustration and Aha, I knew it. You, I got you. And you can take that. But even in that moment, if you can take a step back and realize this nothing personal, and still come with them with that pivot of all the love and compassion, not taking it personally realize it has nothing to do with you. And they're continuing to rise. It's like they just can't, they just can't get at you. So it's almost the pivot of what to do in a fighting Francis' by actually not taking it personally, which is so hard. Because when someone looks at you and says, I don't like you, you're like, what's wrong with me? And that's our past just comes up? That's exactly right, quickly.

Lynn: 31:48

And you know, that's where I've, you know, people ask, well, what is the move? Mm hmm. And I've actually coached this particular move. Not that somebody ever got to the point of saying, I don't like you, but it was to the point of right, you know, pretty much grading on each other. And this happens a lot. And and the move that that I've coached people to make, and it works unbelievably is just to say, fair enough. Are you still willing to work with me? Because we're in this together?

Jen: 32:19

Yeah. Whether you're like me or not, this is what we're doing.

Lynn: 32:23

And what's interesting is that liking actually doesn't matter. But what starts to happen is the need to prove it kind of goes away. So they start working together towards the common goal. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the part that's the part of the corporate politics that the book is about.

Jen: 32:44

Well, and this is, this is the bigger part. So when someone says, and this is something that I tried to do in my own life to help me pivot, because we have so like, we do find conflict and just, you know, all the time, but it's like, when I start classifying people as good, bad, or right, wrong, or I don't like them as a whole. That's where I find that my past is really interfering. And there's something going on with me at a very deep level, when I can start really breaking that down and go, I don't like the way that they are behaving in this particular situation. Right, that makes me stronger to be able to pivot in situations and when someone's coming at me and going, I just don't like you have going, huh? There's something going on with them. But it's like, okay, so what exactly Don't you like? Is it the way that I said something? Is it the behaviors like you not like that I stood up too fast. I you know, I don't know, like, what was it exactly that you don't particularly like, so it's never about me as a whole. I did something they didn't like, what is it?

Lynn: 34:02

Yeah. Well, that's the that's the role of feedback, if you can be strong enough to, like, really start sharing with each other feedback, right? That can be so hard when sometimes we just don't want to hear stuff about ourselves. Correct. Like our defenses want to go

Jen: 34:23

up? Well, and that's, well, especially because and this goes back into the ladder of inference where we're making assumptions about what they're going to say. We're making up stories about what someone's gonna say about us about our behaviors what they don't you know, like and and we can already start beating ourselves up before we even hear the answer.

Lynn: 34:46

Well, that that's a whole nother cannibal, ourselves. My next book dancing the tightrope X Ray has a lot about sort of that mistake cycle that we go into, we're not going to go down that rabbit Today, we will be

Jen: 35:03

right well unless go through because we never we haven't actually got it through. Oh, yeah, we still haven't gone through the lab, the actual like, what is the ladder of inference? So you want to talk it through? Do I want to talk it? Let's see. Yeah. Let's see. Um Why don't you go ahead and talk it. Okay. Through. Oh, there it is. Okay. Yeah. It's on page 22, by the way. Oh, anyway, book of the printed book. If anyone has the the printed book, it's on page 22. Of what the ladder WMDs is.

Lynn: 35:41

And so I actually have my copy of the workbook out, too. Yeah. So it's on several pages of the of the workbook. Yeah.

Jen: 35:51

So talk about like, let's talk about the suits. So the first wrong is the observable data.

Lynn: 35:57

And I will use the horror story, if

Jen: 36:00

I say, let's go back to the horror story, or store the observable observable

Lynn: 36:04

data, so that I think of the observable data as the security camera footage. Yeah, if you have you ever watched security camera footage, it is boring as hell. Yeah. Because it is capturing everything. And we're only interested when something crosses or moves across the film. You know, but in the case of the horses, imagine that there could have been, you know, video footage on a light pole that covered the front gate, the back gate where they were the whole picture, right? And so if you look at the security camera footage, it's going to capture everything. Yeah, that first rung of the ladder is inhuman, because no human can capture everything, correct things. I'll tell a story in a minute about an exercise they've done just to prove this remind me to talk about basketball, and crazy things, and then remind me like crazy basketball and crazy things. So then the next rung of the ladder, and we're going from bottom to top, we immediately there is data, but it's the data that we notice. So we notice things already, because of our filters. We notice it because it's interesting, because it's whatever. So that next filtered data is the data that we notice. And before we even know it, the next rung of the ladder is the meaning we make of that data. Yeah. What does that mean? So when we saw the gate, the filter data, by the way, when we pulled up to the gate, that day, there was a whole lot more going on than just to close gate. Oh, here's another quote. By the way, we didn't even mention that when you pull that location, there's a close gate to the right and to the left. Yeah. And the closed gate in front of you. We didn't talk about the closed gate over there, because it was an interesting, we didn't talk about, you know, whatever was going on in the yard or birds flying over any of that we didn't pay attention to any of that. We just noticed

Jen: 38:08

the filter data. Yeah. filter data.

Lynn: 38:11

And the meaning is, and here's the thing, my first thought of the meaning is, am I not supposed to be here? Yeah, the gate was meant to keep me out. So the meaning was, keep me out. Yeah, close gate, you have to knock. Right to have the code, you have to know how to open the chain, whatever. So nonetheless, we got went ahead and got out. But the assumption we made was, sometimes the assumption I made when they said the gate was there to close me out was, well, sometimes I guess they're closed. Right?

Jen: 38:46

Right. Sometimes, assumptions sometimes. Welcome. And sometimes I'm not.

Lynn: 38:50

That's right. That was wrong for I had to make an assumption, well, maybe they're closed. And then the next thing is the conclusion I grew Drew. And the conclusion in this case, and assumptions and conclusions are really hard to distinguish. It's sort of like, the whole ladder of inference to me is a little bit like trying to break down one step into multiple steps. And if you look at our old cameras, they could only capture so many frames per second on video. So high speed cameras that can capture many more frames are showing new data that we didn't know was there. Like, cats falling, if you drop a cat, they can now see with high speed cameras, the exact moves the cats make to twist their body to land on their feet. Yeah, they can also take these videos of, you know, great white sharks, breaching the ocean and the twists and turns they make that we never saw before. It all used to look like one thing. And now we can see it's 1000 things. Yeah, the ladder of inference is like they were slicing the data very thin, right? But on that day, the conclusion I drew was, well, if I can close the gate, but we're going to still go through Yeah, we're going to try to go through. And then the action that well, then, sorry, the next thing after conclusion is our beliefs. And that's about how the world works. Yeah. And my belief went back to my childhood of having, we had a cattle farm when I was growing up. And my belief went back to good gates make good neighbors, sort of. That's why I went on through, had I not had that experience, and that gate was closed, I would have said, well, maybe I should call him and see if I can go in, right? Maybe you come another day. But my belief was, if I can go through the gate, and my horses are on the other side, I can go through, right. And that's the action we took. So the action we took was we went on through the gate. Right? That's, that's just that moment, there was multiple ladder of inference is occurring. We'll see I just took us right to that one moment.

Jen: 40:53

And that's even from that moment of that close gate. As it happened so fast, we immediately made it about ourselves. So then the reason that it isn't so so the rest of the data points that we had beyond that close gate, was filtered through this idea that that closed gate had something to do with us. So everything after that was already skewed.

Lynn: 41:23

Well, and and by the way, you're exactly right. Because then if you take the ladder of inference that happened when we walked up to find the halter around the gate for the first time, right around the fence, the horse gate. And then my mind went back to that insecurity of why was the gate closed? I made them close it because I learned how I did something I had.

Jen: 41:46

So so we couldn't even go up to the next part of the second gate, without already starting on the premise that it had something to do with us. Something we did wrong, right? Because it's like, well, I was able to go through the gate. But was it closed? Because you know, like, so it was already? A, a filtered data, we've already gone up the wrong before we even got there. Yes. The very quick pass that we just had, right? So we, you know, it's like the past is the past, even if it was five seconds ago. Your filter data was still based in the past.

Lynn: 42:29

It's based on past I said, my, yeah, five minutes ago, but it's also that's so man, I'm glad you pointed that out. And and I'm, I'm going to flip to just a quick different example, I had to show how easy this is to do. I had an appointment with somebody the other day where I was paying them. And they were late to the appointment. Everything went fine. After the appointment, I forgot to pay. And it went overnight. Didn't even think about it. But But I remembered in that night I was like, Okay, I'm gonna pay the next morning. So as I was actually going to pay, I got a text. And the text says, I know I was late, and I'm really sorry. And then kind of apologetically asked me for my payment. Yeah. Now, what I thought about in that particular case was on the part of the other person. And I thought about how many times I've done this. The other person was stuck in the past of maybe Lynne is trying to send me a message. You know, me, because I had said, no worries, stuff happens. And I meant it. Yeah. But facts and fears. Yeah. In the case of the other person, there were some fears about her, you know, being late about what that meant. And so right, in that case, stuck in the past, are we

Jen: 44:01

gonna have to have a conversation before I get paid about about why being late is not yes. You know,

Lynn: 44:07

in that case, the be the other person was beating themselves up. Yeah. Right. And it was unnecessary. Right. And the one thing I will have to say about beating, beating yourself up i and I've, you know, I've said this, because I've been involved in so many change projects, both corporate change, organizational change, trying to make an organization help them change at scale, but also helping individuals change. Helping them go from one thing to the other. And the one thing that doesn't help you change, the one thing guaranteed to keep you the same is to beat yourself up. It's guaranteed to keep you the same. Yeah. And people always say how is that nice like because instead of actually changing anything, you went ahead and just several I'll take my punishment. It's like I've paid my dues so I don't have to change Right.

Jen: 45:01

Well, and this is where it's, I mean, we don't need to go off on this tangent. But it's, I think this is really important because it's like, if we can honestly, sometimes we get so busy beating ourselves up that we forget to actually take responsibility for the lessons that we learned so we can move on and then not happen again, right. And so like if we're so concerned with beating ourselves up, and we don't ever actually spend the time learning the lessons that we need to do create ways in terms of not doing it again, then we're destined to do it again. And it is

Lynn: 45:32

the perfect way to say it is a cycle, I have to give a quick shout out to your unbreakable boundaries podcast. And the work you do there, because this is the kind of thing you're talking about a lot. Because in the context of setting boundaries, we often let our own insecurities create holes in our walls of play, and allow people to take advantage of us in. So you're brilliant at this. So for people listening, if you want to hear more about that wisdom, Jennifer interviewed some really interesting people. And I need to tell about the the basketball.

Jen: 46:10

The basketball and crazy things. Yes. Because

Lynn: 46:13

here's so what I have found is a lot of times people are just so sure of their own experience that they don't believe that they're missing any data. Mm hmm. It's like no, if I decide to look for the data, I will find it. Yeah, well, there is some experiments and you can look these up, you can Google this, where they have taken people and said, Alright, your job, we're going to have you watch a basketball game. And we're going to teach you how to focus on like to develop focus. So we've got the white shirts, and the dark shirts playing against each other. And what we want you to do is count how many times the white shirts pass the ball in their game. People take that assignment, they watch it, and they debrief and they come back. And it's a big argument. Was it 20 times? Was it 21 times? Was it 23 times was it 15 times who maybe pass the ball? Well, then they say ended anybody? Or they say, Dude, what did you think of the gorilla that ran through the middle of the scene? And people are like, what gorilla? And I'm like, well, we will replay the video. And of course, once they're asked to look for the gorilla, they see the gorilla run through the screen. Yeah, I found his chest and run off the screen. And people swear that they showed him a different video or whatever, because they missed it. Yeah, even though it was dramatic. And it's because they were focusing on something else. Yeah, that that was what they were told that they had to focus on, they missed a very big thing. A very bad our brains assign us to focus on things, whether we know it or not. And we're, first of all, we're hardwired to focus on the stuff that could kill us. But we're also conditioned from our past, from our experiences, from frankly, the way people teach us as we grow up, we are conditioned to focus on things that might say we're not good enough. Yeah, that we are conditioned to focus on things that will, frankly, reinforce our self doubts, and our fears, back to facts and fears. So that very first rung on the ladder, going to the filter data, our filters are operating before we even start.

Jen: 48:26

Yeah, and well. And real quick. And this is this is this is how our brains work, especially when we get so concrete in our beliefs is because we feel like we can't live in ambiguity. So we have to make the story. Yep. So like, for instance, and I'll just make the story really quick. Christmas Eve, you know that that random dog showed up? Right? Oh, yeah. So this random dog shows up. Great. And it's, so immediately we're trying to figure out where did the dog come from? What were you going to do? Was it nice? Like, how old was it? Like what was going on? So we had all of these data points, right. And

Lynn: 49:07

it came, by the way to Mystic waters, which is a large camp with a lake looking over it. It's outdoors. Right? You know, where

Jen: 49:15

we're at now. And we have I mean, we have stray dogs, every now and then that Oh, yeah. We had a dog or heck, yeah, we've had. Yeah, we had to be really careful when we had the dog pack. So we're like, is this a wild? And how long is this dog? But so immediately, all the stories that you hear is like we're making up all of these stories? Well, the truth is, is I made up a story that this dog was 10 years old, at least 10 Because he looked old, he looked tired, he looked hungry. He'd been out on on, you know the road for a while. So I had all of these stories. What happened? I convinced myself that he must have been because he was still intact, so he wasn't neutered. So I'm like, Oh, he must have been a breeder dog. That got too old and someone to just drop them off somewhere. And now he's looking for his new home? Well, here's the thing. I convinced myself, there was no way that I was ever going to know what really happened to this dog. And so I had to make this in my brain had to make a story, right. And my brain was convinced that the story that I made up had to be true. There could not I mean, sure, I always knew that there was a possibility that some of the things may not have been true, but I didn't think I was ever going to get to know what the whole story was, and that I was going to have to find this dog a new home, we're gonna go figure out if he was microchipped. And then what? Probably not because we live in the country. And that's just not how dogs a lot of people don't, a lot of people don't microchip their dogs in the country. So I'm like, I'm never gonna get to know this. So I was convinced that the story made up and everyone I started telling, I was like, This is the story I'm making up. But I'm told it so many times I convinced myself it was true. And how wrong actually, we did actually find the owner. And Christmas day, on Christmas day, we found the owner, we won't go into the whole long, dramatic parts of that. It was not bad. It turned out to be really happy ending. But everything that I had made up, not true. But you're not have convinced me otherwise. Not tell you had countervailing data because my brain had to have a story. That was true, because it doesn't like ambiguity.

Lynn: 51:29

Well, and we actually use that that day, I remember saying what other possibilities are there? And if you're listening to this and wondering, well, what am I supposed to do with the ladder of inference? And how do I stop making up stories? You're not going to stop making? You're not? What I always say is practice going up the ladder, different ways. You exercise your brain and make different conclusions, create different stories, right, make up at least five different stories for what it is and become a screenwriter. Like I joke, you know, I'd actually don't joke I say you can become the CO writer of a new story for your life. And it starts by using your imagination. So it turned out it was a young dog. well loved. Well, Rami, well loved from the area. And you know, how a one of the one of the things that was interesting is my husband shot off a gun just to scare him away, just not at not at the dog, right? No, no, no, not just as if our if our dog showed up in a gunfight. Well, it turned out this was a hunting dog. So he just rolled over with the dot. He's like, Yeah, we're gonna go hunting, this is what I do.

Jen: 52:35

And he was just tired. Like he was he rode for a couple days, he was so sweet, so tired, wait, sweet, young,

Lynn: 52:42

well loved dog that found his owner. So, you know, make up his mini story. The exercise for this is just to make up as many stories as you can and start exercising that part of your brain where you find different stories. And then the only other part of that is if you have a way to check it out. As you did. Yeah, in this case. And as we did with the stories at the barn, check it out, go ask them. Ask us like we did with the blankets. Did you wash our horses? No. Yeah,

Jen: 53:13

yeah, exactly. Go go check out the stories that you're making up. But I think you hit on something. That's the pivot, right. Sometimes we don't ever really get to know the answer the answer, right. Sometimes we have to live in the fact that we're making up stories. So that that's the question that you just asked, What's the stories that we want to make up? And as long as we realize that we are making up stories, we can live in the fact that we're making up stories as opposed to going off on the fact that we believe a story that is not true and reacting in the way that it's not, that isn't helpful or of service.

Lynn: 53:55

And that, you know, what you just said, I think is as we continue, we're going to do this as a series of podcasts, where we're going to have conversations around each of the different principles behind the elegant pivot. Yeah. And just the idea of living in uncertainty is difficult for people. And we like the certainty of our stories. So we'll carry on I think, Jen, if you think this makes sense. We'll talk about how to you also live with a little bit of the ambiguity of knowing your story map, right? Because that's a that in and of itself that kind of gets into the discern signal from noise. Oh, yeah. It's a little bit of noise in us, it, Diane. But for methods on how to check stories out there, there's probably no better story than the Carl story in my book. And I think it's also in chapter two. I don't know for

Jen: 54:45

sure. Thanks.

Lynn: 54:45

I think that's what I think is using a story. Yeah, it's a story of Carl who is in a corporate event or meeting and his boss starts putting his head in his hands. And Carl checked out, you know, he could have made up stories. about what the head and the hands means, if anybody's ever been making a presentation, and wanted everybody to give them bright eyes and nodding heads, and instead, they got heads in the hand or scowling faces or shaking heads, you know, the flood of thoughts that can go through your mind wondering, what are they thinking? And it's a brilliant illustration that Carl did, about how to check something out. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's, I think that's a good place for us to, you know, and Chapter One of the series that we're doing right, the ladder,

Jen: 55:35

the ladder of inference, and many more to come, because this is such a big, you know, thing on all the different layers of how does this apply? In our lives? It's like, okay, well, we've got up the ladder of inference. And that's just one aspect. And then how do we actually discern, like you were saying, Yeah, signals from the noise, the past all that, like stuff that comes up in our brains? How can we discern that? How do we know? Like, when is that a red flag? When is it just our past interfering?

Lynn: 56:07

So really good way to think about it, Jim. And, you know, way back when I learned this just simple idea, part of a team agreement in a meeting, you know, assume positive intent. It sounds so simple. But it's not natural.

Jen: 56:25

No. Well, and this is, this is where it's like, simple, but complicated. Not easy. Definitely not easy. Yeah, so

Lynn: 56:37

yeah, well, I can't thank you enough for joining me for this podcast. And for agreeing to join me for a series where we can sort of talk through our ideas, you know, for this sort of chapter or series of chapters of the podcast. I really love these conversations with you. So you can't thank you enough. Well, you're and thank you so much. And for those of you listening, if you like this podcast, be sure and share it, write it, all those good things, and we really appreciate you listening. Thank you for listening to the creative spirits on wage podcast. I started this podcast because I was having these great conversations and I wanted to share them with others. I'm always learning in these conversations, and I wanted to share that kind of learning with you. Now what I need to hear from you is what you want more of and what you want less of. I really want these podcasts to be a value for the listeners. Also, if you happen to know someone who you think might love them, please share the podcast and of course, subscribe and rate it on the different apps that you're using, because that's how others will find it. Now, I hope you go and do something very fun today.