Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: How much of our thinking is quietly run by beliefs we’ve never questioned? Dr. Yasemin Yazan, Marc, Jürgen, Sonja, Sabine and Ria trade striking examples — from a shampoo that only had to foam, to a cancer drug redesigned to be harder to swallow — while Marc opens up about the coach, and the single honest question, that changed his life…
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 very good morning. Today we continue with thinking and beliefs. What influence do beliefs have on our thinking? That’s the question we want to engage with. And I’ve brought along some keywords, on one hand from the first approach, and connections I’ve picked up here again too: unconscious bias, extremism, racism, distorted perception, state of mind for body and spirit, and differences in thinking. Maybe we can touch on these individual aspects again too. So I’m really, really curious. You’re all warmly invited to join and open this reflection room together with me. We have a recording running in the background, which means anyone who joins is automatically agreeing that the whole thing will also be published. Then we have three small room rules. A profile picture where you’re recognizable, first and last name, and at least one sentence in the bio, and anyone who doesn’t want that, or can’t speak right now, is of course also warmly invited, as always, to use the chat, and then we can gladly pick up one thing or another. Yes, with that I’ll gladly mute myself and see who’d like to make the start this morning. A very good morning, dear Marc.
Good morning to the group, nice to be with and among you again. I’d really like, the way Jürgen does it, to briefly address the terminology too, namely that beliefs — I had to digest that myself again yesterday — that beliefs are deeply rooted convictions or assumptions that then influence our acting and thinking. And it’s so important to me because I caught myself yesterday with a knot in my head, and almost started the room differently, to say, beliefs can also be something quite good, because I made the mistake for myself of thinking, beliefs, if I’m in church or very religious, I also have beliefs, I also have the Ten Commandments, and would have almost gone down the wrong road again. And that’s why I’d like to repeat the terminology, beliefs. So I asked myself, where does the term come from, and found the answer for myself that there’s no person who invented the term “belief,” but that over the years various coaches, therapists, and psychologists arrived at their own definitions. Everyone has a bit of their own definition there too. But by and large, if we put a bracket around it, those are beliefs, rooted convictions. And for me, the word “beliefs” always bothered me because of “belief” and “sentence” together — that really disturbed me, that’s where I had the knot in my head. But you can also say beliefs are convictions or assumptions. I personally can deal better with the word assumptions, because I’ve often brought up the quote before: assumption is the enemy of truth. And then I also distinguished for myself that beliefs, in turn, have nothing to do with values. So a belief in the sense of the Ten Commandments, what I just did, those would then be values. And values would then rather be principles and values and moral things. And if I’m honest, sensitivity is important to me, and so on and so on. And that’s why at the start I wanted, or it was important to me, to bring in this distinction between belief and values.
Interesting. Let’s look at that more closely. On one hand, because at the author’s breakfast, Susanne had said, if you remember, that there are both supporting and limiting beliefs. And because you just started with belief — in the word “belief” itself, the term “belief” or “faith” is included, not for nothing. And I do think it has quite a lot to do with values too, and whether that’s now the Ten Commandments or something else we believe in, and that values are derived from that. That can be something like, for example, “health is everything.” That can well be a belief. And then there are supporting ones, or also limiting ones. There are definitely beliefs where you’d even say they’re not per se good or bad, in quotation marks, but that it’s ultimately also context-dependent. Sometimes a belief can have a supporting effect, and in another context the same belief can also be hindering at that point. So I actually find that’s not a false trail, but rather also a trail we can gladly pursue, dear Marc. What do you say to that?
Exactly right, I have to smile, dear Yasemin. I just have the distinction — let me try to formulate it more precisely again. We have beliefs that are already connected to our values, and you’re completely right, as always with everything you say, that depending on which belief we have, they steer, for example, our behavior, also how we present ourselves toward people, how we present ourselves toward organizations. And values are then something more with family and sense of honor. But they’re connected with each other, you can’t separate them. Exactly the same topic we had, is thinking and reflection. It belongs to the same overarching topic, and I’d fully agree with that. Reflecting is thinking too. And that makes the whole thing so complex and complicated when you get hung up on individual words. But beliefs and values, that belongs under the same roof. I’d fully agree with that 100 percent.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much. Then let’s dive a bit deeper. How do thinking and beliefs actually relate to each other? And then I’d brought along a few more keywords, so we can pick those up too. Unconscious bias, extremism, racism, distorted perception, state of mind, body and spirit, and differences in thinking. And maybe someone would like to build on that again here. Otherwise we can gladly bring in Jürgen first too, if you want, depending. Gladly, Jürgen. Good morning at this point.
Good morning to you too. Good morning, dear Yasemin, dear Marc. I’m briefly joining. As you can tell, a bit out of breath again, but I don’t like this expression “belief” at all, in the connection in which we see it today, with thinking. Because I justify that by seeing belief as the antagonist to knowing. That means, I believe that, to put it quite trivially for a not-very-religious person, I believe what I don’t know. In my view, the terminology in our context would have to be “thought-sentence,” because in my conviction these so-called beliefs are thoughts, causal thoughts, especially in our earliest childhood, more or less implemented, internalized, in most cases unchecked. And the essential thing with regard to thinking is that these beliefs, through our associative brain, the fast-reacting brain, are offered as a solution in most cases. And with that, you addressed it, dear Yasemin, in the area of unconscious bias and heuristics in the field. So again, according to my understanding, mind you, when I believe something, then I’m convinced that it’s something I don’t know. And I exclude that for myself in this topic of these so-called sentences we’re discussing today. Thank you, dear ones. I wish you a nice day. Warm greetings from sunny Trentino to all of you.
Oh, and I would have so liked to ask a question back, dear Jürgen. I don’t know, do you have another moment?
Yes, exactly, I have another moment.
Yes, and that’s why today’s question stems from that for me, what influence do beliefs have on our thinking? And because you argued that so nicely just now — isn’t that the case in many contexts? Is it only so with religious belief? What about, for example, if I believe I know? That’s correct, that this knowledge too I can under certain circumstances claim for myself as a kind of theory, that I say, what you see is what there is. I only see what I want to see, or what I’m capable of seeing.
You’re completely right, everything, even knowledge has its positive and its negative side. And I’d just like to emphasize again that, as I said, in our context with regard to thinking especially, it’s a thing that’s implemented or given along in the first, in the earliest years of our childhood, in causal connection, please understand that in quotation marks. A really essential example for me is the topic of basic trust. I hope I’ve answered your question. I’m still available for a minute if that was unclear. Thank you.
No, thank you so, so much. You can keep running, I’m sure. I assume it’s running or mountain climbing again. And yes, let’s look at this together again, dear Marc. What do you say to that?
I mean, the challenge is that, so to speak, over the course of time, quite a lot of different aspects happen that lead to us establishing beliefs, and against this background of beliefs we then, so to speak, reflect or think, for example. And so, the beliefs really take a very decisive influence on our thinking. We had this aspect too, for example, at the first approach, with this horizon-expanding thinking, as it was called. But if I can’t connect to certain things at all, if I haven’t had the experience, if I have beliefs that limit me, then it becomes difficult to even recognize this at all in this context, that the thinking is a limited thinking, so to speak, as I’ll call it. And since we all bring beliefs with us, the question is, how far is the thinking then actually so questioning, critical, and so on? Or is that maybe also an illusion we’re subject to? Marc, what do you say to that?
I’d like to briefly thank Jürgen. I find that really great, dear Jürgen. I know these rooms are incredibly important to Jürgen. I know that this topic is also a heart topic for Jürgen. And that fills me with a smile, that Jürgen didn’t come to the stage here now for self-presentation or anything, but the topic is really important to him. And you can also hear that he’s out of breath and that he then stops to share his thoughts with us, and thereby also gives the room a new direction. I find that really great. From everyone, by the way. I find it really great when someone shares their knowledge. And I’d like to thank Jürgen again, specifically for the word, for the keyword Jürgen said, which fits exactly this topic of beliefs. And the topic, for me, is “unchecked.” And I’ve noticed, since I turned 50 and heard the word “belief” for the very first time ever, and heard for the very first time ever what unconscious bias is, that exactly this — my hard drive, so my brain, is being completely re-recorded. So I’m subject every day to a new check, because now I check again, what’s the state of knowledge, what are my values, what’s my knowledge, what are my beliefs. And it was really exciting that I couldn’t answer the question at all now, if you’d asked me, dear Yasemin, well what are your beliefs? Beliefs are convictions and assumptions after all. And to first even become aware of that, to write it down — what are the beliefs, so not in the sense of church, that do something good, we’re all nice to each other and love your parents. That’s a belief that has no effects on me, because if I believe that and follow it, I have a very pleasant life. It only gets difficult, or challenging, if beliefs hinder me from advancing professionally, if beliefs hinder me from having a perfect or a beautiful relationship, if beliefs hinder me from getting along with my fellow humans. But to be able to change those, to be able to recognize those, checking is the keyword for me. Otherwise I don’t get there at all. And openness. Openness and checking. Otherwise I can’t manage to go back into reflection at all, and to first even find out at all, which beliefs do I actually have? Because the beliefs are my assumptions, and about my assumptions and convictions I don’t continue thinking further. That’s the tricky thing, because I’m already convinced of it, why should I think again about why I’m convinced of it. And this “why” and checking helps me then to arrive at new thought-sentences and also to open up new worlds.
Yes wonderful. And exactly here lies, at the same time, a challenge too, because if the beliefs I have, which developed at some point, so to speak unchecked, simply act, in quotation marks, and I’m not at all aware of that. And exactly here is a really massive challenge too, to even first realize at all, what are actually my beliefs? Because I can only start questioning once I even consciously realize at all that there is a belief there that’s taking effect at that point and possibly is also limiting or also supporting. Marc, would you like to say something about that again?
Yes, dear Yasemin, as I said, thank you so, so much for the topic. I find this one of the most exciting topics. I keep saying it — what I would have so, so liked to have had already in school, because this topic and everything connected with it, reflection and beliefs, has colossally changed my life. And a word I’ll bring in now to answer your question, this observing and recognizing, for me that would be self-observation. Because only — thank god we’ve already had the topic of reflections — because only when I go into self-observation, when I’m in communication with someone and suddenly notice that I’m angry, or sad, or feel attacked, only then can I reflect, why do I feel attacked? Do I really have to go into defense now? Does the other person really want something against me, does the other person really have the intention to diss me, or to make me feel bad, or just wants me to have a bad day — or maybe they themselves are having a bad day. Maybe that’s their way. Maybe they don’t rest within themselves. Maybe they have a problem with their own self-worth, and to profile themselves in the group — that exists too, this group behavior, if I suppress others, then I’m at least always already one step higher than those I’m suppressing. And all these insights make you smile then. And keep asking yourself, this decision I just made from the gut in a split second, that I like or don’t like someone, or that someone consciously treats me a certain way or doesn’t treat me that way, that I’m only making an assumption. And the hardest thing — that also went through my head this week — we’re constantly searching for answers, always. Anyone who’s ever been in love knows that they don’t just brood for hours, weeks, months, years about why the partner is gone. And I’ve come to terms with the fact that there are topics where you’d rather not find an answer. And one of the biggest challenges I’ve identified for myself is that there are simply things I have to accept. I can question them. I can look at why did I get into this situation professionally or privately? Then I ask myself, would I behave that way again? Is there an alternative way to behave? But there are simply questions to which my brain will never find a 100 percent correct and conclusive answer.
Yes, thank you so, so much. And especially the self-observation
of course plays a really essential role in this context too. We’d, as you already mentioned, also looked at that with reflections and beliefs before too. But especially, not in “normal situations,” in quotation marks, but where it also gets more vehement, or more perceptible, that we really encounter different, almost worldviews, I’d say, is especially with conflicts. So I find, especially conflicts, the stronger they’re expressed, the clearer it often becomes. Both sides are convinced, in quotation marks, of being right, and the whole thing happens against the background maybe of hidden beliefs that lead to thinking they’re right. And I wouldn’t want to impute to the individual persons, regardless of who that is, that they’re not capable of going into self-observation, but here maybe, leaning on a conflict or so, to look at it again. This also helps us look again at to what extent these beliefs actually take influence on this thinking, and then of course also on the behavior. Sonja, a very good morning, I’d like to bring you in first with that.
A very good morning. Yes, you just said something really exciting, namely the hidden beliefs. And I’d also like to distinguish that there are beliefs we can access through reflecting, and there are beliefs we can’t access, or can only access with help from outside. And the example you gave with conflicts, that’s very, very classic. And everyone feels that in everyday life, when there are conflicts, where we get to a point where we’re so convinced that we’ve now clearly addressed and expressed everything — why is there no consensus, or why isn’t it possible for the other person to understand what I’m saying? Because we’re so convinced that everything is now said, and that there’s no shaking that, that we’re also no longer able to question anything, or question a basic assumption. We don’t even come up with the idea. And those are the really difficult and interesting beliefs. And two other examples occur to me, which have nothing to do with conflicts, but very much with beliefs, with basic assumptions. And these are two areas that come from the marketing field. One example is already quite old. A company that makes shampoos investigated what properties a shampoo needs to be perceived as particularly cleansing, particularly good, and to be bought. Because it’s not the ingredients that convinced customers, that boosted sales. And what came out was, the better a product foams, the more likely the assumption is there that this shampoo must be good. And the property of foaming has zero effect on cleaning power. And I’m convinced that anyone you’d ask, or nearly everyone, would deny that this is a purchase criterion. And I find that incredibly exciting, because especially with products we don’t consult outside help to question such beliefs. We just buy a product or we don’t. And with a shampoo, that’s maybe only an important decision for the company. But when it comes to products like medications, for example, that’s a completely different ballpark. And I’ll name another example, and then I’ll step back for a moment. The other example comes from the pharmaceutical industry. And I heard about a medication that was used in cancer therapy, administered in tablet form. And it was supposed to have significantly fewer side effects than classic chemo, but be just as effective. And yet this medication barely sold. And after investigating why that was, it came out that the tablet was too small. It can’t be that with such a serious illness as cancer, such an easy-to-take remedy should help. That was simply impossible. The belief was, a serious illness has to have an unpleasant medication with unpleasant side effects. And the pharmaceutical company’s strategy was to enlarge the tablets, so they’d be harder to swallow. And to change the communication accordingly, so the focus was put on this difficult swallowability. That it was hard to swallow, but especially effective. And it would be worth it. And lo and behold, the medication conquered a huge market segment. I don’t know what it’s called — maybe it’s good for such a room not to advertise. But that shows how deeply such a belief can sit, and can’t even be uncovered by questioning. And I find that mega, mega exciting, and also dangerous.
Great examples. Thank you so, so much for that. Marc, what do you say to that?
I’m not clear yet on the point about openness. I think that depends on the degree of openness. But I wanted to say something else about the topic of beliefs — also an important point, because it concerns us a lot currently and will continue to concern us in the future. I think I once read that by the time we’re 18, we’ve anchored over 180,000 beliefs that we can’t remember though, because they’re unconscious, so subconscious. And I’ll just claim that this is a topic that also needs to be spoken about. And my overarching topic, as always, is integration. And that we just have to say sometimes, integration does work, but not the way we want it to. If we tell someone, watch out, I explained to you how it works here, with us it’s like this, you now have to accept that — that doesn’t work if someone has had certain beliefs for 18 years. And an example that now has nothing to do with immigration, just so you can imagine it better, I heard this on WDR5, it’s about business. Your parents will probably also have told you as a child, listen, Marc, lying, lying isn’t good, you won’t get pudding now, no chocolate — that was also punished, lying isn’t good. So, now I’m a successful businessman and want to expand my company and go to Dubai. And I grew up with the notion that you don’t lie, because that’s not good. And I heard on WDR5 that there are companies that have set themselves up independently in Dubai, specifically to catch people like me, to support them. Because toward — well, they don’t say the truth, we’d call it a lie, they say, I’m not lying. Dear Marc, if I sell you a car and you ask me, is that in order, then I say yes to you. Even if I know that the engine might break in half a year. Then it’s your task to check that with an expert. But that’s not my problem, I’m not lying, that’s just how I do business. Is that a worse person? No. And the report was exactly about how we Westerners have extreme difficulties making contracts with certain Arabs, so in Dubai, because they simply grew up with a different belief. But that doesn’t make them worse people, they were just raised such that you’re allowed to do that in the business context. And my task, with the knowledge that they act and react differently than me, is to then need a specialized lawyer who checks the contracts for other things than I would, relying on my gut feeling, because I think, if Yasemin shakes my hand, if I make a deal with her, I look into her eyes, I like her, I trust her, my gut feeling says everything’s fine, I can do this. And that’s the best example, now related to business, as well as to why it’s so difficult, as Sonja said, to attack or change these beliefs, because a note isn’t enough for that, and a raised finger isn’t enough either, to tell someone, listen up my friend, with us it works differently. That doesn’t work in that time frame, because these beliefs have grown over years and are deeply rooted, and they correspond to our convictions.
Yes, and especially, to pick up this term of hidden beliefs again, so to speak — we’ve already picked up and addressed quite different aspects too. On one hand, they also arise very, very early. So if we look at how personality development works, then most of what happens there is first in the early years of life, so from pregnancy on, so to speak, up to about the sixth year of life, that’s already quite a lot that happens and gets stored there. And especially also partly at an age, the younger, the less capable of remembering we are, so to speak. But it’s consciously experienced or consciously stored, in quotation marks, but no longer retrievable, because not rememberable. And that plays a really essential role in this context, because then we do maybe think, or are also busy critically checking and such. But we’re moving in a segment where we can only influence certain things to a limited degree, if I don’t even know what lies hidden there. And here that’s a really essential crux. Also something like, we also looked at unconscious bias. There are also very many studies in this context. The simplest thing we can pick up is this, for example, in preliminary selection interviews or so, a cold drink, a warm drink, that this has an influence on how I evaluate the person opposite me. And the exciting thing about that is, the assumption arises, so to speak, that I could now somehow influence that to a degree. But it’s not done with just knowing that, that I can outsmart it, but there’s enough evidence showing that despite the awareness of an unconscious bias I’m not able to switch it off, so to speak, because different processes run in the background here too that favor one thing or another in one direction or another, so to speak. And that awareness alone, so to speak, doesn’t protect me from the error, in quotation marks. And that’s why, for example, it’s also quite necessary, precisely because I picked out the selection process, to actually implement structures and processes accordingly here too, which, for example through different people with different backgrounds participating in a selection process, achieve a certain neutralization, for example. Just one example among many that can be picked up here. That means, here self-observation alone, or the realization that unconscious bias takes effect and that I now have that in hand, so to speak, alone, with the thinking in this context, I don’t get further in many places. Just as I do get further in other places. So that doesn’t mean the thinking brings nothing, in quotation marks. But I can — so that we don’t stumble into an illusion here too, so to speak, along the lines of, in the moment where I actually think that it’s then possible to outsmart everything here. Would you like to add to that again?
Gladly, Sonja. Yes, I just thought again about the example with the selection, with the personnel selection, that the attempt to neutralize such an application process or recruiting process itself also draws on assumptions. Because what’s attempted is to let the qualification speak for itself. And behind that stands the assumption — I’m not phrasing this quite right — that with equal qualification, the qualification is more important than, for example, the soft skills. That’s an assumption that has to underlie this, otherwise you wouldn’t decide to neutralize name, photo, gender, maybe also nationality, to leave out this information. But what if exactly that’s the criteria that make someone much better suited for the job, so make the person much better suited for a certain activity. So in my view we can’t completely free ourselves from assumptions at all, and we have to live with needing a few assumptions, because otherwise we’re not able to make decisions at all. And it’s enough, I’m at least satisfied, if we become aware that these unconscious assumptions exist, these beliefs, and that’s okay. And that makes me much more open to it, when someone points out things to me that I completely overlooked, that I didn’t have in view. Then the defense doesn’t go up, as used to be the case when I had no clue about all these processes, but I start thinking about it. Could that be? What’s there to it? And can I think along that? And that expands my horizon immensely. And just for that alone it’s worth discussing this topic.
Yes, I’m absolutely with you. And that means, just creating this understanding already helps us in various places, on one hand to try to find solutions. Even if we maybe know that the solutions are also only limited, in quotation marks, or can’t completely outsmart it, but still having this awareness. And that’s exactly the aspect that’s important to me again with regard to thinking and beliefs. Similar to rooms where we talked about something like security, or rather the illusion of security. And so a really important aspect, I find personally, and Marc, I’m curious what you say to that now too, is accepting this limitation, so to speak, which is ultimately also human, yes, but not falling into the illusion, so to speak, in quotation marks, that in the moment where I think that the other thing can be completely outsmarted. Marc, would you like to add to that again too?
Yes, I come back to the point I mentioned before, this accepting. We have to accept some things, and beliefs aren’t per se fundamentally bad. I just asked myself the question — and everyone has to find this out for themselves — where do beliefs hinder a happy life, so how do I feel, well or not well? And that would be, I think, my first question, that I’d start with if I talk with someone. I wouldn’t ask, what beliefs do you have, because that’s completely irrelevant at first, but the only relevant question for me that I’d ask is, are you currently happy? So in every relationship — we have these various life-wheel areas — are you happy in your job, and are you happy in your relationship? Completely irrelevant which beliefs you have. If he says, yes, I’m super happy, then let him be happy with his beliefs, so happy then also unhappy, because happiness and contentment is, for me, the highest good I can achieve. If now someone says, no, I notice for myself personally, I’m currently — I feel currently in a partnership — I’ll use another word now instead of happiness, because the word happiness bothers me just as much as the word love. You always seek this incredibly great happiness and this incredible love, and if it then doesn’t fit, it’s not the great love, because there’s this really, really great love and this really, really great happiness, and that’s why for me it’s the word contentment. I’m already totally happy if I’m content. And if I then notice — and that was the point for me — that I’m discontent, and I was discontent because things weren’t going well professionally for me, because my partner separated from me, and because I also had difficulties with my son. There wasn’t a single point that was going well. Then I started thinking about my beliefs
to reflect on. That helped me then. Only then does it make sense for me to question things, because thinking about it or reflecting, that topic has also — and it can really bring about that it really changes our lives. And I haven’t had more luck since I did that. I’m still the same person with the same goods. I haven’t done a new training. I simply just changed my beliefs, reformulated my values, and reset my brain, I always call it a computer, simply anew. And that doesn’t work within a day or within a week, but you basically start a completely new life. And if you change one percent every day — you also can’t change everything at once — but if you look where you’d like to go, and then exchange, for example with you, dear Yasemin, or with people who accompany you on this path. And that’s also something I can further say from my experience. My partner at the time told me, listen, Marc, what you’re telling me there, I could have told you that too. That’s really nothing new. I can read that up. And why do you need a professional coach that you exchange with? And that’s also part of my insight, that I was open toward the coach. If I exchange with my partner, I have to watch out incredibly, not to see that again as an attack, or again, you’re accusing me of something again, you’re imputing something to me again. A coach gets paid to tell me the truth, and then it’s up to me to implement those things or not. And that was the reason I decided on a coach. Not because he maybe has more knowledge than my partner, but I was open toward the coach. Why would he take money and tell me something to disadvantage me? He earns money from me, he also wants to work with me as long as possible. And with my partner it was always such that I’d assume, that’s maybe an attack after all, or I have to go into defense. And to shorten that with one word, openness. If we’re open, then we can change our beliefs, dear Sonja. Maybe, hopefully. Not 100 percent, but a few percent already helps too. A few percent is definitely better than nothing.
And yes, let me follow up here again too, because this “am I happy with it” is of course a nice question I’d like to pick up in this context. That means, we of course mustn’t forget in this context, to a degree, that we’re social beings. So possibly I’m happy with it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t also have effects on other people in my immediate environment, or societally, politically. So we could open up incredibly many topics now. That means, as long as it, so to speak, concerns myself and doesn’t have any, in quotation marks, limiting effects in any form on my environment, so people I’m closely connected to, and so on, then I can possibly also say, okay, it’s good the way it is, and leave it at that. But there are certainly also people who are happy with it themselves, even though it has an influence, so to speak, on the environment, whether small or large. So that can be very different too, depending on how we’re maybe professionally involved, or where we move. And then there’s the private, the professional area, and so on. And because I’m happy with it now, I can indeed also make the decision that I don’t want to engage with that at all, in quotation marks, or maybe don’t even realize it. On the other hand, though, it ultimately still has an effect on the other person. That means, I wouldn’t even take happiness and contentment alone as a guarantee, so to speak, to say, then I don’t need to change that either. There I’m curious what then — yes gladly, Marc, if you’d like to add directly, then I’ll look that Sonja can also add again, and then we’ll bring in Sabine.
Really quick, best to Dante Lugiasmi, I hug you. You address the responsibility with being happy. But what if I leave my partner? Then we’re exactly at this belief, you’re not allowed to do that. You took on responsibility, that’s not done. But then we’re at the belief, who says that? Do I even have the right to be happy? If I decide to be happy, and can no longer carry the responsibility for my partner, because we have different needs, can I not decide — that’s also a belief for me — would it just be so, that you then have to go into exchange, and if I suddenly have different needs, that exactly this belief that the church gave us, we’re transferring — this is provocative now — you married once, you’re there once for this partner, and if you separate, then you’re a bad person because you don’t take on this responsibility. And that’s exactly one of the beliefs that also prevent us from then going into change. Why? Because our responsibility…
Yes, absolutely. Sonja?
Yes, I also wanted to bring the opposite example, that it can also be that we’re happy, but then beliefs lead to us not even being able to hold onto our happiness, and expecting something from our partner that we consider “right” in quotation marks, right and important. And if the partner doesn’t fulfill that, then our happiness dwindles, and so much so that we question this relationship, or even end it, because we become extremely unhappy. We wait for this one behavior, this one sign that’s proof that, okay, this relationship is also important to the other person, and if this sign fails to appear, it can be that we overlook everything else that contributes to happiness, and then decide to go separate ways. And that’s also an example where we carry beliefs with us, and they lead us out of happiness and not into it. And I really admired Marc earlier for the statement, I simply changed my beliefs. It would be nice if that were really so simple, because with the ones that stand in our way and really sit deep, that’s incredibly hard. And we often need years for that. And sometimes it doesn’t succeed either, despite laborious work, to change them. So that’s already a huge gift, Marc, if you manage that.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so, so much. Sabine, let’s bring you in directly too. What are your thoughts on the topic?
Yes, Sonja has almost already anticipated that for me, because I also wanted to doubt whether it can be that simple, what Marc said. I found that great, Marc, that you simply get yourself a coach and say, I’m more open toward them and that’s why I look for them, because I have this and that problem. Often this “because I have this and that problem” isn’t even conscious to you. And often you don’t even go to a coach or anyone else because you don’t even know that something’s sitting there deep down. And I see that as the biggest problem, because those are often things from childhood that you’ve always carried around with you, which were actually always right for you, because you simply grew up that way. So someone first has to dig deep, to make a self-awareness aware of the fact that it’s actually not the case. So I once witnessed something where someone on stage had tears afterward, because that wasn’t conscious to them at all, and someone had dug deep. So I’m more on Sonja’s side there and not Marc’s opinion. But I also find it great, Marc, if it was that simple for you.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so, so much. And sometimes, and here I’ll go back to an example I actually experienced myself, sometimes it’s also the case that you go to a coach and maybe one thing or another also gets uncovered. But that also has something to do with, for example, how close these people are to us who it’s about right now. And in this concrete case I’m thinking of now, that was the mother. And a lot of things happened, in quotation marks, that weren’t okay. And the coaching, the group coaching, ultimately also led to realizing one thing or another and being able to locate it correctly. And yet it’s then not simple to say, I’m distancing myself here, or I’m going new ways. And then thinking processes are triggered, so to speak, and maybe also decision-making aids ultimately, to also pick up the behavior or distance or whatever gets derived from that, so to speak, but that the uncovering, or that going to the coach alone, so to speak, isn’t enough yet either — that maybe sets a thinking process in motion, it maybe also sometimes helps to realize, but with realizing alone it’s still not done, because the question is, what do I do with it now? And there are very many beliefs underlying that too, also societal values and so on, something like, I can’t now say I have no more contact with my mother, or such. So if you just think about that, for one or another it might be easier, but depending on how strongly that’s shaped in us societally, in socialization, the harder it is to deal with, in quotation marks, actually. Marc, I think you wanted to add too.
Yes, that wasn’t so simple, dear Sabine. I went into it very skeptically. I then also thought, okay, you want to change something, but I was very skeptical. Why was I skeptical? Because I was convinced that everything I did was right. The others were wrong. My relationship went kaputt because the other person behaved wrong. And at the job it also only worked because the boss was stupid, and so on. So basically I had the answer, the others were wrong. And the question I liked incredibly, that my counterpart just said, are you happy? If you now say, yes, you’re happy and content, then I’ll now drink a coffee with you, it was nice getting to know you, then one goes their way. If you say no, then it’s maybe smart to think about whether behavior changes, or changes from me in the belief, can lead to you suddenly becoming happy. I can’t promise you that you’ll become happy, but doing nothing at all, well, you have to decide whether that’s smart or not. So your state stays, or you do something, and if you do something, you also no longer feel like a victim, but you can act actively, and if it then improves, it was worth it. And if you notice after a few years, it’s more or less stayed the same. Then you at least worked on it. And the statement that really bowled me over then was the honesty that he said, don’t expect me to be able to help you. You can help yourself. I can guide you, I can show you paths. But there are people who go to a doctor or seek help so that — that they say, watch out, I’ll take you in my arms, I’ll show you how it’s done. No, if you don’t work, if you’re not ready to work on it yourself, I’m the wrong conversation partner for you. That was so damn honest, and I hadn’t expected that either, because I also thought, well, he gets money from me, he’ll take the money too, but the condition was simply, either you also feel like changing something, then I’m happy to accompany you on this path, but if you expect me to do everything for you, it won’t work, then please find someone else.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so, so much. Ria, a very good morning, let’s bring you in too, then we can gladly make some cross-connections again too.
A very good morning to you too. I’ve been listening almost the whole time, and now I’m at the point where I say, hats off, Marc. I think, when it comes to dissolving beliefs, and I’ve had to experience that in recent years too, I’m over 60 now, then it’s similar to an addiction. You recognize it can’t continue this way. But you’re not yet sure who or what or how you can help yourself. And that’s why in this context you need either a formative experience, or a special person who’s relatively neutral and then says, “You know, there are simply possibilities. Most of it you have to do. I can only show you where the paths lie.” And I believe there are beliefs that are positive, and there are beliefs that are negative. If I tell myself, I’ll manage this, I can do it, then that’s a belief. Then that’s a belief that can organize an incredible resilience, and where you then say, okay, I’ll do this. And that’s this wonderful side, because I just briefly read that these beliefs also give the possibility of dealing relatively energy-conformly with the body. That means, you need very little energy, because beliefs are like rituals. The body does that, and the body rewards us too in the moment where you follow the belief. That’s why it’s so difficult to shed negative beliefs. Along the lines of, I don’t even need to practice math, I won’t manage it anyway. Yeah come on, then do something else instead, browse Instagram a bit more. “Oh, that’s nice.” And that damn math homework, I can’t do it anyway. So, that’s one side. The other side, if the beliefs are negative — and I also had a belief I got as a young girl in connection with my figure and my appearance, very dramatic, very drastic. And it required a surgery that gave me a cut from the base of the breast down to way below, to the base of the pubic area, on my stomach. And after this cut, after this surgery, at 61 years old I hugged my body for the first time and said, I love you. Where I then say, great, saying that at 61 years old, that’s already a long time, why didn’t you do it sooner? But it took, or required, this one, let’s say, rather nasty trigger, that told me what I’d already thought over the years, and where maybe other people also tried to tell me, “you’re not small, you’re making yourself small, you’re not ugly, you’re telling yourself you’re ugly, those are your beliefs” — that in this moment it suddenly said, if you don’t watch out now, you’ll be completely gone, then you’ll have nothing left of yourself, so go. And that was like a liberating blow. And a bit of what contributed to that for me too — I don’t know if you know the Walt Disney method. That’s a completely different area now, but Walt Disney, to be able to create his films, in this creativity, unraveled what I call a belief for his work. He put all sorts of people in a huge room full of stimulus-giving toys, things, and ideas, people who made up stories and told them to each other again and again, without having to or being allowed to think about whether it’s possible, but simply, what would be great. And then there’s a room where that gets tried out. Those are other people, who then take over these thoughts, these dreams, and try to put these dreams into action. And at the end, when the film was finished, there was a really small dark room, without windows, without anything, where you really had to focus only on critical things. And in this small dark room, the film was then either waved through, or given for changes, or it was discarded. And then it went back into this big, huge,
bright room. And I think the beliefs, especially the negative beliefs, prevent you from being in this big, bright room, or that you’re only there for a short time. And that helped me incredibly to engage with my own beliefs. And I find this room super great, and I’m also very, very touched by how openly and transparently Marc thought about his changes and his process, and communicated that officially too. So I find it great. Thank you.
Yes, thank you so, so much. Here I’d like to give a hint again, I’d have to research this again. I know the Walt Disney method rather from NLP. And interestingly, if I enter that online, I find two aspects. On one hand it says here on Wikipedia, “Walt Disney Method” is a term for a creativity technique allegedly used by Walt Disney, allegedly, to underline again. And on the other hand I find at the same time, and that’s how I know it too, that the method goes back to Robert Brian Dilts, a US-American author and consultant of neuro-linguistic programming, who wrote about the world-famous illustrator Walt Disney: “There were actually three different Walts, the dreamer, the realist and the spoiler.” And there, basically, through the method used in NLP, through the technique, so to speak, three different perspectives are taken. And for example, we had this at the author’s breakfast, this — where on the axis do you see the person when you think of them. There I’d said, for example, with me it’s above the image axis. And if you were to process that with the Walt Disney method, then you can, for example, not just say, I’m now distancing this image, for example, or bringing it closer and further, pushing it to the right, to the left, up, down, and see what happens, but with the Walt Disney method I go so far as to, for example, if the image doesn’t just appear as an image but also speaks with me, then I change the pitch, for example, and then move Disney-style into a different tone, for example, so comic-style for example, etc. So, just to mention that on the side, you can gladly go research that yourselves and check. And then I wanted to briefly pick up something else too, because the question came up again in the chat, what’s the relationship between bias and beliefs? Maybe here again one or another might want to add too. So quite fundamentally, first maybe for the distinction. With bias, it’s basically about unintentional stereotypes that form, and unintentional prejudices that arise from that. At the same time, bias is also important though. We’d talked about the brain. That means, we categorize, so to speak. We form stereotypes, no matter what it’s about, in all sorts of contexts, because that also gives us orientation. And the danger is simply that when stereotypes are formed, which are actually supposed to give us orientation, that we’re sometimes not even aware of that at all, that they then also lead to prejudices, so to speak. And especially in generalization, so when certain stereotypes are formed and we keep having the same experience, the whole thing intensifies, and beliefs can be derived from that. What do I know, if I have, so to speak, filed away certain things about women as stereotype, I can have filed away certain things about men, young, old. So all sorts of classifications you can imagine. German, non-German, people with a migration background, and so on. And then I maybe have other experiences I make over the course of time, which then, so to speak, favor beliefs developing here, like for example, no idea, all people who receive unemployment benefits are lazy. And if I then learn from statistics that supposedly that’s predominantly people with a migration background, so there are various derivations that then get made unconsciously, so to speak. And the more often I then have encounters where that gives me the feeling that this is reinforced, then I declare that, in quotation marks, unconsciously also to be true. And that doesn’t mean I don’t have experiences where it can also be the other way around. But in the moment where I perceive that it’s deviating here too, then I declare that rather as an exception, possibly. And maybe don’t realize at all that there’s much more of it, and that it’s not an exception at all. So maybe as an explanatory approach here again. And then let me quickly check whether there are further aspects. I think those were the essential ones. Then let’s gladly make cross-connections again, and at the same time go into the closing round. And if someone doesn’t want to bring in another contribution now, just directly speak the closing word for today, so to speak. Let’s do it in order: Marc, Sonja, Sabine, and Ria. Marc.
I’d also like to address the question in the chat again. It’s assumed, you don’t know exactly, that 95 percent is unconscious, and the unconscious is made up of experiences and beliefs. That’s why it’s so important to look at that. And then the second thing, which for me is at least as important as beliefs, is self-worth. I didn’t have that, and we all have a responsibility. We’re all partners, we’re friends, we’re parents, and if we do this for others — we should start with ourselves, if our self-worth is good, we can pass on this self-worth to others. And that starts, exactly as you said, when you tell someone as a child, you can’t do that, you’re dumb, you’re too clumsy. I can’t do anything handy at all, I don’t have my drill, because my parents always told me I’m too clumsy with my fingers. And my entire family is unhandy. Today I’m annoyed about that, because craftsmen cost a lot of money. And I do notice, when I tackle certain tasks, that I actually manage them. Not that well, but it works. A great day to you all.
Thank you so, so much. Sonja.
I’m incredibly grateful that you bring the topic of beliefs in here, because I find you can never be reminded often enough that we’re subject to beliefs. And I myself, even though I’m a neuro-nerd, so I read very deeply into this material, dive in, and it fascinates me, and I coach myself too, I’m very grateful for everyone, no matter what background, who reminds me that I too carry beliefs within me and sometimes don’t recognize them. And that alone is something I’m taking away again today, and am grateful for. So simply nice, we all have beliefs, and it’s worth questioning a basic assumption, and if that’s the effect, then it definitely improves every dialogue, that we can question basic assumptions. Thank you.
Especially also then, thank you dear Sonja, when we don’t even have the feeling of being discontent or unhappy or anything else, but simply for the sake of questioning, and I find it astonishing what results can come out of that. Sabine.
Yes, great topic. So with beliefs, I wasn’t really aware of that until not so long ago, because I didn’t have the environment where you talked about that somehow. If Marc now says, what he probably researched really well, 95% are unconscious beliefs, then I have to tell myself, of course, if I have 95% unconscious beliefs in me, I can’t think about those, though. Back to the title again, “Thinking and Beliefs.” So can I actually only think about the 5% conscious beliefs? That gives me strong food for thought. Great room. Maybe you can answer that again.
Yes, thank you so, so much. Ria?
I’m deep in thought right now, how to express this. I learned this alleged Walt Disney method in connection with studying dramatic play, so theater in school. And I got this method with a worksheet, and we worked with it and developed a play. And I never researched it in connection with anything, NLP or whatever, I never researched that, because for me it was so vivid and strong, and touched me so much in that moment, that my own idea of this method led to me changing in some form and questioning myself. Why can’t I be creative? Why am I constantly critical? Why do I keep trying to sabotage myself before I’ve even really started? And that’s… maybe it’s the “Ria version” of the Disney method. I found it powerful that you presented it so critically, that it’s used in other contexts. But I think it’s also always the case that there’s absolute information. And the information gets relativized by how people use it. And that also has to do with beliefs again. And I definitely don’t use it the way it’s used in NLP, I think. At least according to what you read there. And that’s a fascinating piece of information for me again. And I too thank you very heartily for this room and for these thoughts and these impulses. So as Jürgen says so nicely, another hour stolen from the heaven of happiness, or something like that. Thank you.
Yes, thank you so, so much — from paradise, he likes to say. That’s such a nice saying. Yes, ultimately, let’s hold onto this — with the methods, it’s not so important now, there are very, very many, especially when you research, I went deeper into that, also in the context of the dissertation, where it was also partly about, where’s actually the origin of a method, or so. And you’ll find with many methods that there are incredibly many variations and so on, and sometimes it’s also not so easy to even find out who was actually the first to invent that, in quotation marks, and in which pure form again too, in quotation marks. And regardless of how the methods then also get modified, into the different techniques that then also get used, those can also be very, very helpful again in different contexts. So it wasn’t meant so critically from my side, I just wanted to briefly mention that it’s also known from NLP, you also know the Walt Disney method from NLP, and that’s again a completely different way of working with it. You can maybe also look at that again there. And with that I didn’t want to either say it’s somehow better or worse, or that it’s important where the origin comes from, but simply just to have mentioned it at this point. And regarding whether that’s now 95 percent, with the numbers, depending on which studies you look at and so on, there are certainly different numbers too. I don’t think it’s about the share at all. It’s definitely a really big share where our unconscious bias takes effect, where beliefs take effect. And we’ve had it in many contexts already, that ultimately many aspects, so to speak, even when we’re aware of them, can’t be completely outsmarted. I think, regardless of the number and which number might be correct, realizing again and making ourselves aware again and again, as Sonja also said, is a really important point, because none of us can escape that, so to speak, myself included. That means, we always have — that’s simply part of being human — this challenge that we get to work with, that we’re allowed to accept first of all, that we hit limits there, and always try, with a critical eye, so to speak, to direct our gaze at it, but that we also mustn’t fall into the illusion, in quotation marks, along the lines of “I think, and therefore this doesn’t happen to me” or something, but that we, even though we think, usually also act within our beliefs, within our values, within the norms, and so on. And of course those aren’t necessarily the beliefs my neighbor has, or so, but others. And maybe there I have the feeling of being further along than others myself. And possibly that’s also true. And yet I keep hitting these limits. And that’s why I found it so nice, also with this horizon-expanding thinking that was addressed — I think you brought that in at the first approach we did on the topic of thinking. What comes to mind for me on that? And there we’d already picked up this aspect too. That means, I do think, or I maybe try to be creative, but ultimately I’m always caught again within my guardrails, so to speak, in quotation marks. And that it’s sometimes not so simple to think in a horizon-expanding way, when I keep connecting to prior experiences, when I maybe haven’t even seen or explored the world out there yet, because I live in a country where I have no possibility at all to travel to foreign cultures, foreign countries, gain new impressions, and so on and so forth. That means, this limiting thing is, so to speak, per se also there to a certain degree. In one place or another we certainly manage to break through these limitations too, whether that’s through a coach, through accompaniment, an exchange with an acquaintance, one’s own thoughts that help with that — but that there are also many contexts where we don’t manage it, but maybe could manage it tomorrow too. So being a bit more careful in these formulations, so to speak, in quotation marks, maybe that’s something we can take away from today’s room again, not to believe per se — and there we’re back at belief again — that in the moment where I think that this no longer has anything to do with beliefs, but that my thinking also moves within certain tracks, namely within the framework of the beliefs, for example, that I have. And that’s why it’s not so simple to think outside these guardrails, which were set somewhere, which I’ve maybe also set myself. I have to keep becoming aware of that, to try to expand these tracks again too. And especially where it’s not conscious to us, where we don’t even notice it, where we don’t even have the feeling that we need to do something here, we often don’t even question that. And all the nicer that we have rooms like this one, where we simply pick up topics, not because we have a problem, not because we have a challenge, but out of a willingness to reflect, because it possibly uncovers one thing or another that we wouldn’t have thought of at all. In this sense, thank you so, so much. I found that a really, really exciting, great room. I’m definitely looking forward to continuing with you tomorrow. Now I have to quickly check myself — tomorrow we have thinking and experience. What role does experience play in thinking? That means, we’ll now, so to speak, dock onto that again and can pick that up again too. We’ve already mentioned experience a few times today too. And so I’m looking forward to looking more deeply into that tomorrow, and thank you so, so heartily for the intensive participation, both here on stage and in the chat, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow, a wonderful day to you all. Until then. Ciao.
