Daniel Goleman – Psychologist (party 1)

I’m very pleased to be here. And thank you for that introduction. Tonight this evening,
I’d like to call your attention to attention.

And let me begin with a story. It’s about a classic experiment in social psychology. It
was done many years ago at the Princeton theological seminary with divinity students.

Each student was told that they were going to give a practice sermon. They’d receive a
topic to prepare, and then they go to another building and give the sermon to be evaluated.
Half of the students were given the parable of the Good Samaritan as their topic. The man who
stopped to help the stranger in need by the side of the road, the other half were given random
Bibletopics.

Cada aluno foi (informado ou dito) de que daria um sermão prático. Eles recebiam um
tema para preparar e depois iam para outro prédio e davam o sermão para ser avaliado.
Metade dos alunos recebeu a parábola do bom samaritano como tema. O homem que parou
para ajudar o estranho necessitado na beira da estrada, a outra metade recebeu tópicos
aleatórios da Bíblia.

As each divinity student went over to the other building to give their sermon, they
passed a man who was bent over and moaning in pain. The interesting question is, did they
stop to help?

The more interesting question is, did it matter if they’re pondering the parable of the
Good Samaritan? What do you think?

Didn’t matter. Make no difference at all. What mattered was how much time pressure
people felt they’re under, and this is more or less the story of our lives. There’s a spectrum
that runs from noticing the other person to tuning into the other person, to empathizing and
understanding what’s going on with them. And then if they’re in need, and there’s something
that we can do compassion and maybe helping them.

But if we never notice in the first place, we can never go down that road. And this is
the problem with attention today. It’s under siege. I think the moment I knew we were in
trouble was a while back before I started writing the book ‘Focus’.

I was on my way to a meeting. I was driving. I lived out in the country, in New England.
I was late, but I was wanting people there to know I was coming. So as I was driving, I was
texting them on my way. That’s rather horrible because it turns out as I read, not very long
after that, that texting while driving is the same as drinking while driving. It’s really bad. In
fact, in my state, it’s outlawed now.

Another thing I’ve noticed is when I was writing the book, I’d be kind of on a riff really
in flow writing well, then I’d have to look something up. So I go to Google Scholar. I love
Google scholar because it gives you access to the academic database.

So I opened my web browser and my web browser presents me with the news of the
day. And I’m a news junkie. So all of a sudden I started reading news stories. And before I knew
it I’ve been lot, you know, 15, 20 minutes has gone by before I realized that, ‘Oh, I was
supposed to be looking that up.’

And today we’re all in the same boat. In that tools that we use, our computer or phone
and so on are also devised to interrupt us, to seduce us, to draw our attention from this to
that. And usually under that is trying to sell us something a pop-up ad or whatever.

But attention is besieged in a way that has never been true before. When I was going
around to publishers and telling them I wanted to write about attention. One publisher said to
me, “That’s wonderful. We’d love to have that book, but could you keep it short?”

So what happened to us? In 2007 Time Magazine, a major American publication had a
small article that said, there’s a new word in the English language. The word is pizzled. It’s a
combination of puzzled and pissed off. And it refers to the moment when you’re with someone
who takes out their Blackberry and starts talking to someone else and ignoring you.

In 2007, that was unusual. But the word pizzled has died with the Blackberry because
now that’s the new social norm. You go out to a dinner, very romantic restaurant. You see a
couple together. And they’re both looking at their phones instead of into each other’s eyes.

Something has happened to us. In 1977. Nobel Prize winner, Herbert Simon wrote a
very prescient… he said, “Information consumes attention. Hence, a wealth of information
creates a poverty of attention.”

I think we’ve entered a time when we’re in danger of attentional impoverishment. And
the signs of it are more than, you know, a couple watching… they’re looking in their phone
instead of in each other’s eyes.

The other day, I saw a mom holding a little toddler and the toddler’s trying to get her
attention and she’s busy texting. She’s just not available. And you know, of course, dad’s the
same story.

I was on a vacation Island last summer, Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of New
England. And I was taking a taxi from the ferry to my house. And I happened to share it with
seven sorority sisters, college students who were going for a weekend together.

And, we got in; it was a shared taxi, a big van. And we got in the taxi. And within a
minute or two, every one of the sorority sisters was staring into a screen: iPhone, iPad, but
they weren’t talking to each other. And I think this is a real loss.

The ingredients of rapport are three: The first is full mutual attention. From that full
attention comes a second ingredient. It’s a non-verbal synchrony. If you look at two people
who are really in rapport, really connecting. If you were to make a video of that and watch it in
silence, the two bodies look as though they’re choreographed. This is something that’s
managed by a category of brain cell called oscillators.

Oscillators govern how we respond to someone else, how we respond to physical

objects. Oscillators are very important for the survival of the human species. Consider this: at
the moment of a first kiss; they determine the velocity at which two skulls come together. And
if they get it wrong, it would be the end of the species, I’m sure.
 I was on a vacation Island last summer, Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of New
England. And I was taking a taxi from the ferry to my house. And I happened to share it with
seven sorority sisters, college students who were going for a weekend together.

And, we got in; it was a shared taxi, a big van. And we got in the taxi. And within a
minute or two, every one of the sorority sisters was staring into a screen: iPhone, iPad, but
they weren’t talking to each other. And I think this is a real loss.

The ingredients of rapport are three: The first is full mutual attention. From that full
attention comes a second ingredient. It’s a non-verbal synchrony. If you look at two people
who are really in rapport, really connecting. If you were to make a video of that and watch it in
silence, the two bodies look as though they’re choreographed. This is something that’s
managed by a category of brain cell called oscillators.

Oscillators govern how we respond to someone else, how we respond to physical

objects. Oscillators are very important for the survival of the human species. Consider this: at
the moment of a first kiss; they determine the velocity at which two skulls come together. And
if they get it wrong, it would be the end of the species, I’m sure.

However, it turns out on average while we’re reading a book, our mind wanders about
20% to 40% of the time. I think it depends on the book. That particular study was done with
Pride and Prejudice. If it had been done, say with, 50 Shades of Gray or Blink or whatever, it
might’ve been different.

But the point is that the more disrupted attention is particularly for young people, the
harder it is for them to grasp, to build the cumulative mental models, that amount to mastery
in any subject.

There are basically three modes of attention. I want to call your attention to it: Here’s a
schematic. So this is generally the relationship between performance. Say, this is high. This is
low. And this is… the horizontal line is brain activity, particularly levels of stress hormones like
cortisol, adrenaline. And the relationship is very telling. It goes like this. It’s an upside down U.
And the highest performance is when attention is absolutely a 100%, maybe 110%. It’s been
called flow.

Flow is discovered for those of you who don’t know about it by researchers who asked
people in many different domains of expertise, basketball players, ballerinas, neurosurgeons,
tell us about a time you outdid yourself. You were absolutely at your best, even you were
surprised. And no matter what the domain was, people were describing the same
phenomenological state. And one of the characteristics of the state is that attention is utterly
absorbed.

There was a neurosurgeon who said “I had to do a surgery and operation that I didn’t
really know if I could. It was so difficult, but I did it superbly. I was really surprised myself. At
the end of the surgery, I looked around and I saw some rubble in the corner of operating
theatre.”

I said, “What happened?”

They said, “While you were operating the roof caved in over there and you didn’t
notice.”
 It’s that kind of attention. It’s unbreakable. It’s also a state where your skills are called
upon at the utmost and whatever the demand is, you can meet it. You’re very flexible, very
adaptable and very tellingly, it’s a state that feels good. Yeah, it’s like rapport. Rapport is
mutual flow… interpersonal flow.

So that’s when focus is at hundred percent. When you have too much to do, too little
time, too little support… when you feel overwhelmed, you’re down here. And the stress
hormones are at their highest, you’re in a state which was called recently in the scientific
journal. Actually the journal Science and article was called the neurobiology of frazzle.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with frazzle. I’ve been there many times. It’s constant
stress. And here, the problem is you can’t stop thinking about what’s upsetting you, what’s
stressing you? You’re not focusing here. You’re not focusing on the task at hand. You’re
focusing on what’s upsetting you. And that’s the power of emotions.

Emotions take over attention. They guide attention. And if they’re too strong, then
you’ll never get up here. Over here, performance is low because people are under motivated,
disengaged. This is a huge problem – Disengagement in the workplace. People feel, in fact,
there was a survey. This is really interesting. It was done at Harvard. 2,500 people are given an
iPhone app and the app brings them at random times during the day. And they answer two
questions. What are you doing now? And what are you thinking about now?

And the discrepancy of course is a measure of mind-wandering. Turns out 50% of the
time on average, our minds are wandering. The one activity that had the highest focus, no
surprise, was making love, but who fills out that app at a time like that? I still haven’t been able
to figure that out.

The lowest three were commuting, sitting at a computer and work. That’s this. So if
you’re not engaged in what you’re doing, your cortisol levels are too low.

I’ve been talking about focusing as though it were the only valuable kind of attention,
but actually mind wandering, which is the enemy of focusing, the term they use in brain
sciences, they are anti-correlated. If your mind is wandering by definition, you’re not focusing
and vice versa.

Mind wandering is absolutely essential for creative insight. The creative process
demands that. First of all, you gather information. You focus on the problem. You really
concentrate. And then you let go.

The annals of science and mathematics are full of people who came up with incredible
solutions when they’re just daydreaming… in the shower, getting on a bus, walking your dog.
And that’s because during mind wandering, we’re able to make connections between remote
elements in a new way that has value. That’s the definition of creative act.

Of course, if you’re going to execute, if you’re going to put the idea to use, then you
have to go back into focus. But mind wandering is extremely valuable.

There’s another level at which attention operates. This has to do with leadership. I
argue that leaders need three kinds of focus to be really effective:

The first is an inner focus. Let me tell you about a case. That’s actually from the annals
of neurology. There was a corporate lawyer who unfortunately had a small prefrontal brain
tumor. It was discovered early, operated on successfully.
 After the surgery though, it was very puzzling picture because he was absolutely as
smart as he had been before. Very high IQ, no problem with attention or memory, but he
couldn’t do his job anymore. He couldn’t do any job. He, in fact, he ended up out of work. His
wife left him. He lost his home. He’s living in his brother’s spare bedroom. And in despair, he
went to see a famous neurologist named Antonio Damasio.

Damasio specializes in the circuitry between the prefrontal area, which is where we
consciously pay attention to what matters now, where we make decisions, where we learn and
the emotional centers in the midbrain, particularly the amygdala, which is our radar for
danger. It triggers our strong emotions.

They had cut the connection between the prefrontal area and the emotional centers.
And Damasio at first was puzzled. He realized that this fellow on every neurological tests was
perfectly fine. But something was wrong.

And then he got a clue. He asked the lawyer, “When should we have our next
appointment?” And he realized the lawyer could give him the rational pros and cons of every
hour for the next two weeks. But he didn’t know which is best.

And Damasio says when we’re making a decision, any decision when to have the next
appointment, should I leave my job for another one? What strategy should we follow going
into the future? Who should I marry this fellow compared to all the other fellows? I mean,
those are decisions that require, we draw on our entire life experience.

And the circuitry that collects that life experience is very base brain. It’s very ancient in
the brain and it has no direct connection to the part of the brain that thinks in words. It has
very rich connectivity to the gastrointestinal tract, to the gut. So we get a gut feeling – feels
right, doesn’t feel right. Damasio calls them somatic markers. It’s a language of the body. And
the ability to tune into this is extremely important because this is valuable data, too.

They did a study of California entrepreneurs and asked them, “How do you make your
decisions?” These are people who built a business from nothing to hundreds of millions or
billions of dollars. And they more or less said the same strategy. I’m a voracious gatherer of
information. I want to see the numbers, but if it doesn’t feel right, I won’t go ahead with the
deal. They’re tuning into the gut feelings.

I know someone, I grew up in a farm region of California, the central Valley and my
high school had a rival high school in the next town. And I met someone who went to that
other high school. He was not a good student. He almost failed it. Didn’t graduate, came close
to not graduating high school.

He went to a two-year college, a community college, as we call them. Found his way
into film, which he loved and got into a film school. In film school his student project caught
the eye of a director who asked him to become an assistant. And he did so well at that, that
the director arranged for him to direct his own film, someone else’s script. He did so well at
that. They let him direct a script that he had written, and that film did surprisingly well.