Daily Gratitude: It’s important to know why 10 people can see the same thing and yet react in 10 different ways. The key point here is that once we see or experience something, it goes through our massive data bank and is “processed”. That means it’s analyzed and compared to anything the brain can find that’s related to it (based on our prior experience- that’s why the first time a child sees the hot burner he or she puts their hand down on it without pause. This creates a memory which is stored under the “danger” category. It may be reinforced by “no” shouted from mom’s mouth but the pain is probably enough. The next time the child sees an object that looks like that (he or she doesn’t have the cognitive awareness yet to say ‘oh, that’s a burner even though it doesn’t look like the last one’), the brain jumps in and says “nope not going to do that again”). In this case there’s a conclusion and a judgment but no attribution since it’s an object. As the child becomes exposed to other humans and equates actions with outcomes, it creates the attribution, which is particular to him and his circumstances. This all falls under the concept of predictive coding. If you watch yourself, you’ll see how you take first impressions and then make judgments and also determine the other’s motives. But I might interpret everything totally differently based on what’s in my database. I hope this makes some sense because it’s a big key to understanding WHY others do the things they do; the things that make us scratch our heads. Read “Crucial Conversations”. It’s a phenomenal book and it will help you navigate almost any discussion.