The Blind Spots Between Us With Dr. Gleb Tsipursky

Posted by John Livesay in podcast0 comments

We like to think of ourselves as intelligent beings. After all, are we not the most evolved organisms on the planet? Sophisticated as our brains may be, they are specifically wired to be prone to a large number of cognitive biases that affect how we communicate and build relationships with other people. Whether you’re talking about business or personal relationships, falling prey to our cognitive bias leads to bad decisions and, ultimately, disaster. We have over 100 cognitive biases. Cognitive neuroscientist and Disaster Avoidance Experts CEO, Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, takes the 30 most dangerous ones for relationship building and effective communication and discusses them in his new book, The Blindspots Between Us. In this interview with John Livesay, he goes in-depth into the two most common and insidious forms of cognitive biases that we are constantly subscribing to, to the detriment of our business and relationships.

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The Blind Spots Between Us With Dr. Gleb Tsipursky

Our guest is Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, who is the author of The Blindspots Between Us. He talks about the importance of emotions being like underwear, and that you don’t want to go commando into your next sales call. I love that. That was very playful and clever. He’s quite intelligent and talks about cognitive bias, which is when we think something is true, when in fact it’s false. For example, people buy illogically and then you throw out a bunch of information. He and I are definitely on the same page that people buy emotionally and that they need stories to pull them in. Find out what the other cognitive biases are that you might be doing and making mistakes that you can learn to avoid. Enjoy the episode.

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Our guest is Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, who defends people from relationship disasters caused by dangerous judgment errors, known as a cognitive bias. He does this with consulting, speaking and training as the CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts. He’s a Cognitive Neuroscientist and Behavioral Economist. He has over 550 articles, everything ranging from Fast Company to being in Psychology Today. He is a bestselling author known for Never Go With Your Gut. He is writing a book about resilience, which we all need about adapting to COVID. We’re going to be talking about his latest book, which is The Blindspots Between Us: How to Overcome Unconscious Cognitive Bias and Build Better Relationships. Gleb, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for inviting me, John. It’s a pleasure.

Our mutual friend, Dr. Mark Goulston, lots of doctors, you’re a doctor, he’s a doctor, referred me and he always has amazing relationships and contacts. You and I had a chat previous to the show, and you have a very unique set of insights to share with us. Before we get to that, Gleb, I like to ask my guests to take our readers on their own little story of origin. How did you become you? Were you a little boy saying, “Someday, I’m going to become a doctor and figure out how to help people avoid disasters?” You can take us back to childhood, college, wherever you want.

I will take it back to childhood and it wasn’t quite about disasters. It was about decisions. That’s what my fundamental area of expertise. How do we make decisions go well? How do we make decisions badly? How do we avoid the bad decisions? When you look at disasters, disasters come from bad decisions. That’s where disasters come from. There are two types of decisions that lead to disasters. Either we actively make a bad decision, so our initiative causes a bad decision or a series of bad decisions that lead to a disaster, or we fail to foresee a disaster. We fail to foresee and take action, make the decision that would result in avoiding disaster. Those are the kinds of things that result in disasters. My interest in decision-making stems from my childhood, when I saw my parents making some pretty bad decisions in their personal lives. For example, my mom, she liked to buy nice clothing. She’d go out, she’d buy a $100 sweater. My dad was a cheapskate, so she’d come home and he’d yell at her, “No sweater should be worth over $20.” She’d bring up how he always leaves the toilet seat up.

Where did you grow up? Where is this happening?

This was happening already in the former Soviet territory of a country called Moldova, which was liberated from Soviet domination, Russian domination in 1991. That’s when my parents immigrated to the United States and that happened in the United States. I was ten when they immigrated. It happened definitely before that and afterwards.

It’s important to get that context. It’s fascinating for them to realize why your dad might be perceived as a cheapskate based on his background there, and now they’re in the States and still bringing some of those choices, beliefs and decisions. Even though you changed locations, your mindset sometimes comes with you.

[bctt tweet=”Disasters come from bad decisions.” username=”John_Livesay”]

That does not change. That basic dynamic between them did not change. I kept doing that and the thing is all throughout my childhood, both back in Moldova and in the United States, nothing changed. They kept doing the same things and they kept not changing their behavior. My mom kept buying nice clothing and my dad kept yelling at her. I grew up frustrated. It impacted me as a kid to see my parents fight over something so stupid. As a kid, I was seeing this stupid thing to fight over. Even more stupidly, there was no change. They kept hurting each other, dealing with each other to these emotional blows all the time, but their behavior didn’t change. My mom kept buying the clothing. My dad kept yelling at her and they kept having these conflicts.

I kept hoping that somebody would sit me down and say, “Here’s how I make good research decisions about communicating about your relationships with others,” but nobody did. In other life areas, there was nobody who taught me how to make good decisions. That didn’t happen in school. Not in elementary school, not in middle school, not in high school. Nobody taught me to make good decisions in college and that’s not taught in business school either. I became interested in how do you make good decisions? How do you avoid the bad relationship patterns and communication patterns that my parents fell into? I didn’t want that for my relationships. I didn’t want that for my professional life. I am the CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts. As the CEO of a consulting, coaching and training company, I’m obviously in sales.

Dr. Gleb, can you define for us what a disaster is in business?

A disaster in business is anything that significantly impacts your bottom line in a negative way. Anything like that is a disaster and that’s what I wanted to help people avoid. Right now, as the CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts, I’m obviously in sales. I know that there are many things, many of these dangerous judgment errors that harm the fundamental relationships that you have to build in sales and the effective communication that you have to have in sales. That’s something I learned as I went into the job of consulting, coaching, and training. Initially, I didn’t know anything about sales. I was fascinated with decisions and decision-making. As I learned about this topic, people started asking me about it and that’s how I began to be consulting, coaching and training on this topic. I’ve been doing that for over twenty years. I learned that there’s very little quality information available out there in the popular literature and the popular media on making good decisions. It boils down to go with your gut, trust your intuitions, follow your heart. The Tony Robbins, be primal, be savage, that’s unfortunately incredibly damaging and causes people to lose sales all the time and make very bad decisions about everything from selling to storytelling to all other areas of business.

What’s the biggest mistake people are making when they’re trying to sell someone?

The biggest mistake people are making when they’re trying to sell someone is going for their mind as opposed to going for their hearts. There’s a cognitive bias, a specific, dangerous judgment error that we make as human beings because of how our brain is wired. That’s called the empathy gap. The empathy gap is when they underestimate the extent to which emotions move other people or influence other people. When you look at the research, I mentioned there was very little quality literature out there making good decisions. It’s popular literature. I had to go into academia and become a cognitive neuroscientist, which is the study of how our brain works and how it impacts the way that we function, and the behavioral economist, which is how human beings behave in economic situations. I’ve been doing that for many years.

In order to get somebody to take an action and buy something, or even hire you or enroll in graduate school, you have to look at their thought process as well as their pocketbook. People look at something and they go, “I want that or I need that,” like in your mom buying the dresses. There’s some behavior bias on why she needed to buy a certain price point to feel good about herself or proud about what she was wearing. If we define cognitive biases, so a bias is when we tend to have a prejudice one way or the other based on our thoughts. Is that what cognitive bias is?

Cognitive Bias: There are so many dangerous judgment errors that harm the fundamental relationships that you have to build in sales.

Cognitive bias is a mistake we make in our thinking when we think one thing is true, but it’s actually not true.

Do we have an example of that?

I mentioned the empathy gap. When people think that other people are moved by reason by logic.

It’s a cognitive bias mistake to think that people buy logically when they in fact buy emotionally. That’s an example of a cognitive bias.

That is one out of over 100 cognitive biases. That is a fundamental mistake because what the research in cognitive neuroscience shows us is that our motivation, about 80% to 90% of what motivates us comes from our emotions. It comes from what we feel, not what we think.

I had a conversation with the dean at a prestigious university who’s in charge of marketing. He was saying, “You’re always telling, ‘People tug on the heartstrings and people open their purse strings.’ I’m not sure that I agree with that for all products.” His premise was that telling something that’s tugging at heartstrings, it’s emotional might be good to get people intrigued to get into the sales funnel. Maybe you want to close your request to get students to enroll in a graduate program with an emotional play. He says, “Everything in between there is a logical decision. It’s not impulsive. They want a return on investment.” I get at the end the emotional tug would be your life will be better or this will be a new chapter you’re investing in yourself.

That’s his thought process. My whole premise, which I would love your expert opinion on, is that you need the emotional storytelling throughout the entire funnel. It’s not that the opening and closing. I actually work with people in turning these boring case studies, whether it’s a technical situation, or in this case, trying to get someone to enroll in an expensive graduate program. You still should be using case stories to emotionally pull people in so that they see themselves in that person’s life that went through the program and want to go on that journey versus only using emotions at the beginning. My first question to you is, do you think that’s true that we should have emotional storytelling throughout the entire funnel, or only as he’s suggesting at the beginning of the end?

[bctt tweet=”People absolutely buy emotionally for everything. They just don’t realize it.” username=”John_Livesay”]

We must have emotional storytelling throughout the entire funnel. His perspective is silly. He’s not realizing what’s happening. This is fundamentally a mistake where he is thinking people are logical. I was a professor for over fifteen years. I understand how professors relate to each other and they relate to each other mainly through logic and reason. They perceive that other people are logical and reasonable. What’s important fundamentally underneath that is a combination of fear, anxiety, status-seeking, respect seeking, intellectual one-upmanship, competition. Those are all things that are fundamentally emotional. That dean does not realize that.

What we do is complicated. I hear a lot of people tell me, “In technology, people don’t make an emotional decision to do that. We need to show how smart we are and that this is an engineering choice.” My second question based on his comment was do you think that people buy emotionally for everything, not just certain products?

They absolutely buy emotionally for everything, but they don’t realize it. When there’s an engineer, let’s say a software engineer describing a product, there’s a demonstration of status of smartness. That makes people feel more confident, more trusting in what’s going on. Confidence and trust are the emotions that are appealing to. Of course, if the engineer doesn’t realize that what’s going on is that she or he is appealing to confidence and to trust, they’re not going to be doing that in the most effective manner. Emotions are like underwear. You don’t show that you know what’s going on. They’re the framework, but you need to not go commando to a sales pitch because that will not be good for you. That will not be good for your sale. You want to understand the emotions that the other person is experiencing. If you haven’t taken the time to create an emotional profile of the person that you are going to sell on and you haven’t taken the time to think of the stories, you want an emotional profile, and that is fundamental. You want to see what the person will resonate with. You want to think about how stories will impact the emotional profile at various elements. The stories are going to be the tools, the tactics that you use to appeal to the person. Those are the tools that you should work with when you’re pitching people.

Gleb, what made you write The Blindspots Between Us? How did you come up with that title and what made you want to write this book?

What made me want to write this book is seeing all the problems in communication. I’ve been doing consulting, coaching and training for over twenty years. I’ve been in academia for over fifteen years and there’s no book out there on the cognitive biases in communication and in relationships. This was sad to me to see that people are making so many mistakes. My fundamental value set is as utilitarian. I want the most good for the most number. Seeing people suffer unnecessarily, make terrible mistakes, everything from losing sales to going for divorces because of bad communication and not realizing what the basis for the relationships is. The basis for relationships is fundamentally emotional. There are so many mistakes that we make when we try to approach other people on the logical basis. What the research on this topic shows us is that we as human beings, we are fundamentally pattern-making and storytelling machines.

When you look at the evolutionary basis of what our gut reactions are, what our emotions are, we look for patterns, and that is a fundamental aspect of who we are. Those patterns are most effectively conveyed through patterns and stories. Those are all very effectively appealing to emotions. You want to understand the patterns that people will see. How will you tie your pitch to their needs? There needs to be a pattern that they resonate with. The story is a way of creating that pattern, that effective pattern, that narrative that appeals to their underlying emotions.

Let’s pivot a little bit on a personal level because this book appeals to both personal relationships and business relationships. Let’s say I have a friend and he keeps tending to date the same person. He tends to find himself not purposely or consciously going out. “I met this woman and it turns out she’s a nurse and I like nurses. They’re compassionate, they’re caring, they’re this or that. I dated her and then it was a horrible breakup.” Two years later, he dates some other people and now, “I’m getting married to a nurse.” That lasted for a number of years and then they got divorced. Now he’s saying, “John, do you think I should stop dating nurses?” Is that a pattern? I’m fascinated to hear what your thoughts are on that? Is that something that’s a coincidence? You’ve heard it many times like, “I married my parents or I keep attracting people that don’t treat me well,” or whatever the issue is. Let’s go as basic as this, “I’ve had two bad experiences with nurses in my dating life. Therefore, I should make her an absolute rule for myself going forward I’m never going to date another nurse.” What do you think about that?

The Blindspots Between Us: How to Overcome Unconscious Cognitive Bias and Build Better Relationships

What you want to look at is what’s under the quality of the nurse. If you’re looking for people who are compassionate, let’s say. If that’s the reason you’re looking for nurses, there are lots of caretaker people who will be compassionate. They don’t have to be nurses. If you have breakups with nurses and in general, with compassionate people, that might indicate that you’re looking too much for compassion, those people are already giving of themselves in the world. You might be looking for love in the wrong place in that sense.

You mentioned that there are over 100 cognitive biases besides making the mistake that what you think is true is not true. You could make a joke about the majority of people believe that the world is in fact round and not flat, but some people maybe have that cognitive bias that they think it’s flat. They don’t trust science. Is there another big cognitive bias where people think something is true and they behave accordingly that you say, “That’s such a problem in business?”

One of the other biggest ones I want to highlight is called the illusion of transparency. The illusion of transparency is the idea that when you say or convey something, the other person understands 100% of what you mean perfectly well. That is the biggest cause of miscommunication that I see. The empathy gap is the biggest cause of problems and challenges through relationships, but in the direct communication, the illusion of transparency is the biggest one.

For example, if I say dog, I assume I mean my adorable King Charles, and you might be thinking Great Dane, right?

Exactly. It’s semantics and so much more, and the dog is one thing. When you say dog and to somebody who is from a culture where people eat dogs, you’re thinking pet and that person might be thinking food. That is another fundamental misunderstanding because when you say something, we don’t realize the mental associations we have with certain terms and certain concepts. We assume the other person has the same mental associations with these concepts or the same stories. We’re talking about stories, we understand our life, our surroundings through stories. When we say dog, you have a certain story of a dog in your head. The other person has a very different story. Most likely they have a dog in their head unless you know very well that they have the same story.

If you and your wife have the same dog and have the same pet, you probably have a similar story, but otherwise, you most likely don’t. When you’re doing a sales pitch, let’s say when you’re conveying certain information, you have a lot of knowledge about the product or the service that you’re trying to sell. That’s why salespeople often try to sell the grass seed instead of the lawn. They talk about the product. They don’t talk about the other person’s needs. They don’t talk about what the other person needs. They focus on conveying information. They assume. They feel. That gut reaction is to feel like the other person would automatically understand the outcome because they describe the qualities. That is fundamentally flawed. That is not how the other person thinks. They don’t have the same stories. They don’t have the same associations that you do with what you’re describing. With the content, with the idea, or with the message that you’re trying to convey. What you need to do is discover their stories. What they are thinking about the topic that you’re going to be talking about? Not what you’re thinking, but what they are thinking. Target your messaging toward their thought patterns. That’s the first step. You want to check for understanding. You want to ask people to convey to you that they’re getting what you’re trying to get them to get.

Constantly be checking in. It’s like, “Does this make sense? Are you following this?” I always say the confused mind says no. Most people won’t tell you they’re confused. It’s an ego thing.

[bctt tweet=”Know the other person’s story first. Don’t assume they think about things in the same way that you do.” username=”John_Livesay”]

It feels bad and that’s emotions. It feels bad to say you’re confused. Even framing it, “Have I conveyed this clearly? Would you like me to rephrase something?” Putting it on yourself.

Would you say, “I’m not clear, I’m holding responsibility for this not coming across clearly. Let me restate it?” Would you say it’s fair then to say close the empathy gap through storytelling?

Absolutely, yes.

That will be one of the tweets we’ll have for this episode for a sound bite for people to remember what you’re saying because I’d like to try to sum it up. That’s why I’m known as The Pitch Whisperer and a short little sound bite that makes it easy for people to reference this. My big belief is that one of people’s cognitive biases, I’ve never called it that before, but for years we’ve heard the term, “You’ve got to get people to know, like and trust you,” in that order. You’ve heard that, yes?

I did.

My premise is if people think that’s the order in order to get someone to buy from you, that’s what triggers the mistake of saying, “You’ve got to get to know me. Let me vomit a bunch of information about my product.” I think the order is all wrong. I tell people, “You need to get people to trust you first,” and then it goes to the heart, which is, “Do I like you?” Finally, it’s a knowledge thing. It’s not even still do I understand the product perfectly, but the question is completely different, which is, “Will this work for me or not?” Therefore, do I see myself in the story? I think that’s why Dr. Mark wanted us to meet because we have similar philosophies of looking at things going, “This isn’t true. You’re behaving your assumption that this is true. People have to know you first before they like and trust you causes you to do the wrong behavior. When you flip it and start building trust and likability first, then you can get into people knowing you and your product. It’s not about knowing it. The head question is, will it work for me?”

What they need to do is trust you first, not trust the product. That’s the fundamental mistake.

Cognitive Bias: The empathy gap is the biggest cause of problems in relationships, but in direct communication, the illusion of transparency is the biggest one.

You sell yourself first.

That’s the fundamental mistake so many people make. They logically sell the product whereas what they should be doing is building a personal relationship and cultivating that first. How will the person trust you and trust that the product will work for you? They have no idea what the product is compared to you, but they have to buy it and then figure it out. They have to trust you first. They need to trust you. They need to trust that you have their best interests at heart before they go forward to with the product.

Any last thoughts or a phrase or something that’s in the book, The Blindspots Between Us, that you want to leave us with to incentivize us to take the leap and get the book?

I want to remind you about the illusion of transparency. Know the other person’s story first. That can be another tweet to share about this. These are only two of the cognitive biases. If you want to know what are the others, there are over 100, I talk about the 30 most dangerous ones for successful relationship building and effective communication in The Blindspots Between Us: How to Overcome Unconscious Cognitive Bias and Build Better Relationships. If you want to know the other 28 and make sure that you don’t fall into those problems, get the book.

The book again is called The Blindspots Between Us. Dr. Gleb, thank you so much for sharing your story, your wisdom and the results from all your research so that we can avoid making these mistakes over and over again and have better relationships in our career and in our personal life.

Thank you so much, John. It’s been a pleasure.

Important Links

• Never Go With Your Gut
• Disaster Avoidance Experts
• The Blindspots Between Us: How to Overcome Unconscious Cognitive Bias and Build Better Relationships
• Amazon – The Blindspots Between Us: How to Overcome Unconscious Cognitive Bias and Build Better Relationships
• Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course

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