Real Reasons for Your Strange Thoughts & How Small Acts Change Lives

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Speaker 3 Today on something you you should know, when you have a big decision, is it really a good idea to sleep on it?

Speaker 3 Then the science behind some of those weird feelings you get, like the feeling you're being watched or that feeling of being in the zone or in the flow.

Speaker 1 Really interesting research has shown that people when they're fully in the flow, they're actually shutting off some of their really high-power thinking parts of their brain.

Speaker 1 So you end up in this state where you're not actually kind of self-monitoring and judging anymore. You're just doing what comes natural.

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Speaker 3 All this today on something you should know.

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Speaker 3 Something you should know. Fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life.
Today, something you should know with Mike Carruthers.

Speaker 3 Hi, welcome to something you should know.

Speaker 3 I'm sure you've heard the advice that before you make a a big decision, you should sleep on it. Well, there is actually some scientific support for the sleep-on it approach.

Speaker 3 Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst briefly exposed a group of people to the Iowa gambling test, which is a widely accepted game of decision-making.

Speaker 3 After people briefly saw the test, Half of the subjects then took the test right away and the other half took it after a good night's sleep. The group that slept on it did noticeably better.

Speaker 3 Rebecca Spencer, author of the study, explains that sleep fine-tunes our memory and sharpens learning.

Speaker 3 She says, while we sleep, we're actually revisiting a lot of information that we've stored, giving the logical data a better chance to take hold and prevail.

Speaker 3 So, in general, sleeping on a decision before you make it will bring a better decision. And that is something you should know.

Speaker 3 I think all of us have these strange experiences in life that we notice but can't explain.

Speaker 3 And what I mean by that are things like the feeling of being watched, or that feeling sometimes when you're just in the zone and you can do no wrong, or why it's hard to maintain eye contact with someone when you're talking to them, or why you remember things in your life that actually didn't happen.

Speaker 3 So why do we have these experiences? Well, there's some science behind it, some really interesting science, and someone who has researched this is Jen Martin.

Speaker 3 She is an award-winning educator at the University of Melbourne in Australia, and she's author of the book, Why Am I Like This? The Science Behind Your Weirdest Thoughts and Habits. Hi, Jen.

Speaker 3 Welcome to Something You Should Know.

Speaker 1 Thanks so much for having me. Delighted to be here with you.

Speaker 3 So let's start with that feeling that I've sometimes had it, that even though I think I'm alone, I feel like I'm being watched. Is that a pretty universal experience, I imagine?

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, I think it is. Research suggests that about 94% of people have had that experience of you actually feel like you're being stared at.

Speaker 1 But then interestingly, when you look up, you discover that it's true. So you sort of feel like you have this sixth sense.

Speaker 1 And this has been studied for hundreds of years, that we have this very intense feeling that someone's watching us.

Speaker 1 And of course, you know, that could just be, it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy that because you're feeling uncomfortable, you feel like you're being watched, that you're kind of fidgeting.

Speaker 1 And that means that the person sitting near you on the train does actually look at you. You know, there's all sorts of possibilities here.

Speaker 1 But there's a really interesting, some really interesting research that shows that our brains might be absolutely hardwired to recognize when people are looking at us, even when our eyes don't see them looking at us.

Speaker 1 The idea came from a study of a man who was known in the literature, in the scientific literature, as TN.

Speaker 1 And he has this very interesting condition as a result of having had two strokes. So if you can imagine, his eyes are functional.
There's nothing wrong with his eyes.

Speaker 1 And his eyes still send information to his brain. But the part of his brain that deals with that visual information, if you like, has been damaged.
So his eyes and his brain essentially don't connect.

Speaker 1 So he doesn't actually see anything through his eyes. And the researchers did some really interesting studies where they put a monitor in front of him and showed him pictures of faces on that monitor.

Speaker 1 Some people looking directly at him, some people looking off to the side.

Speaker 1 And at the same time, they're measuring what's going on in his brain, the part of his brain that's in charge of emotions and recognizing faces.

Speaker 1 And remember, this person can't actually consciously see these pictures.

Speaker 1 So to to him, he can't tell you whether this picture in front of him is a man or a woman, whether they're looking at him, whether they're looking in a different direction. But his brain could tell.

Speaker 1 So his brain knew when someone was looking at him, even when he couldn't actually see it consciously, which is just amazing.

Speaker 1 So it may be that we've evolved to be so finely tuned to when somebody is looking at us that we don't actually even have to see it with our own eyes.

Speaker 3 Well, certainly humans do have pretty good eyesight and it has served us well.

Speaker 1 During our evolution, it was obviously hugely advantageous for us to know when somebody was looking at us because we needed to be able to work out really quickly this person who's paying us attention.

Speaker 1 You know, are they a friend or a foe? Is this somebody who's going to be able to help me, or is this someone who's about to attack me?

Speaker 1 And so, our brains are just really good at recognizing that.

Speaker 1 And the other interesting thing to notice about that is, you know, when you look at a person, obviously, there's the colored part of our eye, but we obviously also have a very clear white part around our eye and that means that even from a distance you're really good at working out whether somebody is looking straight at you or they're looking in a different direction because you can see how much of the white of their eye is visible.

Speaker 1 No other primates, so our closest relatives, the apes, none of them have that white patch around their eye.

Speaker 1 So that is something specific to being human that we always want to be able to tell is this person looking at us or not looking at us.

Speaker 3 Something I've always been interested in is that feeling of when you're working in the zone, when you're everything just is working, because I think we've all had that.

Speaker 3 Some have it more than others, but boy, when it's happening, it's just magic.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know. And don't you wish you could have it more often? So tell, describe to me what being in the zone feels like to you.

Speaker 3 It just, it's usually, you know, work related, or sometimes it's, you know, sports. But boy, it just, it feels like you could just go forever and you can do no wrong.

Speaker 1 And isn't it a nice phrase that it's been called being in the zone? That term was coined by a Hungarian psychologist back in 1990.

Speaker 1 And as you say, when you're in that zone, you're just completely immersed in what you're doing and you just lose track of time,

Speaker 1 you lose track of anything that's going on around you. And I imagine you feel the same as I do, that you just feel

Speaker 1 highly skilled at whatever you're doing. You sort of have this sense of mastery, which is so rewarding.

Speaker 1 What the research tells us is that there's absolutely a relationship between how difficult a task is and how good at it you are.

Speaker 1 So if you're trying to do something that's just way beyond you and is really difficult and you can't actually achieve it, you're much more likely to end up feeling really frustrated or anxious than you are to end up feeling in a state of flow.

Speaker 1 But equally, if the task you're doing is really easy, you're going to end up bored and disinterested. You're not going to end up fully immersed and engrossed.
So it's all about this sweet spot.

Speaker 1 You don't want to be bored, but you don't want to be stressed. You want to feel challenged, but you want to have this sense of confidence that you can actually achieve what you want to achieve.

Speaker 1 And really interesting research has shown that people, when they're fully in the flow, they're actually shutting off some of their really high power thinking parts of their brain.

Speaker 1 And so you end up in this state where you're not actually kind of self-monitoring and judging anymore. You're just doing what comes, what feels natural.

Speaker 1 And so they've scanned the brains of jazz players, for example. So picture someone sitting down at the piano, they're improvising.
And, you know, these people actually are no longer planning.

Speaker 1 They're not thinking consciously about what they're doing. They're not judging themselves.
They're not self-censoring. They don't feel any sense of inhibition.
They're just playing.

Speaker 1 And we know that our brain waves change. We become really quite different when we're in that zone.

Speaker 1 We get flooded with endorphins, and then the chemicals that we get flooded with make us feel able to focus better. We get to link ideas, we become more creative.

Speaker 1 I mean, you know, this is this is a brilliant, brilliant place to be. And I know a lot of people train themselves to try and get into the zone.

Speaker 1 I don't know how it is for you, but for me personally, I don't think I've got to that stage. But I just enjoy it whenever I manage to feel that way.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I know that when I'm in the zone,

Speaker 3 it feels so natural and normal. And I wonder why can't I capture this in a bottle? Why can't I pull this out of my hat whenever I need it? But like you, I mean, I just,

Speaker 3 it comes when it comes, and it doesn't come when it doesn't come. Another one that I really want to hear the story about is because, again, I think it happens to everybody.

Speaker 3 You go get something in the kitchen because you need to go get it, and you walk in the kitchen, and you cannot remember why you came in. And

Speaker 3 it's maddening, but it seems very universal.

Speaker 1 I think it's absolutely universal and scientists have done some really interesting research into how that can be.

Speaker 1 You know, you're in one room, you have a very clear idea of why you need to walk into the next room.

Speaker 1 And then by the time you got there, which is what, all of a couple of seconds later, as you say, you just have no idea anymore. So researchers have done computer games and then in real life.

Speaker 1 So, you know, imagine people in a study, they're walking around,

Speaker 1 they've been asked to pick up and put down particular objects.

Speaker 1 And the way they managed this in the study was that the people had to put these objects into a box so they couldn't see what it was.

Speaker 1 And then as soon as they walked into another room, so they'd walked through a doorway, they were two or three times more likely to forget what it was that they had in their box, even if they'd only picked it up 20, 30 seconds before.

Speaker 1 But if they'd walked through a doorway, they were much more likely to forget what it was. And so

Speaker 1 essentially, there's, yeah, the research shows us that this is now known as the doorway effect. And basically, it tells us some really interesting stuff about how our memories work.

Speaker 1 So you think about your memory. Obviously, your memory is divided up into particular events.

Speaker 1 You don't, as we were talking about a little while ago, you don't have a continuous, perfect recall of your life. It's not like our memories are kind of video recorders recording everything.

Speaker 1 And so, at any one time, you know, you have a certain amount of information because you're in a particular event.

Speaker 1 But then, obviously, you know, you're going to move on to a new event and you can't hold on to all of the information from what you've just been doing previously.

Speaker 1 You don't have enough space in your brain.

Speaker 1 And so, essentially, once this particular event that you're in is over, your brain discards some of the information that it doesn't think is relevant anymore.

Speaker 1 So, you've got space to remember new, more relevant things.

Speaker 1 And so, that raises the question then of how does your brain decide when one particular event is over and a new one has begun?

Speaker 1 And this research shows very clearly that walking through a doorway is clearly a signal to our brains, something new has happened.

Speaker 1 What happened before, you know, that was relevant in the previous space that you were in. It's probably not relevant now.
So get rid of the old information so you've got room for the new.

Speaker 1 And research has found that even just imagining walking through a door, not even physically doing it, was enough to make people forget things more easily.

Speaker 3 We're talking about why you have the weird thoughts and habits that you have. And we're talking with Jen Martin.
She's author of the book, Why Am I Like This?

Speaker 3 The Science Behind Your Weirdest Thoughts and Habits.

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Speaker 3 So Jen, let's talk about eye contact because I think that's something I've always found interesting is like it's really tricky and it's hard to maintain and too much is creepy and too little is off-putting and it's it's weird.

Speaker 1 Yeah, eye contact's interesting, isn't it? So my day job is to teach scientists how to communicate more effectively. So I spend a lot of my time teaching students how to give better talks.

Speaker 1 And of course, one of the things that we talk about a lot when we're thinking about public speaking is making eye contact. That it's really good.
It encourages an audience to feel connected with you.

Speaker 1 It helps people to trust you. You know, making eye contact with an audience is really important.

Speaker 1 But the vast majority of our students find that actually when they're thinking carefully about what it is that they want to say next, they actually have to look away they find it almost impossible to maintain eye contact with somebody when they're when they need to think and so it turns out that actually

Speaker 1 You know, the more our brains are working away on a task, the more likely it is that we feel this really intense need to look away from someone's eyes, not because we're embarrassed or we're shy, just because actually it's so mentally stimulating to maintain eye contact with someone that our brains just completely become overloaded and so if you need to be able to think clearly you look away so there's eye contact is this really interesting balance that we know we judge people more positively at least in Western cultures I should point out we judge people as being more likable and more trustworthy if they make eye contact with us But similarly, we can't maintain eye contact all the time.

Speaker 1 So as you say, it's a really tricky thing.

Speaker 1 And seeing somebody's eyes, like we were talking about before, we're so tuned to whether people are watching us or not that eye contact has become this very important kind of social signal.

Speaker 3 So I know it's common for people to talk about that sensation that time seems to go by faster as you get older. And I know there are different theories as to why people have that sensation.

Speaker 1 One of them is called the proportionality theory.

Speaker 1 And it's a really simple argument that basically says a year seems to pass much, much faster when you're 40 than when you were four, because you know, when you're 40, a year is only a 40th of your life compared to a quarter of your life.

Speaker 1 But the research suggests that it's actually much more than that. And that's because when you were younger, you were having lots of new experiences all the time.

Speaker 1 You know, you tried new foods for the first time, you meeting new people far more often, you were doing new things all the time.

Speaker 1 And so you end up having having these really dense, full, rich memories because there was so much going on.

Speaker 1 But of course, as we get older, we tend to become more creatures of habit. We tend to see the same people more often.

Speaker 1 If you've got a job, even if your job has some variety, there's going to be a lot more kind of habit and routine in your life. And so the memories that we make just aren't as aren't as busy.

Speaker 1 There's not as much going on. So when we look back over our childhood, because we have these really busy, dense, full memories, we feel like our childhood took a really long time.

Speaker 1 Whereas if you look back over recent years, probably you didn't have as much variety in your life. And so the time feels like it's passed really, really quickly.

Speaker 1 So the clear answer, if you want to feel like time is not just disappearing really quickly as you age, is to actively seek out more new and different experiences.

Speaker 1 So, you know, go on a holiday, eat different food, meet new people, listen to different music, whatever it is, but just bring some novelty into your life. So I really like that idea.

Speaker 1 I mean, there's, look, I could talk about any of these topics till the cows come home.

Speaker 1 They're all stories that I chose particularly because I think they're fascinating and knowing some of the science behind the questions, not only does it get rid of the kind of urban myths and the old wives' tales, but it gives people some information, you know, on which to base their decisions.

Speaker 1 And I think science is relevant to all of us, which is why I love what I do so much. We all need to have access to science.

Speaker 3 One of the experiences that you write about and you talk about that I don't think I've ever experienced is the idea that you remember things that never happened. And so

Speaker 3 what do you mean by that?

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, it's a really interesting one because I think we all tend to think that our memories are pretty much infallible.

Speaker 1 You know, we recognize that we can't remember everything that goes on in our lives. It's just too much.

Speaker 1 So we tend to be aware that we remember particularly emotional experiences or particularly joyful experiences. So we accept that our brains probably don't remember everything.
But

Speaker 1 surprisingly, I agree with you. There's actually lots of evidence to show that we do construct memories.
You know, we fill the gaps and we make lots of mistakes.

Speaker 1 And so the research that I was talking about was looking into researchers who've gone out particularly trying to implant false memories within people. And it turns out that it's not that hard to do.

Speaker 1 There's kind of a recipe you can follow.

Speaker 1 And, you know, these psychologists ended up being able to convince people that they'd had a ride in a hot air balloon, even when they never had, by kind of, you know, photoshopping photos and showing them pictures of people in the hot air balloons and then getting them to kind of go through this, you know, imagined exercise.

Speaker 1 But then, you know, so that's kind of, you think, oh, yeah, well, that's okay. That would be quite nice.
What difference would it make in my life?

Speaker 1 But of course, this whole idea can have a really nasty, dark turn if you then read about the research where people, researchers could get people to commit to crimes that they'd actually never committed.

Speaker 1 You know, it's kind of scary to think that

Speaker 1 if you're a little bit prone to suggestion, which is what the research shows, that you can be convinced you've done things that you never, never did.

Speaker 3 Why does silence calm me? I think that's pretty universal, that silence will calm anybody down.

Speaker 3 Why is it? Is it self-evident or is there something going on there?

Speaker 1 I mean, I think there's two issues here. One is that a lot of people don't allow space for silence in our lives.
They're always talking to people or listening to music or listening to.

Speaker 1 podcasts or audio books. But of course, there's also the point that people, many people don't get to choose to live in quiet places.

Speaker 1 So there was a report back in 2011 from the World Health Organization looking at the burden of disease from noise. And they came out with some pretty shocking statistics.

Speaker 1 They reckon that at least one million healthy life years are lost every year.

Speaker 1 This was in Western Europe from people having to live with traffic related noise.

Speaker 1 So they found that one in five people were constantly exposed to levels of noise from the environment around them that were considered really harmful to their health. And so

Speaker 1 the research was showing that being exposed to noise all the time or often, which we call noise pollution, it can cause high blood pressure and heart disease and difficulty concentrating, obviously sleep problems is not surprising.

Speaker 1 And so the research looked, you know, what happens when we're exposed to silence. And in fact, the earlier studies here,

Speaker 1 it wasn't even what people were looking for. So it was about 15 years ago that people, scientists wanted to look at how music affects people physiologically.
So what does it do to our heart rate?

Speaker 1 What does it do to our blood pressure? And so they played people different types of music styles.

Speaker 1 and in order to allow people's you know so they were looking at what sort of a physiological response people had to this music and because they wanted people to kind of have the opportunity to reset between you know the jazz and the rock or whatever it was they had a two-minute track of silence in between and the most interesting thing to come from this study wasn't how people responded to the tempo or the rhythm or the melody of the music It was the fact that people had a major response to the silence.

Speaker 1 So during this silence, people relaxed in a way that they never relaxed when listening to music. So our brains seem to really depend,

Speaker 1 both our physical and our mental health seem to really depend on having access to quiet. And other studies have shown this in mice as well.

Speaker 1 The idea is that if you're feeling stressed and overwhelmed and exhausted, if you can find silence, then it's really good for you.

Speaker 1 Your brain will respond very positively to having some quiet in your life.

Speaker 3 Well, I know I've said several times in our discussion that

Speaker 3 this experience or that experience seems pretty universal because

Speaker 3 I've talked to so many people about most of everything we've just talked about, and everybody has these experiences and

Speaker 3 probably has theories as to why we do what we do, but it's interesting to hear the science behind it. Jen Martin has been my guest.
The name of her book is Why Am I Like This?

Speaker 3 The Science Behind Your Weirdest Thoughts and Habits. And there's a link to that book in the show notes.
Thanks for being here, Jen.

Speaker 1 Thanks so much for inviting me. I really appreciate it.

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Speaker 3 You influence other people all the time to a greater or lesser extent and in a positive or not so positive way. Yet we often don't stop to think about how it is we influence others.

Speaker 3 But actually, we're about to.

Speaker 3 With Tommy Spaulding, Tommy is an author and speaker, former CEO and president of Up With People, and his latest book is called The Gift of Influence, Creating Life-Changing and Lasting Impact in Your Everyday Interactions.

Speaker 3 Hey, Tommy, welcome.

Speaker 2 Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3 Sure. So explain what you mean about how we influence others and why this is important to talk about and understand.

Speaker 2 So every human being on this planet has an opportunity to influence people.

Speaker 2 Research shows that there are actually 2.8 people a day that we meet every day of our lives.

Speaker 2 If you take that and multiply that by 365 days times 78 years of our lives, which is average life expectancy, that's 80,000 people. So in our lives, we get a chance to influence 80,000 people.

Speaker 2 And the question is, will you have a positive influence or a negative influence on those people?

Speaker 3 When I think about most of my interactions throughout the day,

Speaker 3 I don't think of them as,

Speaker 3 well, some of them maybe, but I don't know that I'm influencing people so much as that I'm just interacting with them. And that's kind of how you get through the day.

Speaker 2 But every morning you can wake up and you can think about the people in your life, just 10 people who's going through a divorce, who's going through bankruptcy, who's got a son that's got depression, who's got a 50th wedding anniversary.

Speaker 2 Everyone in our lives has a story. And we can have an opportunity to follow up with that story and get to know people.

Speaker 2 and reach out to people and have an influence on their lives or we can just walk on by.

Speaker 2 I mean, my son is 14 years old, Mike, and he's a hockey player, and we dropped him off at boarding school three weeks ago.

Speaker 2 I never thought in a million years that we'd be sending our 14-year-old son to boarding school, but he's passionate about hockey. And we dropped him off three weeks ago.
I didn't want to cry.

Speaker 2 I wanted to be strong for him because it was tough to drop him off. And I wanted to be strong for my wife, Jill.

Speaker 2 When we went to the airport to fly home, we had a little lunch at the airport in Minneapolis, and then I told Jill I'd meet her at the gate.

Speaker 2 When I was walking to the gate, and there was a young woman at a table there at the coffee shop, just bawling, I mean, crying. And she was writing a letter.
And I just walked on by.

Speaker 2 I got to the gate and I thought to myself, that's one of my 2.8 people.

Speaker 2 That's one of the 2.8 people of my day that I could meet and I could have an influence on. And so I just turned around, Mike, and I went right back to that coffee shop.
I didn't ask to sit down.

Speaker 2 I just pulled up the chair and sat right down. and said to her, rough day.

Speaker 2 And she just started crying.

Speaker 2 And she said, she's from London and her boyfriend's from Minneapolis and they have this long distance relationship and that's not working and they're breaking up and it's it's hurtful and she's writing them a goodbye letter and so I kind of leaned into her and said well I just dropped off my 14 year old boy two hours ago and it's been a rough day and and I was just we just basically started crying and gave her a hug but I never got this lady's phone number or contact information.

Speaker 2 But I know that I made a huge influence in her life because I didn't walk on by. I turned around and was there for somebody.

Speaker 2 That's the kind of influence that we have an opportunity every day to have on the lives of others.

Speaker 3 I guess one of the reasons people walk on by when they see that is that often, or I don't know how often, but sometimes when you ask somebody, are you okay?

Speaker 3 Or, you know, sit down and try to talk to them, they'll say, you know, this is none of your business.

Speaker 3 Leave me alone. Yep.
And when you meet those people, you say, you're right.

Speaker 2 I hope you have a good day. And

Speaker 2 then you walk away. I mean, there's three types of people in the world.
There's leaders, followers, and critics. The world's full of critics.
This world's full of naysayers.

Speaker 2 The world's full of negative people. The people that you're talking about that just don't want to be touched or influenced.

Speaker 2 You got to focus on the 95% of the people that would just welcome a positive influence, a positive smile, a positive gesture

Speaker 2 into their lives.

Speaker 3 And so how do you initiate that without, again, looking like you're kind of butting into their business? You know, how do you approach that?

Speaker 3 What's the strategy?

Speaker 2 So when you have a genuine care for people,

Speaker 2 that's first and foremost. And everyone has a story.
I mean, every single human being has a story. And most of us don't take the time to listen to their story.
When you say, hi, how are you?

Speaker 2 And they say fine. They say, well, what's going on in your life? And they say, well, here's what's going on in my life.

Speaker 2 My son's got depression and I'm really struggling with that and blah, blah, blah. Like everyone has a story, but we move so fast, we're so transactional, we forget to stop and hear people's story.

Speaker 2 And that's the first part of positive influence.

Speaker 3 When someone says to you,

Speaker 3 you know, my son has depression, I'm struggling with that or whatever.

Speaker 3 What is it you say? And what is it you hope to accomplish other than to just let this guy know that you stopped to say hi or whatever? I mean,

Speaker 3 what's the purpose other than that?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So when if someone ever admitted that, that their son had depression or someone opened up when I asked how their day was, I would say to them, which is factual, my older stepson, who's at West Point Military Academy, struggled with depression and, you know, mental challenge, mental illness.

Speaker 2 And I've lived through it for most of my life. And by sharing that, it's vulnerability.
When they share something vulnerable and then I share something vulnerable, that's how you have connectivity.

Speaker 2 If you just talk about NSW, Mike, which is new sports weather, I mean, every relationship you have, all you talk about how the weather is, how the New York Yankees are doing, it's transactional.

Speaker 2 To have deeper, more meaningful relationships, you have to get vulnerable. And when you're vulnerable with people,

Speaker 2 it's contagious. They want to be vulnerable back.
And that's how you start forming more deeper, more meaningful relationships.

Speaker 2 And that's how you have a real influence on the lives of others when you can share a little bit about your story and have the interest in hearing their story as well.

Speaker 3 Do you ever find that this, that it gets exhausting? I mean, do you turn it off? And sometimes when you walk through the airport and you see someone like that, you go,

Speaker 3 I'm just not in the mood today.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. I mean, when I get on the airplane, the first thing I do is I put my AirPods on because I don't want to talk to the person sitting next to me.

Speaker 2 And it doesn't make me a mean person, but I just signed, you know, a thousand books or did a speech or worked with a client all day and I'm exhausted.

Speaker 2 So you do have to turn it off and find that time for with you. But you have to be intentional.
You can't have a life-changing impact in every single interaction of your life.

Speaker 2 But most of us go through every day without having one.

Speaker 2 And what my challenge is, it might not be 2.8 people for you. It might be one person or 10 people.
But every day, we have an opportunity to have an influence in the lives of others.

Speaker 2 And it could be positive, it could be negative, or worse, it could just be, you know, nothing. It could be neutral because you haven't had any impact at all.
And the choice is ours.

Speaker 3 So when you talk to strangers, when you talk to that woman at the airport who was crying writing that letter, yeah, maybe that was nice in the moment and it helped her in that moment.

Speaker 3 And maybe that's enough, I guess. But there is something about this that seems kind of surfacy.

Speaker 3 Like, you know, you're doing it to be nice and you're maybe even doing it partly for you to feel like you're doing something, but

Speaker 3 it probably doesn't have a big impact on other people. And maybe it doesn't have to, but there is that sense that this is kind of a surfacey relationship.
You'll never see this person again.

Speaker 3 It was nice in the moment, but it was just a moment.

Speaker 2 Not every relationship, I call them the five floors of relationships, and the first floor is transactional and the second floor is, you know, is is more the small talk.

Speaker 2 You move up to the fifth floor, which is deep, meaningful, lifelong relationship. Not every relationship, not every person that we meet every day is going to go to that fifth floor.

Speaker 2 The person at the airport that was crying, I just asked if she was okay and just checked in on her. That was just a one-time deposit, never see her again, and that's okay.

Speaker 2 But there's people in our lives that we'll meet every day and have a huge impact on. I have a friend named Jerry Middle that's 80 years old this year.

Speaker 2 This man has called me or taken me out to lunch or breakfast every week for the past 20 years. He's invested in my life.

Speaker 2 Besides my mother and father, no other human being has invested in me and had an interest in helping become a good husband and father and leader more than Jerry Middle.

Speaker 2 I have a friend named Frank D'Angelis, was the principal of Columbine High School during the tragedy, the school shooting. He's one of my five greatest mentors in my life.

Speaker 2 And for the past seven, almost eight years, he's texted me every morning to tell me he loves me. Every morning.
And it's not some superficial text.

Speaker 2 He says, good morning, Tommy, I'm not sure where in the world you are. I'm here thinking about you.
I love you. Every morning.
I mean, that's an influence when you check in with the people.

Speaker 2 So somewhere more one time, you know, you're at the airport, you see a girl crying, you check in with them, and then you're Jerry Middle and you're taking me out to lunch or calling me every week for 20 years.

Speaker 2 The choice is ours about what kind of relationship we want to have with people.

Speaker 3 The benefit to doing what you're talking about is what? The benefit both, I mean, the benefit to the person I get, but what's the benefit to you that makes this worthwhile and worth doing?

Speaker 2 When I hear that question, Mike, it refers me back to one of my favorite books by Adam Grant, that there's three types of people in the world. There's givers and there's takers and there's posers.

Speaker 2 And posers are what he calls people that pose as givers, but they're really takers. And for someone that wants to get something out of impacting others,

Speaker 2 they're takers.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's just a fact that there's givers and takers in the world, but true givers, true servant leaders, true heart-led leaders, people that wake up every morning and put others before themselves, they don't ask the question, what do I get out of it?

Speaker 2 When you influence people and give that gift of influence, it's a gift. And when you give a gift, you don't want anything in return.
But gifts are also received.

Speaker 2 I mean, we receive influence and there's people in our lives. I mean, who I am today is because hundreds of people have invested in me, mentored me, loved me, coached me.
and that's a gift.

Speaker 2 And I think we have to reciprocate and do that to the lives of others. That's what a true giver is.

Speaker 3 And so to do this,

Speaker 3 I would imagine that you have to be a little more intentional than walking through the airport and hoping to see somebody crying in the coffee shop.

Speaker 3 How do you do this as more of an intentional practice rather than a, oh, there's someone crying. I better go put my arm around them.

Speaker 2 Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2 so every morning i do what i call an influence audit i literally think about okay who in my life has a birthday today or for example i did a i did a meeting last year and i worked with this client and i got to know him really well and he was sharing that his daughter drowned uh um at their their nearby lake she was a high she was a high school kid and drowned and died and i said what day was that i said may 3rd well most people would say god that's terrible well i wrote in my calendar may 3rd is a reoccurring yearly thing.

Speaker 2 This happened years ago. So every May 3rd, you think that guy's having a hard time, Mike, on May 3rd? It's a pretty rough day for him, I would assume.
But most people would not do that.

Speaker 2 They would just say, oh, that's terrible. That happened.
But every May 3rd, I reach out to him. Hey, I'm thinking about you today.
You know, today's a hard day. It's those little things in our lives.

Speaker 2 So every day we have to have an audit who in our lives are going through something. And we know people, employees, customers, clients, family members.

Speaker 2 We know people that are going through things. It's sending him an email.
It's reaching out and letting them know you care.

Speaker 3 What do you hear back when you send a card or a text or a call on May 3rd? What's the reaction?

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 2 I have a friend named Scott, and he runs a huge bank in Colorado.

Speaker 2 A few years ago, tragically, his son was bullied, high school kid. His name is Teddy.
He was bullied so bad, they posted stuff on the the internet and they actually dared him to jump off a bridge.

Speaker 2 And the kid did. Teddy did.
He jumped off the bridge and was killed. And it was just tragic.
And this would happen years ago. And I called him all the time and

Speaker 2 told him I was thinking about him. And that's the hardest thing to go through is losing a kid through suicide.
And when I met with him years later, he shared it, you know, I have tons of friends.

Speaker 2 I know they cared. I know they felt sorry for me, but it's interesting.
Not many people really reached out because what do you you say during that situation?

Speaker 2 You know, I just turned 50 a few years ago and I had a dinner party and my best friend from high school stood up. Everyone was giving toasts.

Speaker 2 And Mike, and I'll never forget, Corey Torre, my best friend from high school said, when my wife left me 10 years ago, I was devastated. I have three young boys.

Speaker 2 And Tommy called me every day for a year to tell me he loved me. and tell me that he believes in me and my best days are ahead of me every day for a year.
That's commitment.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's what we have to do when people are going through tough times. If we do that in the lives of others, that's the true gift of influence.

Speaker 3 I remember an experience

Speaker 3 when someone I know

Speaker 3 had a death in the family, and I sent a card,

Speaker 3 a condolence card, and later talked to that person, and they said, you know, you're the only one that sent a card.

Speaker 3 Because I think because people don't know what to do, they don't know what to say, they don't know what to expect back.

Speaker 3 I think that's why a lot of people don't talk to homeless people because they're afraid of, you know, is this person going to go nuts?

Speaker 3 I talk to them all the time, and most of them are pretty normal, and are at least normal enough to have a conversation.

Speaker 3 But I think people like struggle. It's not that they don't want to be caring.
They don't know what's appropriate.

Speaker 2 Right. And when they don't know what's appropriate, here's what we say.

Speaker 2 Hey, Mike, I'm so sorry that that's going on in your life. If there's anything I can do, let me know.

Speaker 2 If there's anything I can do, let me know, is a cop-out.

Speaker 2 People that say, hey, if there's anything I can do, let me know, comes from cowards. And we all say it.
I say it.

Speaker 2 It's the most tragic thing we say to people. Because, Mike, what we're really saying is when someone says, man, I'm going to a tough time.
Here's what's going on.

Speaker 2 And you can say, oh, I'm so sorry you lost your mom. If there's anything I can do, let me know.

Speaker 2 What you're really saying is, listen, I really don't want to do anything, but I want you to think that I want to do something. I want to say the right thing.

Speaker 2 So I know you're not going to ever call me up and say, hey, there is something you can do for me. So I'm just going to say this nice gesture.
You're going to say, hi, how are you? I'm fine.

Speaker 2 It's just going to be transactional. If there's anything you need, let me know.
And they say, okay,

Speaker 2 no problem. And what you really need to say is, so sorry you lost your mom.
You must be going crazy with the kids, you know, back and forth with volleyball and softball practice and band practice.

Speaker 2 I'm going to come over tomorrow at five o'clock and drop off a meal. Oh, you don't have to do that.
I insist. I'll go to Tony's meets, pick up a meal.
I'm dropping off at five o'clock.

Speaker 2 I mean, boom, you just do it. Influencers don't tell people what they're going to do for them.

Speaker 2 Great influencers just do it and they make things happen and influence the lives of others, even when they're not asked.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I love that advice because I've often preached that myself because like if you go to somebody's house after somebody's somebody's died, oh, you know, I'm so sorry your father died,

Speaker 3 is there anything I can do to help? No one in the history of mankind has ever said, yeah, as a matter of fact, you know, there is.

Speaker 3 But the person obviously has things they need to get the kids to baseball practice or they need to get the kids to school or they need some help with this.

Speaker 3 And you just, and so, like you say, you just do it or say, you know, how, can I help by doing this? Or can I help by doing that? Or something. But that, that, I so agree with that comment.

Speaker 3 I thought you were going to say, I thought you were going to say, saying, is there anything I can do is a great thing to say? And I was going to go, oh, man, really? But no, I agree. It's 100%.

Speaker 3 Is there anything I can do is like the biggest cop out in the world? Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's just, Mike, it's all about showing up.

Speaker 2 When we have such an opportunity to show up, and, you know, we show up for our kids' ball games and we show up for family dinner and we show up for our immediate family.

Speaker 2 But when you can show up for other people i mean right now my son's at prep school you know boarding school he's you know month into it kids 14 years old he's homesick and it's amazing my friends in minnesota there's my realtor that we bought a home there is like taking him out the subway at night and checking in on him like so many people are pouring into our son tate knowing that he's homesick i mean it's like the most amazing gesture it just gives me so much hope that there's that good in the world and i think we need to return those great gestures by investing in the lives of others as well.

Speaker 3 Well, I've enjoyed this conversation because, and I'm guilty of it too, that, you know, we're all busy.

Speaker 3 We all have a lot on our mind, mostly about our world and the people in it and what we need to do and what we want and all that, that we often don't take time to think how we can influence and impact others.

Speaker 3 And listening to you, because you tell the stories well, gives people who have listened through this episode, gives people reason to think about how they can help.

Speaker 2 So here's where I really want to wrap this up is this picture at the end of our lives that we actually got to meet all 2.8 people a day. It's 80,000 people.

Speaker 2 What if at the end of our lives before we die that we got to meet every single person that we had a human interaction with, whether it's short term or long term? 80,000 people is a lot of people.

Speaker 2 Where would they fit? They fit in a football stadium.

Speaker 2 So what if at the end of our lives, every human being before we die, we walk on a 50-yard line of a football stadium and every single human being that we've had a human interaction with, we've had a positive or negative influence, is in that stadium saying goodbye.

Speaker 2 And the question is, Mike, what's the sound of that stadium? Are they booing because you've had a negative influence?

Speaker 2 Or even worse, Mike, is it silent? Is the stadium totally silent because you just looked down at your phone your whole life and never looked up to see who's in front of you?

Speaker 2 Great influencers impact lives every day.

Speaker 3 Or at least every other day.

Speaker 2 You could take a day off here and there.

Speaker 3 Great. Well, thanks, Tommy.
Tommy Spalding has been my guest, and the name of his book is The Gift of Influence: Creating Life-Changing and Lasting Impact in Your Everyday Interactions.

Speaker 3 And you'll find a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes.

Speaker 2 Mike, you're a great interviewer, by the way. You're a pro.

Speaker 3 Anyone who knows anything about negotiating knows to avoid using the phrase, okay, you owe me one.

Speaker 3 That's when you do someone a favor with this vague promise that you'll get repaid sometime in the future. According to negotiation expert Jim Thomas, payback never comes.

Speaker 3 It's much better to negotiate something specific in return at the time you agree to do the favor. That's when you have the power.
Later, you have none.

Speaker 3 The best way to do this is when someone asks you for something, instead of just giving it to them, think of the negotiation as a trading request.

Speaker 3 Be specific in what you want in return, as in, I'll give you X if I get Y in return. That seems fair.
And that is something you should know.

Speaker 3 While you're at it and you're listening to this podcast, drop a rating and review on the platform you're listening to. It really helps us.
I appreciate it. Just leave a rating and review.

Speaker 3 It'll take you, what, five, ten seconds. I'm Micah Ruthers.
Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

Speaker 4 Oh, the Regency Era.

Speaker 4 You might know it as the time when Bridgerton takes place, or the time when Jane Austen wrote her books.

Speaker 4 But the Regency era was also an explosive time of social change, sex scandals, and maybe the worst king in British history.

Speaker 4 And on the Vulgar History podcast, we're going to be looking at the balls, the gowns, and all the scandal of the Regency era.

Speaker 4 Vulgar History is a women's history podcast, and our Regency Era series will be focusing on the most rebellious women of this time.

Speaker 4 That includes Jane Austen herself, who is maybe more radical than you might have thought.

Speaker 4 We'll also be talking about queer icons like Anne Lister, scientists like Mary Anning and Ada Lovelace, as well as other scandalous actresses, royal mistresses, rebellious princesses, and other lesser-known figures who made history happen in England in the Regency era.

Speaker 4 Listen to Vulgar History wherever you get podcasts.

Speaker 5 The Infinite Monkey Cage returns imminently. I am Robin Ince, and I'm sat next to Brian Cox, who has so much to tell you about what's on the new series.

Speaker 3 Primarily eels. And what else?

Speaker 2 It was fascinating, though.

Speaker 5 The eels. But we're not just doing eels, are we? We're doing a bit.

Speaker 2 Brain-computer interfaces, timekeeping, fusion, monkey business, cloud, signs of the North Pole, and eels. Did I mention the eels?

Speaker 5 Is this ever since you bought that timeshare underneath the Sagaso C?

Speaker 2 Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.