Building Better Business Brains – Brynn Winegard

The Scott King Show

Dr. Brynn Winegard (@DrBrynnWinegard) is a world renowned business brain expert. She is a full-time professional keynote speaker who combines brain and business science to dissect, redevelop, and augment how we work. Dr. Winegard teaches about persuasion and influence from a brain perspective and provides several actionable tips.

In this episode, Brynn talks to me about neuro selling and how our brains receive messages on visual and subconscious levels. I ask her how sales and marketing professionals can most effectively communicate and not waste resources in areas where our audiences are inattentive. Brynn provides advice on how we can build new relationships on subconscious levels by acknowledging the SCARE model: Status and social capital, Control and choice, Autonomy and ambiguity, Relationships and connectedness, Equity and fairness.

Questions During Episode

1. What exactly can sales people practice in order to dig into the subconscious levels of their audience?
2. What are some things that we can that we can do in a web meeting to grab a hold of some of the subconscious decision criteria and pull those in our favor when selling?
3. What should we do and what should we not do?
4. How can we really make the best use of to go deep into the attention that we are getting at that moment?
5. How can we best build relationships on a subconscious level?
6. What do you believe is the most common connection that you make with someone else when you’re first meeting them?

Links and Mentions

• Scientific proof your brain was designed to be distracted
• 5 Social Threats or Rewards – SCARF (SCARE) Model
  • Status and Social Capital
  • Control and Choice
  • Autonomy and Ambiguity
  • Relationships
  • Equity and Fairness
• Why Your Brain Filters Out Marketing

Contact Dr. Winegard

• Web – DrBrynn.com
• Twitter – @DrBrynnWinegard

Podcast Transcription

Dr. Brynn: People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. I think if you really get thinking of the depth of that then what am I in this business for? It’s really because what I discovered from my research and training was that, most people don’t know how to use their own brain.

Dr. Brynn: The idea is that with neuro selling, we’re trying to look at the brain-based principles of the brain. What’s true about the neuro functionality of the human brain in general that we either have a misconception about? One of the things of course is or at least I could make sure to mention is how distractible the brain is and the idea that where I usually start without that is that the human brain is 5% conscious, 80% sub-conscious, and 15% completely unconscious. What we typically do in the sales process is we typically sell to the conscious brain with rationality and logic and with facts, and figures, and data, and studies and key studies when in fact, that part of the brain is your study that you sent me and a lot of the studies out there. I mean, it is a very small portion of the brain. It is, by the way, 5% at a maximum, so your conscious brain is much closer. We think just something closer to 1% which basically means that it is highly distractible, it’s not listening, it is highly distracted constantly, highly distractible and distracted. It’s small; it has a very short attention span. It doesn’t actually make decisions anyway, so it doesn’t really matter if you, as a salesperson, when you approach your prospect or when you’re talking to a client. Or even and I, this is how to get away from like the sales aspect of things. Sometimes, they talk about the three B’s; believing, buying and then buying-in the idea that those three B’s, you’re always looking for one of those three B’s from everyone you meet all day long. You want them to either believe in you, buying into your ideas, or buy what you’re selling. Even many times, you might be on the subway, you might be in a library; you want them to believe and buy into social norms as an example. So when we are in the library, you think, “Well, I have no relationship to the person at the corner.” When in fact, you’re hoping that they believe in the social normative structures. That means that they would stay quiet in this environment as an example.

We’re always looking for believing, buying and then buying from everyone that we’ve interacted with or in the midst of all day long. Because of that, I think it’s really important then to conceptualize coming away sort of from the sales narrowed edge, “Hey, we are looking for compliance from people all of the day.” If that’s true, then what do we need to know about the human brain in order to be better at actually getting them to comply with us non-coercively right? Because you can’t, the guy in the corner of the library, you can’t go up to and twist his arm. What we do is we apply peer pressure and normative pressure around our cultural understanding of what, how to behave, and how to act in a library. And so all of those decisions about how to act and how to be and how to gain compliance from others, that’s all decided in the subconscious brain. It’s all decided in a push from the brain that you don’t have direct control over. I mean, certainly when it comes to, as an example, how to sell better, we have to really dig deep into the subconscious but then the second piece is the conscious part of the brain which is where most of us try to sell to you is small, not listening, distracted, and distractible.

So when you say dig into the subconscious, what exactly do you mean and what exactly can I do about it?

Dr. Brynn: Yes, so part of it is that the subconscious we think it’s a neuro and atomically 80% of the brain but probably close to a 99% of your processing power. One-quarter of your entire subconscious is dedicated to visual processing as an example. When we look at the subconscious, we realize that, in fact, the vast majority of those neural networks are for visual processing which means that seeing really is believing. What you show and what you do speaks volumes way louder than words. We often tell our clients, our customers, our children to eat their broccoli, when in fact, our clients and our customers what our product does and our kids eat their broccoli. But we don’t show them what the product does or us eating the broccoli and so, I think that’s a really critical piece. The other thing is that most communication, 93% of communication is non-verbal, it’s visual. It’s what you can see, it’s what you can feel, it’s the aura, the energy a person has.

I think a lot of sales process in today’s age has come in through, even if design thinking etcetera. It’s come through technological or digital media. The challenge with that is that it’s hard to activate the human brain or human subconscious with, granted that visual media, it’s hard to activate that brain when they can’t really experience the person on the other end. I would say that email marketing is worse than telephone marketing. And telemarketing worse than video conferencing, and video conferencing, and video conferencing is worse than in-person meeting and so on. That’s the idea there, is that the subconscious is one-quarter visual but the vast majority of it neural network are dedicated to social processing. So if you look at the subconscious, it’s about 80- If the subconscious is 80% of your brain, 80% of your subconscious is dedicated to social networks which we totally underestimate for some reason. And so in neuroscience, we always say that social processing is king. And the idea there is that it dictates more decisions than any other subset of things so more than emotions more than you know physiological needs, safety needs etcetera. Our arch-man say it that the social grain dictates more decisions than survival. I mean, and people think, “What? No, I care more about surviving than what Joe, keeping up with the Joneses, except that if you look at like even Maslow’s hierarchy which has been totally dismantled, you look at the fact that he said, “Physiological safety, social esteem, self-actualization in that order.”

Think about the number of times that people will endanger themselves for social purposes, or race their cars, they’ll go snowmobiling, or do really dangerous sports as an example. They’ll starve themselves to fit in. They will go into debt in order to keep up with the Joneses. They will compromise sociological safety, even esteem needs, in order to fit in socially. And so what we see is, in fact, first of all, Maslow didn’t know enough about the actual human brain function. But second is that what we what we need to consider when we want compliance out of somebody believing, buying in or buying the three B’s, we really need to consider their social processing cues. And so what do they, how do they perceive us socially? What are their social needs? How is the social interaction going? And a lot of that can’t be taken how you when in e-mail things can escalate really quickly because you can’t tell tone over text.

The whole idea that in order to be able to really communicate with someone, they really need to be able to monitor and you’ll need to be able to monitor their physical cues, their body language, their kinetics, their kinesthetics. The idea that so much of what they’re really communicating to you is coming through visual cues that are not themselves verbal. I think we forget that all the time. The fact of the subconscious is visual, it’s social and then the third portion that I, and I speak about this a lot is that, if you look at, so if the whole brain is 80% subconscious, 80% of that subconscious is social, one-quarter of which some of which are social, but one-quarter which is visual. Then inside the social brain, about 80% of the social brain is regulated by emotion and emotional sub centers and emotional networks. And so the emotional brain, if and so, I almost I usually show it like a set of Russian. You know those Russian nesting dolls?

Scott: Yes. I forgot what they’re called but yes, I got it.

Dr. Brynn: I think that’s what they’re called. Not Russian nesting dolls? Okay, anyway but yes, the idea that here we have the subconscious inside of which is the vast majority of social, inside of which is the vast majority emotional. That emotional brain is really the brain that’s making all the decisions. When we look for believing, buying-in, and buying from people, the three B’s. Those decisions are coming from and through the emotional brain which has interplay with the social brain, which is entirely enveloped in the subconscious brain. Think about your average sales process. Usually, it starts with an email, follow-up with a phone call, and requests a coffee. It usually starts with data has a lot of scientific insights, has proof points, or case studies or other fact-based rational. What you would consider to be rational data points out, when in fact, the conscious brain that processes this rationality is totally distracted and not listening to you.

The emotional brain is the one making the decision. Very typically, the content of your email, the content of your phone call even has very little for the decision making part of the brain. The part of the brain that’s actually going to make the decision about believing, buying-in, or buying. And so I kind of start there with it in the neuro selling stuff to say, “You know, people, humans, our brains are misunderstood. It turns out we’re not as rational, a genetic free-willing logical as we’d all love to be free and free agents of our own accord kind of thing as we’d all like to be. We’re actually a lot more emotional and a lot more socially geared than we conceptualize ourselves as being and that we acknowledge another people. It really does take, as I mentioned, that deep dive into the subconscious which is those components to allow us to understand what those portions are. And then, once we know that these takeaways are infinitesimal. Then we can start to really, at granular levels, get to and pick apart our approach to our prospects, our approach to our clients and customers. Sometimes, it’s not even a client or a customer. It’s the kid we’re trying to get to eat broccoli. Suddenly you’ll realize that the way to get them to comply with us, the way to get them, to influence them. We’ve gone about it all wrong this whole time. A lot of the prevailing logic is not how it’s not what neuroscience would tell us.

Scott: Well it sounds like we have a lot of things working against us especially with our time is in more in demand and we’re connected virtually. We can’t all get together at the same time. I’m really curious about, maybe, from a neuroscience perspective on a sales perspective, what can we do to take advantage of the biggest bang for the buck? If all of these decisions are made emotionally and on a subconscious level, and we’ve got to speak, for instance, on a video call because I don’t have the time to invest to go fly somewhere if it’s another city or something or drive across town whatever someone may be selling.

What are some things that we can that we can do virtually to grab a hold of some of the subconscious decision criteria and pull those in our favor?

Is there anything that we can do? What should we do and what should we not do?

Dr. Brynn: Yes, I think it’s a great question. The first thing, I just want to just like the very first part. There’s actually a really great research that shows that the human brain has, our attention span, has actually decreased over the last 10 years. What’s true is that technology has changed over the last seven years more than it has changed over the entire history of the earth preceding it. So what that means is the human brain is really struggling, to your earlier point, to keep up. It’s really struggling to pay attention to not feel overwhelmed and so, we see skyrocketing levels of things like anxiety, depression, psychosomatic disorders, and cancer because those are the stress-related diseases in psychopathologist. And of course, I mean, it’s rampant among teenagers, especially who are digitally addicted. It’s rampant even among digital immigrants like myself; they call us, who weren’t born necessarily when the internet was around. But the idea is just that, it’s really hard to maintain our attention and our focus and not feel distracted, overwhelmed, and stressed out.

And so to your point then or to your question; what do we do online if we need to operate online? What do we do you in order to be more effective for people and give the brain what it needs? I think part of that is when one of the answers that s emerged certainly from the literature and out there, is the need for authenticity and that big capital letter A word. Authenticity is a huge one. Authenticity in your brand, meaning, authenticity in your brand message and authenticity in the messaging and communications that you’re doing within and amongst your community online. I think that’s really critical and people want to see behind the veneer. They want to see that, certainly, for person brands and even for a blockbuster consumer packaged goods consumer brands, they want to see authenticity. A level of humanness there that isn’t just the new media old tactics. They want to see new tactics in the new media. I think one of the key pieces is having a human touch to it. Being very authentic in your messaging, in your content, in your communication style, even in your level of responsiveness. The idea that someone has a challenge with American Airlines, American Airlines will tweet right back and give them whatever, upgrade them or give them a response to their problem. The idea around, that’s a classic kind of a good example of just being–

Scott: Yes, I did that Monday.

Dr. Brynn: Did you?

Scott: Yes.

Dr. Brynn: What did you do?

Scott: So I was on the flight and my TV screen didn’t work, so I just took a picture and send it to American Airlines. They always tweet me back. Years ago, I wrote a story about my son’s first flight. I wrote a story and they posted it on their social feeds and it went viral amongst like this aviation website and stuff like that. It did it. It humanized their brand because I called the social media team. I was like, “Hey, who runs this?” I met Stephanie. I forgot her name but I’d post to her Twitter profile. I still remember her from years and years ago. But it did until I wrote the story on my blog about how you can humanize your brand using online media. So I get it and I try to be as authentic as possible. I mean, I a personal podcast, it’s my own voice even though I have crazy Texas accent sometimes but I think that is the key, and I think people missed it. They’re too busy with getting more attention and they’re not diving deep into the attention that they are getting. I think that’s, on a neuroscience level, I ve got to be somewhere close but that’s the kind of battle that we fight as online sellers. What happens is everyone is so easily distracted and you get some time with that customer prospect and you’re not making the best use of that time. I’m really curious if we are online and we are on the phone, however, basically not in person. Because in person, you do get those, you get to the body language and you can read that and you can adjust, whereas, online you can t. That was my line of questioning.

How can we really make the best use of to go deep into the attention that we are getting at that moment?

Dr. Brynn: I think there’s something if we look at the data. If we look at the research and we really, if I take it to its nth degree, the most extreme version, really push the envelope of what that research says. It basically says that we should not be selling at all. That selling itself is completely a manipulative and power imbalanced thing to even try to do. What basically, from a brain science perspective, we should be doing or attempting authentically to foster, our friendships. Because what it turns out is that humans much prefer in-group, in-tribe affiliation especially when it comes to transactions where they stand to lose or there is a risk. Instead of, it’s almost as if you’re prospecting calls shouldn’t have anything to do with your product if anything. We talked about this earlier but it’s not what you sell but why you’re selling it, and more specifically, forget why you’re selling it even. Why they need to be your friend? Why do we need to be affiliated at a personal level? It wouldn’t work with everyone and everyone’s approach to going about it would be different. But at the fundamental level, basically what it says is that the human brain only will be compliant with buy, believe, or buy into someone that they trust. Someone they trust is someone they like, and someone they like is effectively a friend. There are loose definitions of friend. I don’t mean your bosom buddy that you’re necessarily going to play squash with every Saturday, but I mean, effectively that people will look for friend vs. foe.

A friend is someone that they want to work with. Instead of calling and saying, “Hi, I’ve got this air conditioner and it’s going to be the quietest best machine in the world.” You would call and say, “Hey Joe, do you, how do you feel about I don’t know Trump or whatever.” You strike up a conversation with that person. Nothing to do with air conditioners at all necessarily. That is not at all prevailing wisdom or logic. That’s not at all how we approach it. I think that’s really pushing the envelope in terms of what the information says, but basically, the idea is just that the human brain wants to transact preferentially with people that, with people, first of all, that’s the humanization factor and secondly with people that they like. And so even big business, when you look at B2B, you’ll often hear about the stories of one sales guy goes to another company and he takes with them all of his accounts. You hear the story over and over again and the reason for that is because he might be moving from AT@T over to Sprint but the truth is, is that all of his accounts are just people at those other organizations, at Time Warner, you name it. He is just taking; of course, he takes his accounts with him. It’s not that when he moved over to Sprint, AT@T stopped liking Time Warner. It’s more that when Peter decides to move from AT@T over to Sprint, the people who like him and trust him over at Time Warner or the person who likes him and trust him and probably played golf with him last weekend because they’re buddies is obviously going to move their business over to Sprint.

And so what I think is interesting is that, effectively, what we learn is that the human brain does business with people that it likes. That is really, that would change, I think, the narrative that you’re trying to strike with or the dialogue rather that you’re trying to strike with your prospects, with your community, and with your potential target market because you’re now not trying to strike up a dialogue about what you sell or about what you can provide them. You’re trying to strike up a dialogue about how it is that you two are similar and how it is that you two are in-group and how it is that you two are from the same tribe and how you can be trusted and you are in fact what you could be categorized as a friend.

The second thing, Scott, and this is I think a really important component. The fact that all the brain science would show us that reward, so getting good value for our money let’s say in a service procurement choice that we are looking for that we know we need. We know we need phone services as an example. Who is our provider? Is it AT@T or Sprint? Well, one of the challenges is while you might go at Sprint because you feel you get good value for money. But then the second thing is that are good high-quality service. The pleasure, if you will. The spike that we see in prospects happiness is pretty limited, pretty minimal. There’s this little blip on the radar. A little blip on the graph, if you will, you’ll have, “Okay, that was a good happy transaction. I’m pleased that I did it.”

Fast forward, if what happens is you don’t please the prospect but instead the brain gets feeling threatened, that blip on the graph is like a dip that lasts for days. Say, differently, if you do something really great for our customer, they’re going to be happy for an hour. If you do something really threatening for a prospective customer or they perceive you to be threatening somehow like they’re about to lose their shirt on your service plan or they feel as though you’re an inferior product and keeping up with the Joneses won’t be possible, they feel a huge spike in their threat levels. That threat, once that’s activated, lasts much longer. It can last for days, so good one hour of pleasure, bad days of pain.

Scott: It s kind of when you go to a restaurant and if you have a good meal, you don’t tell anybody but if you have a bad meal you tell everybody.

Dr. Brynn: Right, and the adage, historically and I don’t know where. If this is corroborated by research but we used to say it back in the day about marketing. A satisfied customer says nothing and the unsatisfied customer tells 10 people.

Scott: Yes.

Dr. Brynn: Unfortunately, that’s the truth is that pleasing them has very limited effects but displeasing them has a very longstanding effect. One of the models in neuroscience that has been popularized and it’s heavily used is what’s called, the SCARF model which like a scarf, around your neck. I don’t use that model or I don’t call it that. I call it the SCARE model because that makes a lot more sense to me. It is basically the five things, S-C-A-R and E .The five things that we conceptualize, if not, mutually exclusive are collectively exhaustive of the human experience around how the brain detects social threat and reward. Said differently, these are the five things you need to not threaten in a human in order to have them not have that threat response which is your first line of defense towards getting them to believe, buy-in or by getting them to comply with you.

Those five things are; S status and social capital. People like both of those things and don’t want either one of those things threatened. As an example, if you’re an inferior service provider that you think, as I mentioned earlier, you don’t think it’s going to help you keep up with the Joneses. They’re going to immediately have this little twinge of, “Ugh, that’s not good enough for my neighborhood. I can’t buy it.” Said, differently, if as an example, that service provider is going to provide them with such quality and value-added service that they feel like all their friends would be super envious. This is a great example of the type of service that this person procures. Then, it’s probably easy to do in the product categories. I don’t know why I went with service, but anyway. That is likely then to give them a little blip in their emotional state of, “Oh, that’s going to elevate my perceived social capital and make me look like I’m of higher status in the world.” So, the first one is the S. That’s the thing that we want to grant and we want to not threaten.

The second thing is the C. It’s what we call control and choice. The idea that we as humans love both of those things. Both of those things are often a complete fallacy that we have control and that we even have a choice. There’s this whole logic around the idea that in actual fact, we’re running according to conditioned programs and this whole concept of control is really a fallacy, however, people love to believe that they have both control and choice which is free agency, free will as an example. When in fact, if you threaten either one of those things. If you tell them either, they’re going to sign a really lengthy contract that gives them absolutely no control over their service provision and no ability to back out they’re not going to love that. If you give them, they walk into your store and you only have two mobile devices available, that’s not enough choice for them so they’re going to feel like you’re limiting their choice as a service provider, as well as, that really lengthy contract as well as control over their future. Definitely, you don’t want to threaten a sense of control and choice.

The third is what’s called autonomy and ambiguity, the A of the SCARE Model. Autonomy, people love the human brain. I should say, in fact, really appreciate a sense of autonomy. It does not like ambiguity, so most people if you present them with ambiguous service provision or an ambiguous contract or ambiguous results that they’re going to get. “Well, we might give you telephone service but we might not.” People don’t like that level of ambiguity. They’ve, so whatever you do mitigate a sense of ambiguity, and then provide them with a sense of autonomy. Provide them with a sense of, “Hey, you can move from you no contract. Come love us. If you don’t love us, you can switch at any time. You have free will, free agency, and autonomy to do that. That is something that the human brain really likes.

The fourth thing is the R, is relationships and connectedness. Relationships is the R in the SCARE Model. It’s basically the idea that humans like to be related, connected, and embedded. That we are tribalistic social species that likes to be able to feel as though we have a home, and we are safe, and we belong to somebody, and into concentric circles. Immediately to our spouse and then to our nuclear family, and then to our neighborhood, and then to our extended family, and then to our school or our job or workplace, you name it. In concentric circles, we like to feel embedded, connected, and related to people. That’s really the opposite thereof social isolation. It’s the number one predictive factor for things like depression and anxiety. People who feel socially isolated for some reason will often show up with factors if not, a complete diagnosis they will show up with factors on anxiety and depression scales. The human brain is looking for relationships, connectedness, and embedded-ness, a sense of belonging.

The final thing, the E is equity and fairness. This is the F is where, typically, you hear this before doing the SCARF Model. The idea is just that the human brain has an on-going cheat sheet inside of its head that is constantly keeping up tabs with what’s fair, what’s equitable with who owes you. This is also the human motivation behind not wanting to owe, so never a debtor or a lender be as a saying. Sometimes here, the idea is just that we don’t like imbalances in owing-ness or in a sense of indebtedness. Definitely, something to mitigate with potential prospects, clients, customers, anyone. Second is we want to ensure that they’d be all positively like we are equitable and fair in our dealings, in our contracts, in our provision of services, in our purveying of broccoli on the plate. What we’re trying to get is the brain, the human brain to feel as though it’s definitely not threatened in any of those five categories and that it is. And so, just quickly again, the SCARE model stands for; status and social capital, control and choice, autonomy and ambiguity wherein we like autonomy and not ambiguity, relationships connectedness and embedded-ness where which in wherein we like all of those, and then equity and fairness is the fifth one. We like both equity and fairness in our dealings and in our service provision in the marketplace.

Scott: Well, I have about a billion follow up questions but we don’t have time for that. What I’m really curious is I’m going to jump back a little bit about your concentric circle example. Then, I want to go back to what you talked about why you do it. It’s not what you do but why you do it. So first, if we all live in these tribes and we’re trying to maintain social equity in all that with the SCARE model, how do integrate two circles? So If I want you to go and if I want to break in and I’ve got to build trust with some other person. I’ve got to do this on all these different levels. What’s the best way? How do I integrate circles? That calls a battle. Calls it like a good relationship versus a bad relationship?

How can we best build relationships on a subconscious level?

Dr. Brynn: Yes, I mean, I think- Well, first of all, is just according to the SCARE model is just ensuring that you don’t threaten their status, their control, their autonomy sense of fairness but going back to what we talked about earlier. I think establishing a human connection, one of the things and with an authentic appeal of some kind. One of the things that I talk about sometimes is definitely showing up in person is helpful, making really good eye contact ensuring that you are establishing with the similarities are between the two of you. I sometimes joke that every conversation between two strangers always goes the same way. It’s like, “Hi” “Hi” “How are you?” “Hi, I m good.” ‘Where you from?” “Oh, I’m from Rochester.” “Oh my goodness, my cousin’s from Rochester.” “Really? Great.” The conversation is totally innate and benign like what a boring small talk conversation. But what’s happening is that the human brain is trying to figure out how similar we are. Every conversation between two strangers goes the exact same way. We drive as fast as humanly possible towards similarity between us. That’s really to be able to flag that we are a friend and not foe and that we are in-tribe and that we are in-group and that we are relatable.

The thing that we would typically follow up with is further relatable facts and further relatability, so driving towards similarity, driving toward relatable-ness. What is similar between us and then, therefore, how is that relatable? How does that relate on a human level? That might be two mothers witness that they children, they start talking about that. Or you and I start talking immediately about our proprietorships and our business. Or other people will talk about what they have in common, and so, that commonness is a really opportune space too. If we almost picture it like Venn diagrams or concentric circles, a really opportune fruitful soil for integrating two different spheres of one’s associations or embedded-ness. Then I think, again, kind of going back to being in person as much as possible and really allowing them the full depth of experience. The 93% of communication that’s non-verbal and the mirror neuron system which can only activate in person in real time. I mean, if you’re really interested. If it’s a really hot prospect or I mean, we notice inherently, but the hottest prospect you’ll probably ever have is, pardon the pun, is your partner like your spouse. You would want to do that by telephone, e-mail, a video chat. If you want to do that in person obviously. I think when you look at the hottest prospects out there. When you look at the quality of the relationship that you’re trying to strike out, I think that it’s really important to be as human as possible. Remember that really, technology is a tool but it can’t mitigate the relationship. You still have to show up to that actual relationship and that’s the key piece. I mean, for all the brain science out there, I can distill it down to the fact that you need to have a relationship and that is human. The human brain is human. The brain is a very human thing and it’s looking for relationships and relatedness.

Scott: All right, so with that I’ve got to get one last question and it’s a personal question. I did not prepare you for this today. Outside of neuroscience, like outside of your speaking engagements and all that what you’re primarily known for.

What do you believe is the most common connection that you make with someone else when you’re first meeting them?

Dr. Brynn: That that is such a good question, Scott. You didn’t prepare me for it. I don’t know totally the answer I would wonder if I think maybe it is just that I’m a bit of a, it’s either that I’m a business person. I see a business opportunity and things and a lot of people are business people. I mean, you’re in business and most people are so there’s that s a point of connection for sure and I’m always kind of so interested in it. It could also just be sort of a natural and fundamental and this is a little. I’m unfortunately it is a little bit of brain science but, a natural and fundamental interest in the human state of mind. I was asked this question interview not in an interview not long ago where they asked me, “Well when brain science why brain science?” I said, as a little kid, I was two years old. They asked me I want to be, I said neurosurgeon. The psychometrist did not believe that I knew what that was so they were like, “Tell her to ask what that is.” And so, I said, “Oh yeah, what I want to do when I grow up is help people with their brains.” Apparently, it’s just always been who I am. I think, what’s true is that probably like in a kind of my job, my business, to your point being on stage, I think I walk through the world fundamentally curious about other people’s psychological states, neuroscientific states, neurological states. It’s very interesting to me. I’ve always since I was two years, I’ve been obsessed with the idea that you have this computer inside your head and it operates. It’s the epicenter of all action-reaction, personality thought ideas, faith, your perception of reality; everything is sort of in this cranium of yours. The fact is, is that’s just like infinitely interesting to me. I think, to your point, it’s really nothing to do with my business. My business did become my passion but, because otherwise, I would have been a marketing professor for the rest of my life. [laughs] I think, I mean, I made this business my passion but that’s really is. My point of connection is just a fundamental interest in humans and in their brain.

Scott: Yes, I would say you made your passion your business?

Dr. Brynn: Totally, yes. Did I say that wrong?

Scott: Yes, the way you said, I made my business my passion.” I was like I kind of knew what you’re in but that–

Dr. Brynn: No, I did not mean that. I meant, what you said. I made my passion my business for sure. That came out of insight too from the mentor of mine who said like, “You can’t deny who you are. This is who you really are. You can sit around in a marketing department at a university for the rest of your life but it won’t be honoring everything that you’ve really thought about.” That’s a very human, talk about authenticity, talk about humanness, talk about connectedness, relatedness, embedded-ness. I mean, that’s really for me. It was a sudden eureka moment where you thought “Yeah, I’ve trained all 14 years to do this one thing and I’ve worked in corporate marketing for tech for 12 years at that point full time.” I thought “Geez.” Actually, in the end, you know what? I am a brain science nerd and I have to be true to that. I have to honor that. There’s value for others in that. I get out there and help people use their brains better in a business context and in whatever your daily business is. Whether that’s feeding your kids or trying to run your little proprietorship or run a multinational, multibillion-dollar company. I mean, there are insights for you about that and I’m passionate, I think, about having them realize that they, there is a better them inside of them. There’s a better computer. There’s a better, there’s more functionality in this computer that you’re running. That is riveting to me

Scott: I love it. Well, thanks so much, Brynn. If somebody had a question for you based on their brain or their internal computer, what is the best way for somebody to ask you a question?

Dr. Brynn: Yes, it’s DrBrynn.com, super simple. D-R-B-R-Y-N-N.com and then, all of my social hand, I’m on all the social platforms as @DrBrynnWinegard.

Scott: Perfect. Well, thank you so much for talking to me again. I really enjoyed it and I’d probably going to listen two or three times.

Dr. Brynn: Thank you, Scott. Yes, it’s always a joy to talk to you. Please do call anytime. I love it. Thank you.

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