The Hidden Brain Part I:
Insights From a Behavior Expert That Will Dramatically Enhance Your Story Characters and Networking Abilities.
Hey everyone! So glad to be back! Apologies for the delay, but I needed a quick reset. Also, with the new scene designer being optimized, among other enhancements, and being inspired to write my first novel…Yeah, there’s a lot to juggle right now.
But while away, I stumbled into one of the most important books that fundamentally changed my view of stories and how I interact with others when negotiating and networking. It’s so profound that after the first ten pages, I gained a much deeper understanding of myself than I ever thought was possible. It’s truly remarkable but also unnerving that a stranger could know so much about me despite never having met. And no, I’m not talking about a cult leader, though they say a huge sign of being in a cult is denying that you’re in one…Huh.
Seriously though. I’m talking about Six-Minute X-Ray, by Chase Hughes who isn’t a cult leader. He isn’t, I swear! Chase is actually a writer who wrote his first screenplay, which is already in production (Phrase Seven). But most notably, he’s the founder and CEO of Applied Behavior Research and a leading expert who taught government agencies how to interrogate and extract valuable information from others.
Most writers and filmmakers will never gain exposure to this information because technically it’s unrelated to storytelling. And since many of us hate reading non-fiction anyway, it’s easy for this essential information to fall under the radar. But as a subscriber to Story Prism, you’ll get to enjoy the highlights so you won’t have to read the entire book. Just kidding! This article merely skims the surface, so I highly recommend picking up a copy.
Okay enough with the gushy introduction. Let’s get into human behavior. With this information, you can significantly enhance your story characters and strengthen your daily interactions with friends and potential creative/business partners. As the title suggests, this will be a three-part series because…Well, there’s just too much to cover in one blog, and trust me, you’re going to want to read every bit of this, as it will change your life. But it’s merely an introduction, so if you’re interested, you should check out his other works.
This information won’t save you from an uphill battle. It’s not a magic pill or secret sauce. But it will dramatically mitigate the headaches and help you see the World differently from most. So that has to count for something, right?
What’s REALLY Driving Our Decisions
Most believe that ideas, reason, and logic drive human behaviors. But in reality, they're primarily influenced by older parts of our brain that have been passed down genetically from our ancestors. There’s the oldest called the Reptilian Brain, which is our brainstem that controls everything from breathing to our fight-or-flight responses.
Then there’s the Mammalian Brain, which controls the nervous system. So this includes emotions, automatic behaviors, memory, learning, thinking, feeling, and body language. Finally, there’s the latest edition, the Neocortex. This is used for developing novel ideas, expressing abstract symbolism, forming reason and order within randomness, etc. It’s where higher-level thinking occurs and where most of us pay the greatest attention when interacting and influencing others.
So most of the advice you hear about marketing, winning people over, writing convincing characters, and so on is focused on tips that seek to take advantage of our Neocortex. But that’s very limiting since most of our conversations and decisions come from the Mammalian parts of our brain, not the Neocortex. We don’t realize this because our Neocortex creates rationalizations for everything we feel and do.
Think about a time when you met someone who seemed nice, but you still wanted to avoid them like the plague. You can’t put your finger on it, but somehow you know that person is dangerous or dishonest.
That’s your Mammalian Brain at work, or as many call, “The Gut Feeling”. Whether you’re aware of it or not, your brain is processing all of the subtleties in a person’s body language and how they convey things. And if what someone says doesn’t match their body language, we tend to sense it.
Why is this? Well for thousands of years, humans didn’t have language. Like other animals, we had to rely on body language and non-verbal communication. Only recently, in the grand scheme of things, did we begin to talk and form abstract ideas about the World. So most of what is said, the choices that we make, and the behaviors we engage in aren’t derived from the Neocortex. They’re derived from the Mammalian part of our brains.
Consider story characters and their motivations. Any experienced writer will tell you that the physical weaknesses of a well-developed character are extrapolated from their moral belief about the World. They will also hold onto a lie they express to make their physical weaknesses and actions seem reasonable.
For instance, a character who believes that people are inherently dangerous and untrustworthy might take certain actions in the story like never going out or making new friends. But their rationalization for doing these things might be because they think the World is dumb. It isn’t that they believe the World is stupid. Rather, it’s their Neocortex forming a reason behind the fear of others, which is much more difficult to face than a reality where everyone has special needs. One requires the individual to face their faults while the other allows them to avoid their problems by blaming an external factor.
This is exactly how our minds work. We take action, and while we have all these complicated reasons and logic for doing things, it mostly boils down to much simpler responses originating from the Mammalian Brain. The Neocortex merely puts a fresh coat of paint over our behaviors so we don’t have to confront the difficult realities of ourselves and can look good enough to remain in whatever tribe we belong to.
This is fascinating and scary since our Mammalian Brains can’t seem to censor themselves, at least not without training, given that it’s all subconscious. That means others can shape our behaviors for better and for worse. Highly influential leaders deeply understand the relationship between decisions made and how they connect to what occurs in our Mammalian Brains, even if it’s intuitive and not directly known.
But even if you’re not interested in becoming the next U.S. president and want to do something simpler like write a great story, this information can still be valuable. Whether it’s cold queries or developing authentic interactions between characters, understanding this relationship between the reasons formulated in our Neocortex and our feelings in the Mammalian Brain will make things much easier in your quest to become a successful writer.
Your stories will be stronger as well as your relationships because you’ll know who you’re engaging with and how to best communicate with them. Others will be blind to what you see in stories and learn at networking events, exposing you to intel that few will have. This is especially true if you consider…
The Four Laws of People
Okay, these aren’t actual laws; to be fair, none of this is based on scientific research. It’s information based on Chase Hughe’s experience interrogating thousands of people. So don’t take this as the capital “T” truth or anything. However, given that it provided tremendous results for him and his colleagues in Washington, I think it’s worth considering these points, if you want to make yourself more effective on the page and in social environments.
Law #1: Everyone is Suffering and Insecure
Yes, that’s right. Whether you’re the most confident winner at the center of the stage or the biggest loser cleaning the tables after the event, we all have this underlying desire to remain in the “tribe”. It’s a trait that’s been passed down for thousands of years. Since forever individuals needed to belong in groups for survival. If you were weird or antisocial, there was this looming threat of being kicked out of your support network, and back then, it usually meant going off into the middle of the Woods and potentially dying.
Today, it’s not that extreme. In modern societies, you can be fully independent of intimate social networks and survive. Not that this is a good idea, but you get my point. Still, all of us act like certain death is inevitable if we’re kicked out of the groups we value most. That’s why we dress up at social events. That’s why we bite our tongues when hearing something that doesn’t jive with us. And it’s why we might feel uncomfortable when faced with a situation where everyone around us is a stranger. This is just our innate drive to be accepted by others. So all that shame and insecurity you might feel when surrounded by others who look better off? That’s what everyone feels all the time.
Just because someone speaks confidently with charm doesn’t mean they’re nothing like you. Quite the contrary, they’re exactly like you, driven by the same underlying reasons as everyone else. The only real difference is how they convey their “Mask”, which brings me to Laws #2 and 3.
Law #2 & 3: Everyone Wears a Mask and Pretends Not to Wear One
Anyone who says they’re showing you their true “colors” is likely full of shit. That’s a sell tactic, not reality. Our desire to belong is so strong that we feel compelled to cover up our personality faults by conveying an image of how we want people to see us. Some want people to know that they’re strong or smart. Others want us to see them as honest and down-to-earth. There may be hidden truth in these behaviors, but at the end of the day, they’re masks designed to hide who we are, inside.
The strong person wants to hide their fear of the World. The overly polished person wants to hide their mess at home. The cold person wants to hide their compassion, scared they’ll be taken advantage of. We pretend not to wear a mask because if we went around acknowledging it, we’d feel silly. But if we unmasked ourselves, we would be less effective at socializing and forming cohesive groups that can achieve great things. So the best alternative is to wear one while pretending not to wear one. It’s done literally to the extent that we fool ourselves into believing the masks are real when, in fact, they’re generally a far cry from who we are.
Recognizing the mask is important for several reasons:
A. You can feel more comfortable at networking events knowing everyone in the room is hiding their insecurities. This will make you more approachable.
B. You can make your story characters stronger and more authentic by factoring in this contradiction between their true selves and the masks they wear in various environments. (Consider how your character behaves at home versus work and what that reveals about them).
C. You can better understand what you’re hiding, making it easier to improve those negative qualities by aligning your true self much more closely to the mask you’re presenting to the World. The more aligned you are to your mask, the more authentic you will feel to others. Nobody likes a phony with a thick mask!
But masks and everyone being insecure? Okay, those aren’t very deep, even though they’re great to be mindful of. It’s the 4th law in Six-Minute X-Ray that really blew my mind.
Law #4: Everyone Is a Product of Childhood Suffering and Reward
They say everyone’s a child who merely grew up. That’s so true when you consider the power of imprinted memories on children and how they shape long-term behaviors. The younger someone is when experiencing something, the more those events will impact the choices they make as adults. So when you see certain behaviors at social gatherings that make you go, “Why is this person acting like that?”, such as the “matter-of-fact” lady or the guy who has to show everyone he’s tough, what you’re witnessing is someone who was hurt when they were younger.
The know-it-all was just a kid who was embarrassed in front of the class for answering incorrectly. The tough guy was once a kid who got picked on by the other children. When these moments happened to them, their Mammalian Brains formed a subconscious strategy for responding to similar situations in the future. They behave in these ways to avoid the pain felt all those years ago. They’re telling themselves, “I can never get hurt like that again, so I have to show the World [fill in the blank]”. The know-it-all has to show the World that they’re correct. The tough guy has to show strength so nobody messes with him. Otherwise, the pain will resurface, or, at least, that’s how they feel.
Of course, you can’t know the details of someone’s childhood unless you’re privy to that information. But, envisioning a scenario is enough to get a strong sense of who they are. It can also help you empathize and be more forgiving of others during first encounters. All too often it’s easy to brush someone off just because they have a “childhood” moment in a social setting where their limbic system is going through the roof. But you have to remember that this is all of us. As much as that person can be a little weird or lame at a party, they might also be cool when placed in a more comfortable environment.
If you’re a writer, this law is good to consider as it can help you better understand your characters and how they might behave in both comfortable and uncomfortable situations. It’s easy to get stuck on the question, “What would my character do in this scenario?” But if you create a personal story in their childhood that brought them a lot of pain, you can connect that to what they might tell themselves to do the next time they feel like that, again. This makes it easier to hone in on the most realistic choices that your character would make.
Here’s the main rule of thumb you’ll want to consider regarding character behaviors (and people!). The more comfortable their environment is, the more they will unsheathe their mask and reveal their true self. The more uncomfortable their environment is, the thicker their mask will be, which is displayed by actions that connect to their childhood trauma.
For instance, let’s say you have a character who feels the need to gain pity from everyone around them because, as a child, they went through a lot of shit that no one seemed to notice or acknowledge. That brought great pain because it made them feel invisible.
To avoid that pain again, they say to themselves, “I can never be hurt like that, so I must tell everyone how much pain and suffering I’m going through. Otherwise, I will be ignored.” That’s their go-to behavior when they’re in a very uncomfortable environment like a networking event where they don’t know anyone.
At such an event, they may ramble about how hard their week has been. But at home with familiar faces who have long ago recognized and acknowledged their problems, they don’t complain that much. Traits may still be worn, suggesting they’re pity-seeking, but the behavior is reduced. So the worse the environment is, the more likely they are to seek pity from others. The better the environment is, the less likely they are to seek pity. Granted, you don’t have to express this childhood moment in the story. But, as a mental exercise, it can be helpful to know how your characters might behave in certain situations.
Conclusion
So all of these laws can be leveraged to enhance your story characters and personal interactions with others. Recognizing that everyone is suffering from insecurities, that everyone wears a mask to hide it, and that our behaviors are heavily influenced by childhood moments can make it easier to stay relaxed and figure out a room much faster. With that mindset and the intel you can gather, you’ll be better prepared to find the right opportunities. On top of that, your characters will be deeper and more reflective of how people operate, making your stories stronger.
Okay, that’s it for part I. In Part II we’ll cover strategies for quickly understanding someone’s default behaviors. You’ll learn about what people and your characters tend to emotionally seek from others, including what their primary decisions are based on and how to identify these things in a person when meeting them for the first time. As Matthew McConaughey said in True Detective, “People wear their thoughts.” Or is it “Problems”? I can’t remember. But you know what I mean.
Thanks for reading and until next time, best of luck in your creative endeavors!
Story Prism
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