All an Illusion

If you were to walk around with your iPhone in video mode recording everything you see, and then watch that video, it would look choppy and disorienting. But wait, how does that make sense? When you’re walking around and observing the world through your own eyes, it doesn’t look choppy and disorienting. Isn’t the brain’s visual system basically like a camera, showing us photograph-like images of what’s around us?

Nope. Not at all. In fact, our brain’s visual system is less like a camera and more like a card-counting, crystal-ball-wielding stoner who’s high on mushrooms. Or, as Lisa Feldman Barrett writes in 7 ½ Lessons About the Brain, “Neuroscientists like to say that your day-to-day experience is a carefully controlled hallucination, constrained by the world and your body, but ultimately constructed by your brain…but wait: there’s more. This whole constructive process happens predictively.”

HOW YOUR BRAIN PREDICTS YOUR LIFE

Your brain cannot possibly take in all the inputs around you—every wavelength of every color, every chemical in every odor, every vibration in every sound. Your life would be like that disorienting iPhone video times a thousand. We aren’t actually seeing and hearing and smelling reality, but rather the version of reality that our brain has constructed. Clearly human brains have been doing a good job at this reconstruction, since we have been surviving and thriving for 200,000 years, but that doesn’t mean your brain always gets it just right. More on that later.

In the words of Barrett, “But wait: there’s more.” Your brain is not only using the information it’s getting from the outside—from your sensory organs—to create what you see, hear, and smell. It is also using information from inside your head—your memories. It’s as if your brain asks itself, “Last time I was in a similar situation, what did I see next? What did I feel next? What did I do next?”

Barrett tells the story in her book of a man who was forced to fight in the Rhodesian army in southern Africa in the 1970s. He was ordered to hunt down guerrilla fighters. One day while in the forest with his squad, he detects movement in front of him. He sees a man ahead, holding an AK-47, leading a long line of guerrilla fighters in camo. He raises his own rifle to shoot, but a squad member stops him. When our guerrilla-hunter looks again, he sees that there is nobody there with an AK-47, but rather a 10-year-old boy, holding a herding stick, leading a long line of cows.

The man wrote to Barrett years later, still haunted by the event and what could have happened, asking what was wrong with his brain. And the answer? Nothing. Human brains have evolved to keep us alive, and they use sensory input and memory to predict what we experience. “Last time I was in a similar situation, what did I see next?” Sometimes, because they are functioning properly, our brains get it wrong. According to neuroscientist Adam Hartman, what we are experiencing as consciousness is primarily our brain’s prediction. When the prediction is wrong, when our brains are “surprised,” our senses course correct.

THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE

Consider one of our early human ancestors out on the savanna. Let’s name him Zarg. Zarg knows that the four-legged things in his environment are scared of him and move away when he approaches. But one day, when Zarg is roaming around the savanna, one of the four-legged things attacks him. Zarg is startled but manages to escape. It would be great for Zarg if he could learn from this experience. And that is exactly what his early human brain is primed to do. From now on, when he sees the four-legged thing with the long fangs, he knows to keep his distance.

When we look at how our brains developed through this early-human lens, what we know now about brain chemistry makes sense. When we experience a startling moment, our brains produce noradrenaline, which alters brain activity and readies our brain for learning. We are primed as humans to learn from the unexpected. Researchers have also found that the feeling of surprise is addictive. Humans crave the unexpected, and unexpected events drive learning.

Surprise has also been found to amplify our emotions. Someone who doesn’t get a raise might feel annoyed. Someone who expected a large raise and gets nothing feels irate. Amplification occurs on the opposite end of the feelings spectrum as well. When we get a raise we feel pleased. When we get double the raise we expected, we feel wonderful.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR SALES?

Our reality is shaped by our expectations. When customers are told coffee is eco-friendly, they think it tastes better. We’ve been told that having the correctly shaped glasses for our red wine and white wine makes them taste better, but blind taste tests tell us that’s simply not true. Setting the right expectations for your customers and clients impacts how they experience your products and services. That’s why your iPhone comes in a sleek, fancy box.

What can be even more effective than setting expectations, however, is defying expectations. Think about what your customers are expecting, and then surprise them. That could be an ad campaign that makes you do a double take, or one that bucks stereotypes. When an email subject line says the opposite of what you expect, aren’t you more likely to open it?

When you’re planning how you will surprise and delight your prospects, don’t forget about your current clients. Elements of surprise and excitement can rekindle relationships, customer relationships included. Give your current clients the equivalent of flowers for no reason. Gift them articles that they might find interesting (just like you’re doing for prospects). Introduce a customer to someone in your network who could help them, just because. Surprise primes our brains for learning, so surprise your prospects and customers—and then teach them how you can help solve a problem for them.

Interested in some amazing workshops for your team this year? SURPRISE! We have them! Reach out at mastery@maestrogroup.co.