---
title: "It's the Brain Stupid"
episode: 1
date: 2020-02-09
guest: "Dr Lynda Shaw"
canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/1-its-the-brain-stupid
audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-001/audio.mp3
---

# It's the Brain Stupid

Joanne Lockwood is joined by Dr Lynda Shaw, a cognitive neuroscientist specialising in unconscious emotional processing and behavioural change, to explore how the brain forms shortcuts and why those shortcuts can become bias. They discuss heuristics, the dominance of unconscious processing, and how deliberate reframing can build new neural pathways. The conversation also challenges popularised neuroscience and over-simplified models, including the risks of turning complex research into neat soundbites. From there, they connect brain science to real-world inclusion: stereotyping, in-groups and out-groups, recruitment bias, and how organisations can redesign interviewing and assessment to reduce subjectivity. They explore the role of curiosity and dialogue in reducing polarisation, including in debates amplified by social media. The episode also touches on gender identity and misgendering, focusing on how default patterns and limited exposure can shape behaviour, and how learning, empathy, and thoughtful conversations can help people navigate change more respectfully over time.

## Chapters

- 05:08 — Unconscious processing with heuristics: efficient but biased.
- 06:52 — Caution needed with grant statements in neuroscience.
- 15:17 — Gender bias in recruiting revealed through experiment.
- 19:45 — Recruitment industry transforming with focus on skills.
- 26:51 — Curiosity lost in divisive society, reversing needed.
- 31:27 — Interesting conference experience: quantum physics and neuroscience.
- 36:50 — Embrace critical thinking, question biases, analyze information.
- 42:10 — Schools can encourage debating to improve understanding.
- 47:40 — Misgendering: Different categories of people and why they do it.
- 53:59 — Some people expect understanding for gender changes.
- 58:50 — Importance of understanding others; society's evolution.

## Key takeaways

- The sensationalized claims in neuroscience and the misinterpretations by the popular press.
- The meticulous process neuroscientists follow from hypothesis creation to research outcomes.
- The impact of gender biases in recruitment and unconscious decision-making.
- The need for debating skills in schools to foster critical thinking and sensible arguing.
- Strategies for businesses to attract more women into STEM fields and provide gender-neutral role models.
- The importance of empathy, understanding different viewpoints, and educating oneself about societal evolution.
- Innovations in recruitment practices focused on reducing biases and assessing candidates more objectively.

## FAQs

### What is the significance of the title "It's the Brain Stupid"?

The title emphasizes the role of the brain in shaping our thoughts, behaviors, biases, and perceptions, and discusses how understanding neuroscience can promote inclusion and challenge biases.

### How does cognitive bias affect our decision-making process?

Cognitive bias refers to our tendency to make irrational judgments and decisions based on unconscious patterns of thinking. It can influence everything from the hiring process to how we interact with others, and understanding it helps address bias and promote inclusivity.

### Can we overcome gender bias in recruitment and hiring?

Yes, by implementing objective-based questions, blind evaluations, and offering trial work opportunities, companies can mitigate gender bias and create a more inclusive hiring process.

### How can parents counteract societal gender stereotypes?

Parents play a crucial role in challenging and overcoming societal gender stereotypes by educating themselves, promoting equal aspirations for both boys and girls, and advocating for balanced representation in traditionally male-dominated fields like STEM.

### What steps can businesses take to break gender biases?

Businesses have a responsibility to invest in the future by providing aspirational role models, implementing anti-bias training, and creating inclusive environments that encourage diversity and challenge traditional gender roles.

### Why is it important to question our beliefs and biases?

Questioning our beliefs and biases allows us to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and others. It helps us challenge societal norms, learn from different perspectives, and promotes personal and professional growth.

## Transcript

Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everybody, and welcome to the very first podcast in my no new show called Inclusion Bites. In this series, I'll be interviewing a number of amazing people simply having a conversation around the subject of inclusion, belonging, and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive in. Would like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a line to jo.lockwood@seachangehappen.co.uk. You'll be at a catch up with all of the shows on iTunes, Spotify, and all the user places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf, and let's get going. Well, today, I have the absolute honor and privilege to be joined by Dr Lynda Shaw. I first met Lynda at a mess musical, at the Professional Speaking Association, and was recently amused by her entertaining the audience in a musical comedy sketch playing in the triangle in a different dialect. I asked Lynda to describe her superpower, as she said, her superpower is always loving change while the rest of us try to resist change, this is something Lynda does to great effect. And today, we're gonna tackle the topic entitled It's the brain stupid. So Dr Lynda Shaw, good morning. How are you? Good morning, Joanne. Really good. Thank you. How are

Dr Lynda Shaw: you? I'm fantastic. Thank you. Really looking forward to this. We planned this a

Joanne Lockwood: couple of months ago, and I'm really, really excited to, finally have the opportunity to catch up. So do you want to tell me and the listeners a bit more about yourself? So who is Dr Lynda Shaw? Yep. I'm, I've got a doctorate in neuroscience.

Dr Lynda Shaw: My, specialty is unconscious processing of emotion, and it's morphed into, other things as well. Basically, because I had 3 businesses before I went back to academia, and I've got a psychology in my background. So, my biggest business, I had 2, 20 staff and 2000 members of a health club. So I sort of get what it's like to manage people to understand how to motivate them, how to dis how to create decent decision making processes, how to judgments, all of those things that the cognitive brain does. So my discipline is cognitive neuroscience. So I basically am a specialist in how the brain changes behavior and behavior changes the brain. And because of that, what people don't realize is just how much control they really have. They can control their behavior to a certain extent, not completely, but to a certain extent, more than they realize if they just were aware of it, understood how to do it, how to, how to change willingly. So that's what I rang on about when I go around to companies and senior people in on in the city and such like. So it's almost like saying to yourself,

Joanne Lockwood: before something comes out your mouth before a thought becomes locked in, how can I change that thought? How can I reframe that? How can I nudge it into a different orbit maybe? Yeah. I mean, as soon as

Dr Lynda Shaw: you, create a different way of thinking on a particular topic or a particular person or particular object, you'll actually rewire the brain. You've lead our new neural pathways and new connections, new synapses, new dendrites, new everything. So it and then if you keep rolling that thought, you will strengthen it, and it will become your default thought instead of the more destructive one. So if we Yeah. So, you know, we are we can do that, and we do it all the time. But what people don't realize is they can do it deliberately. And by doing it deliberately, you have that you're in more in control of your destiny, which is really cool. So I I heard

Joanne Lockwood: recently that most of the biases we have are learned. Okay. We we do have some protection type biases, some subliminal reptilian buses, but we do learn a lot of biases, over the course of our lifetime, don't we?

Dr Lynda Shaw: Wellbeing has come from heuristics. Heuristics is a method the brain uses to, create shortcuts to lay down information because we we are bombarded with this cacophony of stimuli all the time, and the brain can't cope with it. So it relegates everything to unconscious processing, automatic processing that does not take attention as quickly as possible. So we're locking away all of this huge amounts of data. Now, if I said to you, if this was, is this a four sheet of paper here, was a, as the was the brain. And, part of it's conscious processing, and part of it is unconscious processing. How much would you say that sheet of paper is conscious processing?

Joanne Lockwood: I'd have to say with a that's the thing I'm slightly educated. So I left, I just say that probably 80% was probably unconscious and 20% conscious. 20% conscious is what you reckon.

Dr Lynda Shaw: Yeah? Well, in actual fact, it's probably that much. So That little dog.

Joanne Lockwood: A couple of stuff. All the rest is unconscious processing.

Dr Lynda Shaw: So what we do with heuristics is we think Okay. That person has, has a green skin with things sticking out of his head, must be a Martian, put them in the Martian book. That person has, that that thing has four legs of tail and ears. It must be a dog in the dog box. The unconscious processing, it gets it could so it's speed of efficiency for the brain to operate. But then we get these biases, because they were all of a sudden thinking, well, that means that all green people our martians when it could be the Grinch, or it could be, you know, that dog is actually a cat. So we we start get it wrong, biases are, are not very, very helpful in terms of being accurate because we stereotyped people, immediately into, because they've got that accent, that must mean they're ABC. In a box. It's stereotypical. So, it's not helpful because we get that wrong, but equally, it's helpful because it enables us process so much information so quickly. So the heuristics are great, but the side effect of the biases And the site, the biases are the things that we're trying to tackle so much in commerce now, which is a very difficult thing to tackle. And, it's it's a conundrum. It's it's actually a really big problem.

Joanne Lockwood: I heard somewhere that, the the, if you like, this unconscious brain is really fast, whereas the conscious brain is quite slow and expensive in terms of brain cycles. It costs more process things consciously than it does unconsciously. Is is that a truism, or is that just a No.

Dr Lynda Shaw: It's it's it's fairly true. We've got to be careful of these grant statements in neuroscience, the pop the popular press get hold of this stuff. I mean, may I give you an example of what it's like to be a neuroscientist to give you to give you context? Okay. So we have an idea. And we've got our little idea, and we think, okay, this is a really good idea. I want to research this I wonder if anybody else has researched it and what's been said before. So our little idea becomes this great big piece of work where we're doing a massive literature review, and we're reading up on it. We've realized then I'm going, okay. My dear's sound. I could do that. So we break it right the way down, to our hypothesis. And then we think, right, I'm going to design my experiment now. So we open it up, we design the experiment, we run the experiment, we get the results, And then we they finally take hold, not quite finally. They're being brought back down to those tiny results in about half a page. And then we open it up again, in our discussion, looking back at the literature review. So we're now Lockwood we've now got our discussion. We've opened it up and we're trying to make sense of the results. And then we'd close it down, get it down, and down, and down, and to our conclusion, nice and neat, saying what needs to be done next. And then with a bit of luck and a fair wind, we are published in a peer review paper, and it goes out there to the, to, the enlightened ones. And then the popular press get hold of it, and that's all how it breaks loose, because it goes wrong. So so you get this lovely neuroscientific, of explanations and ideas and what is going on in the brain, then popular press get hold of it somebody says, oh, that's gonna fit my business model. I'm gonna say I can make that fit because of what I'm selling or what my products or my services. And then it goes really Wellbeing, Mike, I'm I'm on a mission to stop this. It's not I'm not gonna stop it, but I will enlighten everybody I because, so we have to be very careful of grant statements when it comes to neuroscience. It's a very serious science, but it's an embryonic science. It's brand new in science speak, and so we're learning new stuff all the time. So I I believe that when we get the next generation of neuroimaging equipment, we will probably unlearn and discover things again that we have no idea about. That's what's exciting about neuroscience. Okay. So so

Joanne Lockwood: we've been living in a world of kind of fake news is it in terms of what we believe about the brain, and we've had all these, you know, I, you know, you hear that Myers Briggs is is is as interesting as horoscope and you hear the introvert extrovert, the binary parallels that we thought they were before and the and the brain is far more complex. So are we even now saying that men aren't for Mars and women aren't for Venus anymore? Is is there no male brain, female brain, or is that another myth? I worry about this. This this

Dr Lynda Shaw: labeling like this, it's it's the brain isn't that simple. We're simplifying it too much. We are products of our, of our chemicals and our biology, but we're also products our environmental and social upbringing. So, therefore, we can't just say a male. I mean, I I know that it girls are little tomboys in the playground. I know that little boys who would rather play with the prime or chair or, you know, or dolls. It's, how do we talk about the so called male and female brain like that, especially when you consider how we treat our boys and girls differently. And there's been some really good documentaries on on mainstream television here in the UK, about this and how, you know, boys, we push a little bit to be more physical because we're a little bit more protected with. We don't need to be But it's the way we're programmed as parents and as teachers and carers. So I think to talk about a male and female brain is really misleading.

Joanne Lockwood: It's almost, I think it's quite demeaning often to women to say, well, the female brain is different to the male brain. Therefore, you can't be as effective as a man. And it's almost like it's almost like creating 2nd class of citizen by by using this malefemale brain thing and men is strong women a week. Men men don't quote. Women do quote. And then that's the kind of the label we're given as women. That we have to perform to our stereotype. Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, we

Dr Lynda Shaw: have this, this idea of of the masculine, you know, engineers of of men, mathematicians on men. What nonsense? There's plenty of it female in in men mathematicians and plenty of female engineers out there, but it's this you know, and one of my kids, so when they were at university, one of their friends was done on engineering course, she was the only girl in the auditorium. You know, in the lecture theater, everyone else was a guy, and I just thought, that's so sad. Yeah. You know, that's it. And I did some covert of research in a senior school, not far from here, and I was looking at year 9, so they were fourteen to fifteen year olds. And, I said, okay. Let's look at the jobs of nurse, doctor, what secretary, and she was a nurse. He was a doctor, and I'm thinking, really? Still we're doing this? And, you know, it still goes on. It perpetuates everywhere. I mean, I think I remember one of

Joanne Lockwood: the BBC TV programs where they talked about boys and girls, and they kind of identified around about the age of and 7 is where we start locking in these identities within us, and a lot of that is socialized. And there was big great examples about if you dress a a baby in girl clothes at the age of 6 months to 18 months. People treated them in a different way than if you dressed them in boy clothes regard their actual sex drug gender. And, yeah, I was talking to some people that was like, because I work on the recruitment HR space. And one of the challenges is trying to attract more young girls, women, into stem subjects, into into subjects where traditionally it's been operated by men. I I think it's I was actually speaking it to a an organization, and they said, well, it's not our problem so much. Society's problem, and I said, well, hang on a minute. If you're running a business, you've gotta take some responsibility to invest in the future and go out into schools, go out into the into the work beyond your workplace to make your subjects aspirational and to try and overcome those biases by having great female role models great role models from underprivilege or underrepresented communities, not just sit back and go, well, we can't do anything in society. And that that's a challenge I see. And I almost a demand where we have to start maybe into anti nation classes. We start trying to educate parents on how to debise how to degenerate a lot of the stuff they and the message that they give their children. The schools are now doing a fantastic job. I I I speak to a lot of pair and the schools are putting a lot of effort into making sure that boys and girls feel equally aspirational. But, of course, you come home, you then get socialized back into the boy girl. And then the friends and all your peers kick in, and and they just reinforce the terrorist. So all the great work the schools are doing is being deprogrammed by the parent and society around them. And that's that's all. I think we've gotta pre we gotta tackle pre parents and change the generation. Otherwise, we're never gonna make a difference. I I I'm

Dr Lynda Shaw: I'm looking forward to the day when we do not discuss gender at all.

Joanne Lockwood: Yes. Amen. Yeah. Yeah. I'm look yeah. I'm really am looking forward to that

Dr Lynda Shaw: day. I'm looking forward to the day when somebody gets a job on their merit. On their capability and their experiences so far. I'm looking forward to that. I'm a mother of a son and a daughter. I don't want to either of them to have a problem because of their gender. So I worry about us saying we need more women in on the board or we need more women somewhere. Yes, we do, but surely we are doing the same as we did with the other with the opposite gender, but just change the label. You know, we to to it's it's a it's a labeling thing. I would rather just say, let's the north gender. Did you know I did a documentary with Karen Brady on channel 5 new? No? Okay. We sorry. I'm cracked. Tell me if you just want me to be quiet, Jo. Oh,

Joanne Lockwood: that's good. I get very excited. 15 minutes a final hour frame. Definitely. Yeah. Care for it.

Dr Lynda Shaw: Okay. We we did this we did this program. I set up an experiment, and we we've gotten some recruiters from an in different employment agencies, half old guys, half old girls. We split them into 2 groups. And we hid them away in the side rooms. We had CVs stuck up on the wall. Half the CVs had the name of the applicant and the photograph, half of the CDs had no name and no photograph. So you would think that was not you couldn't tell what gender they were because of that. With them, the first group of the, of the first group of recruiters came in, and they saw with photo first and without, and we swapped it around for the second group. So we mixed it up a bit, so there wasn't any kind of ordering problem. The brief was they didn't know why they were there, but the brief was that they had to, decide on one applicant for a first interview in an engineering firm as an IT expert. Traditionally so called a male role, engineering firm, IT, and that was it. I think it was 95 percent of the result, 95% of them chose men. Even with the CVs without a photograph or a name. And when we told them that there was a bias going on, they were mortified. Because they're recruiters. They understand what bias means. And they just say, no. No. No. No. No. What was it? Well, why did you choose that person? Well, because they've got a better degree was more suitable. No. They've all got suitable degrees, every one of them. And but it turned out that it was the language in the CVs that that gave them the idea of which gender it was. So the female CVs were words like team building, and, things like that, that looks the more cohesive, type of words, whereas the guy words were all about ambition and those words. And that that gave a clue as to what the recruiters were looking at. And it was quite enlightening that, and they were really upset with themselves. And argued big time pushed back. Yeah. But, it, it was true. You know, but people will have biases. You know, the only people that don't have biases are dead people. So, you, you know, so it's not a bad thing. We just need to be aware of them and work with them sensibly. Yes. I

Joanne Lockwood: mean, the whole, meritocracy in recruitment and opportunity is a whole new topic, which I'm I'm planning on tackling the other day, but, I often find merit pushing meritoxi forward is an excuse to keep the status quo because what we're saying is based on the based on the merits we've decided, this is the best person, but we often don't include in that merit autocracy scoring other skills that are maybe more appropriate to the workplace, about collaboration, about teamwork, about empathy, about building relationships. So often we're building the meritocracy with male bias in mind, and that that's that's the challenge I have with meritocracy. And, yes, we'd all love to be equal, but I think some people need equity, which means give them a leg up to give them equality, if you like, or equal chance. So Yeah. Yeah. So that, yeah, I think currently meritocracy is almost an excuse to keep status quo. And sometimes I I feel that a diversity hire, whether that's gender ethnicity is somehow somehow seems 2nd best. I'm hiring for diversity, not for the best person, but I have to hire someone who's different. They won't be as good. So you're almost pre bias in person to be not as good as the obvious candidate. And, anyway, that's a that's a topic for all of you in the future. Unless you've got

Dr Lynda Shaw: some Sorry, Jeremy. You've just really touched on something that's really interesting there. If we are, feeding the status quo, we're actually going to become dinosaurs because things are changing so rapidly, we really have got to think in in much more creatively, with with much more innovation. So In actual fact, if we've got a job speaker, we're looking for a certain type of person and we're trying not to be gender biased or any bias whatsoever, maybe we're looking at the rock, maybe obscapes, not correct. Oh, completely. Completely. It's

Joanne Lockwood: a whole whole recruitment industry, and it is is shaking itself up. Is based on a CV, which is a historical document. And that was only invented in the eighties when we started having fax machines, and we could start writing CVs on computers. Before that, we used to fill an application form. So we we constructed the CV as the official document. People Wellbeing at video interviews, again, video interviews could have their own buy you know, you see somebody at the way they talk, the way they sound, the way they all these other facts kicking. But yeah, it's I think the the more forward looking companies now are being more objective in their approach where they were set defined criteria, you would maybe rate yourself, someone else would rate you on the answer to a question. So for the time you get around to say that the second round, there's always there's always that affinity, but as you already know, that person has capability. So you're more likely to you're more likely to welcome everybody whereas first system of CV is down to how good you are at creating a CV, whether you've paid someone or or what it is a whole load of factors that CVs often are written by professionals to get people jobs, not actually to do the job. And, often, the the interview process is is two people lying to each other, about the demo mode of the game, if you're like, rather than actual actual game footage. So, yeah, it's, it I think the forward looking companies are starting to address the way they recruit, the way they attract. The whole candidate experience, and also understand that the step is about their brand and about their, what they're offering people in terms of flex ability and the skills they need because they don't want the hierarchical businesses in the past. They want more neural networks, and that requires different skill sets, which can't always pick up in a CV. Absolutely. There's a lot you can't pick up in a

Dr Lynda Shaw: CV. But, of course, as soon as you get somebody in front of a panel, the the, perceptions of each panelist will be, unique to only them. So they'll be looking with their with their buyers views as well, you know, it's one of the big different. To be honest with you, when I go into companies, one of the things I talk about is if you have got an interview panel, or a board or whatever is that you come to a point of agreement that you are if you display a bias, which you're bound to do, the others pointed out to you. Yes. I'd just say, hang on a minute. Little Jiminy cricket here. We're all watching on your shoulder. You just did X Y Zed. The problem with that is that somebody might feel they're being got at by their peers. So it has to be really a place of where everybody consents to the same thing. And, you know, you actually are looking after one another, so you are not demonstrating or using buyers because you're being pulled up on it. So it raises awareness of of, you know, what what is your default button? Yeah. And I think,

Joanne Lockwood: again, look at some of the forward looking companies, they're they're a lot more effort into training their recruiters. They're also trying to avoid groupthink or dominance within an interview board where each person has to rate and review against a set of objective criteria before they discuss. And only then do you do you consolidate the results and try and average out those biases if you can? And some of those are done blindly, and some of those are done, as I say, just using objective based questions. So, you know, find the error in this code, write me 5 lines of code that will do this. So really testing in job experience, and some are even saying come in and work for us for a day, do the job and see how it goes. And and those are kind of a better, better ways of evaluating someone's fit performance, capability than a 5 minute interview, which really, I think people are saying now that an interview and a CV and application video only gets you a month or 2's head start. It's the actual the person that's gonna thrive after the 3 or 4 months, when they've they've picked up the job, they've picked up the opportunity. And, they're actually enrolled I think what we tend to do is we we tend to go for the person who's got the extrovert personality or the or the person more like us or the more like the person just left or the other people in the team. And that's that's when we're right at the job set, we often think of the person we want to hire, and then we match everybody against that person other than the actual needs of the role. But, yeah, that that's that's that's the way the world is moving, and it slowly in some areas, but people organizing are really focused on that. Yeah. I think it's it's all about group membership.

Dr Lynda Shaw: You know, we, we identify with people like us, and we need our group membership, and we will fight for our group. As you've seen everywhere, absolutely, every week, just listen to the news anytime, and you will find people fighting for their group that they feel a member of, and anybody out side of that group is a threat. And that's, you know, that's evolutionary psychology going on here. You know, everybody outside that, and and for very good reason, when we were in Little Villages, and we were being invaded all the time and raided and stuff and, you know, raped and pillaged and all of those things going on. So, but so our group membership is very, very important to us. So it's the, I think the way to get help to get over it is to for people to appreciate the differences of other groups. So there needs to be a a move forward to to appreciate. So we're raising awareness, and then we start to appreciate how those differences are valuable, So set set a break

Joanne Lockwood: uniqueness, set a break differences. It makes the whole bigger by enriching it with different experiences, different thoughts, different different ideas. Yeah. I agree. Yeah.

Dr Lynda Shaw: Absolutely. Absolutely. And then what you've got is but to be honest with you, you raise awareness, but people will still ignore it if they feel threatened. So you won't actually change anybody's mind unless you can stimulate curiosity. Because with curiosity, we learn. You know, sure we learn the times table by road, you know, just boring, boring, dram it in, but most of us learn by being curious. And children, especially, like, they're sponges. They're everything they're in in awe, and they're in wonder of everything that going on, and they're learning huge amounts of data every single day. And just by being sponges and curing, about what the, what's going on in the world. So if we can stimulate that in adults, but raising awareness of what's going on, Finding that curiosity to then appreciate the differences there are and then being curious about what that person contribute, or those people can contribute, all that group contribute to what you're doing. That's a good way forward, I think. Yeah. Are are we now living in society

Joanne Lockwood: where people aren't being as curious as they once were with, maybe there's too much information, too much strong opinion, mean, it's just to look at some of the the hot topics of the of the world in the UK. So we've got the, the Brexit debate. We've got climb change. We've got some of these other debates that are going on where we have, anti vaxxes and and and people who are adamant that vaccines, cause, autism, etcetera, etcetera. So we've got all these really strong opinions, and people seem to set up camps on opposite sides of the opposite hills and just start throwing grenades and and rocks and stones at each other and aren't just So you're not with this carnage of where the center ground is almost like dangerous where you have to have an opinion, and think we saw it with with Brexit. Once you'd entrenched into a camp, it was very hard to to get into the middle ground and have a conversation. And is that the media? Is social media? Is that is that just the way society's evolved? Is that how do we how do we get curious again? How do we how do we reverse what we've done? I think, if

Dr Lynda Shaw: anybody is so ensconced in their, in their group membership, they are not going to be curious unless their curiosity is stimulated. That could be stimulated by an outsider, or it could be stimulated by what another group has done. And, and and it depends how how much identity somebody has with their group, how deep that identity is. If somebody has more than one identity, then they are going to be more willing to bond to find out about others. But if people, if somebody has got, you know, some religions, well, all religions, some people in them, they become, they don't want to know about anything else. They are right, and everybody else is wrong. And that's so black and white. It just can't possibly be true. It just can't be true. And of course, if we can get that going, that curiosity you going, then we communicate better. And if we communicate better, there'd be far less, anguish and anxiety. Oh, yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: We need to put this this this this podcast onto the onto onto the radio, play it everyone's home and just and get people to on. Let's open our minds up, but it's it's a really difficult thing to overcome when you're so entrenched. You you so everything in your life saying you're right. You're being bombarded with your in group stuff, as you said. And that sometimes in order to break away from that, you've got to be the brave one. Step out of your in group and go and go and visit visit the enemy. You know, it's it's I often talk about it as a you're either a man in ice fan or a man city fan. You're either a a bright red or a light blue. You you can't there's no middle ground. You can't be half half a Jedi. You can't be half a sith. You know, you're you have to make you have to snare your colors sometimes, and and that's where people really struggle to the open minded, isn't it? It is. And it's

Dr Lynda Shaw: all again down to group identity. They can't belong to more than one group, but I've never stood. Why? It doesn't I don't I I I can understand it psych in in terms of psychology, but I don't understand because you everyone else is threat. But if somebody, if that group has proven themselves not to be a threat, then, you know, lift yourself up. And just start to ask questions and find out what it's like to be at that other group. Yeah, Yeah. I I mean, that that segue is nicely. And just one of the

Joanne Lockwood: things we were talking about the other week, which was around trans identities. And the way that trans identity and people who are trans can polarize people into two camps. There are some who are vehemently transgender critical who try and base their understanding of the world based on a fixed binary gender, binary sex, birth, chromosomes, birth genes, etcetera. And other people who are more able to see gender as a freely sense of sense of identity, sense of self, something we've evolved over our lifetime, and and there's no binary gender, as such, there's a whole spectrum, which is fluid and it can evolve and not everyone has to be this yeah, the gender box of an expectation of a man or the gender box expectation of a woman. And, there are some people who seem to want to police people back into their box. I

Dr Lynda Shaw: know. I know we do. And it's giga box quite interesting. Last week, I was, I was speaking at a conference. And just before I had to go on stage, they they broke out in groups. And, I was that one group stayed in the main room, and other groups went to different areas in the building. So I stayed in the room, because I knew I was I was wired up and with the mic and everything. So I stayed there. And, I watched this group. Honestly, Joe, it was the weirdest thing there were about 20 of them. And in my imagination, I could see, like, particles all coming together and entwining and bouncing bouncing and doing this and bouncing a bit more and doing stuff. And I just thought, this is I I'm very interested in quantum physics, but I don't understand it. But, it's pretty hard. But, but it's like, when you talked about when you have a period in our lives where we're more fluid, we can be, you know, whatever we wish to be in terms of gender or whatever. It was like that. It was, I could see all these particles, again, in my imagination, just coming mingling together, very much influencing one another. Very much, leaving your template, your footprint, whatever, but equally, then thought to myself, okay, in terms of neuroscience, what's going on here? And in neuroscience and psychology, we try to explain things in very, not fixed ways, but certain ways of logic, whereas quantum physics is random. You know, that you get these these particles going on, all of a sudden, they're behaving certain way and then they don't. It just they just randomly do something else. And that's what people do. Yeah. You know, we we have all these psychology theories and neuroscience stuff coming out. And, all of these things going on about human brain and the human behavior, but then they get all of a sudden, they can do something really random. You go, where did that come from? Why why would you do that? And it's like we are intwined in quantum theory, in that just for some reason, we do something random, and it's a very fluid process. That's how I saw it. Sorry. I went off on that. I'm

Joanne Lockwood: As you're talking, I'm I'm going back to the intro we had where you said you embrace change and where you find that other people don't. Is, and I completely get that because what I found since I I embrace change myself, I've almost become a a change in bracelet because I realized that I've had to go through an event in my life. Where I changed significantly, and I impacted those around me. So it's kind of reasonable for me to want respect who I am for me to be able to embrace other people's change, whether that or difference of opinion, because if I, if I'm if I say why not, I'm okay, but I don't get you. That's almost like saying, well, hang on a minute. If if I if I if I want any modicum of respect, I have to be out of but everybody has an opinion. Everybody, everybody's identity, and you say in group out group, whatever that identity is, whether it's football, gender politics, you're allowed to have an opinion. And it's just a way of embracing that opinion and sharing it in a discussion respectful way rather than trying to force an opinion on somebody, you know, you're allowed to have it, but you don't have to necessarily share it. Sometimes you can you can keep your mouth shut and know when it's, it's not mainstream. So

Dr Lynda Shaw: But I don't I don't think people realize how they come across sometimes. I I have I have an this quirk in my behavior in that I can actually stand outside of myself and watch me interact with others. I don't know if you do that. Do you do that? I I think I'm I'm in space

Joanne Lockwood: looking down. Yeah. Watch the gameplay if you like.

Dr Lynda Shaw: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do it when I'm on stage. You know, I I can I can be telling a story, and I am watching the re that the me telling the story and the response of the audience, and I'm not in the story are more watching it play out Yes? So that I can work the audience, to communicate with them better.

Joanne Lockwood: Yes. So, so I so I think,

Dr Lynda Shaw: aim, just stand outside of ourselves and watch the show and realize that we are not doing terribly Wellbeing we are doing very Wellbeing what we can then change our behavior. The problem is when it gets really important is when we're in a high state of arousal, when we are really, you know, the emotions are going, and they're in charge, and people get really heated. And, and you see it on social media all the time, it's just ridiculous. And so you people just, are in that state of, of of emotions, rolling, Wellbeing the brain, rolling the way that you can't actually step up side of yourself and watch the show go on. And it just fuels everything to the negative. So, yeah, for me, standing outside of myself is really helpful. That's a really good, technique. And I

Joanne Lockwood: It's funny. I I I I often say the same thing to people, and not often do I hear people go, like, oh, I know exactly what you mean, but to hear you say that, I think, yes. I found somebody else. And the analogy I often use is the is the the film, the matrix, at the point where when Neo dies and he wakes up again. And when he wakes up. He he sees the world as a social construct. He sees his place in the world, how he can influence it, how he gets influenced. And then at the end, flies over the city looking down at the world or the construct of the world. And I've I kind of found that since I embrace my change that to be critical about what I'm what the information I'm feeding critical about the biases I'm hearing be able to question. So why did I think that? Why do I think why do you think that? And then almost like trying to come up with a little thought that that doesn't allow me to proceed until I until I've realized why I'm saying something Or is that a fact? Is that an opinion? Is that kind? Is it cruel? What who told me to believe that thing? What's the media telling me I should believe? Why do you want me to click that button? And it's almost like, is having the that extra bit of circuitry in your head that says, just quickly check it and put it back in again before it gets processed before it gets locked in. Yeah. I mean, I've got a a a little

Dr Lynda Shaw: digital, when I hear information, when I see a situation or whatever, I'd check it by saying who says? Yeah. Who says? You know, if somebody tries to light on who says? Yeah. And they go Well, you know, because that, you know, the stuff that people come out with is just a it it it is their perceptions based upon their experiences so far. And, which is why it's so unique because we perceive the living based on experiences that have gone before, so they are completely unique. It's this massive pyramid going on. So what I do, I double check, and who says? And it just stops people in their tracks, because nobody, yeah, if you're going to quote some kind of research going on, then, clearly, the authors of the researcher who said, but that's not what people are talking about. They're talking about an opinion or an idea or an perception that is based on something that is, as I say, unique. So pulling them up short, it says, perhaps some works.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Based on what? Yeah. Yeah. It's it's almost like a Hayward taught school in math mathematics. It it show your workings out. It's, you may have been answer wrong at the end, but if someone understands how you got to that answer, they can they can then piece together your thought process. Don't have to necessarily just disagree with you, but they can see what you're trying to think at the same time. Yeah. And even even though math is your right

Dr Lynda Shaw: or your wrong, you you get marks for the, what are you worked it out?

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Exactly. So, you know, it's, so, yeah, absolutely

Dr Lynda Shaw: agree with you. Really good. Just able to see at the same date the same

Joanne Lockwood: evidence and draw a different conclusion based on their perspective, their biases, their groups. But then you have a discussion about where where they diverge based on this data. So you thought that at that point. I thought this at this point. So why do you think that? Do I need to adjust my thinking, or should I help you adjust your thinking, or do we just say, okay, that's a fundamental theology type disagreement. We can't we can't rationalize that one, but we can understand why we people think that. I think also people take themselves too seriously.

Dr Lynda Shaw: Yeah. I do. Hello. You know, I, but my I and my work is serious. I love my work, and I do good stuff with what I with the results I get with clients and so on, but I've to take myself seriously, it's not it doesn't serve anyone. No.

Joanne Lockwood: The triangle in in a DJ is. Yeah. I think we all need to have our off days and just chill out and and be a be a be ourselves, be relaxed sometimes, don't we? We're not careful. We we just seen as this professional or someone without outside interests, who? Would that be all of us?

Dr Lynda Shaw: Yeah. And you know full well that you're not going to be liked by everybody. Well, that's okay. Sorry. Yeah. I don't, you know, it it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. And if we worry about stuff that we can't do anything about, and that's just dark, We all do it. Don't get me wrong. I'm as guilty as the next person, but I talk so I'm talking to myself here. There's a mirror going on. So I, you know, we, we, we do. We need to lighten up.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Be far more accepting and lighten up and not

Dr Lynda Shaw: think that we are because we Touplings with our perceptions, we are always the central player. Whatever we see, we are the central player. So we take ourselves too seriously. Yeah. That's the expression I

Joanne Lockwood: heard was, strong opinions lightly held. I can't remember who said Nice. I think it's nice to have a an opinion. It's nice to know who you are, what you stand for, but holding it lightly enough that you're willing to listen and adapt and improve your algorithm if you like. Yeah. I think that's actually where

Dr Lynda Shaw: the schools can come in is to, encourage more debating societies. Because we we are losing the art of arguing sensibly our corner and then letting the audience decide which can, which foot they've got in, in which camp. I can remember, I was once that, consciousness is my favorite topic full time, right, it's mostly tip terrible ever so hard. It's like the last frontier. And I was at in Tucson at the consciousness, a conference. And, I was sitting in, in in the audience, and one, there were 2 neuroscientists on this stage. 1 was arguing for Freud, the other was arguing against. Now neuroscientists and Freud do not work together. Okay. It's a bit like oil and water. But the way the guy talked about Freud and persuaded the audience that we still needed to consider Freudian theory in our neuroscience work, He won. Because of the way he argued it and it was calm, it was logical. He got really good evidence and, he he won, I I think if you're very good at debating, you could say persuade somebody, the sky's green. You know, so, sorry, there goes my phone in the background. So you can actually persuade somebody in is sort of in agreement with purple spots. So if you're really good at argument, that you will persuade people. Now that could be right or wrong. Don't get me wrong, but then I'm talking right or wrong again, then that's wrong, if you see what I mean, because it's not, it's not black and white. It's, there's this lovely ambiguity about life. So, yeah, So I think the schools could help us not to be, to be better at understanding one another if they taught debating skills. I suppose

Joanne Lockwood: the modern society, young children, teenagers, they're kind of brought up in a world of wanting to be liked wanting to get self gratification or gratification. This is a selfie. It's a Snapchat filter. There's a lot of mental health issues, as we know, about children who are are bullied by not by people actively blocking them or dislike them on social media. And this is kind of the the the modern generations way of of social contact is that the in groups and out groups are a hyper magnified through these these social media outlets, aren't they? Yeah.

Dr Lynda Shaw: Absolutely. Absolutely right. And I mean, the the social media is just, I mean, the children and anybody just cannot get away from anybody decides to be a bully. And, and I really use the word hate, but I hate bullies. Absolutely categorically hate bullies. There is never, ever, ever, any excuse ever to bully someone, never. And of course, the kid now are in their rooms, you know, aren't far too late on various social media networks or, or whatever they're doing. And, they can't get away from the bullies. They can't get away from those who are who are feeding them with self doubt and low self worth. And, it's serious dangerous, and I think horrific, really horrific. Yeah. There's an oxymoron, and what it sounds like an oxymoron, and

Joanne Lockwood: is it you should be intolerant of intolerance That's kind of knocks you more on its own way, but what it's basically trying to say is that anybody who steps out of what is considered polite normal society, whatever normal is, or the social construct of the rules we've created. Anyone steps outside of that should not be tolerated, but they're intolerant. Which is where we talk about religious, fanaticism, some of the the terror attacks. We can't be tolerant of that even to know that person, you have to almost allow them to express their religious freedom or their their view but we can't be tolerant of that person in this society. And at that point, ladies, it's like, it's bully. It's it's it's that they're they're sitting out to harm the many and they're not the one that at at being harmed if you like. I actually have a

Dr Lynda Shaw: problem with the word tolerate. So do I hate it hate it. Yeah. I do. I'd I'd it tolerates sounds arrogant. It sounds like, I'm okay. I will put up with the fact that you're not as good as me. And I just really have a strong problem with that. I don't I think, you know, we talk about tolerating in society. No. We show compassion and understanding. We do not tolerate, and we appreciate. We appreciate differences. So I think there's a, it's not just a case of semantics because the words we use have a subliminal effect on our mind. So if you're going to, if you're going to feed people with this, with the way I've got to be more of a tolerant society, I'm sorry. That makes you an arrogant society. And I don't like it. Catching people against our rule set is tolerance. You're gonna say

Joanne Lockwood: my rule set is this. You don't quite meet my rule set. Therefore, I'm gonna allow you in a bit Yeah. But it's still on the outside. You're still on the out group, but I I I tolerate you as an out group. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's very condescending. Yeah. No. I hate the word. It's it's bought from

Dr Lynda Shaw: yours. It's we've we've got to come from a place of being curious to understand one another and to appreciate the our differences and appreciate that we've all got a place in this world to contribute to society. That's how I see it. Yeah. You're talking to

Joanne Lockwood: the converted. So, yeah, no compete in this. Exactly. See the world. Whilst I've got you on the line, one one thing I wanted to talk to you about was around about, so I often get misgendered by people. And what I figured out in my limited research is that it's only certain people that do it. So that I break people into, like, kind of, 3 categories. There's people who've known me most of my life. So they've known both sides of me, and therefore, there's gonna be a lot of legacy, a lot of history, behind how they know me, what we've done together, the lived experience, the shared environment we have. So I have an understanding that they're gonna get it wrong from time to time because it is difficult and I'm not saying it isn't difficult. There's another group of people who've only known me as me today, and that group is huge. Within that group of people who've only known me as Joanne, Joanne, the woman, Joanne, the female, Joanne's speaker, business owner. There were people in that group who still misgend me from time to time, and It's random. It's occasional. Often when they're referring to me, so they'll they'll say, they'll look to somebody else and say, he's fantastic. Oh, sorry. I meant she's fantastic, but there were people who never get it wrong. And then there's a third grouping, the main grouping is people I see in a service providing, position. So that that there is a a steward, a hotel check-in, serving me on a at a restaurant there, the cabin service crew, checking people where where those are the kind of people that sometimes from time to time through either subliminal message in their brain that's saying, oh, hello, sir, or just misgendering that casual way. So it's it's trying to understand. So I've I've come down to think that it's not always just about the person being say, ignorant. I hate the word ignorant. Or is it laziness? Is it their brain just has some pathways in it that they can't override? I mean, what's your thought? I don't think it's

Dr Lynda Shaw: laziness. I think it's just preconditioning. According to their own perceptions, their own upbringing, their own environment, and they slip into default. If if it was laziness, I think they would know they're doing it and can't be bothered, but I don't think they do. I think it's something just comes out. It's like that unconscious processing. It's just, you know, the default comes out of their mouths, without without thinking it through. I mean, especially with the 3rd group, who might not even be aware they've done it, okay, all of a sudden, calling you. He thank you. He thank you for your passport, sir. Have a good flight. Whatever. They might not even realize they said it, they've just gone on and they're on automatic. So I don't, I don't, I don't think it's too deliberate, unless the occasional person is being horrid. But, I don't I don't think it's a talk to liberal. I think it's just the unconscious brain going into default, and they, they've just not been exposed to e enough people who have been tr or a transgender. I think it depends on, you know, what they've been exposed to to that date. And I I I

Joanne Lockwood: fully appreciate it. It's it's a very complex thing because that millisecond perception of who you are that that, you know, how we we we do all that processing very quickly, and it's made up of so many different dynamics. It's frame and stature, the way you move, just from the way you stand or just, the, the voice let alone the face the facial dimensions, the ratios, the hair, size of hand, size of feet. There's a whole lot of dynamics going on where someone just makes a snap decision, and it's what you do with that data that varies, I think, between people. Some people some people kind of look at me and go, no they don't interpret it at all. They just they just say, sir. Some people say, I see a woman. You are a woman. And some people is where it's a bit more complicated where they're sort of at. They don't want students to evaluate and go, clearly, Joe is trans. Joe was born this way, and then their brain almost like flips over it they think too much almost. Yeah. I think that's right. And I do think, I

Dr Lynda Shaw: mean, I do believe that society is getting better. Our society is getting better, because we're being we're talking about it more, we're understanding more. I think it's very hard for people who are not exposed to anything like that at all, they're gonna come across as more stuck. But the more we we talk about it, the more we become open, the more we realize there are many, many categories of human Wellbeing. If we want to talk about categories at all, then I think that that it will become less of an issue, but I think maybe we're in a place of transition in our society at the moment. Yep.

Joanne Lockwood: No. Yeah. I think we'll we'll we'll transition in life. Not as I say every day, but we we evolve. We go from being an infant to a child, to a young adult, to a teenager, to, all these various things we have responsibilities as a as a parent, as a as an employer, employee, a boss, a a yeah. So we all have these different hats, different identities. And Oh, it's a

Dr Lynda Shaw: generation thing as well. Yeah. Completely. And We all think we're

Joanne Lockwood: different, but we're all the same. Yeah. I do I do think there's

Dr Lynda Shaw: a generation thing. I think, you know, if if you've got an older generation who has not that society has not openly talked about transgender, transsexual, tran, lesbian, gay, whatever. They've So therefore, they're not going to be sure how to handle it. Whereas the next generation down, it's more open. It's talks about a lot more. It's become the norm, and the youngest generation probably won't even think about it. You know, it's just like, for yes, So what's your point, which will be great? So do

Joanne Lockwood: you think there's anything, say, I, as a trans person, could do to help people who may be struggling with this, what what what technique could I learn to make it easier for people? Do you have a thought on that? Yeah. I do. I

Dr Lynda Shaw: know some people who are younger people, and they have, gone through, they've changed gender and they lack understanding for those who don't understand. They, they expect everybody to, make allowances and inverted commas and use the correct words. We don't say he, she, you say it, we use that stuff, which, you know, you can't, it's very hard to say a sentence like that. It doesn't sound grammatically correct. That's hard in itself. Think there are a lot of people out there who want to understand and and dot people as equally regardless of what they've chosen to do, but those people, there are some people who are who are intolerant, and they're expecting, expecting more of the society, the society are able to give at this moment. So, and this is this is a massive generalization. Massive. So I think peep perhaps people who want to not be in the stereotypical norm to be a little bit, understanding and help educate those people in what it's like, or why, or whatever, just so that they can, you you can, increase the level of understanding

Joanne Lockwood: So almost what I'm hearing is so you would say people who have limited exposure to different identities, whether that's gender, race, whatever, they need help to learn. And to shut someone down doesn't help Wellbeing. All it does is create conflict. So it's finding a way to turn, a potential accident or a potential over or just some unconscious slip up into into a a positive outcome through, I'm sorry, that that that hurt. That doesn't work for me. Can we have a conversation about it?

Dr Lynda Shaw: Yeah. I mean, you you gotta be very careful you don't put people, they, that they make people feel bad about themselves. Because everybody's trying to do the best they can. Most people are trying to do the best they can. So to make them feel bad about themselves, we'll just set up with more of a them and

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I I I get that. And I think the struggle, a lot of people who have who are less typical, what, whatever that I did see maybe is that it could become very, very exhausting where you're having to do that time and time and time again. So for for me to meet the chemist one day, that may be the 5th thing this week. It may be the 3rd thing that morning. I may be feeling great about myself, and I'm thinking about the day. And then the airline steward makes a remark And then that's completely so for me to then be in in the right firm of mind to say, actually, can we treat this as a learning exercise? Having had this experience many, many times, you know, the drips of water, the microaggressions. So it's some, at some point, someone is to straw the bricks of the camel's back some of that one person and that that Yeah. Struggle where you you are having to kind of explain yourself all the time. Yeah. Absolutely great. But Yeah. But I think there's an element of of 2 city battles. Yeah.

Dr Lynda Shaw: I So and I the breath the word battle is completely wrong, but, it's like you've got to choose the times that it suits you and the, have you perceived the person to be receptive, to take your message on board? And just choose when it, when it, when it, you think it's going to work at its best, and you're, you're in the right frame of mind to do it. And then, and hopefully, enable that person to be an ambassador, to be able to talk about this to others in a positive light. So you're you're setting up little ambassadors to toggle off and spread the word in a positive way. Yeah. I did. Yeah. I think I think the biggest struggle though is the

Joanne Lockwood: It it's a one off to you. It's a it's a 50 off to me. And, essentially, the the the micro the, you know, the the drip drip effect of it, it it it can become exhausting. And I think, you know I'm sure. In the same way.

Dr Lynda Shaw: Maybe maybe that's why you're you're really at a disadvantage there, Joe, in that you're a professional speaker. Yes. And that's what I do. Yeah. You can say your thing to hundreds of people at any one time, which is fantastic. Yeah. I know. And and that

Joanne Lockwood: and that's that I think a society evolves. And and it's I use Brett it as a as an example, if if I can understand the other view, it doesn't matter what my view is. If I can't understand the other view, I can have more empathy that in a way, it's incumbent on us all to be educated about ourselves. Yeah. Because we're all unique. You're you're you, I'm me. That there'll be something that I don't understand about you. So you kind of gotta explain it, and that that thing that's different about you may not be as obvious as the thing that's different about me. So you may have to explain more, less often. But there's some times where you'll you maybe have to justify some research, your thoughts. You you know, some of the conversation we've had today is challenged. Thinking that people have had around neuroscience and the brain for years. And a lot of people go, no. No. No. No. I've I've based my whole talk on left brain, right brain, and and Myers Briggs, because all this stuff, and and you're saying, well, now, actually, that's it's not as simple. And so you're changing other people's beliefs. And it, yeah, sometimes you you probably find the same. You have to pick your back and see it actually has no point arguing with you. It doesn't it's not bad. You know, you you can

Dr Lynda Shaw: you can do make a, a, an impression of somebody, and you could just think, do you know what? It's just not worth me talking to them. Wasting my breath. And then you'll know your extents, you'll instinctively know that, somebody's actually receptive to learning and that's the person to talk to. Maybe this other person will be more receptive in a month's time. Who knows? But at that moment, you know, full word, you're just wasting your breath. So I do think we need to choose who we talk to about what. If I engage rather than battles or or pick our

Joanne Lockwood: conversations here. I agree. I agree. That's been fantastic, and I I thank you for your time this morning. There anything you'd like to just wrap up? It's like, so how do people contact you? How can I find out more about your work? Okay. I'm As I

Dr Lynda Shaw: say, I'm a specialist in in the art of change or embracing change, which in which covers many behaviors, including habits and all sorts of things that I guide people through. So I'm you can find me at Lynda at drLyndaShaw.com. That's l y n d a, d r l y n d a s h a w. It's really hard to say that, isn't it? And why can't I just have a simple name? lynda@drlyndashaw.com or www.drlyndashaw.com. That's me. Brilliant. I'll put all those details in the in the

Joanne Lockwood: pop notes and the accompanying this. And if, if you've enjoyed this conversation, if you'd like to hear more, then please do subscribe. The links again will be in the comments, and I'd love to hear more. And, of course, if you'd like to contribute to a future edition, then please contact me, and I'd love to have you as a guest. So for now, Dr Lynda Shaw, thank you so much for your time. You've been an inspiration. Thank you very much.