Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: To what extent do gaining insight and making decisions actually depend on each other? That’s the question we explore in Room #837 of the Deep Talk Club, under our overarching theme of “Insight (and gaining it).” Listen in on the examples that came up and the perspectives that emerged in dialogue…
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
A wonderful good morning to you all. Today we continue with insight and decision. To what extent do gaining insight and making decisions actually depend on each other? Does making a decision have something to do with gaining insight, or does that not connect at all, or is it more of a sequence, so to speak? Let’s take a closer look at whether there’s some kind of interplay, a sequence in one direction or another, and that’s what we want to look at together today as our main topic. So you’re warmly invited to join and step into the exchange, so we can open up different examples, perspectives, and derive from that in dialogue which aspects come together and how that helps us sort our thoughts, so to speak, and in that sense also see whether we can derive certain aspects for ourselves from the room today. As always, the room is being recorded, just a reminder. That means anyone who decides to join automatically agrees that it’s being recorded and then published accordingly. And we have three small room rules: a profile photo where you’re clearly recognizable, your first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio. Anyone who, for whatever reason, doesn’t want to do that, of course has the alternative option of simply joining the interaction through the chat. So feel free to bring in thoughts, questions, or anything else there, and I can look at whether we can pick up on this or that accordingly. And with that, I’d like to start today’s room together with this main topic of insight and decision, and warmly invite you to join, and not “waste” too much time, so we can get into the exchange faster and look at things without unnecessarily losing time, and above all not have unnecessarily long gaps in the recording. I’ve noticed that’s quite odd when gaps happen — probably for someone listening to the recording afterward who has to wait and wonders why nothing’s happening right now. So let me unmute for a moment and see who’d like to join. A wonderful good morning, dear Layla.
A wonderful good morning. I missed the beginning, but I did catch the bit about the pauses. First I have to say, it’s strange hearing your own voice, especially when it comes out of the TV. And second, that thing with the pauses is a deliberate choice, but as a listener it’s a bit irritating. I briefly wondered whether to edit it out or not. But that’s exactly the topic, decisions. You deliberately decided against it, right?
Right.
Okay, because you wanted to show the live experience, or the process — because that’s really fascinating for me. How did you arrive at that decision? Because insight and decision — I find your decision good, I can understand it, but I’m also often in your room, and I wondered, well, how is that from a marketing standpoint? How is it, why did you make this decision this way? Does it have to do with insights, Yasemin?
Fascinating question. In this context it actually has to do with weighing things up. It’s simply time-consuming to cut it out, and that’s why it goes up one-to-one. So relatively easy and simple. From a marketing standpoint it would maybe make more sense to actually cut it out and edit it. And at the same time, that’s what’s always characterized Deep Talk — ensuring this authentic experience. That means, technically speaking too, the situation is ultimately just as it is. Except the very beginning and end, the start and finish, those actually do get cut, in the sense that if something comes up that’s not directly connected to the start, like, for example, this morning Vera was on stage too — that kind of thing can easily be cut at the beginning and end. If we start cutting things out in the middle, that’s simply a time investment. You have to search for the spot, find the spot, then it has to be cut out, and the parts have to be seamlessly stitched back together. You also have to check that it matches sonically. So that’s a weighing-up matter that simply has to do with the effort involved. And it is interesting to reflect on this process, because in this specific case it’s simply for efficiency reasons, so to speak. And now, of course, you can look at how it works in other contexts, whether we also go into certain reflection processes, so to speak, and make a decision against the background of certain considerations, or insights we’ve gained beforehand. And here, of course, there’s also an underlying insight, namely that the time investment becomes greater as a result. And that ties into an experience that already existed beforehand. If you haven’t tried it, you might not even know how time-consuming the whole thing ends up being afterward. Layla, what do you think about that?
I was just thinking about that for myself, hold on a moment, I have to close my door. Because I’ve noticed this too — I’ve wanted to get headphones forever. And now I have headphones, and when I listened to the recording, Yasemin, I noticed that I really like your sound, and that with my own sound I perceived some interference noise. And then I thought internally, no, having a consistent sound quality across everyone would actually be nice. That would mean, since I’m quite spontaneous, I should look at whether the audio quality would bring about a change. But back to the headphones. I think it is a weighing-up process, because I haven’t made the decision yet, because I thought this is enough, even though I sometimes do one-take podcasts myself and had thought about it. And now I’ll make the decision for the future, that if sound quality matters to me, well — it’s strange enough hearing your own voice. But if it’s not only distorted, because you hear yourself differently in your own ear than the listener hears you, and if the sound quality doesn’t match up on top of that, then I don’t think that’s good. And that’s why I’ll get high-quality headphones eventually. And that’s also, for example, a weighing-up process. So we always do pros and cons, to some extent. And still, I’m a big fan of spontaneity, for example. But I have to say, this makes me reflect too — spontaneity is a wonderful thing, but it shouldn’t become mere activism for its own sake. What do you think about that?
Yes, a fascinating point with this activism-for-its-own-sake thing. There are different opinions on that, and I think here too there’s no inherent right or wrong, but it has to do with the context too. That means, especially now, when it comes to something like headphones, a microphone, or similar, if you’re regularly on air, that can have a special meaning for you, so that you move out of spontaneity into a certain kind of planning, against the background of having noticed certain things for yourself now. Whereas in other situations, you might not even think about that at all, if it were just a one-time situation. And then you might just notice, oh, the sound quality maybe isn’t as good as I imagined. But since you’re not constantly and repeatedly on stage, or maybe even hosting your own rooms, as is the case for you, you might not even think about that at all. So that’s one thing. The other is spontaneity — again context-dependent. Certain things become more authentic precisely because they’re spontaneous, and there’s a certain power in spontaneity too. But spontaneity can also, I don’t know, for example, if we pick up on aspects like speed of implementation or something — there it’s often about how much planning is actually needed, or how spontaneous it should be so that things move quickly, so to speak. And while planning can sometimes take too long, and it can be good to get into doing quickly and do things spontaneously, on the other hand it can also trip you up on certain topics, where you say, oh, maybe I was too euphoric or approached the topic too fast, it would have been good to think about it three seconds longer. So here too it’s always an interplay, depending on the context, its relevance for us, what impact it can have — you can’t say per se that one or the other is good or bad, but it always has to be looked at and weighed in context, whether it needs to be more spontaneous or whether a certain amount of planning is needed here. And on the headphones, just briefly — you could also consider whether, if this bothers you and it’s an option for you, it’s not just the headphones, but of course also the sound quality from the microphone’s transmission. That means a microphone could also provide a remedy here, regardless of whether the headphones are good or not. That’s a second aspect you could factor in here too, just as a side note. What do you think about that?
That’s really fascinating for me, because I was just thinking about what’s held me back, apart from the price, up until now. I actually know people from the music industry, people who do podcasts, I’ve looked into it, and I noticed for myself, yes. And especially while you were talking, I thought, wait, if I get a microphone now — we already talked about this — then I need a mixing console, then I need this, then I have to do that and that, all before the room even starts, and I thought, wow, that’s stressful. And internally, because you always kind of label yourself, you attribute things to yourself, we’ve talked about this before. For example, I’m spontaneous — I find that a very positive attribution. I’m hectic — I don’t find that such a positive attribution. But I want to be spontaneous and sustainable. Which means these processes I subconsciously thought through, which just surfaced now, have something to do with that. In the direction of, okay, does this also have something to do with my attribution? Because that’s of course something I take pride in a bit, where I think, yes, I can implement things in a short amount of time. And yet it’s true that a lot of decisions run unconsciously in me. “No, I’m not doing that now. No, not doing that now. No, that’s too much for me right now.” And that brings us back to moving-away-from and moving-toward. And we love to make things easy for ourselves, I’ve heard. Humans want as little effort as possible, that’s why we love routines, among other things. I hate boredom, but I’ve noticed routines are a lovely thing, and that they make things easier because they automate a lot. That means, if I did this, which I’ll do anyway — on one hand professionally, because next year I want to do a podcast with my students, if there’s time for it, if it’s allowed, if it’s okay, because it could be great for the school and for the students, and for me too. And on the other hand, it’s really the question, why do I go to this effort? Do I do it now, would I do it just for myself alone too? And that’s why I’d really be interested, Yasemin, how does that work with the labels we give ourselves? And how much of that happens unconsciously in decisions? Because we also generate — we once talked about unconscious and conscious insights. You told me there are probably fewer unconscious insights, or that they might not even exist. I hope I’m paraphrasing you correctly. And then I said, yes, and the conscious insights, if we flip it around, get reinforced. And the more often I experience a situation where I’m spontaneous, the more this self-image gets confirmed. Do you understand what I mean?
Certainly. Yes, there are a few different components here again. First on the aspect of attributions — that means I have various associations I’ve connected to certain terms. You feel comfortable, for example, assuming that you’re spontaneous. That’s something that ultimately ties into experiences you already had before, or you’ve either already engaged with these terms, or had experiences connected to various terms, and you’ve stored an association in a positive or negative direction for yourself here too. And in that sense it has a lot to do with your own evaluation. So how do I evaluate different terms, how do I evaluate different circumstances, and so on. That’s one thing. That means it’s first of all subjective. When I listen to the recordings, I personally, for example, don’t find the sound quality you just mentioned bothersome at all. So here too it’s a personal and subjective evaluation you’re making. That’s maybe worth picking up on first. And then on these conscious and unconscious aspects, I’d like to say — because we’re actually talking about decisions today, and especially in the context of decisions this is a really interesting aspect we can pick up on here — because we often have the feeling that we make decisions rationally, for example. That means we mull it over, think it through, and so on. But quite often, brain research has found that basically — there are even people who’d say not a single decision is actually rational, but that we generally decide emotionally, and then look for justifications, so to speak, that support what we’ve already decided emotionally beforehand, so we then have arguments for why we decided the way we did. That’s a really fascinating aspect, because this is a process that happens in seconds, milliseconds, and decisions are made accordingly based on that, and we often have the feeling that because we then look for arguments, weigh pros and cons and so on, that we think it was actually a rational decision, but the rational decision is originally, often if not exclusively, emotionally grounded first. What do you think about that, Layla? If you can hear me right now, because you’re still muted, so let me check again. It might be, I just saw the phone icon, that Layla is on a call right now too. Let’s see. That’s almost how it looks to me, even though I can’t see it.
Yes, exactly. So I just got a call, but I postponed it. That’s how life goes sometimes. You brought up the point that you said a lot of this runs unconsciously. And I automatically had to think of broadcast formats that get complained about a lot. And you can also take the everyday person as an example. That people — what you said, I feel the same way — that it’s often the case that you try to support your own opinion. That you’ve actually already unconsciously, from my perspective unconsciously, generated an insight. And then you try to move in one direction. And with these broadcast formats it’s often the case that people say, well, they’re making a show and that’s their position, and now they’re looking for arguments that support that position. How could they? But if we approach that from a human perspective, that’s very human, because we’re always looking for logic. We even look for logic in horoscopes and say, ah, right, I’m a Capricorn, I’m more the thinker type, but then I also have Scorpio rising, that’s why I’m so passionate about that. Some people think that’s nonsense, please don’t say that to the other person, that doesn’t lead to insight for them, but rather resistance. And truth also always has something to do with perception, that’s my view of things. So just because it’s not true for me doesn’t mean it’s not true, it just means it’s that way in my world. And I’ll set aside facts here for a moment. We’ve talked about this often before too. But I find this really interesting, because I think this logic behind it — we’re always looking for a system. And that we unconsciously try to confirm our self-image, and that’s why I found it so nice that you told me last time, everything that starts with “I am,” we try to confirm that subliminally too. And if I now say I’m spontaneous, and I was just wondering, why does the sound matter so much to me? Because I like my voice, that’s why it matters to me. Because I like to modulate it, because I see it as a tool. That’s why something like this matters to me, and I’m very drawn to that kind of thing. But that’s all unconscious. And it has something to do with my positive self-image too, because I’ve been told that. I once called a hospital, I was still very young, and I’d done a test, it was for an allergy. And the doctor on the phone said, unfortunately you don’t have anything. And I said, excuse me? And he said, well, otherwise you might have come by. I should mention, to be politically correct, he didn’t know exactly how old I was either. But that’s a positive attribution I received, that I confirmed. And that’s why something like this matters to me, for example. But that’s all unconscious. And that’s why everyone can reflect for themselves and think, well, if I have a goal now, and if I have a certain attitude, am I only looking for confirmation of that and going into evaluation? Although, Yasemin, I was thinking — we’re individuals, and isn’t it normal that we go into evaluation a bit, even if we can take a step back?
It’s absolutely normal that we go into evaluation, because we’re simply a being that’s social and emotional, so to speak, and in that sense emotions always play a role too. That means the question isn’t whether it’s normal or not normal at this point — it’s normal per se already. We do that automatically, but against the background of knowing that we do it automatically, we can then go into a certain amount of reflection and regulation, so to speak, for example in the sense of emotion regulation. So if I know that certain emotions play a role here, and that I then, based on that, make evaluations afterward, then I have the option of reflecting on the whole thing, quite consciously reflecting on it, and drawing context connections here too, and against that background, possibly making different decisions than I would have made “spontaneously” if I hadn’t reflected on the process at all. And if we look at insight and decision in this combination again now, I find that really fascinating too. That means, you listened to the recording, for example, and noticed, I don’t like the sound. That might be a subjective perception and evaluation of yours for now, it’s not about whether that’s right or wrong, but it’s your experience. I find it doesn’t sound good. That means you’ve gained an insight for yourself here, and this insight then leads you to think about it. For example, do I need new headphones, do I maybe need a microphone? No, a microphone might be too much effort for me. That means, corresponding weighing-up processes take place here, and then the whole thing culminates in a decision. The decision could now be, I’ll buy new headphones that are better, higher quality, where the sound transmits better. The decision could be, it’s not that important, I’ll just leave everything as it is, even though I’ve gained the insight that the sound quality isn’t good or whatever. That means there are various options here too, but from this insight that was generated, I have the option, so to speak, of deriving a decision, and deciding not to change anything would also be a conscious decision. And conversely, there are also situations where we might have made a decision in some context that ultimately doesn’t necessarily stem from an insight, but where we simply derive a decision from various thoughts we have, and then from this decision, through what happens in the implementation, new insights are generated again, for example. And now you can’t just say it goes in one direction or the other, but it’s kind of like a cycle, or a continuation of a chain of processes. That means an insight might lead to a decision, the decision in turn leads to new insights again, and so on. You could continue this chain endlessly this way too. Does that sound plausible, or are there other alternatives here too? Layla?
Yes, that sounds very plausible. Hold on a second. So it sounds plausible in the sense that I think this becoming-conscious-of-it is important. I’m sorry, I was thinking in parallel the whole time about automatisms too, because I then thought, wait, if automatisms lead to us being able to decide things quickly — and we live in a time where we sometimes have to decide things quickly now too, because, we talked about this yesterday at your authors’ breakfast, everything’s getting faster and faster all the time. And we only consciously get into slowing down. And then I thought, yes, and these automatisms are also good for a lot of things. And the problem I see here, or the challenge, to put it more kindly, for me is that I then thought, well, and then I suddenly fall into patterns. Like how I learned to ride a bike. And that’s simple, and I can always draw on that. That automatism is great there. But it’s difficult, for example, when I go to a family gathering. And then I do it in a way where I repeat a behavior from my youth. And then you’re actually an adult, and you notice that you’re talking to the other people in a different role. I found that really interesting just now. And then really this point — how important is it to work against automatisms, to put it provocatively, or just to look at them, neutrally, and think, okay, now it’s becoming an automatism, and thus no longer a conscious decision? Do you know what I mean?
Yes, a really important and interesting question in this context too, because we’ve talked a lot about routines and so on in the past too. That means, whenever certain processes repeat, for example, we develop routines, and those are also really important for us, because per se, of course, when we can store certain similar processes, that gives us orientation, structure, security, and so on. That means, especially when we look at everyday routines we use, that we’ve developed over time, those are important for us too. Imagine if we really had to make a completely new decision for every single aspect we look at every day, in everyday life — we’d go crazy, we’d never get out of weighing things up and making new decisions again. That means these processes are quite important for us, and that’s how we get orientation, security, and so on. And at the same time, because automatisms and routines take hold here, it can be really useful — you also spoke of patterns just now — to look at various things again and again that we might not question per se, to reflect on and question one thing or another from time to time, as fits the context, in order to potentially uncover any patterns behind them that aren’t always helpful in different contexts, and to be able to discover that for ourselves too, and against this background of reflection, to also have the option for ourselves to make other decisions, new decisions, or similar, or also to decide to keep it as it is. That’s also definitely a decision that has its place. It’s not always just about deciding things anew or differently — sometimes it’s also, at that moment, exactly the right decision for us, so to speak, against the background of various considerations, to say, we’ll keep it as it is. Can you place that, Layla?
Totally. And I was just thinking for myself whether such topics — well, there are different ways of looking at the world. And some say, okay, I have this on the belief system. Others say, okay, I do it in a way where I believe in myself. Others say, okay, I’ll order something from the OZI universe. There’s also a new thing on TikTok now, where, oh god, what were they called? Not Happy Girls, they’re called something else. Anyway, they wish for something really big, and then it comes into their life. And you can laugh about it, but we’re touching on the law of attraction here. And if you read personal development books, you’ll always notice that, regardless of all the different things I’ve read, whether it was esoteric, whether it was spiritual, whatever it was based on, there was always this commonality — that certain situations in life keep coming back to me until I’ve dealt with them. And I was just thinking for myself, yes, and I could demystify this by simply saying, I’m living a pattern, purely psychologically, that I haven’t made conscious yet. And there are different options — you can go to a coach, you can communicate. Communicating with you is helping me right now in the sense that I’m looking at this differently now. And if I want to demystify this, I can say, yes, I’m living this pattern, and either this pattern is good for me, or I get annoyed about it, or I look for responsibility. And that’s what’s always written in these books too, in this direction of, you’re responsible for yourself, be the chairman. And maybe I don’t intend that, and yet I also have mechanisms that trigger various patterns, and then it’s really good to become conscious of them, and then think, do I want this situation in my life again? And what can I do? Because that’s the point — people always say, I can’t change others, but I can change myself. Yes, that’s right. And in systemic therapy it’s the same — if one person in the system changes, the system changes. I have to be careful not to stray too far from the topic. Sorry, Yasemin. And to speak more slowly. Yes, and I just think that this becoming-conscious-of-it kind of demystifies it a bit, that you can see it more factually. Yes, it keeps happening to me, because I unconsciously keep living a pattern, that I fall into a transference, a projection, that I have a behavior pattern, and making that conscious. Now I’m super curious what you think about that.
Yes, I’m absolutely with you on that. Ultimately becoming conscious of it plays a role. I liked the word demystify too, wording-wise. And ultimately these processes get triggered by different things. And I find this really fascinating, because with the topic you originally started with this morning — we haven’t had recordings before where you could hear yourself in this context. That means a new situation has arisen. You used that situation for yourself, listened to one recording or another, and derived certain things for yourself from that, because certain things became conscious to you from your perspective, your very personal perspective. So that’s where the evaluations come in, and so on. And also then to think, back in action, what do I do with this now? And I find that really fascinating, because we also have a comment in the chat that I’d like to pick up on here too. Ismail is asking, how can I make good decisions? How do you recognize good decisions? I’m thinking about how, for example, CEOs make decisions, do they have a process for decisions. And yesterday at the authors’ breakfast, we can pick that up too, that different perspectives play a role in decision-making. Yesterday Dr. Jürgen Sammet said, in the context of learning, at least three perspectives that we take on in companies, for example — looked at didactically, what do I need, things like time, resources, then I can look at the whole thing from a business-economics perspective, where scaling might play a role, for example how do we manage the training in just one hour so employees aren’t pulled out of their day-to-day work for too long and processes don’t stall and tasks still get done. Then another perspective could be the technical tools available, or the ones that would be required. So we have different perspectives we can look at things from. We’ll go deeper into that tomorrow, because tomorrow’s topic is insight and perspective shift. So that goes deeper into it, but I found it fitting, so I already brought it up as a reminder, so to speak. And then we also have aspects like processes — something quite classic that happens in companies is a kind of weighing-up done against the background of, what’s the best-case scenario, the best variant that could happen, then to think of the worst-case scenario, what would happen in the worst case, and what often gets forgotten in everyday life — and this is also something CEOs actually use in their decision-making — is, what’s most likely, the most probable of all the considerations and weighings of the possible outcome, and to make decisions against the background of those probabilities too. On the aspect of, how do I know, or how do I recognize good decisions — decisions are usually made against the background of various considerations. Whether a decision was good or bad, I generally can’t judge in the moment, but only in hindsight. That means, in hindsight, once a certain amount of time has passed, I can look at it, and again against the background of corresponding reflection, arrive at a result for myself. However — and here’s the caveat, which needs underlining again — this can be quite subjective too. Because whether I consider it a good or bad decision in hindsight has a lot to do with which perspective I’m looking at it from, from which viewpoints I’m making that judgment for myself, that it was a good or bad decision, and evaluation plays a huge role here again too. And we’ve talked in one of the rooms about how we’re always generating and gaining new insights. That means it’s possible that I might even evaluate something as a good decision in hindsight, and after a certain amount of time, if I look at it again after three years, for example, I might arrive at a new result for myself again. So it’s difficult to approach this topic with good or bad, or right or wrong, as binary systems, because I can always make myself aware that these are snapshots, where I keep going into evaluation again and again against the background of — Layla, what do you think about that?
I’ll say I studied philosophy, and I’m really happy about that right now, because I think this thing with evaluations is something very human. I was just thinking, what reasons are there for this? And then I thought, well, I once said, bad people always find good reasons. And in my world, those are bad people. Well, after Mother Teresa you’re probably the first person to get into heaven. There’s a study on that, please google it too. And I think, we do go into evaluation there, but it’s a good decision. It’s a good decision for me, it’s a good decision for the majority. And that would bring us to the utilitarian approach, where you simply say, what’s best for the most people. And, well, I don’t know, for example, I don’t want to — they now have this label “climate glue-ers” because the tabloid press loves alliteration — they say they’re making a good decision. The person who goes to work also says they’re making a good decision. The man driving the ambulance who gets stopped, or the woman, also makes good decisions. And the question is, how do we actually make a good decision. And I think, first of all, we should use ourselves as a benchmark — I exclude serial killers, psychopaths, and sociopaths from this formula. And I think we can then look at what a basis could be. And as an ethics teacher, I have to say, yes, the constitution is a good basis, human rights are a good basis, thinking that through, the golden rule is a good basis, don’t do unto others what you wouldn’t want done to yourself. I find that fundamentally not bad. I mean, you can act by the categorical imperative, act so that the maxim of your action could at any time become a universally valid law. That can also be undermined too, I know that, and I still think it’s important that it’s a conscious decision, and that I also look at the consequences. I keep mentioning this, I did Hans Jonas in my exam, accumulation of consequences. And I think that could be a benchmark too. Like coaches also say to you, will this still be a good decision in three months? Will it still be a good decision in five years? Also whether something matters — will it still matter to me in five years whether the cashier was unfriendly to me at the register. I don’t need to escalate that. And is it important to me what motives I have. I think the motives are important. Why do I do something? And I know this is a philosophical view too, and I know a lot of people consider morality flexible. I think the constitution and human rights aren’t. I always find that a really good starting point. Anyone who’d like to disagree with me can gladly do so, but please do a bit of research first, and then, well, that’s my view of things. You can tell I studied philosophy.
Yes, thank you so much, and I have two points I’d like to pick up on. One, ethics, morality, constitution — these are also human-made aspects that can be very, very different culturally too. What we consider ethically and morally correct, or what’s anchored in our constitution, isn’t necessarily the same as what applies in other countries and customs. That’s one thing. That means, who actually decides what a good decision is, so to speak, or based on which ethics, which morality, which constitution should that be a good outcome? That’s one thing to question too, because value constructs and so on that we have, that we live by, that we might evaluate as good or bad — here too we’re right back in evaluation, which, while it might be equally recognized as common good in a certain society, doesn’t mean there aren’t deviations elsewhere, culturally speaking. And you can see it’s really difficult to talk about common good or correct decisions or similar. And the other thing I’d like to pick up on — this thing with the coach who asks in three years whether it’s still a good decision. My thesis in this context, against the background of my insight and experience, is that a good coach wouldn’t formulate the question that way, because we know we can’t possibly know whether we’d still evaluate a decision as good in three years. The coach might, for example, formulate a question — they’d phrase it differently content-wise — something in the direction of, if we simply look into the future, how might this decision feel for you in three years? And then, from today’s perspective, so to speak, you can try to think and feel your way into that future scenario, to check for yourself, well aware that I can’t know that today. So in hindsight it could still be that I evaluate this decision I made today differently again, and against the background of new experiences I have, evaluate it differently again than I would today, in the current situation, with my experience, with my wealth of experience, with the considerations I make, the constellation I’m in — I might make completely different evaluations than I actually would in three years. Layla, what do you think about that?
I just noticed, you’re right of course. I didn’t mean it as better or worse, that if we now say we have human rights, even though they’re international, we have the constitution, people agreed on that, saying, well, but does that make us better or worse, or is the value we now have the better moral value? I think you’re completely right there. And yet I thought internally, wait, but things like “thou shalt not kill” — and then it occurred to me, yes, that’s from the Bible, a belief concept. And yet I actually find “thou shalt not kill” a pretty good value, and I think you could generalize that across many societies. There are counterexamples now, of course, where you could say, but if we go from the personal safety of the individual, that none of us — Kurt Tucholsky once said, when I’m dead, I’ll miss myself a lot — if we assume that we also have joy, that we have a will to survive, then I think you could maybe agree on that. That’s the first thing I wanted to say. And as I said, there’s no better or worse there — you tend to. You tend to look over into the neighbor’s garden and think their cherries taste better, and at the same time think, yes, and still my tree, if I planted it, well I already have the cooler cherry tree. That’s the first thing. I think that’s human. I’m not saying all people are like that, but maybe it’s in human nature, because the death of happiness is comparison. And the other thing you brought up, I have to think about it again briefly, can you sum up that second point again?
Sorry, with this future scenario, with the coach.
Oh right, yes. I have to laugh a bit, because on one hand you’re completely right — from a conversation-facilitation standpoint, you’d do that differently. But you gave the CEO example earlier. And if we now assume that people always live with these probabilities — of course you can say, empirically, we’re relying on the fact that this is how it’s been before, this and that is the consequence. But a CEO, and a coach too, doesn’t have a crystal ball. That means we’ll always fall back on empirical values and probabilities. And I don’t know if probabilities also have something to do with perception, because, I don’t know, I believe, for example, that things go well. I assume that in most cases people around me don’t want anything bad for me. Now you could say I’m naive, but those are also probabilities I’ve experienced in my life. You’re torn between, this is empirically proven, which is also just a current state of things. Although things like gravity, that’s proven — an apple falls to the ground, that’s just how it is. And, well, I don’t know, I keep thinking about these probabilities. Because we anticipate, we do this already, that sometimes you have the feeling the other person is looking into a crystal ball and saying, well, how would that be? And I find the phrasing much nicer — how would that feel for you? Although you have to be careful there too, that it doesn’t come across as too artificial. I’m a bit caught up in the language side of things right now, and I think, I don’t know, that these probabilities — what do you think about this topic of probabilities and crystal balls? Because I’m really torn on it, because sometimes I think, well, how did you even come up with that. For example, if we go back to the climate activists, they also go on probabilities. And others say, no, wait a minute. And that’s similar to the CEO, or someone else, going on probabilities. But at some point, don’t we have to agree on facts and truths too, well, I don’t know, agree. Yasemin, help!
Yes, I find that wonderful, and I also find it good that it leads to confusion, and I hope it also gets the listeners thinking and pondering, because what we consider so clear in our world, or in our mind, isn’t clear at all once we actually start thinking about it, or really step into this reflection. I’d like to pick up on the sequence, so to speak, how you argued it and thought it through, roughly in that order. So on the topic of ethics and morality, we can bring up so many examples, and you just said something lovely, we mostly look into the other person’s garden. So there are a lot of aspects here. Of course it seems fairly logical to us to say, well, something like “don’t kill anyone” or something — that seems very logical to us at first. Now let me open up a few examples directly to keep this confusion going, or get you thinking. And yet, for example, we have the death penalty in various countries. That means, we have this value, so to speak, or ethically-morally we may have committed to saying that we don’t want anything bad to happen to anyone, in quotes, and then there are legal frameworks, and then we again find ways, create possibilities, where legitimization of something happens again. Really interesting. So here too, we always elevate ourselves above something, only to then create possibilities based on that, open doors, or similar. That’s of course country-dependent, differs. In some countries there’s the death penalty, in others it’s not applied or implemented. But we can bring up other examples too. Something like the Ukraine-Russia war — we supply weapons. Basically it’s about no one being killed. But in the situation, many of us hold the view, we elevate ourselves above others now. And in that case, well, we have to support them now. I’m being very deliberate, very provocative here. We have to support here now, it’s important that we supply weapons here too. So again here, something that we might seem to agree on fundamentally, we elevate ourselves above others again, to make decisions based on something. And I don’t want to evaluate whether that’s right or wrong, that’s not the point at all, but simply to make clear the direction in which our decisions, which we might have committed to, keep getting questioned again, keep getting re-evaluated, and keep leading to new results. And this thing with probabilities and the crystal ball — ultimately we can only do the following. We can only ever arrive at decisions against the background of the various contexts we consider, so to speak, whether it’s a good or bad decision, and it ultimately always remains only evaluable in hindsight, again in subjective evaluation. And especially since science was mentioned too — science, or empirical research, doesn’t claim at all to prove anything. And science doesn’t say we’ve proven the apple falls from the tree and lands below, but science actually looks at verification and falsification. That means, generally, theses are put forward, and then it’s checked, tested, and then insights come out of that, and we can recognize certain regularities, so to speak. There are always deviations too, or other things. That means, and science always builds on insights, on prior insights. No scientist, no real scientist, would stand up and say, this is proven — and you brought that aspect in too — this is simply the current state of science. That’s why we talk about the current state of science. That means it’s possible that tomorrow there might be further insights that lead to neutralizing one thing or another again, thinking in different directions, or also expanding what was previously found as insight. That means nothing that’s established is simply carved in stone, but usually — and here we’re back to this complexity, which was also mentioned yesterday at the authors’ breakfast — usually topics are far too complex for us to consider anything proven or disproven, but disproven in this context is then only a very small aspect under the framework conditions that were created and under the conditions we looked at. Possibly in a different context, if we tested the same thing again, something completely different might come out. So that’s really fascinating here too — this aspect of science, that nothing there is carved in stone and immovable either. And that might be really important too. And against this background, basically, everywhere we look more closely, we’ll find that it’s always subjective aspects, evaluations, and commitments that we make. And against this background, so to speak, we live our lives. Which is totally fine, by the way — this isn’t meant to question that either. But I think it’s important that we simply become aware of this again too. Layla, we have four minutes left. So I’d like to give you the chance to add something here, and then move directly into the closing round with me. What was your highlight from the room?
My highlight from the room was that decisions are really complex, that decisions have a lot to do with conscious and unconscious, and that sometimes it’s just the current state of things. I was just thinking internally, oh god, what about the Flat Earth thing? How does that work there? Am I giving that a boost, that people question everything then? And then I thought, yes, questioning something is fine. And I can still believe in the fact that the earth is round. To close, I’d like to quote Bertolt Brecht, he’s my ultimate favorite. I read “The Good Person of Szechwan” at 14, just to flex a bit. Great book, please check it out. He once said, whoever says A doesn’t have to say B. They can also recognize that A was wrong. And I think that’s a point, when we go into this automatism. We’re very shaped by language and so many other things. And that’s very unconscious. And language creates reality. And we always have the feeling we have to say B. But, well, Bertolt Brecht was a wonderful person and said, we don’t have to. And that’s why I’d like to quote him. Thanks for listening.
I find that a wonderful way to close. And yes, I also brought up that example yesterday in companies — they often wish for methods, techniques, and so on, following this principle, if I do A, B comes out. That’s a wish, so to speak, or wishful thinking. Yes, we want to simplify things. We want to be able to plan, to have a preview of what will come out in the end, if I do this or that. And that’s why we always tend to try to remove this complexity by acting in a formulaic, recipe-like way with certain things. And unfortunately we keep having to notice, when we reflect on it, that it’s simply not that simple. I can do A and assume B will result, but whether B actually follows as the result, I’ll only be able to see in hindsight, so to speak. And on one hand, well, what do we do with that now? Now we could say, we question everything and get stuck in questioning. That’s not helpful either. That means, in the sense of finding your way in everyday life, it’s also important that we develop routines, pick them up, and so on. And at the same time not fall into this either-or, because otherwise we just stay in questioning mode and don’t get into motion anymore either. And then everything seems somehow unproductive to us too. But instead, even while living routines, having behavior patterns, and so on, again and again, quite consciously, at various points, especially when I notice I’m facing a challenge, to quite consciously step into reflection, quite consciously question things, to open new doors again and discover new options for myself, and to realize that nothing is actually carved in stone. If I say A, I don’t necessarily have to say B. If I say A, B doesn’t necessarily have to result, as a sequence, as a causal sequence so to speak. And if I’m aware of that, then in certain situations I can simply handle things very differently, so to speak. Maybe get into letting go too, just accept things as they are, make the best of it, go into reframing. So here I have completely new possibilities I can discover for myself, and that I can apply again for myself, context-dependent, in everyday life. And I think that’s one of the important insights in this context — that once I’ve gained this insight, I open new doors that I maybe hadn’t seen before. And in that sense, yes, wonderful room, I find it really fascinating. Thank you so much for all the various contributions. There’s also more that’s come in through the chat now, toward the end. I’d honestly like to pick that up again tomorrow, because we’re going into insight and perspective shift then too. That means I couldn’t pick up on one or two things anymore due to time, because they came in only toward the end, so to speak. I just took a screenshot of it, and then we can gladly use that as a starting point tomorrow, because the rooms build on each other, and tomorrow we’ll continue with insight and perspective shift. And there we can gladly pick up on one thing or another that came into the chat now too, to use as an entry point into tomorrow’s topic, building on today, on this room, and make that connection again there too. Thank you so much for joining, Layla, and to the others via chat too, and for listening. I wish you all a wonderful day, and I’m really looking forward to tomorrow, and I’m curious which direction it’ll go in tomorrow and what examples you’ll bring in too. With that, until then. Ciao.
