The Batman Effect: How to Be Who You Want to Be

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1:28Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I am your host Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're the type of person who wants to learn and grow and improve yourself, I put out episodes four times a week to help you because if you can improve yourself, you can improve your life. That's all we're really looking to do. Today, we're going to be talking about how your thoughts and your words shape your reality. But today's episode, I'm actually going to show you an example, actually a couple of examples that show you how the way that you speak to yourself, the way that you think about yourself actually shows the results that you're going to get in your life.

2:10And there's a, one of my favorite studies about this is a study that's called the Batman effect. And so the Batman effect was a study that they did on children a few years ago that were between four years old and six years old. And they took these children and they put them into three different groups. One of the group, all they did was they just walked into a room and they did puzzles. And just so you know, these puzzles were unsolvable. So they put, it's poor children, right? They put these children into a room, they gave them puzzles that were completely unsolvable. That's group one. Group two, they put them into the room to do puzzles.

2:46But what they said to them is try to see yourself doing them from outside of yourself. So they taught them basically about what it would look like to look at yourself from a third person. So basically looking at yourself with more self-awareness is what they were teaching the children. So that was group number two. And then group number three, they had them do the puzzles, but before they did the puzzles, they had to pick a costume of their favorite costume that they wanted to wear. So one of them was a Batman cape. Another one was a Wonder Woman outfit. Another one was Dora the Explorer. Another one was their favorite Disney princess.

3:23And so they had them go in dressed up to see if maybe things change if they were dressed up as their favorite character. So group one, which was they just put them into the room and said, hey, do puzzles, did the worst out of all three groups. Group two, which was the group that looked at themselves with more self-awareness, did 13 % better than group number one. And so it's this idea of like self-distancing. They basically looked at themselves from outside of themselves. And because they were in a way watching themselves, they decided to work a little bit more and go a little bit further. Group three did 23 % better than group number one.

4:02And that was the best one. And they found out that group three, the ones that were dressed up as Batman or Dory the Explorer, their favorite Disney princess, were more resilient and more diligent in trying to solve the problems. Group one, the children actually gave up really quickly that they were surprised with. And what they ended up finding out, and this is a really interesting part of the study, is that the children, their self-talk while they were quote-unquote failing and not figuring this out was mostly negative. So children, listen to this, between four to six years old, Their self-talk was mostly negative.

4:41So they would be doing it and they weren't solving the problem and they would say stuff like, I can't do this, or this is too hard, or I'm not smart enough, or I'm not old enough to get this. Now let's take a real quick step back, right? Okay. They're children between four and six years old. Where do you think that they got those thoughts from of, I can't do this. It's too hard. I'm not smart enough. I'm not old enough to do this. Do you think those are the thoughts that just popped into their heads? Or do you think maybe they got them from somewhere? Yeah, they probably got them most likely from their parents talking to them or hearing their parents talking to themselves around them.

5:23And so without the self-awareness of them having to watch themselves like group two, the children were basically on autopilot, which means that they were working from their unconscious programmings. So what I mean by that is they were working from what they have seen other people do and what they have seen other people say about themselves, and they were working from what they have been told from other people as well. Now think about this for a second. Once again, this is children between four to six years old. They say that your full self-identity is not even built fully until you're about seven years old.

6:03When did you learn to give up? Like, when did you learn what fear was? When did you learn what to fear? When did you learn who you were? Good, bad, too loud, too much, quiet, good boy, good girl, whatever it might have been. Like, let me give you a real quick example. Does a baby decide to stop walking because it's taking too long to get it? I've never heard the story of the baby who decided to just stop walking and stop trying. No, they persist. They don't understand language yet. So they don't understand their parents' words around them. So they don't understand what quote unquote failure means.

6:48They don't know what it means to give up. Now, the cool thing is when the children are seeing themselves from outside of themselves, so they're seeing it from an outsider's perspective, it's almost as if they're being watched. So they want to do better. so most of them are now becoming more self-aware they're they're more self-aware they're watching themselves versus just running off of programs they're not running off of old programmings and whatever they might have been taught from their parents or from brothers or sisters and the coolest thing about this is the children that were wearing the costumes their self-talk and the way they spoke to themselves out loud actually changed so instead of the children saying something like group one, which is like, I can't do this.

7:34This is too hard. I'm not smart enough. They said things out loud to themselves like Batman would never give up. Come on, Dora, you got this. I believe in you. And so what's really interesting about the whole thing is based off of the way they were dressed, number one, their perception of themselves changed. And number two, their self-talk actually changed. Group one, children gave up pretty quickly. But group three, some of the children, they had to pull away from trying the puzzles because they weren't giving up. They were telling themselves, I'm not giving up. And so they had to pull some of those children's away based off of who they were dressed up as.

8:15How they perceived themselves and how they reacted to the challenge changed based off of the way they were dressed. And we will be right back. Hey, showing up for yourself day in and day out and doing the hard things is what creates a better life. And Noon Hydration helps you stay moving with the real deal, activated hydration built to support you through those moments that challenge you. Noon Hydration tablets deliver clean ingredients and optimize electrolytes that hydrate better than water alone, especially when you're sweating or on the go. The tablets dissolve quickly, taste great, and come in a single, no-mess tube that you can take anywhere.

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11:37They viewed themselves as the best version of themselves that they could be, their favorite superhero. So that begs the question, what do you believe of yourself? Because what you believe of you and yourself will be your absolute max of what you can achieve. If you want more for yourself, you have to believe more of yourself. Your belief of yourself, your self-perception is the thing that needs to be worked on. And so this whole study created something that they realized that changes about people, which is called enclosed cognition. So it created this study, basically this bucket of psychology of enclosed cognition, which is great.

12:21It works on kids, but how does this relate to adults? Well, I'm so glad that you asked. There's now been a bunch of studies on adults of enclosed cognition. And there was a study that was done called the influence of clothes on cognitive processes in 2010. And the study looked at how uniform clothing affects cognitive processing. And so it particularly looked on how it impacts feelings of your power and control. And so their methodology was basically this. Participants were asked to wear formal business attire or another group was asked to wear casual clothing. And what they did was they had them complete tasks that assess their abstract thinking.

13:09And abstract thinking is a measure that is linked to a sense of power. And so the results were pretty interesting. Participants that had the formal attire on, that were dressed up, exhibited more abstract thinking, which correlates to a heightened sense of power. They think higher of themselves. They subconsciously or maybe even consciously viewed themselves differently based off of what it is that they were wearing. So it's not just the Batman outfit. It's also, for some people, formal attire. And so consciously or subconsciously, these people viewed themselves differently based off of the way that they were dressed.

13:47I know we've all had this before, right? You decide that you're going to go to a nicer thing. Maybe you're taking your, it's Valentine's day and you're going to take your wife out. Then you decide to wear a suit. You decide to put on a tie and you get more formal or maybe you go to a wedding. Then you look at yourself in the mirror and it's something that you haven't worn in a while and you're like, shit, I look pretty good. And you think you're looking good. You walk a little bit different. You talk a little bit different. You have better posture. You put your shoulders back more. You don't lean over as much.

14:18There's been many studies on this. The original study that was done on enclosed cognition was was called enclosed cognition. And the study, what they actually did was they were trying to figure out if a lab coat would affect the way that somebody reacted and the way that participated. And so what they have is they were looking like, hey, if we bring a lab coat in, will it affect the participants' attention? And the researchers performed several different experiences where the attire was changed. And so what they did was experiment one, they had participants wear a lab coat and they describe the lab coat, this is the important part of it, of a doctor's coat.

15:00And when they had a lab coat that was called a doctor's coat, the people who wore it had increased sustained attention compared to those who were wearing regular street clothes. So it's really interesting. If somebody just walks off the street, they're just themselves. But if they put a lab coat on, they think to themselves, oh, I'm a lab coat. I'm dressing up like a doctor. It showed increased sustained attention. So they had more attention while they were going through these experiments. That was experiment one. Experiment two, this is a part of the study that divided participants a little bit more into two groups.

15:35So one wore the same lab coat, but they were told it was a painter's coat. It's the same coat, but they were told that, hey, go ahead and put this painter's coat on. And then another group wore the exact same lab coat, but they described it once again as a doctor's coat. And those that were wearing the doctor's coat made significantly fewer errors on attention demanding tasks. The task was, the test was called a Stroop test than those that were dressed up as a painter. They finished in less time with less errors simply by wearing a lab coat. And the participants who wore a coat that was decided as a doctor's coat showed better attentional focus than those who wore one that was described as a painter's coat.

16:23It's the same coat, but it has different meaning. And this is, I coach this a lot. Like I coach a lot of business owners. And this is one of the reasons why I tell people, like a lot of people work from home. I tell people, if you work from home, you have to, have to, have to go through your morning routine, get a workout, do your meditation, whatever it is, your coffee. I don't really care what your morning routine is, but then make sure that you shower and get dressed as if you're going to work. If you wear your pajamas while working, it's a way different vibe than if you woke up, you meditated, you got your workout in, you showered, and then you got dressed.

17:07It's this feeling of I'm showering, I'm going to work. Like most people, if you're wearing pajamas, pajamas don't really seem to be the most, I don't know, focused outfit to wear, the most productive outfit to wear. Like nobody just walks. If you work at Google, you don't just drive into Google wearing your pajamas. No, you're going to wake up. Hopefully you're going to get dressed. You're going to get showered. You're going to get dressed. And it's this feeling of like, I'm showing up for work. And if you wear PJs, you're mentally, you haven't closed out the act of sleeping. You haven't moved on to another chapter.

17:47You never show up to the office in your pajamas. So don't do it at home. You know, and this is another thing that I've spoke about him before, but my friend Todd Herman wrote a book called The Alter Ego Effect. And he talks about the difference of when he's going to work, he dresses differently. When he's going to hang out with his family, he dresses differently. And he talks about it in his book called The Alter Ego Effect of Developing an Alter Ego. So when he sits down to work, he puts on glasses. And this is something that he did years ago when he was younger, where he was not confident. And he realized if I'm a, he was a professional speaker.

18:23If I'm a professional speaker, I've got to be able to make cold calls. I got to be able to sell my services to people. And he would have this list that he needed to make cold calls to. and he was just not doing it, not doing it, not doing it. And he's like, you know what? I'm going to stop being Todd for a little while. I'm going to develop an alter ego. And Todd's middle name is Richard. So he developed Super Richard is what he called it. And Super Richard was a different person to him. He was badass. He was hardworking. He didn't care about rejection. And because when he first started his business, he was shy.

18:51He didn't want to make cold calls. And so he said, when I put on these glasses, and these are glasses that, no joke, are non-prescriptive glasses. They're just literally glasses. He puts them on. He says, okay, I'm going to be super Richard. And he imagines himself embodying three people that he really looks up to. Benjamin Franklin, Joseph Campbell, and Superman. And he realized when he was super Richard, he didn't give a damn if he got rejected because Todd didn't get rejected. Richard got rejected. And so he had this thing of like, okay, this is who I am. I'm a badass, hardworking. Don't give a damn about rejection when I put on these glasses.

19:29What he realized though, once he had a family was that he didn't want to bring Super Richard home to his children. And so what he would do, and now he works from home, and this is exactly what he does. When he's done with working, he closes out work. He doesn't want to be that person at home. So he has right outside of his office or right at the inside of his office door, he has a wristband that he puts on and it says something like family first. And so what he does is he takes off his glasses, his Super Richard glasses. he puts him down, he's done with work. He puts on his wristband and he imagines himself embodying the personalities of two people who he really looks up to that he wants to be like with his children.

20:08Number one is his father. He said he had one of the best fathers ever. He was amazing. And number two is Mr. Rogers. So he's like, when I put on this wristband, I imagine myself embodying Mr. Rogers and my father. And so now you can sit there for a second and be like, well, that's goofy. what does this guy know about developing alter egos? Well, he's the guy who told and helped Kobe Bryant develop his alter ego of the Black Mamba. So clearly this guy knows what the hell he's talking about. And so really what it comes down to and what's super important about this whole thing is what do you believe in yourself?

20:44You know, if you just believe I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, you're not going to take as much action. Study after study after study show that. But if you start shifting the way that you think about yourself and the way that you speak to yourself, all of that is going to change how you show up in the world, the actions that you take, and the results that you get in your life. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please do me a huge favor. Please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in it. Rob Dahl Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. The only way this podcast grows is from you guys sharing it.

21:14There are some people out there that are probably listening to like 50 or 100 episodes and you've never shared it. do me a favor the way you can pay it forward and everything and help us help the world is to just go ahead and share it so if you do that i'd greatly greatly appreciate it and with that i'm going to leave the same way i leave you every single episode making sure mission makes somebody else's day better i appreciate you and i hope that you have an amazing day is it possible for ai to work in the enterprise the short answer is yes the long answer is oh yes users can pick the ai providers they prefer, and you can decide which data is off limits, monitor all AI activity, and control every detail.

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