2:00

on the brain when it occurs, how long

2:02

it can last, and how to induce immersion.

2:04

Whether you want to teach a more engaging

2:06

class, wow your customers, or simply make everyday

2:08

interactions with friends and family more memorable. After

2:11

the show's over, check out our show

2:13

notes at aowim.is.emergence. Paul

2:29

Zach, welcome to the show. Thanks so much, Brett.

2:32

So you've spent your career studying

2:34

why people,

2:37

or why certain things engage

2:39

us more emotionally and

2:41

spurs to action while others don't. What

2:43

led you down this research path, and

2:45

how did your career end up having

2:48

you research, doing research for the

2:50

US military? So there's an honest

2:52

answer and a dishonest answer. Which one would you like?

2:55

I want the story, the dishonest one. That's

2:57

always the more fun one, right? The

2:59

dishonest one is the DMV. You've been

3:01

to the DMV. You've been to, I

3:04

don't know, Walmart. Why

3:06

do we have so many experiences in our life that

3:08

are sucky? Why isn't everything

3:11

fabulous? Why isn't everything like the first

3:13

date with the person you fall in

3:15

love with or an amazing meal? So

3:19

if you talk to businesses, they all

3:21

agree customer experience is really important. But

3:24

most of that is terrible. So

3:27

the first dishonest answer is I'm

3:29

just fascinated that we cannot figure

3:31

out how to wow people every

3:34

time we have an interaction. Whether that's social,

3:37

whether it's in person, why is so much

3:39

stuff mundane and dull? So that's the dishonest

3:41

answer. The honest answer is that

3:43

I'm a Martian. And I

3:45

find the human species to be

3:48

extraordinarily interesting. And

3:50

we began to study why people

3:52

are nice to each other, which

3:55

seems to be like a weird outstanding trait

3:57

of the humans, right? I

4:00

mean, you know, the bad behavior gets in the

4:02

news, but basically we're pretty nice to each other

4:04

almost all the time. Why?

4:07

Right? Isn't nature red and tooth and claw? Shouldn't

4:10

we be grabbing resources and anything we want

4:12

from each other and murdering each

4:14

other at a high rate? We

4:16

really don't. And so we

4:19

started doing this work, made some progress, and then the

4:21

US military and some other agencies of

4:24

the US government with letters that I

4:26

should mention started funding us to

4:29

ask us to identify signals

4:32

in the brain that in combination would

4:34

accurately and consistently predict what people would

4:36

do after a message or an experience.

4:39

That's a mouthful. What's that mean? They wanted

4:41

us to build a neurologic prediction engine in

4:44

order to train soldiers to have a new

4:46

superpower called persuasion. So if

4:48

I could understand from a brain perspective

4:51

what will motivate you to take an action, then

4:54

I can influence that action. And

4:56

that's what we all do all the time, right?

4:59

For social creatures, we're constantly influencing those around us,

5:01

whether we know it or not. So my view

5:03

is we might as well be as good as

5:05

possible at influence by understanding

5:07

the factors that promote or inhibit

5:10

people to cooperate with us. So

5:12

in your book, Immersion, you share

5:14

this research you've done in a

5:16

very easy to read, reader-friendly

5:18

way, and you explain

5:21

the neuroscience of what makes certain

5:24

activities, certain moments in life really engage

5:26

and we just light this up and

5:28

cause us to take action. And

5:31

you say one of the key features

5:33

is that these moments, they're extraordinary experiences

5:36

that put us into a state of

5:38

immersion. So let's talk about definitions first.

5:41

How do you define what's an extraordinary experience and

5:43

then what do you mean by this state of

5:45

immersion? Right. So there's a

5:47

real dilemma when we started doing this work, which is

5:50

if I ask you to rate an

5:53

experience like, I don't know, the cup of

5:55

coffee you had this morning, how good was

5:57

that on one to seven scale?

6:00

to what? You know, I always say like compared

6:02

to my kids, my kids talk back to

6:04

me, forget my kids. My dog's perfect. My dog's always

6:06

a seven, right? But I can't compare

6:08

my dog to coffee. And so if we

6:10

ask people to consciously report what

6:13

they think they like, it

6:15

predicts nothing. Doesn't predict movie ticket sales. Otherwise, every movie will

6:17

be a hit, right? Just ask people, do you like this

6:19

movie? Great. We'll edit it till you like it. Every

6:22

book would be a hit. So

6:24

we went with what we can

6:26

see. We gave people an

6:28

experience and then we allowed them to

6:30

do something that was difficult or costly.

6:33

So for example, we showed them a public

6:35

service announcement about some social ill

6:38

and we were taking blood before and after, look at

6:41

changes in neurochemicals. So we paid people like 40 bucks.

6:43

And at the end we said, by the way, do

6:45

you want to donate some money to American cancer

6:47

society or whatever? And

6:49

we just compared productivity for people who did

6:52

something after an experience versus those who

6:54

did not. So our assumption was if

6:57

this experience was so

7:00

exciting to your brain that it provokes you

7:02

to do something difficult, it must have been

7:04

really extraordinary. And we worked

7:06

back from there. And in doing that,

7:08

we discovered this neurologic state of called

7:10

immersion, which is a

7:12

set of neurologic signals from the brain.

7:15

So it's brain data that's

7:17

associated with being present, right?

7:19

The experience is not going to be great if I'm

7:21

distracted, if I'm not able to be fully present and

7:24

with the emotional value of that experience.

7:27

So if I'm here, I'm present and

7:30

this experience is emotionally compelling to

7:32

me, those two things together tell

7:35

me that this experience is valuable and that

7:37

neurologic immersion is a continuous

7:39

variable. So it can be low as an okay

7:41

thing, or it can be really high. Oh, I

7:43

love this a lot. This is the best thing

7:46

ever. And so by being

7:48

able to quantify neurologically second

7:50

by second, the value that people's

7:53

brains assigned to an experience, we

7:55

can work backwards. And this is what the book immersion

7:57

does is it takes 50,000

8:00

plus brain observations and say, well, how do

8:02

I create a great message as

8:04

a marketer? How do I create a great movie?

8:06

How do I create a great hit song? So

8:09

we've learned so much from people

8:11

measuring those activities so that

8:13

we can create more of what people really love. Isn't

8:16

that what we want in the world? That's what I

8:18

want. So what are you looking

8:20

at in the brain to measure this

8:22

immersion state? Cause like you said, I want

8:24

to talk more about this. Self-reporting isn't useful.

8:26

So you say you like something, but it

8:28

actually didn't engage you. So what are you

8:31

looking at? What are you actually measuring to

8:33

figure out whether someone's in this immersive state

8:35

or not? Yeah, great question. And again,

8:37

we're doing this all the time, right? We're trying

8:39

to assess, should I go out

8:41

with that guy or girl? Should I buy

8:44

that sport coat? And we're really trying to

8:46

assess our own preferences, but those preferences, my

8:49

life and many others have shown are deep in

8:51

the unconscious areas of the brain. So they're not

8:53

really open to conscious awareness, at least not very

8:56

clearly. So we found this

8:58

immersive state is associated with the brain's

9:00

binding of a neurochemical called dopamine that

9:03

probably most listeners have heard of. That's associated

9:05

with things like risk taking and reward.

9:07

It's the same chemical that drugs

9:10

have abused like cocaine and methamphetamine increased, you

9:12

know, million fold in your brain. So first

9:15

of all, it's this arousal chemical. I got to be

9:17

turned on by this thing so that I'm present. And

9:20

the second neurochemical is called oxytocin, which

9:22

is that emotional resonance, like how valuable

9:24

is this to me emotionally? So if

9:27

I have this kind of arousal state dopamine,

9:29

and I'm getting emotional value from this, that

9:32

combination together that dance those

9:34

two neurochemicals induces electrical activity

9:36

that we can measure with

9:39

big hundred thousand dollar machines, or

9:41

now with things like smartwatches while

9:43

applying algorithms in the cloud. So

9:46

it allows us to actually quantify second

9:48

by second when something is good or

9:50

bad. So can I give a concrete example? Cause

9:52

it sounds like we're at 30,000 feet. Perfect.

9:55

We're useful. Yeah. So, um, we

9:57

built a platform so that anybody

9:59

can measure. what the brain loves. And

10:01

one of our longest term subscribers to the

10:03

platform is the professional services

10:05

company Accenture. And they have

10:08

found in the $1 billion

10:10

they spend a year on corporate training

10:13

that their employees cannot stay immersed in

10:15

training for more than 20 minutes. Right?

10:18

So if I want to get this information

10:20

in your brain, immersion says it's important, important

10:23

information to save in the brain in a way

10:25

that makes it easily accessible. Accenture

10:27

has now broken down their training into

10:29

20 minute segments so that

10:31

they get the most impact for the

10:34

money they spend on training. I don't

10:37

know why it's 20 minutes, why it's not 18

10:39

or 22, but they found around 20 minutes, your

10:41

brain is fatigued, you need a break. So

10:43

brain cells are just like muscle cells. They

10:46

fatigue with use and immersion is

10:48

really metabolically costly. So if I'm going to influence

10:50

you, if I want to get information in your

10:52

head, I've got to give you this

10:54

intensive and generally short experience so

10:57

that the information is categorized, put in

10:59

your brain and then potentially influences your

11:01

behavior. So this is really the science

11:03

of influence. Okay, so when

11:06

we are experiencing an immersive

11:08

moment, there's dopamine or dopamine levels

11:10

rise because this thing is grabbing

11:12

our attention. But then also combined

11:14

with that oxytocin levels rise as

11:16

well. And oxytocin, I think people have heard it as like

11:18

the nurturing molecule. It's like the thing that helps

11:21

us bond to people. But you're

11:23

saying it also helps us experience

11:25

that emotional, like it makes the

11:27

event we're experiencing emotionally

11:29

salient to us. Correct.

11:32

Right. And so it's both those kinds of

11:34

things. And again, those activate large networks in

11:36

the brain. What we found is

11:38

that if we grab data from the brain's output

11:40

file, which is these 12 cranial nerves that come

11:42

out of your head and send information to the

11:44

rest of your body, I can

11:46

grab a huge amount of information, networked

11:49

information from the brain. And that

11:51

was the real breakthrough that we made about 10

11:53

years ago is that as opposed

11:55

to putting an MRI scanner or putting a

11:57

big EEG cap on your head, that

12:00

we can actually grab these data from your

12:02

cranial nerves and get really good signal where

12:05

we're able to predict things like hit songs through

12:07

months in advance with 97% accuracy using

12:10

immersion or predict mood in

12:12

the elderly with 98% accuracy. So

12:15

we're really capturing, I'm going to

12:18

use one bad word, that's okay, I'm

12:20

really capturing what one of our subscribers to

12:22

the software platform called the give a measure.

12:25

So because the brain is so metabolically

12:27

costly, so energy hungry, it wants to

12:30

just cruise most of the time. So

12:32

when we see this neurologic state immersion,

12:35

it's really expanding a lot of metabolic

12:37

energy. So the brain is investing all

12:40

this energy to process this experience

12:42

and that's why it's valuable to us.

12:45

The brain goes, wow, this is the

12:47

best thing ever, give me more of

12:49

this. So again, think of that gorgeous

12:52

guy or girl you see walking down the street, you're

12:54

like, oh, this is, how

12:56

did nature create this amazing creature? Or

12:59

I don't know, the best meal, I

13:01

just came from South Africa. I had

13:03

one of the best meals of my

13:05

life, a two hour dinner course after

13:07

course, this chef's testing, tasting

13:09

menu. And it was amazing, right?

13:11

Just mind-blowingly good. And I

13:14

was just totally immersed the entire

13:16

time. So give me

13:18

more of that. Okay, so by

13:20

knowing this immersion idea and that there's

13:22

this dopamine in the oxytocin, I just

13:24

said you can reverse engineer this to

13:26

create more engaging experiences. Let's start

13:28

with this, like a lot of things in our

13:30

life, they grab our attention, right? We all have

13:32

smartphones and there's things that we, when we're scrolling

13:34

through, it grabs our attention, but

13:37

they don't, they're not emotionally resonant.

13:41

So what's going on there? Why, why are some

13:43

things, you know, they grab our attention, but they

13:45

don't emotionally resonate. So like what, what

13:47

makes an attention grabbing moment have

13:49

that oxytocin boost as well? Right.

13:52

So I, that's a good question. So let's, let's

13:54

go to two answers on that. So one is

13:56

if I grab your attention, but I don't get

13:58

any emotional value from it. I

14:01

call that safe frustration. Like I want

14:03

this YouTube ad to be

14:05

great, but after six seconds I hover over

14:07

the skip and I want to go away.

14:09

Or some, I don't know, new show, whatever

14:11

it is. It's just frustrating. Like I'm here,

14:14

I'm present. I got the dopamine effect, but

14:16

just not getting much value out of this. So

14:20

the second question is, like how do

14:22

I do that? What we found

14:24

now in measuring just tons and tons

14:26

of experiences is that if

14:28

I use a narrative arc, if I

14:31

create tension, I have a human scale

14:33

story, we are as

14:35

social creatures fascinated by the other

14:37

humans. And that's why movies

14:39

are not going away, novels are not going away.

14:42

We're really interested. Podcasts like this are not

14:44

going away. We're really interested in what the

14:46

other humans are doing. And we

14:48

can learn from them. But if I craft

14:51

that information as a story that

14:53

is introducing characters who have

14:55

a crisis or mystery, who have

14:57

to resolve that mystery, who have to

14:59

do something often extraordinary to do it,

15:02

that seems to be the most effective way

15:04

to sustain immersion. So again, we

15:06

all know this intuitively, right? If we're, Brett, you and

15:08

I are out at a bar at happy hour hanging

15:10

out, we're going to be telling stories to each other,

15:12

right? So, and that's essentially what we're

15:15

doing right now on your podcast. We're kind of

15:17

telling stories. I'm telling a little more technical story,

15:20

but I'm still trying to craft that around

15:22

a human scale story. So

15:24

when we measure stories, like when

15:26

we work with movie studios and

15:28

TV networks, you can

15:31

see second by second when that story, by

15:33

measuring immersion, when that story starts to lag.

15:35

Now you don't want to be at 100% immersion all the

15:38

time. It's too exhausting. You want to modulate immersion.

15:41

But even in our own daily lives for listeners,

15:43

right? Think about having crafting a

15:46

really effective story in

15:48

three minutes, in five minutes. It's got to be kind

15:51

of tight. It's got to open hot. And

15:53

you've got to get me in this store. Open

15:55

hot means, you know, grab that dopamine attentional response.

15:57

Like, oh, something new is happening here. now

16:00

add in that social component, right?

16:02

That here's the crisis, here's the

16:04

weird thing that happened to me, here's something that was

16:07

unexpected that we had to overcome,

16:09

that narrative arc is really the

16:11

most effective way to entertain,

16:13

but also to influence people. All

16:16

right, so to create immersive experiences, you have to

16:18

tell a story. Yeah, a good

16:20

story, not any story, but it's really gotta

16:22

be tight. So think of

16:24

comedians, they go to

16:27

these clubs, they practice these comedy routines

16:29

and small clubs over and over and over until

16:32

they've really tightened up the

16:34

language of storytelling. So we

16:36

as civilians, we just

16:38

tell stories all the time kind of randomly,

16:40

but I would say, if you wanna influence

16:42

others, and that's what human creatures do all

16:44

the time, so just embrace that. If you

16:46

wanna do it really well, craft

16:49

that story, practice that story, get

16:51

it really nailed down so that in

16:54

particular, if you wanna influence someone, you want that

16:57

call to action or that request to

17:00

happen at an immersion peak. So you

17:02

wanna craft your narrative so that there's

17:05

a peak immersion, high attention, high

17:07

emotional resonance at this point where

17:09

you've really captured this person emotionally,

17:11

and then you can move them

17:13

in a direction that

17:16

you'd like them to go in. That people can

17:18

always say no, there's no coercion here, there's no

17:20

brainwashing, there's no secret sauce here, I'm not working

17:23

for the North Koreans, but

17:25

if I'm gonna try to influence you to do something

17:27

that you can choose to say yes or no to,

17:29

I might as well do it as well as possible.

17:32

So when you're crafting a story, what

17:34

causes those peak immersion moments? Great

17:37

question, lots of things. One is

17:39

authentic emotions, so think of a

17:41

movie, right? Great acting, you really

17:43

extract the emotion. They're not overacting,

17:45

they're settled, they're sort

17:48

of Jack Nicholson, really great acting.

17:51

If you're telling your own story, it's really showing

17:53

your emotions. I, and I

17:56

think a lot of guys, tend to be not that

17:58

emotional, but if I want to actually... Influence

18:01

you or entertain you I actually need

18:03

to express my emotions right and so

18:05

it doesn't mean I'm crying about something

18:07

but it means I'm you know really

18:10

authentically. Expressing how I feel

18:12

so the cool thing about immersion is

18:14

it's contagious right if I'm excited about

18:16

this experience you tend to get excited

18:18

about it too and so. I'm

18:21

that social creatures influence each other so

18:23

it's really believing in the story so

18:26

the copy to that is if you're making this

18:28

up if it's fictional it's really

18:30

hard to tell a good lie. Because

18:33

as social creatures were really good at picking

18:35

up the unconscious signals of people who are

18:37

lying to us right that happens

18:40

all the time people lie so we've

18:42

shown a lot of published scientific research that

18:44

you know basically the signals for uncertainty

18:47

or weirdness. We see those in the brain

18:49

we don't always consciously know it but our

18:51

brain knows it and we have that kind

18:54

of in a sense like i don't

18:56

know this dude something's wrong with him right on

18:58

i don't get it i can't i can't put

19:00

my finger on it but something feels off. I'm

19:02

not so very important signals well so

19:04

again if you're. Want influence

19:06

someone or wanna get that cute girl to go

19:08

out with you you gotta be yourself

19:11

right and again we sort of know that

19:13

but be yourself but. Craft

19:15

that story craft rehearse that thing

19:17

you want to say so that

19:19

it's very natural so abre

19:22

you know i give a talk at tech

19:24

talk about 10 years ago. Got

19:26

a couple million views now and i

19:28

had 10 months to craft that talk right

19:31

it's 18 minutes i did over

19:33

and over and over i workshop that

19:35

i got feedback and people critique how

19:37

is standing how is moving i brought

19:39

in props right all that was. You

19:42

know ten months of writing and practicing

19:44

and rehearsing and you know i got

19:46

a standing ovation it went really really

19:48

well but that's how much prep. Maybe

19:51

not that much but you know a

19:53

lot of preface necessary to really craft

19:55

a great narrative okay so to tell

19:57

a good story you wanna show. authentic

20:00

emotion. You want to be

20:02

sincere. But paradoxically, I think a

20:04

lot of people think that in order to be

20:06

authentic or sincere, it requires spontaneity.

20:09

You have to say things off the cuff.

20:11

But in order to say what you really feel,

20:14

you often have to intentionally practice it

20:16

to express what you want to express

20:18

instead of offering jumbles of incoherent, spontaneous

20:23

thoughts. So what

20:25

else goes into an effective,

20:27

emerging, producing story? So

20:29

it really is structure. So kind of think

20:31

of three things for listeners. There's three things

20:33

you can control that influence how much impact

20:35

you will have on somebody. That impact, again,

20:37

could be just entertainment. It could be influence.

20:40

It could be buying a product if you're

20:42

a salesperson. The

20:44

first thing is setting the stage. So

20:46

you want to establish psychological safety. I want

20:48

this person to be relaxed, the person I

20:50

want to interact with. And so

20:52

that means you've got to be relaxed, make sure they're comfortable.

20:55

If you have a full bladder, that takes away

20:57

neural bandwidth. And then you can't listen to my

20:59

story or my pitch, whatever it is. So first,

21:01

establish psychological safety. Hey, how are you doing, Brett?

21:03

Great to see you. Would you like a cup

21:05

of coffee? Yeah, have a seat. Always going to

21:07

be a fun conversation. So establish psychological

21:09

safety, number one. Number two

21:11

is think of structuring that content. So use a

21:14

narrative structure. Have this tight structure

21:16

with a hot open and have, if you want

21:18

to influence someone, a call to action at an

21:20

immersion peak. And the third

21:22

is how you deliver that content,

21:24

right? So deliver it, as I

21:26

said earlier, with energy, with your

21:28

own excitement about it so that

21:30

you infect other people with your

21:32

own immersion. So establish psychological safety,

21:35

structure the content, and then deliver

21:37

the content with immersion. And

21:39

that structure, I think is important that you talked about.

21:41

There has to be that sort of tension where you

21:43

think it's not going to be resolved, but then you

21:46

do resolve it. Exactly. So

21:48

again, for listeners, look

21:50

at a just go online and pull up any old

21:52

movie trailer theatrical movie trailer.

21:54

These are roughly around three minutes and

21:56

you'll see that those movie trailer trailers

21:59

introduce characters. They put them in a weird

22:01

situation where those characters don't know what to do, and

22:03

then there's a crisis, that's

22:05

the peak immersion moment, and then they don't tell

22:08

you what happens after the crisis. You have to

22:10

buy a ticket to go and watch

22:12

that movie or stream that movie to find out

22:14

what the heck happens. That's a perfect structure for

22:16

a call to action. I don't wanna resolve the

22:19

conflict because now you have to pay to figure

22:21

out what happens, but there's always gonna be

22:23

a conflict. If it's just flat, Bob

22:26

and Sue showed up, they went to their

22:28

classes in college, and then they

22:31

went home. I don't care about that.

22:33

I'm not learning anything from that. That's not new, but

22:35

they go to their classes, and then a bomb went

22:37

off, and then Bob couldn't

22:39

find Sue, and then all of a

22:41

sudden, here's a sound. Okay, now, holy

22:43

crap, maybe once in my life,

22:45

a bomb will go off, and I'll use

22:47

this information, this story, so I can learn

22:50

what to do in that situation. So I'm

22:52

putting tension into it. In our normal lives,

22:55

we avoid tension, but in this storytelling space,

22:57

we want to actually create tension in

23:00

other people, and we like that,

23:02

that from the listener's perspective, we want tension.

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caramel. And

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now back to the show. And

26:48

what's interesting, this story arc that

26:50

you can use to create tension and create those

26:53

peak immersive moments, you

26:55

can do this when you're doing a sales

26:58

pitch, and we can talk about some of

27:00

the things you do when you're teaching, and

27:02

you have a chapter on that, but you

27:04

can do this with events, with physical things

27:06

you're actually doing. I think of Disney World

27:08

or Disneyland. They do a great job of

27:10

telling a story when you're going through an

27:12

attraction. Like even when you're waiting in line,

27:15

like they're telling a story. They're creating

27:17

those narrative, those immersive moments, then it'll go

27:19

down, because you need a break, and then it'll go

27:21

back up, and then you go through the ride, and

27:24

you have a completely immersive experience. Exactly

27:27

right. So if you think of the most

27:29

famous rides at Disneyland or Disney World, like

27:31

Space Mountain, Space Mountain is just

27:33

a roller coaster in the dark, but it's

27:35

wrapped around this amazing story of going

27:37

to a space flight, and you're entering

27:39

into the space center, and you have

27:41

to get on this ship. And

27:44

so yeah, Disney was brilliant

27:46

in wrapping the attraction around

27:48

a story. So I took

27:50

a crew to Disneyland, this is in the book, and

27:53

we found that on average, for

27:55

the eight or nine rides we went on at Disneyland,

27:57

that they were the 98th percentile. I'm

28:00

averaging 98th percentile compared to

28:02

all other live experiences we've

28:04

measured. Disney is just

28:06

nailing it, and part of

28:08

that was the queuing up. As you're queuing up,

28:10

you have so many things to look at and

28:12

listen to and hear and smell. They

28:15

really create this experience where, again,

28:17

they're warming you up for

28:19

the big take-off of that attraction.

28:22

They're against establishing that psychological safety.

28:24

They're intriguing you. They're keeping you

28:27

immersed. Let's do

28:29

this in our daily lives as much as possible. Again,

28:31

you don't want to just tell your family

28:33

member, loved one, how's work today?

28:36

Great, nothing happened. Well, that doesn't really

28:39

tell your family member much. They say, you know,

28:41

pretty good day and the most weirdest

28:43

thing happened ever. A

28:46

coyote walked into my office. Okay,

28:48

I'm interested. Holy crap. A

28:50

coyote walked in your office? I want to hear

28:53

this story, right? So, you know, think about giving

28:56

people the information that is going to be most

28:59

interesting to them, right? When we're talking, when

29:01

we have conversations just like this, you know,

29:03

we want those conversations to be interesting, engaging,

29:05

immersive. We want all those things to happen

29:08

so that we learn something new. It's

29:10

the new information that creates tension in

29:12

a story. As you were talking,

29:15

it made me think about why Christmas is

29:17

such an immersive holiday. Because it's got a

29:19

story. It's got all these stories involved in

29:21

it. Of course, you got

29:23

the Nativity story. But then there's like Santa Claus

29:25

and you have all these things that, you know,

29:27

peak your immersion and then you get to Christmas

29:29

Eve, you're counting down. There's like this tension and

29:31

you don't know like when your kid's like, well,

29:34

is Santa going to come or not? And you wake up and it's just our

29:37

brains getting hammered with oxytocin during Christmas

29:39

time. For sure. And you have all

29:41

those memories of the previous Christmases and

29:43

all the amazing things that happen and family

29:46

and friends you saw and great gifts. Because

29:49

the brain is so energy

29:52

hungry, those memories actually influence

29:54

our immersion in current events. In other

29:57

words, I'm actually kind of... taking

30:00

that immersion and putting it on steroids

30:02

because I have all these good experiences

30:04

from the past that build up my

30:07

immersion in the current experience. And

30:09

that's why we want to repeat

30:11

highly immersive experiences, whether it's dating

30:15

that person that you're crazy about, you wanna

30:17

see them over and over, whether it's going

30:19

to Disneyland again, shopping at a

30:22

store. I just mentioned I came

30:24

back from South Africa, so 30 hours to get home for

30:26

me. The most amazing flight

30:28

attendants who smiled, just made

30:30

my flight so interesting and nice and

30:32

couldn't been better. And you know, you're

30:34

just kind of beat up after all

30:36

that time on airplanes and airports. And

30:39

yet the people there made the experience so

30:41

valuable for me. So shout out to United

30:43

Airlines. How would you make

30:45

the DMV experience more immersive with this

30:48

information that you've garnered from your research?

30:51

That's a great question. I think the first thing is greeting.

30:53

So again, I wanna establish psychological safety.

30:56

We're taking time off work, we gotta go there. So

30:59

I have agreed around front, just like Walmart does. Like,

31:02

oh, hello, sir. Can I get

31:04

your name? We'll get you checked in. Oh, Mr.

31:06

Zach, welcome to the DMV. Oh, holy crap, I

31:08

would love that. First of all, that's just, just

31:11

that alone will make my experience better. Then

31:13

second, tell me what's gonna happen, right? Give me that

31:16

kind of journey, that narrative about the journey.

31:19

So we're gonna have you checking at Windows 7. Expect

31:21

a wait, you know, between six and 10 minutes.

31:23

Thank you for making an appointment. And

31:25

then they're gonna get you checked out. So you're getting

31:28

your license renewed today. So you should be out

31:30

of here in about 20, 25 minutes. And

31:32

my name is Bob. If you have any questions, come talk to

31:34

me anytime. Wow, that

31:36

would be great. Now the problem

31:38

with the DMV, of course, is it's a government office,

31:41

and so they don't have a profit incentive to keep

31:43

me coming. I have to come into Monopoly, basically. But

31:46

you know, think of how many stores you go in. I was

31:48

at a store on Fifth Avenue in New York, Brett, I don't

31:50

know, a couple years ago, with my

31:53

daughter shopping, some fancy, fancy store. My

31:55

daughter goes to the, my daughter's 20. She

31:57

goes to the women's section. I looked at the men's

31:59

section. And literally there were three salesmen saying they're,

32:02

you know, grab-assing with each other, said, saying hi to

32:04

me. I'm looking around, you

32:06

know, I'm dressed nice, I have money. I

32:09

live in one of the salespeople like, you guys don't want

32:11

to talk to me, you don't want to try to sell me stuff? Like, what's

32:13

happening? They all just looked at me

32:15

like, blankly, and one guy finally said, what are you

32:17

looking for? I'm like, how about a sport coat? What's

32:19

new? What's the like? I mean, I had to beg

32:21

them as opposed to, hey, welcome to our store.

32:23

Yeah, my name's Paul. You

32:26

know, we have some amazing new sport coats in.

32:28

Just came in yesterday from Milan. All right, you're

32:30

telling me a story now, right? I'm

32:32

engaged in that. So, you really think

32:35

about the best way to communicate as

32:37

storytelling. Okay, so with an event

32:39

like the DMV, you don't necessarily have

32:41

to create like a fantastical story

32:44

like at Disneyland where you have a queue and you're

32:46

going through some kind of cool Star Wars expedition. Because

32:48

people will just be turned out, oh my gosh, it's

32:50

the DMV, what are you guys doing? But

32:52

it's just the story could be like, here's what's going

32:54

to happen on your journey during the DMV. You're going

32:56

to wait in line here and you're going to go

32:59

there. Like, that's the story right there. That's

33:01

the story. But how about every 50th

33:03

customer, you're in a lottery for, I

33:06

don't know, something awesome. A

33:09

free year of registration for your

33:11

car, whatever. Like, we want to actually make

33:13

this, you know, we're going to gamify it.

33:15

So, gamification is really useful because it builds

33:17

that tension. We don't know who's going to

33:19

get it. We're all watching it. Wouldn't

33:22

that be great to have some kind of

33:24

gamification at the DMV or any place? I

33:26

want to go back to this idea that

33:28

this disconnect between us liking things and then

33:30

us actually being emotionally resonant to

33:33

it. And you did this, you found this

33:35

with some Super Bowl commercial experiments you did.

33:37

So, you showed people Super Bowl commercials and

33:40

asked them, what did you think about this commercial? And

33:42

what you guys found was people would say

33:45

they liked this one commercial. But if you

33:47

actually looked at their data from their brain,

33:49

they actually weren't responding to it. So,

33:51

what's going on when we say we like

33:53

something but our brain is

33:56

saying, is not really paying attention to it? Like,

33:58

why do we like things that we're not? Really

34:00

mostly resonate with the

34:03

short answer is that people lie. People

34:05

like not because they're malicious usually because

34:08

they're nice and we're

34:10

asking them this impossible question again

34:12

liking compared to what is untethered

34:15

to anything that's objective. I'm

34:17

sorry doing this work commercially you know

34:20

i started getting that weird feeling like okay i don't

34:22

i can do this in my lab i can publish

34:24

research but, if companies are paying us a

34:26

lot of money to help them

34:28

create immersive experiences and measuring the experiences

34:31

they've already created. I

34:33

wanna make sure i'm really doing it right yes

34:35

we started measuring super bowl commercials because we can

34:38

measure this live we would go to a bar

34:40

we would arrange with the bar to. You

34:42

know have fifty people come in and we buy them drinks

34:44

and snacks and then measure the

34:47

super bowl live while it's going. And

34:50

then also ask them which commercials we can

34:52

talk about the game we care about the

34:54

commercials right this is the commercials of the

34:56

apotheosis of advertising right super expensive they should

34:58

be the best. And those

35:00

commercials are rated by us today

35:02

newspaper every year so we actually have that

35:05

data and every year we have found a

35:07

zero correlation between what people say they like

35:09

in a commercial and what is immersive to

35:11

their brains. Why because

35:14

things we like are things that are easy

35:16

things are familiar and also you

35:19

know we try to be nice we don't say

35:21

stuff is awful generally if you

35:23

ask people like in a. Focus

35:25

group. But there

35:28

are a lot of commercials are not

35:30

really likable that really shake up the

35:32

brain so to me the return on

35:34

the investment of advertising is

35:36

I shook up your brain so much. Is

35:39

the nation stuck in there so now when

35:41

you go to the store or go to

35:43

the car dealer you remember that experience immersive

35:45

experiences are saved in the brain. In

35:48

a very special way because they have high emotion

35:50

that make them more easily recalled so

35:52

if I want to shake up your brain deep

35:55

in the unconscious parts you don't have conscious awareness

35:57

of that so we like things that are easy.

36:00

that are funny, that are whatever. And

36:02

by the way, it doesn't matter if they're funny, sad, you know,

36:05

weird. Some of the most immersive commercials are

36:07

super weird. They're just odd

36:09

and I don't know. They're just like surprising.

36:11

So generally people value

36:14

neurologically things that are similar to

36:16

what they know but

36:18

a little bit different. So like in music or

36:21

in movies, we have genres we like and I

36:23

want to have more of that genre but I

36:25

also want a little bit of new stuff added

36:27

to it but not too new. If it's completely

36:29

weird then it's too far outside my general

36:32

preferences. Yeah, you talked

36:34

about one commercial that people didn't

36:36

say they liked. That was the worst commercial but

36:39

if you actually look at the data, it's the

36:41

one they most responded to. It's this Diet Coke

36:43

commercial and it's like some

36:45

woman just kind of dancing like Elaine Bennis

36:48

like sort of off kilter but that was the

36:50

one that got the most response. Yeah,

36:53

it's unlikable. I've showed it many, many

36:55

times and people always agree that some

36:57

super tall skinny woman dancing in this

37:00

weird, awkward way is

37:03

shot with very asymmetrically against a yellow wall

37:05

and she's talking in a weird way. The

37:07

whole thing is just weird but

37:09

it has a narrative structure and it's

37:12

like a car accident. You just can't look away. You got to

37:14

see it. So it's not likable

37:17

but again I think that's the mistake that

37:19

we make when we create content is that

37:22

people should like it. Now we do find

37:24

that highly immersive experiences when we ask people

37:27

are rated as enjoyable so that's

37:29

a good thing but enjoyable doesn't

37:31

mean it's immersive. If I like it, it doesn't

37:33

mean that it shook up my brain. So that's

37:36

what I want to do. I want to shake up your brain so you go,

37:38

holy moly I got to do this thing.

37:41

This is happening. Well, and you also talk

37:43

about this disconnect between liking and it resonating.

37:46

This can explain box office bombs.

37:48

Like you talk about Pluto Nash, that Eddie

37:50

Murphy movie in

37:52

the 90s. And what happens is these movies

37:54

get made because they do

37:56

focus groups and the focus groups say, yeah

37:58

I like that. And then the director

38:01

and the producer start making changes based on what

38:03

the focus group says but the

38:06

focus group is probably wrong but they

38:08

might like it but they're not actually

38:10

emotionally resonating with it. Yeah this

38:12

is a better station of

38:14

data so all data is not good

38:16

data right so i think i put

38:19

the book i think i really got

38:21

some other directors who just ignore. Whatever

38:24

those focus groups say you know

38:26

the classic example remember the movie marley

38:28

and me from early two thousand. And

38:31

you know they in the focus group that they

38:34

ask people about the movie with a like what they

38:36

dislike and like i don't let the dog die like

38:38

the whole point of that movie is a dog of

38:40

the end has to die sorry spoiler alert for people

38:42

haven't seen this fifteen year old movie. So

38:45

the dog has to die so the humans can take

38:47

the lessons they learn from the dog and go on

38:49

and live a good life. But

38:51

if you're not a storyteller if you don't

38:53

understand structure if you don't understand why

38:57

you know a movie has resonance emotionally then

38:59

of course you don't want the dog to

39:01

die. But that's the

39:03

point of the movie right so again

39:05

i think asking nine people who are not

39:08

experts even experts don't know right because.

39:11

We have this this is the thing of bread

39:13

i called the Freudian hangover which

39:16

is we think from this. Coke

39:18

attic Freud that if i just probe you

39:20

the right way i can make the unconscious

39:22

conscious but actually those are separate data

39:24

streams the unconscious part of your brain is probably 99%.

39:28

And it's largely not available to

39:30

our consciousness so i wanna

39:32

have you tell me about your unconscious

39:35

emotional response to an experience. You

39:38

just gotta fake it right so you just don't know

39:40

if i can ask you your liver how much you

39:42

enjoy your lunch today you were like that's a stupid

39:45

question. Same thing about asking

39:47

you know let's ask your brain stem

39:49

how much is enjoyed this conversation with

39:51

paul zack what your brain stand can

39:53

talk. Yeah i think this disconnect can

39:56

explain why some movies become cold classics

39:58

right they might have come out and they. bombed initially

40:01

for whatever reason. But because

40:03

they immerse people into something, it

40:06

has a long life. Like, I mean, thinking like

40:08

Christmas, yeah, a Christmas story, right? We're talking about

40:10

Christmas, a Christmas story. I think when it first

40:12

came out, it bombed. But now it's become this

40:15

cult classic that everyone watches every Christmas and

40:17

they have memories about this movie watching

40:20

it as a child. Right, so you

40:22

get that double whammy, you get the nostalgia, that

40:24

memory effect. And it's such a cute,

40:27

sweet movie and it's also time limited,

40:29

right? So again, one of the

40:31

factors that we found almost always is

40:33

that shorter is better. I'm not gonna watch

40:35

a Christmas story 40

40:38

times before Christmas. I'll watch it maybe once or maybe

40:40

twice. I really have to. So

40:42

that time limited. You know, this is the operators

40:45

are standing by now, right? We wanna make that

40:47

tension, we're gonna turn that tension into

40:50

a decision and that decision's

40:52

gotta happen faster. But yeah, with streaming, there's

40:54

so many movies that are out there that

40:57

didn't find an audience for whatever reason. They weren't

40:59

marketed well or people just didn't get it. And

41:02

then they're absolute classics and it's so great

41:04

to have them. But again,

41:06

for listeners, you know, if you rewatch a movie,

41:08

it gives you a great opportunity to see the

41:11

hooks they put in there to

41:13

modulate your immersion. And

41:15

for long form storytelling, again, I don't

41:17

want you to be at maximum immersion

41:19

because I just exhaust you and then

41:22

you just wanna quit. I wanna kind

41:24

of had this sine wave pattern up

41:26

and down, different storylines with different levels

41:28

of tension. And then generally those two

41:30

or three storylines merging in the end

41:32

into a big climax. So

41:35

again, you can learn from your favorite movies or

41:37

favorite TV shows, you know, how they

41:39

do that. You mentioned Elaine Bennett.

41:41

So Seinfeld, I think was extraordinarily well-written

41:43

where there are almost always three different

41:46

storylines that at the end of that

41:48

22 minute episode converged into kind of

41:50

a big takeaway. And so

41:53

yeah, just for people interested, you know,

41:55

watch a couple old Seinfeld and see

41:57

how they wrap these three stories together

41:59

that modulates. tension from high to

42:01

low and then bring it all together at

42:03

the end. We'll talk about some applications of

42:05

this immersion idea. So teaching, there's people who

42:08

might be teaching in schools, but if you

42:10

have a job, you might be doing trainings.

42:12

How can we use this immersion idea to

42:14

help students recall information better? All right,

42:17

so think of the Accenture 2020 rule. So

42:19

don't speak for more than 20 minutes. And

42:22

after 20 minutes, you'll switch tasks. So

42:24

20 minutes of maybe explaining

42:26

what you're going to do, and then 20 minutes

42:29

of something that's active, participatory, people

42:31

working at their desks or tables,

42:34

and then think about 20 minutes of a debrief. So

42:37

it's really the flipped classroom on

42:39

steroids. So shorter, more intensive. Accenture

42:41

has found that breaks should be

42:43

longer because I'm, again, exhausting those

42:45

neurons in the brain. So

42:47

put a break in there so people can kind

42:49

of refresh. You can use things

42:52

like movement together to get

42:54

a class or a training session.

42:57

So stand up and we're going to all clap

42:59

together. We're all going to move or do

43:01

jumping jacks and people naturally coordinate. So when you

43:04

coordinate, you actually increase immersion

43:06

because we're all moving the same

43:08

direction. So brains will actually, physical

43:10

movement will coordinate neurologic activity, which

43:12

is super weird. So that's one

43:14

way to do it. And

43:17

the next is really be responsive. So if

43:19

you're not measuring immersion

43:21

directly, look for those signs like shuffling

43:23

feet, movement in the seats, that tell

43:26

you that you're kind of losing people.

43:28

So when I give public lectures, I always listen

43:30

for those kind of movements or look for those

43:33

movements or listen for those sounds or

43:35

like, okay, I'm losing the audience. I've got to mix it

43:37

up here. So what I do when

43:39

I'm speaking for say an hour is I put in what

43:41

I call pivots. If the audience is

43:43

getting restless, I have a backup

43:45

plan. And I have actually every 20 minutes in

43:47

a talk, I have a pivot that it may

43:49

or may not use. If the talk's going great,

43:52

run with it. It's fine. If the people

43:54

are getting restless, then pivot into that. I'll change

43:56

the area of the stage I'm using. I'll go

43:59

into the audience. I'll have props

44:01

or I'll have things prepared so

44:03

that I'm ready to continue

44:05

to engage others. The shortest

44:07

answer actually is use

44:09

multimedia. So if I'm giving an hour

44:11

talk, I'll probably show three to four

44:14

videos to break it up. So

44:16

I'll show a short three or four minute video. So

44:18

now something's news happening. And

44:20

then I'll go back and talk about that video.

44:23

Maybe I'll pull the audience. If

44:25

we have technology, talk,

44:27

talk, talk, and then ask them to think about

44:29

something or ask them to do something. So

44:32

shorter is better and storytelling always

44:34

wins the day. What about

44:36

having to use this emerging idea to be more persuasive? Right?

44:39

Let's say there's a guide in sales, making the sales pitch. How can

44:41

you use these ideas? Yeah. So

44:44

first establish psychological safety. Second,

44:46

really think about the outcome you want to

44:48

get, right? If it's sales, how

44:50

much? What exactly is this person

44:52

buying? Not like, would you like to buy one of our

44:55

products? But hey, you know what?

44:57

I looked at your company and I think

44:59

our Nespresso coffee maker is going to be

45:01

perfect for your office. So let

45:03

me tell you why. And then you can go through the

45:05

history of how it was made and the technology and you

45:07

have this. And then, you know, we

45:09

made version one of the Nespresso. I'm making this all up

45:11

now and completely failed. The

45:14

thing broke. People hated it. And, you

45:16

know, I wasn't even working for them. And I saw this product

45:19

come out. I'm like, this is a piece of crap. And

45:22

then they brought in this Italian engineer.

45:24

Amazing. His name was Guido. He

45:26

actually created the most beautiful machine you've ever

45:28

seen. And this thing will make 5,000 cups

45:32

of coffee in a row before you need to service

45:34

it better than any other copy maker. So I'm making

45:36

this all up now. It's fake. Nespresso

45:38

is not paying me. I'm just looking at my coffee maker

45:40

in my office. So you

45:42

know, it's really crafting that story and then getting

45:44

to a point where, hey, 5,000 cups

45:48

of coffee. This is going to be the best

45:50

thing for you. How many would you like? Take

45:52

that a high immersion moment and then close the

45:54

sale. So you've really got to close the sale.

45:57

What we often do with storytelling is we resolve

45:59

the tension. and then we wait from

46:01

a sales perspective. What you want to do is when

46:03

you've got high tension, that's when you want to make

46:05

the ask. You don't

46:07

want to wait till that tension's dissipated. It's

46:10

rare, it doesn't last that long. Peak immersion

46:12

moments last for maybe 20 or 30 seconds

46:14

at most. You've got that small window where

46:16

you've really captured that person emotionally, that's when

46:18

you want to ask them to do something.

46:21

What about, we've been talking about this throughout

46:23

our conversation, but just using these ideas to

46:26

create more extraordinary experience in our daily lives.

46:28

This could be at work, it

46:31

could be just a social interaction we have

46:33

with somebody. It could be a date. What

46:35

are some examples you've seen in your own life and in

46:38

your research? Yeah, it's really a cranking

46:40

it up. One of the motifs

46:43

of the book or key takeaways is

46:45

that once we train ourselves to be

46:47

deeply immersed in experiences, we

46:50

open up a wealth of

46:52

opportunities to have stronger social

46:54

connections, more influence in others,

46:57

happier and longer lives. There's actually data in the

46:59

book on that. I really

47:01

want to be connected to the humans around

47:03

me. I said I'm a Martian earlier. I'm

47:05

working very hard to be a human by

47:07

really investing in relationships. We

47:09

can do this by number one, the

47:11

first step, being present. Put

47:14

away your phone, make eye contact.

47:16

I call this listening with your eyes. I'm

47:18

going to give you the gift of my

47:20

full attention. Then I

47:22

want to be open in listening and

47:25

absorbing what you're telling me. I

47:27

want that oxytocin effect to be really immersed.

47:30

I want to share the emotions that you

47:33

are expressing as you're talking to me, telling

47:35

your story, doing something with me. It's

47:38

really training ourselves to be in the

47:40

here and now and to be open

47:42

to experiences. Once we do that,

47:45

gosh, at Starbucks or on the airplane,

47:47

as I said, with a nice flight

47:49

attendant, amazing 15-hour flight person who is

47:51

smiling the entire time, I don't know

47:53

how he did it. Then

47:55

I'm happier when I get off the plane and

47:57

I see my family, I'm happier. again,

48:00

this sort of contagion effect in

48:02

which it flows. So it's really

48:04

understanding that to flourish as human

48:06

beings, we've got to connect to

48:08

others at a fundamentally deep level,

48:10

at an immersion level. And when

48:13

we do that, we get better

48:15

and better at it, and even

48:17

Martians like me can actually simulate

48:19

being a human and actually having

48:21

those full emotional connections to the

48:23

people who care about us. Well,

48:26

Paul, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn

48:28

more about the book and your work? You

48:30

can go to getimmersion.com, immersion with an

48:32

I, or pauljzak.com,

48:35

the book is Immersion, the Science

48:37

of the Extraordinary, and the Source

48:39

of Happiness. The two things

48:41

I really want in my life, I want extraordinary experiences and

48:43

I want to be happy. So if you want those things,

48:46

you'll get some lessons in the book. Brett, thank you so

48:48

much. Well, thank you, Paul. My guest

48:50

today was Dr. Paul Zak. He's the author of

48:52

the book Immersion. It's available on amazon.com and bookstores

48:55

everywhere. You can find more

48:57

information about his work at his

48:59

website pauljzak, that's zak.com. Also

49:01

check out our show notes at awm.is slash immersion.

49:03

Where you find links to resources where you can

49:05

delve deeper into this topic. Well,

49:14

that wraps up another edition of the AWM podcast. Make

49:16

sure to check out our website at artofmanliness.com where you

49:18

find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles

49:20

that we've written over the years about pretty much anything

49:22

you think of. And if you haven't done so already,

49:24

I'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give

49:26

us a view on the podcast or Spotify. Helps out

49:29

a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you.

49:31

Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family

49:33

member who you think will get something out of it.

49:35

As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next

49:38

time, it's Brett McKay. From my intel, listen to AO

49:40

podcast and put what you've heard into action.

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