The Science of Us: Recent Episodes
Heelix
The Science Of Us is a podcast about who we are, how we behave and why. It explores human behaviour in an attempt to help us better understand ourselves and the minds of those around us. Because at the end of the day, how can we ever aim to improve the way we interact, communicate or work with each other if we don’t understand ourselves. We interview leaders from all walks of human life to get unique perspectives on everything from how we make decisions to the role of emotional agility in sport, managing ego in the workplace and creating sustainable relationships. Powered by Heelix (www.heelix.com), the technology that helps teams and individuals boost their performance through neuroscience.
The AI landscape has evolved significantly over the past decade, with ChatGPT marking a distinctive turning point one year ago. We now live in a world where AI is both hailed as revolutionary, and at the same time feared for its destructive potential. So how is AI shaping our behaviour and augmenting who we are as humans? We speak with Gareth Rydon, Co Founder of Friyay, a Generative AI studio helping businesses navigate the world of generative AI to identify real opportunities to enhance both customer and employee experiences. In this session we cover everything from how it is shaping who we are, the integration of AI into our daily lives, its real potential to liberate our time, the dangers of falling into a trap of over-reliance and what the future might hold.
Gareth Rydon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garethrydon/
Ethan Mollick Articles: https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/everyone-is-above-average
https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/now-is-the-time-for-grimoires
We talk with clinical psychologist Simon Kinsella about the personality traits that can affect our mental health, the changing dynamics of mental health in the workplace and the benefits and drawbacks that AI can have on our collective mental well-being.
Today we talk to Ed Brenac or Coach as he’s better known. Ed is the head of Team Experience at Winning Group but has also coached some of Australia’s best sports people during his team as a boarder and teacher at The Scots College.
Ed talks to us about what makes a successful team to him, whether that be on the field or in an office, how he defines success and the importance of intrinsic motivation to really motivating people.
They say that a great team is the sum of all of its parts, there’s no I in team, everyone knows those common sayings but the question is what actually makes a great team and it’s this elusive search that many people go through whether you’re in a professional setting, in a business setting or in a sporting setting, everybody is looking for what is dynamic makeup of that team that will get me the absolute best result when it comes to how they perform, how they get on with each other and ultimately how they can succeed as one collective unit.
It’s very true for founding teams that this is even more critical. How do I put together a team that’s going to get me the absolute right outcome and lead me to a path of success when the road is very rocky along the way?
Katharina Kuehn and I sat down to really go over this in more detail, but specifically looking at it from a lens of neuroscience. What is it that makes great teams at a fundamental level, the emotional level and how do values play into things?
0:00 - 1:57 - Intro
1:57 - 7:05 - Composition of a high performing team
7:05 - 9:04 - Evolutionary advantage of diversity
9:04 - 11:35 - Origins of a founding team (promo clip - diversity of values)
11:35 - 13:11 - Evolution of needs
13:11 - 15:35 - The golden triangle: visionary, hustler hacker (promo clip)
15:35 - 16:42 - Diversity vs uniformity
16:42 -20:23 - The emotional makeup of a founder
20:23 - 23:29 - What drives a founder?
23:39 - 26:07 - The dangers of getting it wrong
26:07 - 28:07 - Managing expectations
28:07 - 30:38 - Overcoming adversity
30:38 - 33:06 - The importance of shared values (promo clip)
33:06 - 34:20 - Outro
In today’s episode, we talk to Katharina Kuehn, Chief Neuroscience & Strategy Officer at Winning Group and Deep Sphere Founder about the role of personality in consumer behaviour and how marketers can tap into the latest neuroscience research to better understand their audiences using what she has called Personalisation 3.0.
If you’d like to learn more about how you can connect with your customers and audiences in the most personal and salient way, visit deepsphere.io or get in touch at hello@deepsphere.io.
Katharina Kuehn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/katharina-kuehn-07190a34/
00:00 - Intro
01:22 - How we make decisions
02:21 - Role of the subconscious mind in decision making
04:37 - Where tastes and preferences come from
06:22 - Neuro pricing
08:27 - Brand preference and personality
10:13 - History of personalisation
13:39 - How do businesses personalise?
15:31 - What is Personalisation 3.0?
17:13 - Who does it well?
19:35 - Algorithms vs deeper understanding
23:57 - Increasing interest in understanding ourselves
25:04 - Personalisation examples
27:11 - How can marketers start personalising better?
30:26 - Looks can be deceiving
How well do we understand our deepest emotional drivers and decision making? You might be surprised to know that the answer is not well at all. In our conversation with Katharina Kuehn, Founder of Deep Sphere and Chief Neuroscience and Strategy Officer at the Winning Group, we examine where we are as a society when it comes to empathy and how the role of neuroscience can not only help us understand ourselves, but how to deal with those around us.
You can learn more about Katharina here: https://au.linkedin.com/in/katharina-kuehn-07190a34/en
You can learn more about Deep Sphere here: https://www.deepsphere.io/
We speak with Winning Group CEO John Winning about his journey, what's important to him and how his mind operates through the lense of Deep Sphere, a behavioural profiling tool, as well as how he is looking to help shape our collective future with his Human Kind Summit
You can find out more about Human Kind here: https://www.humankind.sydney/
You can learn more about Deep Sphere here: https://www.deepsphere.io/
Athletes at the top of their game often talk about the relationship between the mind and body. In fact, it’s often the right mental state that can help them achieve amazing results, especially in the face of great adversity. While sport shows us the power of the mind, we can easily forget this when it comes to how we live everyday. One person that is bringing the two together is Cooper Chapman, pro surfer and founder of the Good Human Factory. We chat with him on all things mental health; how it’s helped him through his own sport and how he’s now helping others understand the power it holds.Learn more about Cooper at the Good Human Factory: www.thegoodhumanfactory.com
We all want to feel like we can be free to share our thoughts and ideas in the aid of creating everything from better experiences to new product ideas or ways of working. But the challenge is that if we don’t feel safe enough to do so, we will often sit quietly and hold back sharing what could be the next big thing. Psychological safety is something that is gaining a lot of momentum across companies of all shapes and sizes, especially as a result of the pandemic where people are undergoing huge changes to the way they work. But what is psychological safety and do people even understand what it means and why we need it? We sat down with Carolyn Grant, a marketing strategist and publisher of the Boardroom Psychological Safety Benchmark to explore the topic and uncover a deep divide growing among our board and our frontline teams.See more about Carolyn at www.6peas.com.au
As humans we crave connection. It’s what separates us from many other parts of the animal kingdom, with our social prowess responsible for the formation of civilisations to the creation of new technologies. Connection is also at the heart of the relationships we enter into, for without it we wouldn’t have a growing population. Over the years the approach to relationships has changed but one thing has often remained the same - the idea that there is a one true love out there for all of us and that staying with one person forever is something we all must follow. To explore the role of relationships further, we talk with Rosie Wilby, an award-winning stand up comedian, presenter, producer and published author, about how relationships operate, why we create the narratives we do and what the future of connection might look like.Check out Rosie's brand new book, The Breakup Monologues and her other books at https://www.booktopia.com.au/search.ep?author=Rosie%20Wilby. You can also access the Breakup Monologues podcast at https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-breakup-monologues-with-rosie-wilby/id1310409996
As a human race we are all incredibly unique. From gender, race, religion and more, who we are and how we behave is affected by everything from biology through to how we have been raised. But diversity isn’t constrained to what we generally see on the outside, there’s a lot that happens within, especially when it comes to the brain itself. There are many forms of neurodiversity, form dyspraxia, dyslexia, ADHD, social anxiety disorders, autism and other conditions. According to Harvard Business Review, many people with these disorders have higher-than-average abilities with research showing that some conditions, including autism and dyslexia, can bestow special skills in pattern recognition, memory, or mathematics. Yet people affected can often struggle to fit the typical profile sought by prospective employers. To learn more, we speak with Bodo Mann, CEO of auticon, a tech consulting firm that exclusively employs adults on the autism spectrum. We talk about neurodiversity more broadly and why it pays to invest in others that might not always be the same as you.
Mindfulness is a term that has started to gain a lot of attention in recent years. Something that has been practiced for thousands of years through Buddhism and other cultures has now been advanced through apps like Calm, Headspace, Waking up and many more. But why do we need to be mindful at all? How does it help our minds navigate the crazy pace of life and get the space that we so desperately seek? To find out, we sat down with Lisa Forrest, Olympian and Commonwealth Games Champion. She talks through how she began to realise the power the mind had when it came to sport, her own experience of better understanding the mind body relationship and what mindfulness has done for the way she lives.Check out Lisa's book, Glide, at all good bookstores, with a link here to find out more: https://www.booktopia.com.au/glide-lisa-forrest/book/9781760527891.html
Despite the fact we are told that it is imperative to share openly and freely with the people we work with, so few of us are able to do it. Whether it’s providing feedback to someone on a positive or negative experience, sharing thoughts on business strategy or suggesting a way to improve the way you work, most of the time we tend to keep our thoughts to ourselves, rather than share them with those around us. But what happens when a company doesn’t look to their people as a source of insight? We chat with Lily Stone and David Steirn, Directors of Enterprise Investigations, on the importance of speaking up to create a culture of trust and most importantly, avoid bigger issues that can cause havoc if not addressed properly.
When we meet new people, we are often quick to form opinions of who they are based on things like their profession and the initial impression they make. But despite what it looks like on paper, personality goes far deeper than those initial perceptions, meaning we can quite often get someone wrong. To help demonstrate this point, we are joined by Felipe Ramirez Lastrico, Head of Artificial Intelligence and Research & Development at the Winning Group, one of Australia’s leading technology, retail, distribution and logistics companies. We chat with Felipe about how we can be quick to judge, how he perceives himself and how things aren’t always as they seem.
The eternal search for who we are has sprouted an industry designed to help us find a path to that answer. The ‘self-help’ industry has flourished over many years, helping people to find better versions of themselves and better lives to lead. Others, however, remain skeptical of theories and concepts that don’t seem to make a difference. To break it down, we speak with Christine Meyer, an experienced Life Coach who has worked with leaders and influencers to take control of their lives through understanding their own empowerment. We look at why people gravitate towards the industry to begin with, and examine how people can adopt new techniques to live a happier and more fulfilled life.
We look back at some of the many memorable moments of Season One, including clips from Katharina Kuehn, Rachel Green, Mike Conway, Hans Hickler and Michaela Simpson. Stay tuned for Season Two of The Science of Us, returning in January 2021. A huge thank you to all of our guests and to you, our listeners. We couldn't do this without you. Subscribe now to be the first to hear when our new episodes are live. Have a great break!
The unconscious part of the human brain processes roughly 11 million pieces of information per second. Over a lifetime, that’s a lot of information. So why do we remember some things and not others. And how can we somehow recall a piece of information that was buried down in the archives of our mind? We speak with Celia Harris, Vice Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow at The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, to examine how memory works, why we make memories in the first place and how we access things that can help us in our daily lives, relationships and behaviour.
This year has shown the power of uncertainty on how we behave. Although change is a constant in our lives, the brutal force at which change has been thrust upon us this year, means many have been left reeling. When it comes to our work, this uncertainty can have effects on the way we work together, on the culture we create and ultimately, our output. So how do we build trust not only when times are good, but maintain that trust when stressful situations present themselves? We chat with Gary Edstein, CEO/Senior Vice President of Express Oceania for global logistics giant DHL, about the importance of building trust to create a strong sense of connection, and how to rally people around a common purpose.
Whether we think it or not, emotions often govern the way we behave. In fact, the human brain processes emotions 200 times faster than rational input. The way we feel is often influenced by a number of factors, from our upbringing to other external stimuli we experience day-to-day. So how exactly do the things that go on around us, such as the saturation of negative news or the power dynamics at work, change how we behave? We speak with Michaela Simpson, a neuroscientist who is currently Senior Research Scientist at NeuroLeadership Institute, about the role of emotion in human behaviour and how they can be heightened when we go through events such as the pandemic we are currently in right now.
A state of chaos seems more common these days, a by-product of the increased complexity and pace of life we are accustomed to. And in the wake of this chaos, it’s easy to get caught up running from (or to) something without understanding what that actually is. So how do we slow down the frenetic pace of life to get a better picture of who we are? In this conversation with John Siddique, spiritual teacher, poet, author and founder of Authentic Living, we discuss the role of science, spirituality and the soul in creating an awareness of ourselves, how we interpret our emotions and the actions we take.
Being a political player is often used to describe darker behaviour in the workplace. Despite the fact many of us have little aspiration of actually being a politician, it’s all too easy to find examples of where people ‘play the game’ rather than playing as a team. Why do we do it? What motivates us? And, is it even possible to have a workplace without office politics?
Emails, texts, LinkedIn... before COVID-19 many business transactions were done in an electronic and, if you didn't use services like Zoom at the time, a faceless world. With the world now thrust into a digital age, the question many ask is how easy is it to truly build great relationships? Especially without maintaining some level of physical contact with those you meet and deal with regularly? Before COVID-19 hit, we spoke with Carlos Radulovitch, CEO of Amarla, exclusive retailer of Victoria's Secret and leading boutique retailer operating in Europe, Middle East and Africa. In our chat we explored how he has managed to build and maintain relationships with others in different physical locations, no matter what the distance may be.
Great teams work together like a hive of bees; through a universal understanding of individual roles and accountability. Yet despite research showing that teams which focus on collective goals outperform more individualistic cultures, there's a part of us that can all too often get in the way of making that happen. We chat with Quirin Schwaighofer from Madecomfy about what it takes to cultivate and grow a great team.
Emotions fundamentally make up who we are. Yet emotions are often viewed as a weakness, something we are a prisoner to. Despite this, those who have become more aware of their emotions often better understand those around them, create stronger relationships and are more effective leaders. We talk with Doug White, a professional Major League Baseball coach with over 17 years experience, most recently with the Houston Astros and the Los Angeles Angels, about his journey with self-awareness, the role of emotion in connecting more deeply and the power of letting go.
Communication and trust are some of the most important human values that allow us to connect, build relationships and thrive as a collective unit. But trust as we know it is rapidly changing in the face of a shifting population, the rise of technology, fake news and external crises. So in a world full of change, who can we trust? We chat with Michelle Hutton, CEO, Australia and Brand Chair Asia Pacific at Edelman about the role of communication in our society and dive into the Edelman Trust Barometer, a 20+ year study that reveals some fascinating insights about the state of trust in society and where we might be headed.
With the frenetic pace of life, a lot can often pass us by. And with the ever growing pressures put on us by the society in which we live, we can lose focus on something that is so important yet so often overlooked: a sense of self-worth. So how do we ensure we are looking after ourselves and putting the right focus on nourishing the person that we are without judgement. We speak with Jen Huberty, Associate Professor at Arizona State University in the College of Health Solutions and Director of Science at the hugely popular app Calm, about her work on behaviour change intervention, the power of self-worth and why it is so important to develop a greater awareness of our thoughts in order to sit with, and have compassion for, who we are.
We all have our own unique personality. But when we get to work, it's all too easy to put up a wall around our true self. Why do we so easily fall into the trap of protecting ourselves and building walls when we are around a different social hierarchy? And how do we bring our true value to the table no matter which circumstance? We speak with Hans Hickler, CEO and Founder of Ellipsis Advisors and a previous CEO of a number of multinational logistics companies, about working with different personalities across startups, corporations and social enterprises, and why bringing your true self, no matter where you are, is so important.
With the continuing debate on how to get economies around the world restarted, companies are still grappling with how and if they should be getting their employees back into a physical workspace. Tech giants have already pledged that their workforces won't return to work this year, some of them going further to say remote work will be put in place forever. For other companies, getting people back into an office can't happen soon enough. With very real human emotions running high around personal safety but also anxiety around changing a system that seems to be working, we talk with Hannah Ellis, Co-Founder and CEO of The Workplace Lawyers, to explore how we balance the legal realities of a return to work together with the associated morals, ethics and practicalities that come with it.
A virus has pushed us into a new way of working. For some it has meant a big challenge to get their workforce mobile, for others it has played to their strengths. While most would say we are still in crisis, for others we are moving into what they believe is a recovery. The question many are asking, though, is how and will we ever get back to working the way we used to? We talk with Tracey Murphy, Chief People & Culture Officer at amaysim, Australia's fourth largest mobile phone provider and a growing energy provider, about the decision to work from home early, lessons learned and what a return to work might look like.
Physical spaces are an important part of helping us feel connected to each other. Yet in a world where sharing a physical space has changed so dramatically, we have turned to a virtual space to create the same social and emotional connections. With much of the world now in talks about opening up their respective economies, including workspaces, the question is what will that even look like? And what can we expect from a new normal in the future? We speak with Chris Good from One Workplace, about the parallels between our physical and virtual worlds and a glimpse at what that future might look like.
In a special panel discussion, the Heelix team was joined by three experts from the fields of change, communication and emotional resilience: Mike Conway (CEO and Founder of XVenture), Catherine Hollyman (Founder of Behind the Scenes Communications) and Marcella Davis (Founder and Director of Real People Equity). They discussed how we can adapt our leadership style to thrive in the face of ongoing uncertainty, the importance of authenticity and awareness and our willingness to be vulnerable.
According to Newzoo, by the end of 2019 the global gaming market was estimated to be worth $152 billion, with 45% of that, $68.5 billion, coming directly from mobile games. With over three billion smartphones in the world and this number ever growing, it looks as if mobile gaming has a long way to run. So what is it that is fuelling people's interest in mobile gaming and what does it mean for how we connect with one another? We talk with Peter Walmsley, Chief People Officer at GSN Games, about our fascination with gaming, what it tells us about ourselves and what it looks like in a world being forced to pull back on physical interaction.
Sports teams are perhaps the epitome of high performance. Athletes who perform at the highest level are synonymous with superior physical skills and prowess, but how much of this is also down to the brain? Mike Conway from XVenture has been responsible for developing a raft of high performing teams on and off the field, from his early days managing the phenomenon that is The Wiggles through to the Australian men's soccer team. And he puts his success down to not just physical training but how teams can develop their emotional agility and resilience. We sit down with him to find out how.
More on Mike Conway: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conwaymike/
XVenture: https://www.xventure.com.au/
We're human, we all feel. Yet when we enter the workplace, we're often conditioned not to show that emotion but to bury it down. We talk with Rachel Green, director of The Emotional Intelligence Institute about the role of emotion in the workplace, managing perception and how to develop greater awareness of those around you.
Hear a few sneak peeks of the upcoming podcast, The Science of Us. Brought to you by Heelix, we speak with experts in the field of neuroscience, leadership and emotional intelligence.
How well do we understand our deepest emotional drivers and decision making? You might be surprised to know that the answer is not well at all. In our conversation with Katharina Kuehn, Chief Strategy Officer at the Winning Group and one of APAC's leading neuroscientists, we examine where we are as a society when it comes to empathy and how the role of neuroscience can not only help us understand ourselves, but how to deal with those around us.