Impossible To Ignore With Dr. Carmen Simon

Posted by John Livesay in podcast0 comments

 

After 48 hours, people will only remember about 10% of the things you’re saying. You need to be impossible to ignore because people will forget about the other 90%. So you really have to control that 10% and be as memorable as you can. When you’re giving a speech, you have to control your unifying message so that you can achieve that 10%. Join John Livesay as he talks to cognitive neuroscientist, Dr. Carmen Simon about her book, Impossible to Ignore. Learn more about the science behind your brain and memories. Find out how you can control your 10% today!

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Impossible To Ignore With Dr. Carmen Simon

Our guest is Dr. Carmen Simon, who’s an expert on how our brain works as it relates to memory. She said, “It’s so important for us to realize that unified memories shorten sales cycles. There’s a difference between surprise and novelty.” Find out what she means. Enjoy the episode.

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Our guest is Dr. Carmen Simon, who is the Chief Science Officer at Corporate Visions, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, a cognitive neuroscientist and a keynote speaker. Dr. Simon has pioneered a groundbreaking approach to creating memorable messages that are easy to process, hard to forget and impossible to ignore using the latest in brain science. Her book, Impossible to Ignore: Creating Memorable Content to Influence Decisions has won the acclaim of publications such as Inc., Fortune, Forbes and Fast Company and was one of the top books selected on persuasion.

She holds two doctorates, one in Instructional Technology and another in Cognitive Psychology. She also, in her spare time, happens to teach at Stanford and speaks to audiences on the importance of using brain science to craft communication that’s not only memorable but sparks action. Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. It’s great to be here and share some practical guidelines with everyone from the angle of how the brain works.

Let’s go back to your story, Dr. Carmen. How did you get interested in how our brain works, childhood and some big moment in school? Where did that all begin for you?

We could identify some pivoting moments. I remember a time when I was listening to a lot of pitches because I knew that this was the essence of the show. I recognize that after a few days, if I was listening to multiple vendors present to me on various solutions or platforms they had to offer, I couldn’t distinguish which one was which. I tended to give credit to the more familiar source.

 

Let’s say that you would hear from, 1) Everybody knows about and, 2) Others that are not so widely known. Even though the other ones may have had better pitches, I would be associating those memories with the wrong source. I thought, “How unfair that somebody puts a lot of effort into creating a message and pitch and then days later, it dissolves so much to the point of not being able to discern what was what?”

That’s what inspired me to ask more prominently questions such as what is it that we remember? Why do we remember those things? It’s from getting all that bad. Let’s ease the pressure for a moment. It’s a good thing that the brain forgets. You couldn’t have customers and be married if you weren’t that memorable all the time. Forgetting has evolutionary value but at some point, it is important to control what others remember. That’s the essence of my work and what has inspired me to get started on this.

That’s an interesting dichotomy there. Our brain always is like, “Forgetting is not all bad?” Can you expand on that? Gives us an example. I know, for example, you probably want to forget extreme pain and grief or maybe not hold onto resentment. That’s how I can apply it. Do you have other thoughts about that?

Look at memory and forgetting as two sides of the same coin. Whenever you are approaching your audiences, perhaps you are a new entrepreneur, developing a new product or presenting something internally, it doesn’t matter. We know that the brain will remember and forget many things. You must not worry so much about the rate of forgetting. That is imminent at a steep. After 48 hours, we’re recognizing that people will remember only about 10% of the things that you’re saying and forget about 90%.

I’m looking at those numbers as metaphorical numbers because it is possible that sometimes you remember 18% of the entire message that you heard or only 3%. I did a study a few years back where I investigated what people remembered after viewing twenty slides in a deck. 1/3 of the population came back after 48 hours and said, “What presentation?”

It’s possible that people would remember 0 after 48 hours. There were 1,500 people in that study too. It was a fairly large population. We must be humble by the rate of forgetting and the quality of the memories that stay. I want to emphasize that a bit more because what happens is not only do people forget a lot but the low they remember is random.

[bctt tweet=”Forgetting has evolutionary value, but at some point, it’s important to control what others remember.” username=”John_Livesay”]

You could take charge of the memories that you want to put in other people’s brains. People may remember such unusual or unified things sometimes. If you ever wondered why sales cycles are long or why people don’t make decisions in your favor quickly is because often, they walk away remembering different things. Unified memory is what leads to faster and better decision-making.

Is there a tip that you have for the readers on whether they’re a sales presenter or a speaker like you and I are? What can we be saying or doing to get unified memories?

Let’s think about some practical guidelines you can apply. If you want to control what others remember, first, you have to clarify what they must remember. A lot of people aspire at being memorable but not many of them know what they want to be memorable for. Let’s choose a mantra for our episode for the time that we are together, for instance. Let’s say that after 48 hours, you and I want people to remember this phrase, “Control your 10%.”

People will forget a lot, so it’s important to at least be in charge and deliberate about the little they remember, so control your 10%. How do you get there? First, clarify it. The moment that is very clear to you, you increase the likelihood that it will be clear to them. If it’s nebulous to you, it will be nebulous to them. I remember I was about to deliver a keynote and the person before was about to hop on stage.

I asked him, “Do you know what you want people to remember?” He says, “Yes, I have these four points that I want them to take away.” He told me the four points. I was impressed that he knew those. I said, “Are they covered in your slides?” He said, “No.” It’s a little disconnect there. If somebody else creates slides for you or you are collaborating with other people, make sure that you aspire to unified memories, so all of you internally are also unified on what that 10% message is.

One of the things I say as a storytelling keynote speaker is if you remember only one thing from this talk, I want you to remember this, hoping that gets them to sit up a little bit or maybe take a note.

 

From a neuroscience perspective, this is what I would like for us to think about. When you say, “If you remember nothing else, remember this,” we’re almost indicating that the rest of the components that you talk about may not be as important. The qualifying phrase I’d like to offer would be to say, “Remember this important message and everything else that you hear is in service of that message.” This way, 90% is used in the service of the 10%. Your entire segment, whether you’re speaking for 10 minutes or 1 hour, is going to be seen as a unified whole that serves the importance of 1 main message and a few supporting points.

Our goal as speakers is to give something that people can easily remember and instantly use. One of the things that I have found that seems to stick is how to overcome frustration, aggravation, disappointment, rejection and all the things that salespeople deal with, with something I’ve called the 555. “Will this matter in 5 minutes, 5 hours or 5 days from now?”

When you zoom out like that, you go, “Why am I still talking about that? Somebody is cutting me off in traffic.” I have found that it’s easy to remember and use. They start emailing each other and going, “You should 555 that.” That’s how I know it stuck. It’s fun to watch it in action when you see somebody remembering and using something.

I like what you’re saying in terms of being easy to use. From a neuroscience perspective, we would translate that into how much energy is necessary to process something and how much energy you have to even keep something alive in your mind for a while? Cognitive ease would be the phrase that we offer in the sense that whenever you’re phrasing that 10% message and some supporting points for it, think about concepts that do come to the brain fairly easily. Don’t ask for a huge cognitive demand because sometimes people may not have it.

Not everything should come easily because if there is no challenge, after a while, we flirt with boredom. For some of the points that you want people to remember, do allow for some of that cognitive ease. I remember a book that I enjoy a while back. It’s In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. His three supporting points for that main message are Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

You don’t necessarily have to agree with that message but like 555, it is so easy to process, take to the grocery store and go there. If we look at some corporate messages and things that reside in some communication, they’re so abstract and lingo-ish that sometimes they don’t come to the mind and roll off the tongue easily like your example.

[bctt tweet=”Remember your important message and that everything else is in service of that message.” username=”John_Livesay”]

When Inc. Magazine called me “The Pitch Whisperer,” sometimes people go, “I know what a dog whisperer or a horse whisperer is. What is a pitch whisperer?” I have found that because it’s already in our brain that our brain is going, “I almost know what that is. I can try to figure it out.” The cognitive ease you’re talking about is half of it is already locked in and we’re just putting a little twist on it.

There’s a beauty in what you’re offering with pitch whisperer. With that combination of the two words, we may have recognized the word pitch. We may have recognized the word whisperer but may have not necessarily thought of putting them together. We talked about clarifying your 10% and offering some cognitive ease. Let’s add another practical guideline learning from you and how the brain works, which is offering an element of surprise. I emphasize that surprise is different than novelty. Sometimes people treat those two terms interchangeably.

They are distinct. Novelty is something that you have not seen or experienced before. Surprise is something that you have experienced or seen before but did not expect. We have seen a pitch and heard of a pitch. We have seen and heard of a whisperer but did not expect to see them together. As our readers are reflecting on their messages and approaches to their customers, can all of us think of ways in which we can combine some familiar things, so you have the cognitive ease but in a way that the brain did not expect?

I interviewed a humor specialist. He was talking about that in comedy, when they find that something grabs your attention, humor surprise, you say, “What else is true if this is true?” For example, one of the things I’ve said in talks is, “I’ve read this research that taking a cold shower burns fat, fights depression and reduces inflammation. It had me at burns fat,” and people usually laugh.

He said, “Let’s take that. If that’s true, what else is true in that premise? You could then follow it up by saying, ‘I’ve stopped working out altogether. All I do is take three cold showers a day.’” It gets another laugh. Our brain is going, “That’s absurd the first time. I almost relate to it cause burns fats are enough reason for me to take a cold shower too.” You’re amused because there’s that element of surprise you’re talking about.

If we think about a surprise from a biological level, a surprise is always bad for the brain. Why is that? The brain is constantly looking to predict the next moment. Many of our readers are probably in the predictive analytics space. The most advanced predictive engine on the planet is the brain. If we know how to predict, then we know how to prepare for the next moment and what to do next. We constantly sharpen our predictive powers.

 

One of the ways that we sharpen it is to not be surprised. What a surprise but a failure to predict what happens next. I did not see it coming that showering in the cold water would burn fat. I did not predict that. The reason why we still enjoy surprises and welcome and appreciate them is that the difference between what you expect to happen and what happens is how the brain learns. This is so important for all of us to keep in our minds.

One of the reasons why you want to pepper your pitches with surprises is because then you will give your audiences a learning moment. You wouldn’t want to have too many of those because surprise will be taxing at some point. Too many of those will border you into this realm of there is too much going on all at once. Even a few across a psychological sequence of a pitch will be potent enough to get the brain to say, “I didn’t expect this but this is a good thing for me to remember.”

You’re talking about unified memory shortening sales cycles. People are like, “I didn’t expect that was the cause of that. I’m learning that if I want a group of people to say yes altogether, I need to come up with something.” In my situation, I typically offer a story that they can remember and repeat. We’re wired. I’d love your input as your expertise is on this. You have two PhDs. Our story is easier for us to remember because we are encoding the visuals with emotions with it than just some facts.

We can deconstruct a few segments of what storytelling is. Not just what storytelling is but memorable storytelling. The brain can forget stories like anything else. Just because you share a story, it still does not guarantee memory. Let’s see where we would place it because so far, we talked about making sure that you clarify your 10%, have some cognitive ease around that 10% message and include some elements of surprise, not many but not too few.

We’re talking about what is the merit of stories on that 10% message you want other people to remember? We could dedicate a full episode or a few to storytelling alone. Let me bring in our view on some segments that we know will contribute to making a story memorable. One reason why some stories, not all, are memorable is that when they do it well, they create a vivid context in our brains.

For example, I’m hooked on The Golden Girls. I don’t know why but I love them. Sophia, if any of our readers are familiar with the older Golden Girl, is an outstanding storyteller. Many of her stories start with, “Picture it. It was 1921 and this poor girl was walking the streets of Sicily.” The moment that she says, “Picture it,” and I see the poor peasant girl and the streets of Sicily, I’m already placed in a physical context. I wish more business communicators would help our brains still be transported into a physical context. The moment that you have a physical context, it’s not just what the brain remembers but how we remember.

[bctt tweet=”Unified memories shorten sales cycles.” username=”John_Livesay”]

For example, if I asked any one of us, “Do you remember what you were wearing two days ago?” I guarantee that the moment that I ask that question, whether you can come up with the answer or not, that’s irrelevant, you’re immediately asking yourselves, “What day was it two days ago? Where was I two days ago?” The moment you can place yourself in that physical context is the moment that enables you to retrieve some memories. Unfortunately, some business content is so darn abstract that we’re missing out on the opportunity to tell the brain where to position itself and what to see around it.

I talk about the importance of exposition and painting that picture instead of jiving in. Otherwise, you’re like, “Did this happen six days ago or six years ago? Where are we in the world?” The more specific you get with a story of the person’s name and maybe even an age frame, we can start to hear about what their problem is once we get those details in. I love this little exercise of what’d you wear two days ago and you’re in the moment going, “Two days ago, did I have an important event? What I’ve up for that?”

Here’s the thing. Before you’re verbal as a child, you don’t have a lot of memories. Maybe you got occasional glimpses. There are no words to attach to the memory. Is that accurate? Is that why children, for the most part, don’t have a lot of childhood memories that they can recreate or talk about before a certain age?

Many of the brain parts that are responsible for some of these memories and the pathways between them are not fully developed. That’s why you can’t claim a memory from the age of three.

My whole thing is when you tell a story that tugs at people’s heartstrings, they’re more likely to open the purse strings.

Emotion, in addition to a physical context, is a strong influencer of memory. If you have a strong emotion in a positive or negative sense, you are increasing the likelihood of memory because the electrochemical signal is much stronger in those moments. The trouble is that sometimes people don’t know how to bring it in and connect it with their 10% message.

Sometimes people are discouraged because they say, “I work in B2B. Our content is not as exciting as talking about weddings, babies or puppies.” It is not an emotional frown. To those, I would say that if indeed you’re dealing with some content that is by its nature devoid of emotion, there are two other sources of emotion. The audiences will bring to the table some emotions of their own and you, as the deliverer of that pitch, can carry some emotion as well.

I’m sure you have heard some dispassionate delivery of pitches and the opposite. A few years back, there were these two gentlemen from India who were talking about this predictive analytics platform. When I heard them talk about it, you would have said that this is the most amazing thing that ever happened in the world of predictive analytics. I don’t necessarily like the word passion because it’s hard for us to measure from a neuroscience perspective. The energy you can measure. Their energy was so infectious. I could have sat there and listened to this world of predictive analytics for many hours.

My premise is that people buy your energy. I’ve had a speaking agency. They interviewed you and two other potential speakers and picked you because they liked your energy. I thought, “There it is.” It’s not often that they’re that obvious with it like, “We liked your content and book.” They go, “You made us feel good. We figured you could make the audience in the ballroom feel equally good.”

As we’re thinking about controlling our 10%, which we have chosen as the mantra, ask a question to yourselves, “How much chemistry do I have with that 10%?” Sometimes we don’t necessarily have chemistry with the content that is given maybe by somebody else. Every so often, if you want to control others to remember that 10%, question and bring forward that chemistry with that message.

Let’s talk a little bit about your wonderful book, Impossible to Ignore. How did you come up with that title? What’s an example of something impossible to ignore besides hot coffee spilled on you?

[bctt tweet=”Create a gap between people’s expectations so they are open to learning.” username=”John_Livesay”]

I was reflecting on the message of that book from an epiphany that I had through the research I was doing at the time. This is what I recognized. Whenever we remember something, we have some options. You can recollect what happened to you in the past and maybe it was something impossible to ignore, like your wedding, the birth of your children or a high school sweetheart that never returned your feelings.

There are some moments from the past that would reside in your memory very strongly and distinctly. That’s called a retrospective memory. However, the epiphany that I had was that from an evolutionary perspective, the reason why we have memory capabilities anyway is not so much to recollect the past, which is important. It’s to recollect the future.

This is an important distinction. If you think about some memory errors that happen to you through the week, which I’m sure that all of us have, 60% to 80% of memory errors that get us frustrated are not connected to something that you forgot from the past or some plans that you’ve set for the future that you forgot to act on.

You thought, “Let me pick up the dry cleaning on my way home.” You forget. “Let me pick up that coffee that later might spill.” You forget. I asked my husband to pick up some bread on the way from work. Did he do it? No. He showed up at home and thought, “Wasn’t there something that I was supposed to do?” He had to go back.

These prospective memory ideals that we have is what we want to be concerned with because in business, which is the only reason why people are even listening to us, what is it that you hope for your clients? You hope that they come and listen to you so that they can make a decision in the future. Prospective memory must become a topic that we all speak about a bit more frequently because then you rephrase your questions about not only, “What is my 10% and how do I control it,” but, “How do I control it at the moment in the future when people might be able to act on what I have to say?”

Any last thought or quote you want to leave us with?

Let’s think about a quote that would help us control the 10% and think about what people might do in the future and act in your favor. As we think about some of the practical guidelines that we have already shared, let’s tell our audience that if you want people to act on your cause, make sure that they remember your cause.

Often to remember the cause, they will have to even see or pay attention to your cause. Attention, memory and decision-making are three elements that must be at the forefront for any business communicator. The moment that you can influence attention, you’re more likely to influence memory. If you influence memory, you’re more likely to influence decisions in the future when they happen.

The book is Impossible to Ignore. This episode is certainly impossible to forget. We’re controlling our 10%. If people want to reach out to you, they can go to CorporateVisions.com. Thank you so much, Dr. Carmen, for sharing your incredible insights on how we remember things.

Thank you, everyone. Remember to control your 10%.

 

Important Links

• Corporate Visions
• Impossible to Ignore: Creating Memorable Content to Influence Decisions
• In Defense of Food
• https://CorporateVisions.com/about/leadership/
• Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course

 

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Tags: Cognitive Ease, Delivering Emotion, Forgetting, Impossible To Ignore, Know Your Message, Unified Memories