Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: What’s the relationship between thinking and a thought — and which comes first? Dr. Yasemin Yazan and Marc dig into a genuine live puzzle, working through vivid everyday examples — a fleeting glance, a childhood smell, a habit formed after years of caution — while Jürgen briefly joins mid-mountain-hike to add his own perspective…
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 I’d like to talk with you again about thinking and thoughts. We touched on these terms yesterday already. “Thought” came up several times, among other things as a resultant quantity, so to speak. Here I’d like to take a closer look at what “thought” actually means, in contrast to “thinking.” So how these two terms relate to one another, and if there is a sequence, what actually comes first — whether a thought is really always a resultant quantity of thinking. And I’m curious about that. I think we can go into this differentiation again here and look at it more closely. So you’re all really, really warmly invited to join in again this morning too, and step into the exchange, so we can take a closer look at this together. We have a recording running in the background the entire time, and anyone who joins is automatically agreeing that the whole thing will also be published. Just a reminder of that, don’t forget. And we have three small room rules. First, 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 for whatever reason is of course also welcome to use the chat. And with that I’ll gladly mute myself first and see who’d like to join me this morning. A very good morning, dear Marc.
Good morning to the group, nice to be with and among you. Yes, dear Yasemin, today I really need your help, because I have a knot in my head. So I also thought about what the difference is for me between thinking and thoughts, and came across the explanation that thoughts are the products or results of the thinking process. So thoughts are the results of a thinking process, whereas thinking is the verb and describes the process behind it, the activity behind it. And what I now, where I really have a knot in my head, is: if a thought is the product of a thinking process, then for me there are simply so many situations where consciously no thinking process took place at all, but where thoughts — absurd thoughts as well as normal thoughts — shoot into my mind without a conscious thinking process. For example, I’m on the highway, driving maybe a bit faster, that happens rarely, but sometimes I do drive faster, and then my eye wanders to the speedometer, and I think, whoa, that’s pretty fast, you don’t usually drive this fast, and immediately I have the thought in my head, now keep your hands steady on the wheel, hopefully the tire doesn’t blow. Or in a traffic jam, I look in the rearview mirror, without a thinking process, I think, hopefully they brake. That happens so fast. Now you could say, okay, unconscious thoughts are thinking processes too. But for me this definition doesn’t fit in that case. Because if thoughts are results of a thinking process, but we also have absurd and completely random thoughts like in a dream, which aren’t at all the consequence of reflecting, then these thoughts rather just shoot through our heads. And I’m simply, just personally for me, not in agreement with the formulation that thoughts are necessarily the results of a thinking process, but that they can simply come into my head like that too. I hope you can help me with that. Good morning, dear Jürgen.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much. And that’s exactly what it’s about today, basically, to look at this again and accordingly bring clarity to it. And that’s why I actually picked up this term again today too. And Jürgen has joined us right away. So I’m very curious. Jürgen, what do you say to that?
Good morning. If I run out of oxygen, I’ll stop — I’ll keep this really short, because I’m about to go around a bend, and then I hope I can still listen to you, but breathing-wise it’s probably going to get pretty bad. I almost expected this topic, dear Yasemin, because it came up in passing yesterday, that the thought is a product of thinking. And I’ll throw this in, as I said, I’ll keep it short, I’ll throw this in. The thought, in my view, can on one hand be the resultant quantity of thinking. But on the other hand, for me the essential question is really, finally, the question in the room: how do I begin, why at all, and what for, with thinking. And now I think that if we look at thinking and the process — what I consider necessary is to define the process within which we speak of thinking, where it begins and where it ends — then for me a thought can also be an initial thing, giving an impulse toward new thinking, if we also keep and define thinking for these process steps: remembering, and possibly suppressing. Basically essential functions of memory. Then in my view it’s both an initial quantity — can be an initial quantity, among other things through sensory stimuli or experiences, for example, which suddenly pop up in connection with a sensory stimulus and stimulate thinking. And of course, in my view, it can also be a resultant quantity. So, my dears, now I’ll say goodbye and hope I can still listen to you. Thank you for listening and have a nice day.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much for briefly joining us. And a nice day to you too. And then let’s take a look together, dear Marc. And of course we’ll also check this again, so to speak, in quotation marks. And I actually found a page where this is also explained really nicely. And I’ll bring that in as an impulse too. And that is basically also, essentially, to a degree, what Jürgen just said too. And specifically, I found this on the website of “Wissenschaft im Dialog” (Science in Dialogue). And here it says: thoughts are a product of the brain in interaction with its environment and with itself. They arise while hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling and feeling, just as much as while reflecting quietly to oneself, and even while sleeping. Neuroscientists, among others, deal with the topic of thinking. And here it’s also pointed out that there are still relatively many question marks in the room, meaning that here too many, many questions are still unanswered. But at least with this explanation, which is picked up here too, we have precisely this aspect included: that a thought isn’t exclusively always just a resultant quantity — and I think that’s important, just to differentiate again — that it’s not always exclusively a resultant quantity of a thinking process, but can also, for example, set an initial, and can accordingly, for example, stand at the beginning as well as, for example, at the end. Marc, would you like to relate to that again? Does that help you?
That helps untangle my knot. And I have an example too. I always need practical examples, otherwise the whole thing is too abstract for me. I just imagined myself walking through Cologne, and of course that happens to me there too. And a great example is, I’m walking through the city and I like to look at all sorts of different things, because I find them exciting, because I like getting impulses from different situations, whether it’s a new business or cars, anything that moves, I find it exciting. And now an attractive woman walks in front of me, and without thinking about it — and that’s exactly what I meant as an example — an attractive woman walks in front of me and I see that, and without thinking, within a split second, I immediately have the thought in my head: attractive, likeable, nice woman. And then the thinking begins, so the thought is there. And only then does the thinking begin, where I say, why does this woman even catch your attention? I’m really in a happy relationship, why does she catch your attention? So that I then sometimes say, how can it be that you have such thoughts? Of course that’s nice, attractive men catch my attention too. So it’s not like that. And I definitely, I’m into women. So attractive men catch my attention too. But that’s then a point where I think, there suddenly are thoughts in my head, within a split second, there’s “likeable, yes,” and then I think about why that happens, so why does my brain do that to me? Actually this should run in the unconscious bias, because if it has absolutely no meaning for me at all — like how many things we don’t perceive, the example I had yesterday, we sit for an hour at Deep Talk Club on our chair and don’t even notice it. Only when our thoughts are directed there again do we say, yes, now I feel the chair. But some things just come into our heads, and I can follow your explanation, and also Jürgen’s explanation, that helps me understand really well, that this isn’t only results of a thinking process, but that thoughts are also triggered by impulses, by stimuli, by smells. Just like, for example, once a week at the Italian place around the corner from me there’s baked pasta, and I’m happy about that, it’s a treat, because I don’t have to make it myself. And when I smell that pizza oven, I think of my grandma. That happens automatically, because as a child I was very, very often at my grandma’s, who had a pizzeria, and this pizza smell, this smell of baked cheese, is so strongly connected with the memories from childhood, because I spent a lot of time there, that within seconds, so basically upon opening the door, the smell rises into my nose and immediately I think of my grandma.
Yes, a nice example, wonderful. Thank you so much for that last example you picked up. So both on one hand the aspect of stimuli, sensory stimuli in the first example, which then — there it was visual — contribute to you making a quick evaluation and subsequently coming into thinking. And on the other hand, something like — and here we’re at this aspect of memory too, memory, Jürgen had already given us that keyword too — storing things long-term as well. And then it can be that, for example, a sensory stimulus that comes from outside triggers the memory again. And in that case, with your grandma, what you described. And that’s then a smell, for example, so that this memory, which is stored in memory, is accordingly called up again within milliseconds, so to speak, because the memory is triggered. And then, for example, in this context, presumably positive feelings come to the fore accordingly, but of course it can also be the reverse case, that some stimulus from outside triggers a memory, for example, in connection with something that we have also stored as a negative experience. I find that totally exciting. Marc, do you have further examples for that?
Yes, I have another example. I’ve also noticed that my thoughts — well, I’m always speaking about myself, I can only speak for myself — that my thoughts change as I get older. When I was young, I was immortal, I really did a lot of stupid things that I wouldn’t do today. Today I’d slap my forehead and say, how can anyone do something like that? And an example I’ll tell now — when I go into our underground garage, I have to pass through two doors that I can’t see through. Those are two metal doors. In the past I’d walk toward a door like everyone does, walk normally toward the door, grab the door, and open it. Now for years I’ve had this thought in my head — these are simply experience-based — that if someone might be coming from the garage from the other side at the same time, while my hand is on the door handle, I take a step back. Because what I can’t see — it only has to happen once — if this door is suddenly yanked open, then I’d get hit in the head by this metal door. In the past I’d never have thought about that. So now my brain already switches, it thinks ahead and says, what happens if someone is on the other side? In 99.9 percent of cases there’s nobody there. But if the door gets yanked open and I open the door normally, I no longer have a chance to dodge that door. The same example is — and I can laugh about myself here too — in our stairwell in winter, sometimes the light suddenly goes out. And that’s also imprinted itself on me so much that I never keep my hands in my pockets when I walk down the stairs. Not out of laziness — I often do have my hands in my pockets — but simply the thought, in case you do slip, which has never happened, in case you do slip, you no longer have any way to catch yourself. I didn’t have these thoughts a few years ago. My god, then I’d have fallen, you sometimes fall. But I notice that as I get older, these are probably the experiences, or also the knowledge of what can happen if you fall, if you’re careless — these thoughts change my behavior. And I didn’t think about that at 18 or 20, I just did it.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. So here we have so many aspects. We just had the recall of memories. Then here we have, to a degree, this aspect of anticipation too, leaning of course on prior experiences we’ve already made, so that, so to speak, various options that might be in the room are also picked up, and so on. And in the coming days we’ll definitely have various rooms too, where we’ll look at the specifications again, on one hand for example in the direction of scenario thinking. And here too it can be that in anticipation, so to speak, we simply play through various options. And usually we do fall back on experience values there too. And we also had this keyword “horizon-expanding thinking” yesterday. That means, the question is of course, with scenario thinking, on one hand it does already have the function of opening up various options, maybe even ones I haven’t experienced yet, but if I look specifically at this horizon-expanding thinking, which we briefly touched on yesterday too, it can indeed be difficult to produce something new where I have no prior experience, because I need some connections in the brain, so to speak, to stored experiences, data, and so on, to actually be able to produce something new, in quotation marks, within that framework, and how that then behaves accordingly in relation to, so to speak, one could say, in relation to the bubble we’re moving in. So, that’ll be exciting again. We’ll definitely have individual rooms again where we look more closely at these aspects. And so I find these are already really nice examples that show precisely this interweaving at this point, and also make the complexity of the topic clear again. Yesterday I was actually able to derive, from this room we did together, quite a few different, specific rooms again. Many of them weren’t on our list in the planning yet. This is actually the first time that such a variety has come together. We’ll have to see, because that’s already quite a lot, so to speak, how we’ll manage to weave that together. We didn’t manage to fit all of that in yesterday in terms of time. And it was actually important to me now to first make the derivations, and today to pick up the topic of thought first again, because yesterday it really came up more or less as a side clause several times, and with, I’ll say now, a certain matter-of-factness, and precisely the things that seem self-evident to us do make sense to question or check again, whether that really fits, or whether there might be alternatives here too, to make that clear again. Marc, would you like to add to that?
Yes, dear Yasemin, I have to apologize to you all, the knot in my head is already back. I looked at my notes and I’m coming back to it in the room. Thoughts
are the result of thinking. I simply can’t go along with that. Thoughts are the result of thinking. I deal a lot with fashion. That means I’m out and about a lot and see new things. Not just when it comes to baseball caps, but also clothes. So, if it happens that I pass a shop window and see something I’ve never seen before, because fashion is new, it changes constantly, then within a split second I decide, impossible, how can anyone make that, that looks like — I can’t understand that at all — or immediately within a split second, that’s great, super idea. But I can’t have thought about it, because I’ve never seen it before. It’s new. Fashion changes every few months or every few weeks. And at some companies nowadays even every day. So no thinking process can have taken place at all, but I see something and evaluate immediately, good or not good, I like it or I don’t like it. And that’s why it doesn’t make sense to me that thoughts are results of thinking, but that thoughts are simply triggered by impulses, without any prior process having taken place. They’re simply there. And yesterday evening I also tried to engage with the topic, and came to the conclusion for myself that thoughts are perhaps similar to dreams. I’ve managed to remember my dreams. That doesn’t happen often. I also wake up very often and then don’t know what I dreamed. And I find it exciting, when I do remember, how the brain simply throws situations together and makes a completely new film out of it. And when I then think about how that came about, that you dreamed you were out riding your bike, then I know that a few days ago at some point the thought crossed my mind, we’ll soon have the men’s trip again, which we did last year. And I sometimes even catch myself noticing that this was really days, two, three, or four days back. There was an impulse, and days later I processed it in a dream into a completely, completely new film that isn’t logical at all. And that’s maybe how it is for me with thoughts too. That thoughts shoot through our heads like in a dream, through all sorts of impulses, which aren’t logically justifiable and where we can’t always explain to ourselves where they come from. They’re simply there, they simply arose.
Let’s gladly build on that again. And maybe you’d like — this is a recommendation — to reword the sentence you wrote down for yourself again. So on one hand you could note, instead of “are” — can be a resultant quantity of thinking, because then it’s not always exclusively that, so to speak, but also in other contexts. And we did say at the outset, thoughts are a product of the brain. I also find that if we speak of a product of the brain, that might make it clearer too. That means it’s not the product of thinking per se always, but of the brain. And here interactions take place, which happen with its environment and with itself. And how do they arise? Through a stimulus. Sensory stimuli are hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling and feeling, just as much as while reflecting. That means we have different, so to speak, constellations where a thought can then arise. Either it’s triggered by a sensory stimulus, through hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling and feeling, and/or through reflecting. And in the definition it said “quietly to oneself.” Or even while sleeping. So, that means, and there we already have this dream aspect included too. So accordingly it can be a resultant quantity of thinking. But it can also be the trigger of thinking, namely when it’s picked up as a stimulus, so to speak, and only then sets this thinking process in motion accordingly, because first the thought arose, then the thinking process. And possibly this thinking process then also concludes again with the thought as a product. So that means, we can have this as an initial as well as a result of the thinking process.
Marc.
I hug you, dear Yasemin. I just realized, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, not to butter anyone up, I wish I’d had a teacher like you. Because I just realized, live in action with you, that changing a single word, just one single word, leads to me understanding processes that are really very complex, so much better. And I’ve often noticed about myself that in school and with normal explanations, whether scientific or political, I sometimes can’t follow, because my brain gets stuck like a stop button on a single sentence or a single word. And is so busy trying to find a solution now that I don’t even perceive the further words anymore. I can’t follow at all anymore, because my brain is so busy trying to understand just this one sentence, this one word, trying to understand the speaker. And by changing this word, by expressing it understandably, everything falls away and I think, yes of course, I could have figured that out myself. The sentence is struck out, suddenly everything is crystal clear. And for this ability I thank you, because this not-expressing-things-clearly in school led to me not understanding some processes. And the other person never made the effort either to maybe explain it differently. As far as I’m concerned, you can explain it to me in a way a child would understand, but there are simply some things that won’t reveal themselves to me, and just switching this one word led to me now knowing what you’re talking about, and I can fully underline that, and actually smile about myself, why didn’t I notice that sooner. Thank you, dear Yasemin.
Yes, thank you so much, and above all I find it exciting, if we look at this on the meta level again, totally exciting what just happened, because basically it was the same explanation that had already come up before. And you then connected to that and gave two examples. That means, you had first understood it, then the sentence in front of you brought you stumbling again. And now the second explanation, which was basically the similar one, just worded differently than the first, with the hint “maybe reword that one word,” led to understanding again. And that’s exciting in this respect too, because we had also already talked about neural networks. That means, whenever learning actually takes place, the neural structures demonstrably change too. That means the strands become longer on one hand, and when we then create connections, it’s such that then the network gets stabilized too, one could say, or gets bigger. And this neural network that newly arises during learning, through this learning process, it’s really, really important that it also regresses again if we don’t repeat it, because it’s new, so to speak. And how could one imagine that, comparable maybe to a plant that’s just newly growing, that you also get to take good care of it so it keeps growing and doesn’t wilt again right away because it got too little water. Jürgen, welcome back again. And now I’m curious what you’d like to add at this point.
Now I really had to try to get back on stage, because I want to hug Marc. What you described, dear Marc, this is how I interpret it, this is my interpretation: this is building a bridge to our previous topic, reflection. You learned something from an explanation by Yasemin, thought about it, classified it, generalized it, the devil knows what, and also categorized it, filed it away, thought you understood. And then you went into reflection and asked yourself — sorry if I now phrase this so bluntly — then you asked yourself, did I really understand it? And then you came to the result, I haven’t understood it. And this thought, this result, this resultant quantity from the specific kind of thinking, reflection, you took again as an initial, as a thought, to openly say to Yasemin, now I have a knot in my head again. Great, absolutely great, so heartfelt thanks for this example.
Yes, wonderful, Marc, would you like to add to that?
Yes, it’s totally exciting to observe yourself in a self-experiment, and that’s true, dear Yasemin, that’s exactly what happens. I listened to you, I also listen to Jürgen, but listening doesn’t mean it’s immediately stored. I also understand the words Jürgen says, but between understanding and storing and immediate application and then again critically questioning, reflecting, did I really understand it — then taking out the old recordings again and immediately — and I see how fast that is. I just noticed about myself, even though I was listening, and even though your explanations, many explanations, are conclusive to me, that within split seconds I very, very quickly fall back into old behavior patterns — I’m consciously using the word behavior patterns, because that’s exactly what happens in business and in politics — and into old thought patterns, because I understood it for one or two seconds, didn’t store it, don’t apply it and don’t reflect and question it: did I really understand it now? Did I really store it? And am I ready to accept and apply the new thought? That was a learning process par excellence just now. Thanks. And I have to smile about myself.
Yes, and I find it especially exciting, precisely on this — and from this level we’ve already talked about more often, especially in connection with reflection, again and again — this so-called meta level, where we go into our own observation, into self-observation as well, to direct this examining gaze at certain aspects again, to analyze again, in order to then derive certain aspects afterward through the thinking process that takes place. And that was really, really nice just now, precisely through this example and articulating what just took place in your brain, so to speak, which thoughts came up, and sharing that with us and thereby letting us be part of this process, so to speak, at this point. Jürgen, would you like to add to that? Or are you already further along, I don’t know, are you cycling, are you climbing? That would be interesting too, I don’t even know what Jürgen does in the background. But I think he can’t speak right now.
Exactly. Marc, but in case… Ah, there’s Jürgen. Yes. Why? Was I still on or something? Then I’m sorry if I disturbed you.
No, no, you didn’t disturb us, but I did get curious, by the way, what you’re actually doing in the background that’s making you so out of breath.
Well, I’m in a confrontation with my favorite opponent, the mountain. And right now I’m doing everything I can so it doesn’t win today. That’s why I’m a bit short on oxygen. And I’m getting off the stage now, because I’m fairly out of breath. Thanks again. I’ll keep listening to you as long as I can. Thank you, bye, and have a nice day.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much for sharing too. Yes exciting, I find it especially nice too, this combination, and we did have this aspect of movement and so on yesterday too, we’ll pick that up again as influencing factors that play a role in connection with thinking. I’d like to go into that again too, that wasn’t just movement, there were also other aspects, like nutrition and so on, so we’ll look at that more specifically too. Marc, do you have further thoughts? Do you have further examples you’d like to check, to test the thread again? How is it going for you?
Yes, I have to clearly say, Jürgen knows how I mean this — Jürgen is a madman, but a madman in the positive sense. I think mountains are great, I love the panorama too, I like being in the mountains too, but at the same time my body tells me, this can’t be it. This overcoming, what Jürgen does there, this self-discipline, going beyond pain thresholds, because Jürgen really — he mentioned this once — does very extreme sport. So not just, if I go, going and going, there are differences. And going at certain altitudes and with certain oxygen ratios, there are differences too. Jürgen, you’re totally crazy to me, but I have great respect for what you do, and I wish you a lot of fun.
Yes, I have another thought, dear Yasemin, and specifically what we just noticed with me — dialogue, and that’s exactly what happens every day. Now I have no problem admitting that I didn’t understand something, because I sometimes have knots in my head, but in political discussions, in business meetings — we’re now on stage here, we start the day together, and actually it’s completely unimportant whether I’ve understood everything you say or not, because my day just continues afterward anyway. But if we’re both working together on a project in a company, or if we both want to pull in the same direction politically, or if we both want to improve something, and someone doesn’t say they have a knot in their head — if I don’t tell you that I’ve heard your train of thought, and that I can logically follow it, and yet I haven’t really understood it — that shows me again how hard communication is, that you too, the way I’m wired, no longer have any way to keep talking to me, because in such a loop you keep trying anyway to understand what you mean, what you mean. And I probably then switch off and stop really listening at all, because my brain is busy either really trying to follow your thoughts, or my brain says, this is so absurd, I don’t follow Yasemin’s thought at all anymore, then I just keep looking at you. And if we know that, if we know and are aware of these processes, then new communication techniques arise for me that I myself don’t yet know how to apply. But I have to assume — and this is just an assumption, assumption is the enemy of truth — that this is really the case with the other person, that the other person, even if they smile at me, even if they say, yes, that makes sense to me, that it’s not the case yet at all. And that also shows me again, this isn’t our topic today, but how complex the topic of communication is, and what effects it can have if we’re not clear about these processes, these thinking processes, because then the resultant quantity that arises in a conversation, or that arises in professional collaboration, or in collaboration in politics — that then has either catastrophic or bad, maybe also accidentally good effects, if we’re not aware of these processes. And that’s why this thinking and reflecting is an incredibly exciting and important topic.
Yes, I find it great that you bring up this aspect again, because I think it doesn’t happen rarely at all. So this actually reminded me again of the example I brought up — I think it was at the digital campfire too, on the topic of reflection. I don’t know if it was in the first one or the second one, I think it was in the first one. In any case, it was about the math exam in the Abitur, if you remember, or at least those who were there. I had told you in that context that on the way to this math exam — it was an oral exam — my math teacher, on the way, my examiner, my homeroom teacher, had asked me whether I was well prepared or how I was feeling. And I mentioned to him that basically I had prepared, and also thought I had understood, but somehow had problems with the implementation, even though per se I had
initially internalized and understood the approach, or thought I had understood it. And that was great, because through this interaction, through this communication that took place, he could then draw on exactly this information in this math exam that took place, and precisely test that, and in the process support me with a small nudge here or there, to transfer what I had understood in theory into practice at the blackboard, so to speak, namely in that context, and derive results from it, and accordingly get a result in the overall evaluation, as a product, so to speak, that was with certainty much better — as a school grade in this case — than if this interaction, this communication, hadn’t taken place beforehand and he hadn’t handled it accordingly. And I find that really, really exciting, because that’s again an example of how sometimes we have the feeling — possibly we’re not even aware that we haven’t understood something yet. Possibly there are also moments where we keep having the feeling, yes, I understood, but apparently the connections, or the networks, so to speak, namely being able to build these bridges, also to various examples or whatever, aren’t necessarily always given. That means we may have understood something on a theoretical level first. And in the moment we try to apply it, for example by trying it out with examples, using it, or similar, then we notice that we somehow can’t get further, and that maybe makes clear again, well, we did understand something, but we apparently haven’t fully understood it yet. There’s still some connecting point missing that ensures that this implementation can actually be realized, so to speak. Marc, would you like to add to that again?
Yes, because it just occurred to me, and we’re in a group right now, that’s totally difficult, or requires a lot of self-confidence. I’m thinking now about school, or also in the work process. Let’s say we’re in — I wouldn’t say that here — let’s say we’re now in a professional context, there it wouldn’t be indifferent to me what you think of me, because there you’re my colleagues. You have a strong influence on whether I can keep doing my job or not. And standing in front of such an assembled team — let’s just say, someone up front is telling us something and we’re 21 people, I’m the 21st, and 20 people nod, because the boss said something, we understood, let’s do it. But I didn’t understand it, and maybe there are ten more people who didn’t understand it either. That really has very, very extreme effects, and having this courage, or also having this knowledge internalized for yourself, that not understanding something has nothing to do with me being dumber than the others, or being stupid or slow, but that I simply connected words or memories or experiences differently. And of course then also arrive at different results. And that this prior experience I have is a completely different one. But I think that in our society it’s still the case that if you’re the only one in a group or a round who doesn’t understand something, then the fear also comes with it of being an outsider. So I stand out if I’m the only one who doesn’t understand, even though the other ten don’t say anything at all. And also the knowledge about these processes for the one standing up front, who has a leadership position, that’s really, really important, that’s elementary knowledge, because it has a big effect on the resultant quantity. If you don’t understand these processes and just see 21 people nodding, and maybe 50 percent of them didn’t understand it, then these work instructions that are given, especially if they weren’t understood, then it just continues, it’s not just followed half-heartedly. If a boss now says, we have to do this and that, or else we go insolvent, or else this and that happens, and I haven’t understood at all why that is, then I’m also completely half-hearted about it. And being half-hearted about it always means not giving 100 percent performance.
Yes, absolutely. And there of course we’re also, to a degree, at how we’ve stored this based on experience, and how we evaluate this ourselves. What does it actually mean, in quotation marks, to admit that you haven’t understood something? Is that somehow negatively associated? Is it an exposure, not having understood something? We suddenly go into comparison points and so on. Depending on which prior experiences we’ve had, that can be very, very different. I think there are people who have few challenges or difficulties with that. Then there are other people who, based on the experiences they’ve had, possibly have more difficulties. So on one hand to underline again how important this kind of communication is, to actually open up the space, both for yourself and maybe for others who don’t dare to articulate very similar thoughts they have, and to open up this space once. On one hand giving the other person the chance to actually address it, as well as being able to gather positive experiences with that too. You just spoke of courage, in various contexts, but also with the math exam, with the oral exam, that’s also a nice example. In this context too, when the teacher approached me and asked, I could have — or maybe someone else with the same background — reacted differently, and not done the openness, but possibly thought to myself, my god, if I say that now, I’ve basically already lost, in quotation marks, that could have also been a thought that led to not addressing it openly out of this fear. But it’s exactly this open addressing that opens up a space, and of course also has to do with how the other person handles it. So here too we can experience quite different reactions. But I’d like to share an experience I make very often in coaching. Especially something like, for example, in the context of many people having challenges with saying no or setting boundaries, because they assume that it won’t be received well by the other person, or similar, and are then astonished when, having first dared, through certain reflections and so on, and having made the decision that they want to do that in the future — set boundaries, and also think in advance about how they can phrase it, etc. — that the reactions are then often quite different than expected. And I can well imagine that in this case that’s so too, that it often leads more to a dissolving of something, so to speak, rather than facing people who lash out at you, as I’ll now call it. Would you like to say something about that too?
Yes, another example from politics just occurs to me now. And specifically, after doing this exercise with you today, that thoughts are the result of thinking, or can be the result of thinking — same content, but a completely different sentence. And you notice how important the phrasing is, especially for politicians, or for people who explain things. And we currently have this topic that affects all of us at some point, with heating boilers and how we’ll heat in the future. And there, words like “heating boilers must be replaced,” “heating boilers will be replaced, if A or B is the case,” or “heating boilers should be replaced” make a difference. If I just slip up in a live broadcast, in a discussion, because I use just one word without my team having reflected on what the difference is between “must,” “will,” “could,” or “should,” then of course I get all sorts of different reactions that I maybe didn’t even intend. And that makes you aware again of the responsibility we have, not just when speaking but also when thinking. And how important it is, when we stand in front of a group, that we really think about what the content is, or what do I want to convey, what is the goal I want to achieve, and how can I bring people along. And in our room here, that’s relaxed, that’s really totally relaxed for me. But if we two are talking, like Yasemin, that has no thought at all that people leave the room and worry, or that what I say influences their lives. But the moment I take on responsibility, where I’m a leader, or a politician, then I become aware that the knowledge about thoughts, about words, and about thinking is a completely elemental component. Because I’m also stirring emotions with that. And of course I can consciously use that too. On the other hand, such words are consciously left out and consciously used, because these thoughts also trigger emotions. And we know that emotions are also one of the most important control elements for us humans.
Yes, absolutely wonderful. And I find it especially exciting too that this aspect of communication has come out so strongly today as well. We had that, by the way, in the context of reflection too, that it became clear how important reflection and communication are to consider in connection. And exactly the same phenomenon has now emerged today here too, so to speak in passing, through the knot, as you called it, in your head. And so I find it totally exciting that this becomes obvious again and again, also what role communication plays in this context. And there we are again at the dialogue, both with myself and with others. And then the derivation we also made again in the last rooms — now, so to speak, one of the future skills that will increasingly await us, communication with the machine too. There we’re back at artificial intelligence, which is then also a very special kind of communicating too. And yes, I’d like to give a reminder here too. This evening at 7pm there’s the event, and I’d shared the link. Now I’d have to check whether I can find it quickly again. Maybe I can check that, for those who maybe haven’t signed up yet, this evening at 7pm, if you have time and would like to join, gladly join us too. I’ll mention it again briefly: “AI Revolution, Navigating Between Innovation and Uncertainty” is the topic of the talk I’ll be giving this evening. I heard yesterday, by the way, that there are already over 100 registrations. I was very positively surprised by that, so to speak, I hadn’t expected that many. So the topic seems to interest many people, and it’s free of charge, so anyone with time and interest is welcome to just join. It’s over Zoom, everyone is heartily invited, and I’ll see if I can pin the link while Marc adds anything else, and then gradually move into the closing round for today, dear Marc.
I found it great just now, dear Yasemin, that you said “button,” and specifically for the reason that this with words is exactly the same as with thoughts. That’s exactly what occupied me. You certainly weren’t thinking about buttons, and yet this word is somehow there, and that happens at an incredible speed of light, and even faster — already while saying it, I became aware that we’re not talking about buttons at all. But for me, words have a lot in common with thoughts, and words also arise through thoughts, and I found that great. I found the whole room great, and I’ll start the day again with a smile. I wish you all a wonderful and great day.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so, so, so much. And that shows how fast these processes sometimes run too. So, we’ll also open up various rooms again where we go into memory again too. So the memory stores and so on, what do we actually have there, how does that work, what’s the process. And there too, certainly one thing or another will become clearer again. So I’m really looking forward to that too. And these aspects will also be brought in tonight at the talk, for various connections, so to speak. And so it stays exciting. As I said, I haven’t gotten to, or we haven’t finished getting to, actually — we made the derivations from yesterday’s room, but we still have to define the order, so to speak, because we already had a room plan before. Now we have to see where there are overlaps, how we might merge the topics in part, because yesterday a really whole range came together that I find highly exciting, and would like to pick up, and don’t want anything to get lost. And at the same time, to see that it also doesn’t become too many rooms, but somehow also to see how various topics can maybe be combined a bit, because it lends itself here too, because they also have an intensive connection, so to speak, that they can maybe be merged into one room, into one room topic. And we’re still working on that. That’s why no announcement for tomorrow today. So it can also be that, because the event is this evening and all the preparations are still running here for that too — that’s really always a lot of work to prepare the goal group-specifically. Accordingly, everything else is initially put on hold, one deadline after another, so to speak. That means the probability is relatively high that you’ll again get the room for tomorrow relatively short-notice, like today, as soon as possible. And then in the coming days this room planning can really be finalized. I assume that will actually only happen over the weekend. So please have some patience here too. But the rooms always take place at 8am in the morning at Deep Talk. That means, if you join at 8am in the morning, you’ll find us here too, even if the rooms might initially be set up short-notice. Yes, thank you so, so much. I found today’s room very, very enriching again too, really different perspectives, examples, and also bridges that we could build through this. So thank you so, so much for the examples, dear Marc. And of course also that you addressed this aspect, that you still have understanding problems there, so that we could pick that up too, on another level, so to speak, to discuss it, beyond just the pure topic of what thoughts actually are, to also demonstrate this aspect of reflection here basically by doing. So, great, and a nice opportunity to establish these interweavings again, and to precisely show how these processes run there accordingly too. Even if we don’t necessarily understand everything in detail, and even if neuroscience has many findings here, but hasn’t yet conclusively clarified everything, we still have very, very many tools from the findings that we can draw on, to derive certain things for ourselves and to be able to keep working with that, to use that for ourselves, to be able to consciously understand certain things, and thereby accordingly also get into a certain self-efficacy. And so I’m simply looking forward to the next rooms we’ll have together. Let yourselves be surprised what’s next. And I’m simply happy about everyone who’s there tonight at the event. In this sense, I wish you well, and see you tonight, or at the latest tomorrow morning again, I hope. Until then.
