Translator: Ellie Wilson Reviewer: Michele Gianella
Cortisol and adrenaline
are needed to, well, get your attention.
Cortisol and adrenaline are the necessary ingredients
which ensure that everything that I will shortly explain you,
is retained by your brain, and stored for later dissemination.
The problem with cortisol, or one of its problems,
is that it produces stress.
How can this be compensated?
Easily, with endorphins and serotonin, for example.
Amongst the things that produce endorphins and serotonin
are words of comfort or applause
(Applause)
Good. Very good.
And now that we’re in a good mood,
I’m going to talk to you about body odour.
(Laughter)
You might think that this isn’t the best possible way to start a talk.
But no. Body odour.
Imagine body odour.
I want to insist using words, so you can experience
what words can do in your brain,
often without you realising.
Do you have body odour in mind? Yes or no?
(Audience) Yes.
OK, I do as well, by the way.
There was a study carried out in 2005
in which a group of people were made to smell a substance like this,
contained in a transparent glass vial.
It was a transparent substance without any label.
They were just told one thing:
“You will smell body odour.”
And the people who had to smell
this fragrant substance, which smelled so nice,
had facial expressions and reactions
which were completely predictable.
I’ll recreate it for you,
but I’d rather ask you to interpret it so you know how this works.
They had a face like this.
Now you do it, so we are all together and I feel a bit less lonely.
Like this.
This is the typical face of disgust.
Why?
Because to protect us, our biological system,
makes us feel disgusted by some things, like body odours,
to stop people
eating or drinking some things
that they are not supposed to eat or drink.
This is our biological system.
The nervous system of these people had predictable reactions.
They got agitated, their pupils shrank, which is called miosis.
You could even say that the pain area was activated
in these peoples’ brains.
The pain area
is activated in our heads
when you pay in cash instead of by credit card, for example.
Do you get that feeling?
(Laughter)
“Pain area” - now you have the scientific name for this.
And it fits. It’s predictable.
When we started with body odour, you had a predictable reaction.
The interesting thing about this study
is that other people were made to smell
the same transparent substance coming from the same vial,
with one key difference.
These people were told
that they would smell
a particular French cheese which had been maturing for years.
This is, therefore, a valuable thing, costing millions of euros per kilo.
They were told to smell it.
These people again reacted in a very predictable way
but in a very different way.
Their pupils dilated instead of constricting.
Our pupils dilate
when we are expecting a big reward
or something very pleasant.
This is called dopaminergic activation.
When we expect something good,
like buying a luxury item
or seeing a meal that we are really interested in
it activates a different part of the brain than before.
This is the nucleus accumbens, a part of the brain
that makes us foretaste incredible pleasures
and spend a lot of money.
When we buy things
that our subconscious brain knows that we shouldn’t buy,
it’s because of this.
So, next time you go home
and you get told off for buying something you don’t need,
you can defend yourself and say,
“It wasn’t me. It was my nucleus accumbens!”
That isn’t so far from the truth.
I’ve worked in linguistic intelligence for 15, or actually,
nearly 20 years, although I’d rather not admit
that it’s been almost 20 years.
Linguistic intelligence explores the effect words have on our brains,
physically and physiologically.
What do words do to our reality?
How do they make us feel?
Of all the studies I have come across,
this is definitely one of the studies
that excited, fascinated and worried me the most.
It should make you a bit worried too.
Why?
Because you are that vial.
In a way, that vial is you every day.
When you introduce yourself to others,
without knowing it, you have that effect.
Either the body odour one
or the other one.
The interesting thing about the experiment is that the same thing, changing words,
can either upset people and make them feel bad
or make them feel excited.
The same substance!
Different words cause different reactions.
We are that vial, every day of our lives.
When you call someone and say, “Sorry, am I bothering you?”
it’s like the body odour test.
Although you may not realise, the word “bother”
is a frame which activates a series of images
which, coincidentally, have to do
with one of the most unconscious, typical and ancestral fears of human beings.
The fear of loud noises.
As human beings, to survive,
we were designed to fear loud noises.
and the best thing we can do
is ask someone if we can disturb them by apologising.
On a semantic level, what word this really means is
“I know I’m going to hurt you and I feel bad about it
but I’m doing it anyway.”
(Laughter)
It’s fascinating. You laugh, but it’s a bit dramatic.
Why do we do this?
It’s because we want to be nice.
It’s just that being nice yet causing the sensation of body odour
isn’t exactly something that I find interesting.
We could do it differently. We could get people excited.
We should call someone and say, “Hi, are you free?”
Think about the word ‘freedom’ as I speak.
The word ‘freedom’ evokes things like
the beach...
I know what you're thinking!
Mountains, hills, blue skies and birds flying.
That’s right, isn’t it?
All of this turns into endorphins.
The intention is still nice, but it has a completely different effect.
When you buy someone a present
and shyly say, “Look,
I’ve got you something,
It's just a small, silly thing.
Don’t expect much. It’s just the first thing I found.
If you don’t like it, you can return it.”
(Laughter)
You laugh, but then you go home and say,
“They never cherish my gifts. They just recycle them! ”
Well, of course!
Let me tell you a secret.
You could say, “I have a present for you!”
Write that down
(Applause)
So you can’t say, “Oh no, I forgot that”,
You have your notepads, so write it down.
And, next time...
I sometimes get sad,
because I see lots of people with good intentions
but they just fail.
Next time you spend 24 hours cooking for your family and friends,
if they compliment your food,
don’t reply with,
“Yeah, but it was a bit bland.
(Laughter)
The pasta was overcooked, and the cabbage wasn’t great”
Look them in the eye and say, “Wasn’t it? You connoisseur!”
That way, they will value your words.
(Applause)
You are that vial, but I am also that vial.
It’s me. You see me here driving my first and only Lamborghini
and you see me there on stage.
What’s the difference? It’s still me.
I was shy and stuttering.
I didn’t introduce myself well and people would ignore me.
I stuttered until I was 20,
yet curiously, now I am here doing this.
Now, when people tell me, “There are 700 people in the audience,”
I say, “Oh, okay. I was hoping for 1000” with a slight arrogance.
(Laughter)
And it’s still me.
I just changed the way I told my story.
I discovered the word ‘Abracadabra’,
from the Aramaic phrase, ‘Avra kehdabra’, which means ‘I will create as I speak’.
The word becomes a reality.
Is it a myth?
Is it magic?
Is it science?
It is science. Abracadabra is science.
It is exactly as I told you in a few seconds earlier.
Every word you think and imagine
ignites part of your brain - your brain!
I wanted to say it twice to remind myself,
because stuttering is one thing
and repeating the concepts, for other people to understand
is another thing.
It ignites different parts of your brain,
which in turn produce hormonal chemical reactions
like the one you felt not long ago when I mentioned body odour.
Did you hear that? It was physical! Hormones!
And those hormones become the reality
that you live in every day - this is science.
It’s because of the words you use to describe it.
And what’s beautiful about it is, if you don’t like this reality,
you can change the words.
It's like a rollercoaster.
I always give this example, because I think it is very meaningful.
Think about it as I speak
as some of you will be big fans of rollercoasters
whilst others aren’t.
I am definitely someone
that avoids rollercoasters as much as possible.
If I know they’re there, I avoid them.
Some people love them. Others are terrified of them.
Now, imagine taking two people,
one rollercoaster fanatic and someone who hates rollercoasters,
and putting them right at the front of the rollercoaster, ready to drop.
Get them to do a couple of inversions, something I can’t even think about.
Then, imagine taking these two people after the deathly loop.
Even just by saying that, the amygdala activates and says,
“What are you doing? Don’t go on any deathly loops!′
The amygdala protects us from these things.
Anyway, imagine that you find them and ask them
what they want to do after the loop.
Both of them will say
that they really need to go to the bathroom.
That’s because when faced with real, imminent danger,
our biological system is designed
to make us empty our bowels, pee, or whatever.
You definitely know about it.
It’s like when you’re scared and say, “I was shitting myself.”
Why do you say that?
Because that’s your body speaking.
So, both of them will have to pee.
Both will have the same mix of hormones in their bodies,
like cortisol, the stress hormone,
the one that at the intentionally strong start of my talk
made you experience some adrenaline,
or testosterone,
which is used to face dangerous tasks.
They have the same hormones and physiological reaction.
The first person will say, “Wow! Amazing!
I was shitting myself! I want to go on that again!”
The second one, however, will say, “Stop! Stop it right now!
I never want to do that again! I was shitting myself.”
What causes this difference?
The story these people tell themselves about the experience changes.
Their adrenaline, pulse...
Before I got on this stage, my heart rate was at 120.
A heart rate of 120 is a heart rate.
Our body can’t tell fear from excitement.
I chose to call this excitement,
because had I called it fear,
I would have gone back to Brescia without doing my speech.
This is the concept.
We are the stories we tell. We are walking stories.
And if you don't like the story you're in, you can tell yourself another one.
This is called being careful with words.
Choose your words wisely
so the words take care of us.
I’ll end my speech today with this sentence.
"Take care of your words,
and your words will take care of you".
Thank you for coming here today.
(Applause)
Body odour!
Not bad.
(Applause)
Have a great day!