I've got a team. I hope you bloody terrific. One of the things that I've spoken about on this show a bit, but I've never done a podcast on I've never gone in depth. I don't know if it's going to last five minutes or thirty five minutes, but I thought it'd open the door. I have no script, it's just me. I have no one to bounce it off. But the reason I want to talk to you about this is because it's it's really relevant. It's broadly relevant.
And as we've spoken many times before about theory of mind, understanding how other people think, and metacognition understanding thinking in general, meta perception, understanding how others see us, I think it's really important that we understand people's behavior, past, present, and likely future behavior in order for us to be able to self manage and self regulate emotionally and psychologically and practically so and maybe even self preserve and self protect.
So one of the funny things that we humans do is we expect people to be different, Like we expect the person that hasn't been nice to us the last fifty seven times that they're going to be nice this time. Not all of us do this, but some of us do this we kind of for no logical reason. We expect that somebody will see the error of their ways, they'll be kind this time, they'll treat us better this time, And we base our expectations of what's going to come
from the next interaction. We base it on more hope and wish for thinking than we do any kind of logic or science or data that we've been receiving over the last one, two, five, ten fifty one hundred interactions. So we know that we know that the best predictor of future behavior is past. We know that we know
it's not the only one. There are other variables, there are other factors, But overwhelmingly, if somebody's treated you like an asshole the last hundred times and you expect them to be nice to you today, then that is an irrational expectation. This is not me trying to throw you under the bus or be critical. This is just logical,
isn't it. If we've got a certain result one hundred times in a row, and today is going to be experiment number or interaction number one hundred and one, then we would be at the very best somewhat illogical to suspect that today the person that hasn't treated us nicely or has been disrespectful or horrible or worse, that somehow today they will be magically nice because since our last interaction, they've had a spiritual awakening, they've found awareness, they've found
Jesus or Mother Deity, and now they are on a path through righteousness, and they're back to rectify the damage they've done. And to see all of that's probably not likely. It's possible, not probable. And of course people can change, and of course my career and my passion is predicated on the idea that people can do better, be better,
think better. And of course of course they can. But generally that transition or that transformation doesn't happen instant instantly, And so we can we can do these two things. We can simultaneously support and encourage people to be better. We can hope they get better, we can want them to get better. We can even still love them. I mean, how many parents love their kids hate what their kids are doing a certain behavior or a habit or something
where they're you know, they're self destructing. They love them, but they hate the use of the whatever it is that habit or that behavior which that can the parent considers to be damaging and harmful and toxic. Of course, so we can we can at the same time, we can concurrently hope that somebody is going to treat us differently next time, while expecting that they probably won't. Right, So these two things are possible to exist at the same time in the same human and one of them
is more an emotional driver. That is, I want I care about this person, I want them to be better. I love them, I have an emotional connection to them, I wish good for them. But also when I am now coming back to me where I need to look after me, I need to you know that what is likely to come as not something positive for me, It might not be a great experience. Anyway, I was thinking about this. I was thinking about all this, and I went into chatters to see if there was a name
for this. This was the only bit of research, by the way, and I didn't know that there's a name. I don't know if this is broadly used. I've never heard of it rope, so let's just take it with a grain of salt. But I thought it was interesting. So this is what I typed into when I say Chatters. Chat gpt I wrote, when we keep expecting people to behave a certain way in brackets differently despite how they typically behave their track record. Is there a name for
this misplaced expectation? And Chatters said to me, it said Harps, It said Cocker, It said nugget. It said, yes, Harps. This phenomenon is often referred to as the hopeful fallacy. It can be linked to a cognitive bias such as optim isn't bias or confirmation bias, depending on the context. The hopeful fallacy is informally used to describe situations where we rationally expect someone to act differently despite a consistent
track record to the contrary. This is rooted in our desire to believe people can improve or change, even without evidence to support that belief. And so that is interesting,
isn't it? That is interesting? So we know, we know that people can change and evolve, but we also know on a really practical operational level that whatever we've got now by the way, it could be something positive it doesn't have to be negative, or it could be something it could be a habit or a trait or a behavior in a certain person that's not particularly positive or negative, that's just them. So, for example, I know how my dad works. I've spoken about my dad a bit, my
eighty five year old dad, I know. I know how he works, and I know the kinds of compliments he might give or might not give, or the kind of things that he'll be interested in. I know the way that my dad will talk to me and treat me. And there's no good or bad in this. I just know how he's going to be. So when I meet with my dad on the weekend, which I'm gonna and I walk in the door, based on thousands of interactions over decades of being his bloody kid, I know what
is almost absolutely guaranteed to transpire. Now that's not because my dad's bad and I'm good. That's just because the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. I know that my dad's not going to go fuck, it's great to see you give me a hug. I know that
because he's never done that. And that's okay. That's just so if I went in every time, and by the way, I give my a man a hug and tell him I love him and all of that, and he's a bit clunky emotionally, and he's the old guy, and we get all that he's amazing, but he's not like me. He's not better or worse. He's different. So I don't expect my dad to be like me. And when I expect my dad to be like me were one problems
arise too. I'm operating an ego, and also being like me is not necessarily a good thing or a better thing, by the way, of course, but it's also an irrational expectation for him to be like I think he should be. But nonetheless, we humans, we create our own frustration and disappointment because we expect people who have behaved a certain way for a very long time to be different magically and mysteriously the next time, if not the next time,
then very soon. So understanding how people will most likely behave, or act or react in all kinds of situations is a social skill. It's a kind of a social intelligence.
Knowing how people will be talk, communicate, connect, act, react, respond in conflict or in negotiation or in the middle of a problem solving kind of situation, or how they might be socially versus how they might be one on one, how they might be at work, versus how they might be in a group of friends, understanding how people are, understanding how people have been, understanding how they think, and also being conscious of their track record, good or bad.
The history that you you two have, the history of interactions, the history of conversations, the history of experiences that you two have, is going to be the best predictor moving forward for you in terms of what is likely if I'm being honest, and I try to be honest all the time. If I'm being honest, There've been lots of times over the years where people's words and people's behavior
have told me, in inverted commas, two different things. So there were people that would consist, and these were people that I really cared about, where I kind of knew deep down, like I knew like they'd done some things that were that kind of showed me on a level they weren't trustworthy, they didn't necessarily have the same values as me, they couldn't be relied on, and so on.
And by the way, I'm not the high watermark of human potential and being the best person either, but just people that had taught me over time through their behaviors more than their words, what I should expect moving forward. But Nonetheless, I constantly found the reason to think that the dynamics and the interactions and the outcomes of that relationship would magically be better because I wanted it to be better. I wanted them to be better. I wanted
us to be better. I wanted a healthier relationship. I cared about them, and I cared about my relationship with them, And despite my understanding and awareness of how humans work, my emotions overrode that logic, and I created my own devastation and disappointment for far too long because I kept expecting people who had absolutely told me in inverted commas who they were and how they were. I expected them to somehow be different one day, And clearly you know
it was me creating the problem in that sense. So you and I have this capacity to be able to believe in someone's potential, believe in their potential good and their possibilities, while still practically managing our expectations and also holding space. Oh that's an overused term these days, isn't it Holding space for somebody's growth, somebody's development, somebody's awakening. Holding space for them in that way doesn't mean that
you need to tolerate poor behavior indefinitely. If somebody treats you poorly, you're not obligated to keep giving them chances. There needs to be I believe, this is my belie my thought. There needs to be evidence of change or evidence of people really being willing to do the work.
If somebody is genuinely trying, I mean genuinely trying, I'm in even if they're not producing good outcomes, even if they're a dick sometimes and I'm a dick sometimes, But if they're genuinely trying to do the right thing, and they're really working to be better, think better, do better, be a better friend, be a better business partner, be a better romantic partner, whatever it is. If that person's genuinely doing the work and trying to do the work,
then I'm I'm supportive. Obviously, I can't take bullshit forever and definitely, but if somebody is taking the pissa, they're telling you one thing but doing another, or every time that they're showing up and every time that there's an interaction there's some kind of problem, then that is potentially a sign that you might need to create some distance
between you and that person. People who are repeatedly demonstrating hurtful or hateful behavior while saying that, while while saying something else, like what is coming out of their mouth is not actually consistent with or representative of what they're actually doing, and you realize this person and sometimes these people are narcissists or sociopaths that's a different conversation, or
gas sliders. We know all of those terms. But over time, you know, not everyone who calls themselves a friend to you is going to be a friend, and not everybody that you think is trustworthy or not everybody that you think shares the same or similar values as you and I think we don't all have to have identical values or identical beliefs or ideas, of course, but probably it's an idea that we have someone who's in the ballpark of having similar values to us. And so there are
times when we might just need to walk away. We might need to walk away forever, or we might need to walk away for a while. So as you move forward over the next day or week, or month or a year, keep in mind that even though you might love these people, I'm not saying you need to ditch them or burn them, or disregard them or throw them on the sociological heap, but you might You might be wise to keep in mind that what they've been in the past is not absolutely definite, but it's likely what
they're going to be in the future. We know that the best predictor of future indicator is past behavior, so we know that statistically, how he or she has been in the last ten, twenty thirty times is statistically how they will most likely be moving forward. We need to love people. I think we need to be patient and kind and tolerance, but also we don't need to be emotional doormats. There's a big difference between allowing ourselves to be used and abused and being kind. They are not
the same things. You can be kind, you can be resilient, you can be empathetic, you can be aware, and you can also tell people to fuck off, because sometimes that's what's needed.