Your Brain Is Lying to You. Here's How to Catch It. - Owen Fitzpatrick

0:00What if everything you think is real actually isn't? I promise you this episode will change the way you see the world and yourself and there's only one person on the planet who's qualified to deliver this message. How many people do you know have worked as a filmmaker crafting stories for a living, studied propaganda inside North Korea, one of the most dangerous repressive regimes in history, and also helped companies like Google and Coca -Cola build the campaigns that shape how millions of people around the world think and buy? There is only one person who has done all of these things, and that person is Owen Fitzpatrick.

0:40And after all that experience, you know what he found? The most powerful propaganda machine he has ever encountered wasn't in North Korea. It wasn't in a boardroom. It was inside his own head. He calls it inner propaganda. The idea that your brain runs a persuasion campaign on you every single day. It manufactures certainty. It defends beliefs that stopped being true years ago. And it keeps you loyal to a version of yourself that you never actually chose. This episode isn't about the propaganda that exists out there. It's about the propaganda already running in your own head and what happens the moment you finally catch it lying to you.

1:19This is the story of Owen Fitzpatrick. Welcome to Big Swings Only. This episode is brought to you by Granola and Quint. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just head to granola.ai. slash Kwame. That's granola.ai slash Kwame to get your time back. Three months free at granola.ai slash Kwame. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was me.

2:00That's the best way to support the show. You had eight books and now this is your ninth?

2:05Owen Fitzpatrick: This is my tenth nine books in Mr. Tent. Unbelievable. How dare I? So what compels a person first to write nine and then to write the tenth? What was missing in the first nine that you needed to get out in number ten? So the first nine books have been on like different topics. So for instance, some of them I co-wrote with the co-creator of NLP or Neuro Linguistic Programming, Dr. Richard Bandler. so a number of the books i've been lucky enough to work with him and he's a great mentor of mine so i co-authored a number of books with him on different aspects of nlp i um also wrote a few books myself in terms of on i had a tv show when i was uh but i don't know 15 years ago in in ireland uh where i go around the country working with people helping them to be more productive um i also did a lot of work in terms of charisma and teaching people how to communicate with more presence and more engaging.

3:03Owen Fitzpatrick: And I wrote a book on that called The Charismatic Edge. So I guess I've written a number of books on different topics, and some of them have been more biographical, some of them have been more tips or tricks, some of them have been more framework and some of them, and a couple of them were stories, almost like allegories. I always wanted to focus on the area that I've been most specialized in. So my new book, Inner Propaganda, is the most important book from the perspective that it's all of the work that I've done over the last 25, 30 years of my career. I started very young and I was a teenager and working with clients already in terms of doing therapy with clients.

3:45Owen Fitzpatrick: That was even before I did my undergrad and master's and stuff. And I spent a lot of time focusing on beliefs because beliefs made a huge difference to me when I was younger. So this book is everything to do with beliefs. in it. I talk about a double agent from World War II who changed the course of the entire war by the way in which he communicated messages and how he was persuasive and the use of deception. I talk about different Irish revolutionary heroes. I talk about a lot of different business leaders and how they used persuasive tactics in order to be able to change minds. And it really comes down to the big mistakes a lot of people make when it comes to influencing others.

4:28Owen Fitzpatrick: And the main thing was also the travel that I did to North Korea, to Iran, to Afghanistan, to Rwanda, interviewing people there and trying to learn everything I could about propaganda. To me, I've been so interested and obsessed with finding out everything there is to know about beliefs and then taking my own, as a psychologist, my own scientific background to try to identify what's going on. And I suppose the main gist of the book in a nutshell is that the greatest lies or the most dangerous ideas don't come from the screen, they come from the mirror. And it's what I call inner propaganda, the fact that we convince ourselves.

5:08Owen Fitzpatrick: One of the things that you say, Kwame, so elegantly is about the most important negotiation you ever had was the one that you have with yourself. And that's something that I arrived to, but it never felt that it was just like an inner dialogue if you get me i always felt it was more like a multi-log or when i felt a certain way i was completely and i know you do a lot of work around the importance of emotions and negotiation i was like brainwashed by how i felt and it felt much more like there was propaganda happening there and the more i learned you know in being north in north korean places the more i saw the parallels between the two and that's really why i'm super excited about the book because the idea is something that I've been trying to communicate across to folks for many, many years.

5:54Owen Fitzpatrick: And it's certainly the area that I'm most fascinated with and love to talk about. There is so much to explore. That was probably the most fascinating three minutes of 2026 for me. For the people listening who are just going to listen auditorially, I wish you could have seen our eyes, me and our producer, Simone, our eyes when you said North Korea. We're like, excuse me. So we'll get to the negotiation and psychology stuff in a little bit. But North Korea, please explore. Yeah. So I suppose for me, I've traveled extensively. I've been obsessed with going to as many different places as possible.

6:36Owen Fitzpatrick: And a lot of times it wasn't just for work. So I have worked in a lot of different places, but I traveled to just over 100 countries. And some of the countries that I wanted to most go to were places where I was completely and totally intrigued about what it would be like to be there. So obviously, North Korea topped the list. So in 2011 or so, I spent a week or two in North Korea, had to leave my phone outside the country because they don't allow you to bring outside stuff in, can't get on the internet. It was actually great. I definitely recommend it from a focus perspective. you know um you you you not having your phone for a week or two it's like uh it should be like a place people go to meditate you know it's like oh i'm gonna go to north korea to be able to you know tune out from the world right um but when you go there obviously you only see what they show you right so they very much control the information you've got two guides with you the entire time and a driver that brings you to places you go to you know nice enough hotel they bring you to the places you don't get any time to roam yourself um and they bring you to all the historical places where they teach you the real history and the real story and i loved it i mean i got an individual tour as opposed to a group tour because i wanted to be completely immersed in it and i it was you know still one of the most enjoyable trips i ever took i spent a lot of time talking to my two guides there's one in particular and we had a number of conversations and one of the most memorable ones was we were sitting down having a drink in the hotel and she was talking.

8:12Owen Fitzpatrick: She was like, so tell me more about what you do. And I said, I'm a psychologist. And she said, what does that mean? And I said, well, I've never been in a situation where I had to explain. Normally when I say I'm a psychologist, people say, oh, so what are you reading in me? What do you think? You're diagnosing me, are you? Or something like that. But no one's ever said, what's that? So I had to describe, well, I work with people in terms of their minds. And she goes, you mean you're like, you're a doctor, you open that? I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I, you know, have conversations with them and help them to feel better.

8:46Owen Fitzpatrick: And then the more we talked about it, the more she sort of said, she started sharing her challenges. And I, when I arrived in the North Korea, I had a kind of an, not an arrogance, I won't say, but I certainly had a misconception where I was like, you know, they're all brainwashed and they go around and they're, you know, they just fall for all this and that and the other, and they're very different to us because they're cut off from the world in terms of from the media perspective they don't get a lot of the information in and instead you know she was super sharp the same same same girl actually a few days before that when they collected me from the airport she was in the front passenger seat there was the other girl next to me and then the driver and she's talking perfect English like absolutely perfect English and I said do you mind me asking where did you learn your English?

9:31Owen Fitzpatrick: It's so good. And she goes, yeah, I spent every summer in the UK. And I said, really? And with a total deadpan response, she goes, no, I was being sarcastic. And my mind was blown because I was thinking to myself, this is the most incredible. I did not expect that at all. I was shocked. I was stunned because once again, I was expecting a brainwashed person with no sense of humor. And what I found was pretty much the opposite. So when we talked about psychology, she started sharing some of her struggles and challenges, which weren't a million miles away from the kinds of struggles or challenges that anyone has in work, obviously higher stakes for her, but she was talking about it.

10:11Owen Fitzpatrick: And I was, you know, asking questions and inquiring and, you know, you know, using curiosity and working with her and helping her to see things differently. And at the very end, after a couple of hours, and she, she kind of shared a lot about what it was like to live in North Korea. So I learned a lot of stuff that I wouldn't have gotten in any other context. But at the end, she says, I think I know what you do. And it's the nicest compliment I've ever gotten. She goes, I think you might be good at it. And I was like, thank you, you know, from that perspective. So overall, it was an amazing experience.

10:47Owen Fitzpatrick: Obviously, their history when I went to the places. Very in your face, very strong propaganda. But here's the most important takeaway that I got from it. When I left there, and I was in the States, I think, a few months afterwards, and a friend asked me, he sort of said, it must have been crazy over there with all the propaganda. And my response to him was, well, in North Korea, they've got one point of view on what's going on. In America, it only seems like people have two. I said, so that's just one extra perspective than the North Koreans do. So it's very easy for us to sort of label this country under this regime, they're brainwashed.

11:29Owen Fitzpatrick: But the reality is we're all brainwashed. We all have our own inner propaganda going on. And my goal and the work that I do and the work that you do as well, Kwame, is to try to help people to understand themselves better so they recognize where they're going wrong and that could be like from a cognitive bias perspective or it could be the emotional hijacking i know you talk about you know the the influence or the impact of your amygdala and your prefrontal cortex and the combination and so what we need to do is recognize that we like the first thing i i say is whenever someone says propaganda is a terrible problem over there i always want them to recognize that unless we recognize the impact propaganda has on us, we are never, ever going to find a way to be able to communicate effectively with them.

12:14Owen Fitzpatrick: And we certainly have a hope in terms of influence them as well. So yeah, so that's some, some experiences from, um, from North Korea, which I'm very fond of. Brilliant. Brilliant. Yeah. Once you say North Korea, I've got more questions and I'm glad that I asked this. This was fantastic. It's such a paradigm shift. You're right. I was everything, Pretty much everything you said was pretty shocking, pretty unique. But again, I think it's really important for us to have these opportunities, whether it's us physically traveling other places or having opportunities to listen to people like you who have to see a different paradigm, to see the world in a different way.

12:51Because when it comes to fully understanding the effect these messages have on us, we need to understand which messages we are marinating in day to day and then how that has a modifying effect on our perspective. And if we're always looking at other people and saying, look at these folks, these sheep out there, they're brainwashed. There is some group or faction that is saying the same thing about you and the people who think like you as well. And so in order to fully understand the power of propaganda, whether external or internal, we have to have the cognitive humility to recognize that no matter who you are listening, we are all going to be affected by this in one way or another.

13:30Owen Fitzpatrick: And I think that's a really important point, Kwame, because so often what we do is we use our rationalization and we use our intelligence and we use that as being the very reason why, yeah, but like, yeah, okay, we're all brainwashed, but like they're more brainwashed, right? So we can find the reasoning, but ultimately we are all the victim of whatever information we've taken in plus whatever feelings we felt at the time. There's a concept, there's a wonderful neuroscientist called Lisa Feldman Barrett who talks about affective realism, which is basically that our feelings or emotions dictate the way in which we perceive realities.

14:06Owen Fitzpatrick: So I usually talk about the notion of being hangry, right? That means you're angry when you're hungry, right? Or tangry, you're angry when you're tired, you're snappy in the morning. or I call it tank-tious whenever you're like overthinking because you haven't slept and now your brain starts to imagine all sorts of crazy stuff. Well, all of the feelings we feel dictate the way in which we perceive the world. And so from that perspective, the problem a lot of people have is that they're living through this sort of lens where they interpret everything through their emotions. And so it's not just the quantity of the data that they have.

14:38Owen Fitzpatrick: It's not the amount of information they have. It's also the feelings that affect the way in which that information comes across because you could give people, and we all know about confirmation bias, you look for evidence to prove your conclusions are true. But we could have all the time in the world to listen to, I could turn on CNN and Fox News, but based upon whatever my bias is, I'm still going to interpret it through my own internal propaganda. So to an extent, it doesn't matter how much exposure I have to it, my brain will still look at it going, oh my goodness, they lie all the time, I can't believe it.

15:11Owen Fitzpatrick: What are they doing? So it's really critical, to your point, we engage in that consciousness of humility or intellectual humility that allows us to go, hang on a second, maybe I need to, as Adam Grant would say, think again, rethink my assumptions. Maybe I need to recognize that there's more information. And when we start to think like that, and I think that's kind of what a lot of the work that you do and negotiate anything, and in your book, what you share is helping people that if you want to negotiate better, if you want to influence other people, step one is you need to understand how you're being influenced yourself.

15:45Owen Fitzpatrick: And part of that influence is not just what you say, but it's the feelings that you feel as you think the thoughts that you think. And that's kind of where I get to when I look at how do minds change? How do we change beliefs? What goes on under the mechanics? It's not what people think. And it's certainly not the way in which most people act. Agreed. Agreed. And kind of tying into what you just said, it's not what most people think. I want to get us a nice little operational definition for propaganda, because I think that our basic understanding is not the way that you would see it. And then also, what are the things that people misunderstand the most about that term, especially as it relates to the way that you're approaching it in your book?

16:33Owen Fitzpatrick: Sure. So I think to start off with, I have a very simple, I quoted a number of different definitions of propaganda in the book. But the way I like to think about propaganda is propaganda really works based upon three elements. It works based upon sort of the state media. So you organize the information flow that comes into whatever a person's mind is. You're also engaging in what what we call indoctrination. So that's your indoctrinating people so that they all start to see themselves with certain identities. And then finally, truth engineering. You manufacture the truth and you build the narratives and the stories of what's true so that the world around everyone, they start to see that and think that and believe that.

17:17Owen Fitzpatrick: And so those elements of the state media, of indoctrination and of truth engineering is really what I believe propaganda is made up of. It's the story that we convince people of, and as a result of that, we're able to control them, or that's at least the aim or the goal. Inner propaganda looks at the same three elements, but does it from the inside of our mind. And I call this the inner state media, which is to do with how we feel. Internal indoctrination, which is to do with who we are, our identity, what fits in with us. And then lastly, truth engineering, which also is what we do inside our head through the way in which we tell ourselves or sell to ourselves stories and also the way in which we use reason or rationalization.

17:58Owen Fitzpatrick: So in a nutshell, the main framework I work and what all my work is about is about in order for an idea to work or an idea for us to believe in an idea or for an idea to change or a belief to change, number one, it must feel right. So it must feel right to us. And that might mean that it fits in with what we already feel is true. And that word feel is the most important word there. or it might mean that we want to believe something and because our feelings of desire makes us want to believe something, we make it fit. Number two, it has to fit in. That means fit in with who we are, fit in with the groups that we're part of, fit in with our cultural background perhaps, fit in with our sense of meaning, fit in with our moral aspirations, the kind of people that we think and only if it feels right and fits in, then we will make it make sense.

18:44Owen Fitzpatrick: So the making sense piece is the third piece. And this is where the storytelling comes in. This is where the logical reasoning, Aristotle's syllogisms, that's where all of that works. And the problem is, as you well know, Kwame, most people start from the making sense. If I want to convince you, I'll do what Adam Grant calls logic bully. And I'll say, Kwame, let me tell you the 600 reasons why I'm right and you're wrong. And I expect you to turn around and go, you know what? I was feeling very strongly about this, but now that you've given me the logical reasoning, oh my goodness, my mind has changed doesn't happen 90 % of the time it only happens when the stakes are low or it happens when the person is open and kind of wants to change the belief in the first place but it needs to feel right it needs to fit in and once it does then our brains can go and that's also why you can have people that disagree with you and you ask yourself how can this person be so intelligent and they believe this it's because they're so intelligent that they're good enough to create an argument to back up what feels right to them and what fits in for them so they can maintain their identity as being part of that group that they're in.

19:50Owen Fitzpatrick: And the most important thing we can do is to focus, and you do this a lot in negotiations, Kwame, but focus on how are you making them feel and what is the identity that you're working with. And if you can get those two things right, then the making sense piece is so much easier because once you get people on that side, their brains are already wired to make sense of things, already wired to use logic to prove themselves as true. But those first two pieces, they really matter. And I think they're much more underrated than they need to be. Oh, Owen, I hate this answer. Let me tell you why, man.

20:27You're ruining my week. I have a keynote on Friday called Negotiating Reality, How to Change Minds in a post-truth world. And now I feel like I need to go back and rewrite the whole damn thing. This was a masterclass. Unbelievable. We've got to recap this. Okay. So we have three elements of propaganda. We have state media, we have indoctrination, we have truth engineering. The same three things are reflected in our inner propaganda. The emotions would be the equivalent of state media. We have our own perception of identity. And then truth engineering is nothing but the stories that we choose to believe, the reason we put behind it and the rationalization.

21:07And in order for beliefs to change, it has to feel right. We need to want to believe it. It needs to fit in with the groups that we aspire to be part of. So there's a bit of status element there. And then if all of those things are met, then it makes sense. So what I'm hearing is that the way that we try to persuade people, especially on sensitive topics, simply doesn't make sense and is guaranteed for failure. So we're saying, hey, listen, after this conversation, here's what I'm selling you. I'm going to give you a whole bunch of data that will make you feel really bad, where if you do accept this, you will be outcast from your group and you will lose all the status you worked hard to achieve.

21:48And you'll be put at the bottom of our status ladder because before you talked to me, you were really dumb. Now you just got a little bit smart and now you can be part of our group where you will be the least of us do you accept there's no way so really you you've you've helped us to recognize the illogical elements of logical reasoning when it comes to persuasion and then also when you walk through these three elements of propaganda state media indoctrination truth engineering it made me wonder what isn't propaganda sure i i mean first of all

22:26Owen Fitzpatrick: I love the way you recapped that. It was so clear. And everything you said was exactly what I was conveying. So beautiful recap of everything. It really was excellent. But with regards to what is propaganda, I would argue that it doesn't even matter because ultimately the propaganda is happening in us. And so we're constantly convincing ourselves of beliefs. We are selling, like people talk about, it's the story you tell yourself. No, it's the story you sell to yourself. I tell myself lots of stories, but I don't believe all of them. So if I tell myself a story, I might or might not believe it.

23:01Owen Fitzpatrick: The ones that I believe, the stories that I believe are the ones that I've effectively sold to myself because they feel right. Like I talk about, there's five types of truth. And as soon as I say five types of truth, immediately people push back. But here's the problem. We all talk about truth as if there's a universal type of truth, and that's the one we're talking about. So whenever people say this is true, you talk politically, they say this person is horrible, or this person is a Nazi, or this person is a communist, or whatever the term is, you're saying it as if it's true. But there's different types of truth.

23:36Owen Fitzpatrick: So for example, there's objective truth, which we all know. And objective truth is if you use that truth, you can make effective predictions. So if you build a plane, you need to be using objective of truth to ensure that the plane is built accordingly. That's the way engineering works. It's the way a lot of science works. The second type of truth is past truth. And this is that I remember something happening. So I remember the time I was doing this. I remember my TEDx talk. I remember when I was in North Korea, right? This is my memory. But as we know, our memories are notoriously unreliable and we don't remember things as they are.

24:11Owen Fitzpatrick: We're constantly revising them because we don't remember actually. We reconstruct. All of these are reconstructions. So our past memories, we feel as if they're true. We talk about them as if they're true, but they're not necessarily true. But because we talk about them as if they're true, the functional way of talking about truth is useful. Because if I'm talking to you and you tell me if something that happens, I need to respect the fact that that's true for you, even if it's not an objective truth. Then we have the emotional truth, which is, well, what feels right to you? And often we talk about going with our good.

24:44Owen Fitzpatrick: The problem with going with your good is sometimes you think you're going with your good, but you're actually going with some other feeling that you're feeling and it's hard to be able to parse out the difference between the two but if it feels true then oftentimes you will talk about it as if it is true i just know he's that kind of person i just know she won't listen right that's because it feels like that then there's also shared truth which is if me and you agree and this is how businesses are formed it's how we got the notion or the concept of money you know Yuval Noah Harari in his great book sapiens talks about how you know money is a story that we all agreed on is shared belief.

25:17Owen Fitzpatrick: So as an organization, you know, and lots of different aspects of reality is what we all agree on is true. So that's a shared belief. And once again, if I'm talking to you, you don't turn around to me and say, no, I only believe this because we all agreed on it. It's true for you. So if it's true for you, I need to think of it as a truth. But again, it's not the same as an objective truth. And then the final one is desired truth. A lot of us believe in what we want to believe, and that gets us up in the morning sometimes. And in the best cases, Sarah Blakely, who built Spanx, and Melanie Perkins, who built Canva, they had no right to believe that they were going to be successful, right?

25:58Owen Fitzpatrick: Everything was stacked against them, and yet still, they believed that they were going to be successful. And obviously, their skill, their talent, their intelligence, their creativity, all that was the reason. but if they didn't believe at first, it wouldn't have happened. James Dyson is another example, more than 5 ,000 prototypes before he was successful. You need to be deluded. You need to have a desired belief that gets you going. The problem is if you keep going to X factor and your voice destroys eardrums because it's so awful and you believe because you want to be a successful singer that you're going to be, you're going to waste a lot of times and you're going to ruin a lot of hearing, right, for a lot of eardrums.

26:36Owen Fitzpatrick: So we need to recognize that not everything is the same type of truth, because when we look at objective truth, if we start to package everything like it's just true universally, we can't have meaningful conversations. And the more you have this intellectual cognitive humility we talked about earlier, Kwame, the more we can step back and go, hang on a second, am I believing this because it's objectively true and I've verified it? Do I believe it because I agree with other people? Do I believe it because that's how I remember it? Do I believe it because it feels right to me? Do I believe it because I want to believe it?

27:08Owen Fitzpatrick: And by the way, sometimes all of those truths, believing it's true, could be great, and sometimes they could be disastrous. Even sometimes objective truth, believing that can be disastrous. So the key is to recognize these things. And once we do, we start to understand that the propaganda is in us. And it doesn't mean that people don't have responsibility not to engineer it. But the more we take agency over it, the more that can allow us to ensure that the wrong kind of propaganda from the outside doesn't get in, or at least doesn't influence us as much. And then we are able to direct our own propaganda so we can make better choices, negotiate better, and make more of an impact.

27:47Fascinating. And you said something that I want to go deeper on, because you said there are times where believing objective truth could be disastrous. Could you help the audience see one of those situations? I think that would be really helpful.

27:59Owen Fitzpatrick: Sure. So I'll give a really simple example. Have you ever walked out of a meeting feeling really good about it? And then 10 minutes later, someone's messaging you saying something like, wait, what did we actually decide in that meeting? That gap between what happened and what anyone remembers is exactly what Granola AI closes. Honestly, the first time I looked back at my notes afterwards, I didn't expect them to be that clean. It was more organized than anything I'd ever written myself, and I hadn't done any extra work to get there. Granola AI is an AI-powered notepad built for how people actually meet.

28:32You take the same rough notes that you always would, and in the background, Granola AI is quietly transcribing the conversation. As soon as the meeting wraps, it turns all of that into clear, structured notes automatically. And it also runs through your device's audio, so there's no bots joining your call and nothing extra to configure. It just fits nicely into the tools you already use. You can stay focused on the conversation and still walk away knowing exactly what decided and who's doing what next. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months.

29:06Just head to granola.ai slash kwami. That's granola.ai slash kwami to get your time back. Three months free at granola.ai slash kwami. The first thing that I ever got from Quince was this pair of really nice formal pants, but they were stretchy and made for travel So for me as a lawyer and businessman as I travel and I do these keynotes all over the world It's really nice to be able to know that I could wear something that looks good in the airport That's comfortable on the airplane And I could wear comfortably if I have to roll into a meeting or an event right after getting off the plane and it was only$60.

29:43And that's what turned me into a repeat customer. Because Quince focuses on wardrobe staples that are made with premium materials. So for example, 100 % Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and as it's gotten colder I've been leaning on their down jackets and wool outerwear too. They're solid, warm layers that don't feel like they're cutting corners just because the price is lower. And that's really the whole model. Because everything at Quince runs about 50 to 80 % less than similar brands simply because they cut out the middlemen and work directly with ethical factories. But the thing is, it's not only clothing either.

30:18They carry that same quality into bedding, bath, kitchen essentials, and furniture, all designed with the same care. I use Quince and so should you. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to Quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was me. That's the best way to support the show.

30:46Owen Fitzpatrick: Sometimes whenever, like a lot of times we praise being honest and facts and stuff like that. If you take a, for example, relationship and someone says, you know, how do I look in this? People are going to have different points of view. But when people ask me for feedback, I don't immediately give them feedback. So someone says to me, what do you think of this project that I've done? What do you think of this book? Or what do you think of my new song? Or what do you think of this dress or whatnot? Before I answer that question, I'm asking myself the question, what kind of truth do they want? Do they want me to tell them, actually, that dress, it makes you look awful?

31:24Owen Fitzpatrick: Actually, that song that you've got zero talent actually. Now, the truth of the matter is, for that expression, when I'm listening to what they ask for, I want to know what they really want to know because my goal is to be the best friend I can be. My goal is to be the best mentor I can be. My goal is to be the best coach I can be. So depending on my role, depending on what they need, depending on what they ask for, I'm not going to go around telling people the objective truth all the time. Because ultimately, if you're in a negotiation, as you well know, but you give your honest opinion all the time, that's going to negatively impact you.

32:00Owen Fitzpatrick: Like if someone asks you in a negotiation, the first step going, what's the most that you'll pay for this? And you just give them the objective truth. You're doomed, right? Forget about anchoring. So the idea is, is that objective truth, and people might push back on this saying, you always need to be honest. Well, I'd argue, okay, I can promise you, if we were to look into to everyone in the world's life, there's certain situations where we're not honest. And if we are, or we believe we're honest, we're not honest with ourselves. And so the key is to recognize that and to understand that objective truth, we want to get it.

32:36Owen Fitzpatrick: And sometimes that's the most, and most of the time, it's good to look for that because that's the place where we can make better predictions. Ultimately, that's where it comes down to. Getting the objective truth helps us to be better at making predictions, but so much of the world is influenced by desired truth, right? Politically, look at it. I mean, facts are, for any politician, facts are like a nice to have maybe sometimes, but either way, once they get into power, they're just going to point to all the facts that they want anyway, right? So facts and objective truth are not necessarily going to dictate how great a president or prime minister will be.

33:14Owen Fitzpatrick: So we have to understand the impact of all of the different types of truth if we are to be able to deal with them and to be able to do our best in the society that we find ourselves in. You know what's, I want to go back to the five different types of truths. And one of the things that you mentioned was how important it is to at least respect the person's truth. And I think one of the things that will help us in this conversationally is not to hold on to our truth with a type of religious zealotry that doesn't just elevate our truth, but also demonizes the truth of somebody else, but recognize that truth is going to depend on perspective.

33:56It's going to depend on lived experience. It's going to depend on emotionality, all of these types of things. And so for me, when I think about truth, I think about it as the stories people choose to believe. And when I can see it as that and say, it's not necessarily objective, factual truth, even though they might describe it that way, this is the story this person is believing right now. Okay, cool. And then what I'm going to do in the conversation is reflect back my understanding of their story. Even if I don't agree, I can let them know that I see them and I can understand them. And when you think about this, this is critical to persuasion because for the person who's listening, think about a time where you were effectively persuaded by somebody who disrespected you in the process.

34:43It's probably very few times. And when you recognize that a person's perspective of how much you respect them will depend upon how you handle their truth when they share it, it helps us to recognize the true difficulty of persuasion. Because if all we needed to do was recite facts for persuasion, then we would just send Excel documents and fact sheets and all of these things. that that would be it you know but it's not the hardest part is having that humility to give the other person space and give them some degree of respect to see them even if we don't agree with

35:20Owen Fitzpatrick: them i love that point and i think i think a lot of times we talk to other people as if they're like chat gpt so if you ever been in this situation where you talk to your you know ai bot and you ask an opinion about something and then it gives you an opinion and then you push back almost always i push back, ChatCBD goes, yeah, you know what? You're right. I was wrong. Actually, this is the situation. It's very, you know, it acquiesces very easily. It leans in, it does whatever it takes to make sure that we've got a good relationship going. That's not how real human beings communicate. If someone disagrees with you, you don't just give them logic and they turn around and they go, actually, you're correct.

35:59Owen Fitzpatrick: Unless the two of you have that shared respect where you're both trying to figure out, let's say, in this context, the objective truth. but more often than not that doesn't suffice there's a great technique that i think you've mentioned or certainly discussed at a prior podcast called deep canvassing and this is the notion of where um in the late 2000s or so they were trying to get more people to vote for you know gay marriage and uh this laboratory set up this notion or this technique of deep canvassing there's been some literature about it as well and what the approach in a nutshell was about was the people would go to the door the canvassers would go to the door and instead of just telling them why they should vote for it they would say hey we'd love to talk to you about have you got a few minutes we'd love to talk to you about gay marriage they would listen they would ask them questions and here's what they would do listen and the person would then tell them why they don't believe in gay marriage and they would just ask questions and they would allow the person to talk they would not disagree they would not say what are you talking about you're insane they're not the statistic.

37:00Owen Fitzpatrick: They would let the person talk. And what happens is the person then starts to go in. And to your point, Kwame, the story that they're telling themselves about what is true, the more they get in and the more that they're communicating, being asked these questions, the more they're starting to get doubts because they can hear themselves giving certain contradictions. They start to know, well, I thought that, but actually this doesn't make sense. So they're actually noticing as they're sharing with the canvasser their beliefs, they're noticing that there's inaccuracies in the story and then instead of disagreeing with them the canvasser responds and says let me show you my perspective and why i believe what i believe but it's super respectful they feel this person is not trying to change my mind and that showed a significant increase compared to all other approaches of how many people voted it changes minds um and it kind of makes sense for you obviously makes sense kwame because a big part of it is if you want a successful negotiation, huge amount of it is how does that person feel about you and how do they feel about your feelings about them?

38:00Owen Fitzpatrick: And if those two are right, you're going to figure out the way. You're going to find the right negotiation, but it all comes down to the feelings first and foremost, and being respected by someone is part of your identity as well. So that's how the fits in piece works. Because if I feel disrespected, I'm a they to you. And if I'm a they to you, then whatever you say to me, I'm going to find my own way of making that nonsensical because I don't want to be a they. I don't want to agree with you because you're not in my tribe. You're not in my group. And so, so much of it comes down to how we feel.

38:30Owen Fitzpatrick: So much of it comes down to whether or not we fit in with the identity that we want. And so disrespect is one of the best ways to ensure that you never persuade anybody of anything. Listeners, I disappeared for a little bit um and now i'm back connection is great and you see what happens what happens is my guest owen and and and simone they're sharing secrets behind my back i've been working with simone what five years i've never heard you say this i got the last part and you dared to say it without recording how dare you okay start again this is great okay well the story is like this kwame uh owen was set to be to record on october but i wanted to bring him i did all was possible to bring him now because I loved his material.

39:15So what I was talking to him is the reason why I love it because he talks about people in different realities that is very difficult to understand the other people's reality, right? So I was telling him that I have my own negotiation method that because I come from Venezuela, I don't use arguments because arguments need us to share the same reality. So as we're not in the same reality, how can I convince you about Biden or Trump if you don't believe in democracy? So it's very difficult. So as we don't share the same reality, I don't think, for arguments in a negotiation. So I just bring demands to the negotiation table so that I make sure to not offend you with my arguments and I don't give you the opportunity to have an argument or to attack my argument.

40:10So I just leave a demand. And if you have an argument, I accept the argument. I don't go against that, but I present my demand again. And then we start doing some concessions, but we don't talk about arguments because we will have always arguments. And it's very difficult to convince someone that is already convinced of other things. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. So for you, you're completely outcome oriented in your negotiations. You're saying, okay, at the end of the day, whatever you say, this is what I need. If you can do that, that's great. If you can't, that's fine too. So you believe what you want to believe.

40:49I'm going to listen to you. I'm going to respect it. I'm going to show you that I understand it. I'm not even going to argue. I think you presented some really good points. And now we have an opportunity to work together. These are my needs. And it sounds like your needs are this. How can we get it done yes alongside with a with a demonstration of power and willingness to cooperate so i show you that i have power meaning that i don't need you or i can replace you or i can make harm to you and but anyways i i want to work with you and i want to build a future together so i i make sure you don't have retaliation i have to say what i love is i love the phrase

41:27Owen Fitzpatrick: is good i can make harm to you that's so gangster that's so cool it's like you know no messing about here listen we can make this the easier way or the hard way what i what i found as well um about what you mentioned simone and i think this is really interesting from our conversation as well guamay is it's the notion of separating the the actual topic from the negotiator himself or herself so the nature of it is is that if you get into arguments that it's about what i think and what I feel and what I believe versus you. Whereas when you talk about the ask or demand, you're really putting forward, we're talking about the topic here.

42:03Owen Fitzpatrick: And again, to your point, you're saying, look, I have the power in the sense of I've got a good baton, best alternative to the OSEAN agreement. But at the same time, I also am willing to work with you. So I really want to get it. But what I love about it is the presupposition that this is a thing we're talking about. This is not personal. This is not to do with how I feel about you or you feel. That's irrelevant. And that, to me, creates a sort of psychological safety, a sort of a feeling that makes it feel okay and potentially feel right, but it avoids sort of antagonizing the person to the point where, you know, they start to take it as some personal, you know, slight if they don't get the results.

42:39Owen Fitzpatrick: So that's what I really like about it. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Listen, I need to disconnect more often. What am I even doing here? Like, should I just excuse myself? Gentlemen, excuse me. All right. This is great. This is great. And Owen, I'm sorry I didn't get to respond to what you said before, because that was great, especially the deep canvassing example. I think it's powerful too, because it also shows a very interesting element of listening, because the person probably wouldn't have been willing to listen if they were not heard previously. and there's an interesting element that combines both what you just talked about in this example and then what Simone was talking about just now.

43:21I'm not even going to argue. I'm not even going to say or do anything to attempt to change your perspective. I'm going to let you say your piece. I'm going to say my piece and then I'm going to let essentially psychology do the rest. And I think there's something that is becoming very tangible to me right now because I think a lot of times coming into these conversations, we make the mistake of not even knowing what it is that we want or need out of this interaction. Because when we get drawn into an argument, that's not so much about the outcome as much as it is feeling like I have the right to make your brain like mine.

44:02Can you go into that? Where does that come from? And what can we do to start to work away around that.

44:08Owen Fitzpatrick: I mean, I think ultimately we all want to feel like we've won or we want to be victorious or at the very least, we want to feel like it was fair, right? So there's been all sorts of research studies. I used to do these exercises in some workshops where you give people the choice that, you know, one person wins the toss of a coin and they get to choose out of$100, how much will they take and how much will they give to the other person? And the idea is that that if you're in a position of power where you get to choose, what offer are you going to make? The catch is if the person says no, neither of you get anything.

44:44Owen Fitzpatrick: So if I'm trying to negotiate with you, rationally, if I say Kwame, I'll give you a dollar and I'll take 99, the rational thing for you to do is to take that dollar because it's either zero dollars if you say no or one dollar, which$1 is better than zero. But most people will say no if it goes more than 70, 30, right? So even though I could get$25 out of the 100, because it's not fair, because I'm like, you're only offering me 25, most people will say no when it gets over sort of 70, 30 split. And that's an example of how the way in which we feel completely hijacks any attempt that we have to make the most rational, logical perspective.

45:28Owen Fitzpatrick: But there's also a sort of an evolutionary mechanism at play there as well. Because if you think about it, we play this game now, you mess me over this time. What happens the next time when you're in a position of power? And so good practice from that perspective is always to look for the win-win. And that's something that has been with us since the dawn of time. It's about bargaining. It's about finding mutually agreeable solutions. Years ago, I did strategic negotiations, studied strategic negotiation at Harvard. And the main focus they talked about was making the pie bigger, finding ways to add value, making it so that it's not a sort of a distributive, you know, grab your piece of the pie and try to bulldoze over the other person as much as possible.

46:06Owen Fitzpatrick: You're trying to find a way to make it work for both people. But I always like to think about the stories that like you mentioned earlier, Kwame, is that there's the story that I'm telling you, there's the story you're telling me, but then there's the story that you're telling you and the story that I'm telling me. And there's also the story that I'm telling me about you. So in other words, as you're communicating to me, I'm telling myself a story about what that means. And as I'm communicating to you, I'm also telling myself a story about your response to that. So just pivoting back to the deep canvas example, as I'm sharing my story and as I'm looking at your body language and you're nodding and you're looking earnest and you're asking questions, my brain is now formulating a belief about you in that very moment as I'm describing it.

46:50Owen Fitzpatrick: You're not saying a word. It's like when you go into negotiations and the person doesn't say anything. And it's like, Kwame, I'll give this to you for$20. And then you just stay silent. And then within a few seconds, I'm like, okay,$15. We'll do$15. And you stay silent. And I'm like, look,$10. Have we got to deal with that? Now, effectively, your silence has meant that my internal dialogue or my internal story is that I've been negotiating with myself over and over again, disrespecting myself sometimes. And as a result of that, it means now I've been taking away a lot of the power of the negotiation.

47:26Owen Fitzpatrick: So I think recognizing these stories is really important if we are to start to make smarter decisions around this so we don't fall into the habit of allowing our feelings to hijack their reasoning. This is so helpful. And when it comes to your background in hypnosis, how does that color your perspective on persuasion so so i i studied hypnosis when i was a teenager i learned to become a hypnotist i trained as a hypnotherapist so i qualified there but i also did stage hypnosis shows hypnosis is just a tool so hypnosis is not this thing where you mind program people and all that sort of stuff it's just a tool to be able to help people to tap into more you know their brain in a more effective way not a million miles away from you know deep visualization or mindfulness or meditation.

48:20Owen Fitzpatrick: And it offers potential around being able to offer suggestions and whatnot. So it doesn't factor in a lot. But if you think about the feels right, fits in and makes sense, a big part of hypnosis is about altering the state of the person. And so how you create the right kind of impact. Like my TED talk or my TEDx talk, it resonated quite a lot, but I did the entire thing in rhyme. So for 10 minutes, it's just me rhyming about propaganda and mind control. and it's the entire thing is just me rhyming. And there's a certain, I suppose, hypnotic effect of that that I think lands in certain ways. Not great from an actual, sometimes a memorability perspective, but sometimes good from a deeper impact perspective, from offering suggestions.

49:05Owen Fitzpatrick: But that's an example of an altered state created by something. The greatest speakers out there, when you deliver a keynote, for example, every time you tell a story and you bring people into your world um you are hypnotizing them to a great extent you're creating an altered state and that's why stories tend to land much more powerfully the moral of a great story tends to be resonating much deeper and for much longer a time than if we just communicate the same message so i think you share a story excuse me kwame about your past and when you were younger and why you didn't always stand up for yourself and you stayed popular but you gave in a lot.

49:49Owen Fitzpatrick: And that puts across the message so much more powerfully that it would do if you just said, hey, it's really important that you stand up for yourself because the message becomes so much more empowered by the hypnotic experience that we find ourselves lost in when when we're engrossed in your story. Powerful, powerful. And let's go deeper on this. Let's go deeper into our hypnosis here, Owen. What are the things that people misunderstand about the concept and the benefits and potential risks, again, because there are a lot of misconceptions out there? Sure. So first of all, I think a lot of people think that you can be brainwashed by hypnosis.

50:32Owen Fitzpatrick: You can be brainwashed. Hypnosis can be one of the tools, but so is deception. Deception is probably one of the biggest tools. Lying to people about it, gaslighting people. There's all sorts of ways to manipulate people. But hypnosis can be used there, but ultimately hypnosis is generally used for good. It's a great way to be able to access more of your mind. It's great to be able to create anesthesia. It's great for things like habits. But I always argue it's an additional tool to put in your stack of tools. It's not something that you just go all in. It's not like a panacea that will fix everything and cure everything.

51:10Owen Fitzpatrick: You're not conked out. It's not like people snap their fingers. You're like, oh my goodness. Or, oh my goodness, I'm a superhero now and I've got no, like there's an awful lot of over the top sort of intrigue in it because of movies and culture and whatnot. But it's ultimately about suggestions. So you get a person to fix their mind or create fixation where they're focusing on something. And when they're focusing on something, you're communicating with them, you're leading them into, let's say, an altered state where they're very relaxed. The theory is that, again, let's say if we use the metaphor of the conscious and unconscious or subconscious mind, the conscious mind is focusing on something and relaxed.

51:52Owen Fitzpatrick: Therefore, it's easier for you to offer suggestions to the subconscious. So there's lots of theories as to how it works. But neuroscientists have demonstrated that there definitely is like the altered state. and does tend to, I suppose, lead us to be able to make certain connections that we wouldn't do otherwise. But I think whenever an athlete goes into a zone and they're completely in the zone, they're in the pocket, they're in that, that's as good a trance state as you'll ever see. That's as great a description of a trance state than anything that you'll ever see. Brilliant. And when it comes to any of the elements of hypnosis, Are there any of the tools or principles that we could use in our everyday life to communicate and connect and potentially persuade?

52:37Owen Fitzpatrick: I would argue that we already do. I would suggest that when we articulate our message in a clear way, when we communicate in stories, every single time we lead people through an experience whereby we're not just using logic, we are accessing certain forms of, let's say, hypnosis. I think a lot more, it's like everything is propaganda. I think a lot more of life is hypnosis than we realize. And to a degree, every time we are experiencing propaganda, people usually use terms. Sometimes they say brainwashed, but a lot of times they say, oh, they're hypnotized by the leader, right? So we use it as a sort of a description or a metaphor to describe what happens when someone is, inverted commas, brainwashed or believes in something.

53:25Owen Fitzpatrick: But I think to transstate is a lot in order for us to create this it's not like if i'm in a negotiation with you i'm gonna go okay kwame i just want you to focus here as we talk about this mortgage and i want you to think through from a real estate allocation perspective what i mean that just doesn't work right maybe maybe we could make an argument for the um if you're if you're in certain situations where there's a lot of uncertainty the jedi mind trick approach whereas in situations where people are experiencing a lot of uncertainty, the direct suggestion, when you demonstrate certainty, you demonstrate clarity and you say, these are not the droids you're looking for.

54:04Owen Fitzpatrick: This is the best deal on the table. When you say that with conviction, when you say that in that moment, that tends to be something quite important. Really quick example, many years ago, I was driving home at night in Ireland and I came across a car accident and there was two cars overturned and the ambulance hadn't arrived yet. and so um my friend went to one car i went into the other the person was trapped in the car upside down and so i leaned in sort of crawled into the space and i'm talking to them and they were starting to panic and stress out and i just took a state of authority and i said everything's going to be okay you're going to be fine this is what's going to happen the and i walked them through exactly what was going to happen and they listened to me like they've never listened to anyone because i was i knew they were in an altered state i knew that they were like uncertain and things were going on.

54:54Owen Fitzpatrick: And I was demonstrating that commanding presence and saying things clearly. And as a result of that, they were hanging off every word. And then I was able to make a joke and change their state a little. And then when the ambulance came, this was the interest of these, they did every single thing that I just did. And I didn't know, like I'd never obviously, you know, spent time, you know, working in that area, but they did it naturally because obviously these are people are experts and they're, you know, they're heroes in terms of what they do every day. But once again, they knew clarity, directness in that moment because the person is in an altered state and they're much more likely to respond in that way.

55:31Owen Fitzpatrick: And when people are panicked or anxious or chaos is going on inside or outside, often the directness, clarity, certainty is very appealing to them. And that's also what happens in propagandistic situations too. Amazing. I think that's something that we can all take because there are going to be times where it's appropriate to be warm and inviting. There's going to be times where it's important to sit back, be curious and listen. There are going to be times where you invite more discussions. And then there are going to be times where it's time to kind of, you know, set the record straight and say something very directly.

56:04And I think when you have the ability to modulate your tone, to adjust your approach, and then take people on this journey, and then kind of drop the hammer, it gets people's attention and it does have a kind of hypnotic type of approach uh kind of response because people will say oh whoa that's different i'm listening now you know i i really like that and before we go because i know simone always comes in and asks an insightful question now i mean after this episode owen i might need to have like the simone minute where he comes in And then it drops the gem too. But Simone, what question do you have for Owen?

56:45You just said that in order for someone to believe something, that has to feel right and that has to fit in. So, for instance, I had a friend that he said that he was fat because he felt guilty while eating, not because of the food, but because of the sensation he had while eating. And I think that's wrong. But for me, it is impossible to change his mind. Whatever I say is very difficult for me to make him believe that it's actually the food and not his feeling of guilt. So is there any way I can change someone's mind, even if the idea doesn't fit with what they believe? Owen, you just said that in order for someone to change a belief, it has to feel right and it has to fit in so for instance i was having an argument with a friend maybe two or three weeks ago we both are overweight right so we were talking about why we are overweight and we have different reasons why for me we are overweight because we like to it a lot.

58:01For him, we are overweight because we feel guilty while we eat. To me, it doesn't make sense. To him, my idea doesn't make sense. So if I wanted to change his belief about why we are overweight, how can we do? How can I do? Or how should I proceed following these two guidelines that in order for someone to change a belief, it has to feel right and it has to feel good?

58:36Owen Fitzpatrick: Sure. So the first question would be, what is it that you, what's your goal? What do you want to do? My goal is to make him understand that maybe if he feels guilty, that's a problem. But if he eats a lot, like I eat a lot, that's a problem too. And if he wants to lose weight, one of the ways might be eating less. I am doing it because I want him to be okay. Perfect. So in order to get him to do that, that's the belief that we want. We don't want, we don't necessarily need him to believe what you're trying to get him to believe, that actually it's the food you eat that matters. What we want to get him to believe is that, number one, one, he needs to do this, and number two, he can do this.

59:21Owen Fitzpatrick: So they're the beliefs that we're working for, and they're the ones that need to feel right. Now, I'll just give you a quick example from a different example, and then I'll pivot back around to this one. Years ago, I was delivering a workshop for coaches, and I was offering the chance to be able to change their habits. And I said, anyone here want to change a habit and not being able to? And this lady comes up and she goes, Owen, let me tell you, I know how to stop smoking. I've done all the training. I read all the books. I know everything I need to do, but it doesn't work for me because I'm just a smoker.

59:54Owen Fitzpatrick: And I said, okay, cool. Can you come up? So she came up. I said, let me ask you, how many cigarettes do you smoke in a day? She said about 20. I said, cool. How many minutes do you spend on each cigarette? She goes, I don't know, three or four. I said, let's say it's four. How many minutes a day do you spend smoking? She says 80 minutes a day. I said, cool. So you spend 80 minutes a day? Yeah. Let me ask you, if someone came to you and they said, look, I've got two jobs, one job I do for 22 hours and 40 minutes, and the other I do for 80 minutes a day, which one would you be likely to describe them as?

1:00:29Owen Fitzpatrick: And she goes, well, the one that they're doing for 22 hours and 40 minutes. I said, so here's the thing, you're a non-smoker that smokes for 80 minutes a day. And at that moment, she sat back and she was just like, I never thought about it like that before. But the crucial piece was, I saw her like six years later, she hadn't touched the cigarette since that moment. Now, why was she able to stop smoking? Because she knew what to do. But the thing that allowed her to stop smoking was her identity expanded. And she realized that she could still stop smoking. And she was actually a non-smoker. And the fact that she was smoking, that was just something that needed to tackle.

1:01:07Owen Fitzpatrick: But as long as she believed she was a smoker, she was trapped. So the key with regards to your friend would be, if we're talking about how he sees himself, so you would say, well, how do you see yourself? And what might he answer to that? That is great, Owen. That was fantastic. So good. So good. I feel like you might want to write a book or 10.

1:01:32That's a good idea.

1:01:34Owen Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Well, Owen, this has been fantastic. I know the listeners have gotten a lot out of it and listeners if you have made it to this point that means you like the episode give owen a shout out in the five-star review just shout him out specifically and simone too who's going to jump in and hijack my episodes apparently which is great and so listen this was fantastic let the listeners know how they can connect with you and and remind them about the book and how they can get that too thanks so much kwame and listen i've loved the conversation with yourself and with simone it's been a real pleasure i love the podcast i think it's an incredible you doing incredible work.

1:02:09Owen Fitzpatrick: If anyone is interested in learning more, please go to innerpropaganda.com. That's my new book. Would love it. If you like anything that we've talked about today, I really feel that you're going to love the book. I put a lot of heart and soul into it. I'm very proud of it. It's called Inner Propaganda, Leading Hearts and Minds Through Turbulent Times. And it's innerpropaganda.com. And for me, I'm Owen Fitzpatrick, so ownfitzpatrick.com. and yeah, I think I'm on the socials as well. And I have a podcast called In a Propaganda as well. So in case anyone's podcast listeners, thank you so much again, Kwame.

1:02:43Owen Fitzpatrick: And thanks, Simone. I love this and hope we can do it again sometime. Absolutely. This is so good. Thank you.