You're listening to the Inside Out Entrepreneur Podcast. Today I am talking about how you can improve your relationships in life and business by understanding how you and those around you interpret the world and how that impacts how you show up in the world. All right, buckle up, enjoy the ride. This is your time now. Okay, let's go.
Hi, I'm Susie Belmont, a multiple seven figure entrepreneur with 15 years experience building and selling businesses, as well as being being a psychology expert, qualified coach and therapist. Think of this show as personal development for women like you who want to master your inner world in order to lead yourself to greater external success, whether that's in relationships, emotionally, in business, or financially.
So pull up your chair and get ready to change your life and your business from the inside out. This is the Inside Out Entrepreneur podcast. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast with me, your host, Suzie Belmont.
This week, I want to talk about how you as a human process information, including how you create beliefs that you will literally stand or fall by even when those beliefs are really, really getting in your way, and other aspects of how information is going through your system.
And by understanding what I am sharing today, not only will you understand yourself better, but you will also understand other people better, which gives you a kind of superpower when it comes to navigating your way through life and business. So let's jump straight in and talk about how information gets into you in the first place. So imagine one day that you are walking along, and as you walk along, you have five main senses where anything that you see on the outside enters your system.
You all know this already, so your sight, your smell, your taste, your touch, and your hearing. And in a nutshell, what is going on in the outside world is entering into your inner world via one or several of these systems working at the same time. And at this point, I should flag up that there are other things that are very relevant to how you perceive things, including your energy, your proprioception, which is how you deal with your positioning in space and a lot of other things.
But for today's show, we only need to think about the five main senses, because understanding how they interact with your inner world will let you see how every single person in the world can look at the same thing and interpret it very differently. And that is because of your internal brain filters. So going back to you walking along the road one day, and as you are walking around, you are actually millions and millions of bits of information.
In fact, about 11 million pieces of information every single second is what you could technically pick up on. So just to replay that 11 million bits of information every single second are coming at you from your external environment, and they will come into you via your five senses, one of your five senses, or multiple of them at the same time. But as you can imagine, your human brain cannot process 11 million bits of information every single second. At least consciously, it can't do that.
So your conscious mind has some tools that it uses so that it can get rid of most of this information and only to take in what it thinks is relevant data. Your conscious mind is okay with processing about 40 or 50 bits of information per second, which is still a lot if you think about 40 or 50 bits per second going in. So you've got to ask yourself, well, what happens to all the other millions of bits of information that you're seeing, smelling and hearing, et cetera?
Well, your brain uses three main tools all of the time to deal with this. Tool number one is to delete information. So your conscious brain will literally delete everything that it thinks is not relevant at that moment in time, literally deletes it, so you don't see it or hear it or feel it. And if you don't believe me, run this little test right now and you will see. So what I want you to do is look up.
Look up from where where you are, whether you're walking or your desk, in a chair, walking the dog, whatever you're doing, and look around the space around you right now and find as many things as possible in the next 10 seconds that are blue. I want you to memorize all of the blue things and you're going to come up with a number of how many you can see.
So keep looking and I'm going to get quiet for 10 seconds while you find as many possible blue things, and you're going to have to play them back in a minute in your mind. Okay, go. Okay, tell me, how many things did you see that were blue? Okay, you've got a number, hopefully in your head if you did this. Now tell me without looking again, how many things did you see and can you name that were pink? You see how this works?
If your brain is looking for blue, it will filter out all the other irrelevant colours, like red, pink, yellow and so on, to try and maximise what you can see that's relevant, that is blue, because that's what you told it to do. And your brain is really good at doing what you tell it to do. Incidentally, this is why sometimes you find that sometimes you see lots of the same thing at once.
So for example, if you decide that you want to buy a red car, you will start to notice everyone else who has a red car. And all of a sudden you will think that everyone is driving red cars, when yesterday you didn't notice anyone was driving a red car at all. Or if you decide to run a business in a certain niche, all of a sudden your brain will lock into all of the other people doing something in that niche and you will think that everyone in the entire world is doing the same thing as you.
When just a few days ago or a few weeks ago, it was a completely unique to you idea. This is just your brain deleting anything that's irrelevant and highlighting everything that might be relevant to you. Okay, that was tool number one. Tool number two is distortion. The second tool your brain uses to help filter out information is distortion.
So for example, if you believe that your husband or your partner is mad at you about something, then when you look at their face, your brain can actually distort what you see to make it fit your belief better. Your belief system is already in place. You believe that the person is mad at you. So your brain will literally distort data you see or hear to match your belief, your pre existing belief. Another great example here is what happens in the dark.
So if you were raised with scary stories about ghouls or monsters that come out at night, or ghosts or something like that, then even decades later, if you're alone at night and you hear a noise, your brain will distort that information to fit your belief. The fact that, I don't know, next door's cat might be walking around outside and making a noise probably won't occur to you.
You're more likely to think that the noise is a ghost or a ghoul or a burglar or a monster or whatever it is that you believe those noises in the dark are. So in short, distortion is a tool that is heavily influenced by your beliefs. Hence the statement, if you believe you can, you will. If you believe you can't, you won't. It is the belief that dictates what happens. Tool number three. Tool number three is generalization. So this brain tool is here for time saving.
Because if you didn't have this one, you'd literally have to relearn everything every single day. Brand new. Like learning everything afresh every single day. You see, your brain generalizes based on past experiences. The problem is you tend to generalize based on very small bits of evidence. And you also do this unconsciously.
So for Example, if you'd had, for example, a little bit of food poisoning after eating some yogurt, then you might generalize that all yogurt is bad based on that little bit of small data. Or if you had an experience with, for example, a cat, let's say it scratched you, you might then generalize that all cats are scratchy and all cats are mean, and they do mean things like scratch. One big area where you're likely to generalise is money.
So you might have created a whole ton of beliefs based on generalisation filters to categorise how you view. For example, you might have a belief that money is hard to come by. Perhaps a parent had said that or a grandparent had said that in the past, and that's become your generalized belief. You might have a belief that money is evil, perhaps because of someone who was nasty who had money in your life. So you've kind of categorized everything and all people with money are evil.
Perhaps you've got a generalized belief that money should be difficult to make, perhaps because maybe you tried once, or someone you knew tried once and it was hard, so you generalized all future experiences based on that bad experience and that bad past belief.
On the flip side, a child whose parents make money easily might have learned a belief that becoming rich was easy, and their brain will continue with that generalized belief, and you could see how that will change the actions that they take. On top of this, your generalizations might not even be your own, as I've just alluded to. They may have been handed down to you from your parents, or even from ancestors beyond that. But that a topic for another show.
By now, hopefully, you're starting to see that your past literally does become your future. So when something happened in your past, you create an internal representation of it, and that creates the meaning you put to a past experience.
Then, because of filtering, and in particular because of generalization, your past traumas, your past beliefs, your past money, mindset, self worth, self belief, confidence, trust and so on, or project themselves into your future, because your future is literally created by generalizing about your past experiences. As I said, your past becomes your future, quite literally. And unless you start to become aware of this, and as I always say, the first step is always awareness.
You just keep doing that, and then you wonder why nothing changes. It's the awareness that helps you unlock that there is a possibility that you can change this. Now, let me just stop to give you an example of this in my life, which is one my daughter, little Wren, actually helped me deconstruct. So My daughter Wren absolutely adores dogs. Like, crazy level loves them.
And so we have had to teach her from the very beginning to always ask permission to stroke them, to not drop down and cuddle them, because her natural instinct was just to run at them, give them a huge bear hug, squeeze them like a teddy, which is obviously not a good idea with a stranger's dog. So she always asks, and most of the time, the owners say yes. Although, just FYI here, if you are a dog owner, please, please don't say yes.
And then when a young child strokes the dog, say, oh, actually, my dog's a bit timid, or my dog doesn't really like it. Like, just say no. It's so much better for both of them, the amount of people who say yes to me. And then after she's stroking, they say, actually, no, my dog doesn't really like it. Like, have the confidence. No is no. End of story. Okay. Anyway, I digress. So Wren hears a dog bark, and her internal filters tell her that dogs are fun.
Her filters, her generalization, her belief system is dogs are fun. They're cuddly, they're cute, they're sweet, they're the best things ever. Meanwhile, I hear the exact same bark, but my internal filters tell me that dogs are dangerous, that noise is risky, that I'm in danger, that I should get away, that I'm going to get bitten.
Now, where my filters come from is another podcast, because I've actually never had a bad experience with a dog, so it's more likely down to a past life or something that's not my actual personal experience. And I've inherited those beliefs from elsewhere. The point that I'm trying to make is that you have two people here, me and Ren, who have two different meanings for the exact same event based on our own filters.
And those filters are based on our own past life experiences or pre life experiences. And using that data, you will create images in your mind. So Wren will create a fluffy, friendly dog, and I will create probably an image of a Rottweiler. And we will then also create voices in our head to match those images. So Wren might have an internal subconscious dialogue or conscious dialogue of I love dogs. And I will have a matching internal dialogue of dogs are scary, matching the picture in my mind.
On top of that, the way our internal systems work is that our physiology will respond to this mental processing. So Wren might be all relaxed and excited and she'll be keen to see the dog. And I will be all tense. My shoulders will tense up. I might go Cold. I might want to run, run away. In a nutshell, our state, our internal state, will change based on all of these processes.
And it's your state that determines your behaviour, and it's your behaviour that dictates your actions or your lack of actions. So you can see how this all links up. And the goal in understanding yourself or other people at this level is realising that your internal state should always be in a state that serves you in some way. And yet, for most people, including perhaps you, you might live a lot of your life in a state which does not serve you.
In my case, to finish the dog story, I had to work at the state level. And for these purposes, I'm ignoring trauma and past traumas that might have needed work. I had to work at my state level. And once I realized my state was dictating things, I was able to break down my beliefs and understand them more. And then I was able to create new filters that didn't make dogs scary. And it was Wren that taught me how to do that. You know how I have always said this.
If you've known me from previous versions of my podcast, you'll know that I've always said, and I will continue to say this, children are amazing teachers. If you watch them and observe them and then contrast what they're doing with your more ingrained patterns, with your imprints that are a little bit more ingrained and perhaps a little bit less flexible.
To take this back to the point of this podcast, when you are trying to understand other people's point of view and when they don't see your point of view, you can hopefully see now that every single person going through life is not having the exact same experience. Even when they're doing the exact same thing, they're in the exact same place. They've got the exact same setup.
Two people, for example, looking at a pile of money will delete, distort and generalize that pile of money based on their past. And so the money will mean and symbolize different things to them. And those beliefs will affect their states and then their actions as a result. You can see there how somebody might just do something completely different to someone else, even though they've got the same actual data incoming, it's how they interpret that data.
This is why you also might see someone else argue and differ over really small things. So let's say you really believe in a certain system or a certain way of doing things, and you're willing to debate that until you're blue in the face and you know that Your belief is right. Like, you absolutely know 100% that your belief is right.
Well, the other person who you might be talking to has a different view and different filters, and they will likely not see your point of view without a lot of help from you to understand why. And they certainly won't do it if you're shouting at them. You have to actually kind of calmly explain it. And this is because the other person literally cannot visualize or hear the images that are in your head.
They can't understand and mentally construct your point of view because their own tools have deleted, distorted, and generalized so much of the information to create their own imagery and their own noise in their head. So you might both be seeing the same original thing, but you've instantly made it different in your minds and filed it in two completely different ways. So hopefully you can start to see how this might help you with understanding relationships a little bit better.
For example, two siblings arguing over something. You can see how they're just trying to uphold their own belief systems so that the argument is more about whose interpretation, whose internal interpretation of the world is correct. And likewise, in business, your customers will act in a certain way because of this. For example, let's say you have a customer who is really aggressive and rude on email, even when you've actually done nothing wrong, you've just been quite friendly and helpful.
It's likely that their internal belief system, their internal representation system, is based on past experiences. So let's say that someone else cheated them in the past and did a really bad job or ripped them off in some way. They're likely to subconsciously assume that you're going to do the same. Can you see then how this might impact how you communicate with somebody who's being rude or aggressive? It allows you to be so much more empathetic. It allows you to become curious.
It allows you to stop yourself from saying, why are you being so rude? Why aren't you seeing my point of view and potentially starting an argument with them or retaliating in some way and instead getting curious and saying, I'm really curious. Why is it that you say that? Which then is a less confrontational approach, and you start to get them to talk, and then you can address the things that they might not be interpreting well in a. In a much more conducive to resolution way.
So this would be my big takeaway for you today if you stay curious as to what is causing another person, whether that's in relationships, in marriages, in families, or in your business, in your business world. To act the way that they are acting, you're far more likely to make progress than if you just go in and state your opposing point of view. And your entrepreneurial success actually has a lot to do with this.
Once you realize that everyone is effectively responding to their own reconstruction of reality, not actual reality, and you realize that everyone is doing this, that becomes a bit of a game changer. Then that begs the question, well, what is actually true with a capital T? And the answer, the truthful answer to that is not a lot. Not a lot of things in the world are true for everyone. Like every single thing is the same for everyone.
There are very few things in the world that are universally true with a capital T for every single human being. However, every single human being believes that their version of truth with a lower T is the real truth and that everyone else must feel the same as them. But they don't, because there's lots and lots, there's millions and billions of little T truths, and there's probably a handful of capital T truths. So we're all not always going to agree.
And it's that curiosity that allows you to start to understand that and then start to make progress because you're curious about someone else's lower T truth. When you know that, when you stay curious to find out the other person's lower T truth, you will move forward. And when you are then in a place where you can explain your lower T truth to someone else, it's then that you start to establish if there's any common ground at all. And this, as you can hopefully tell, is a bit of a game changer.
So before I come to an end, there's a little bit more that I want to just add, and it's a little bit more of a rabbit hole that you could go down here when looking at reality. And I'm not going to deal with it all in detail right now, but I would be wrong not to mention this, because it's such an important part of it all.
And this is to ask yourself, when you're putting your version of the truth forward in whatever context, in business, in relationships, wherever it is, financially, whatever, how much are you compromised from telling the capital T truth because of your human limitations? Or if it isn't a capital T truth and it's a lower T truth, how much are you compromised because of your limitations as a human being?
What I mean by that is that there are various things that exist in the world that you just can't see, you can't use your filters, you can't see them, you can't smell them, you can't taste them, you can't touch them, etc. But does that mean that they don't exist? Think about it. If your perspective is that the thing that you can feel in front of you is not there because you can't see, hear, smell, touch, or taste it, does that mean it's not there? What about your visual limitations?
You can't see bacteria, but that doesn't mean that it's not there. You can't see energy, but it doesn't mean it's not there. You can't see X rays, but it doesn't mean that they're not happening. You get my point. Understanding that not only do you filter information by deleting, distorting, and generalizing it, but you also have human limitations on what you can see, hear, smell, etc. And those human limitations are filtering before you've even thought about it.
But it doesn't mean those things that they're filtering don't exist. Now that is a big, big topic, and there's a lot more to this than I can go into in this podcast. Otherwise it's going to get too, too long. What I want you to do, though, is challenge yourself. Next time you're putting a limiting belief in your mind, such as, I can't spend this kind of money on something because that's not sensible. Ask yourself where that belief is coming from.
Is it really true with a capital T or is it your lower T? Subjective truth? And if someone else is putting forward their point of view about something, are you immediately just pushing back and saying that's not true? Or can you remain curious about their lower T truth? Because it's never about changing someone else. You're never going to change their interpretation.
And changing someone else's interpretation is where you go when you know they've decided to change their own interpretation and then you can support them with that. But if somebody doesn't want to change their interpretation, you're never going to change it. You can't control somebody else. You can only control yourself. It's always about understanding how you work, because that's the thing you have control over.
Choosing to understand you and then choosing to change some of your filters can change everything. Once you really, deeply understand who you are, and it's this big who you are that's so important and how you operate from the inside out, that opens so many doorways, particularly around money and your money beliefs, because you start to realize that you've filtered and distorted and generalized and deleted so much information. And you've got human limitations.
For example, there's so much to do with energy and money, and I've got a whole program about energy and money, and there's so much there that people just don't know because they can't see it. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Now, that's for another time, so I'm going to stop there. I just want to leave you with make sure that you remain curious.
If you remain curious about everything and take one little step going forward this week, next time somebody says something and you think, oh, that's not right. That's not right. They shouldn't have said that. Instead, think, huh, I'm curious. I wonder why they said that. Or I wonder what they believe. Or I wonder how they're deleting, distorting and generalizing information. I'm curious. Maybe I'll ask them why do you think that? And see how that changes your approach.
Okay, that is it from me this week. I hope this one was useful for you. This episode was useful and if you did, enjoy it. As always, if you can, pop over and give a review, a written review on Apple Podcast or a comment on Spotify, or tag me on socials with an image of you or the podcast or whatever you choose to do, I love to get your feedback.
And as I've previously mentioned, if you find that boosting your motivation, keeping your energy high, your frequency high, is something that you would find useful on a more frequent basis, have a look at the Inside Out Wisdom series on my website. You will love it. And it's all free. It's all optional. You can jump in and jump it out as you want to. You will find it in the footer menu over on Suzie Belmont. That's it for now. See you all next week. Bye.