Human communications model

As human beings, we can choose to be at cause and in charge of a very large number of factors within our brains that affect the way we behave in any given context.

Let me take you through an simplified example of how our brain processes external events, then you can identify what must be happening inside your own mind.

You intend to play a game of golf this morning. You arise, look out of the window and see grey skies and a little rain falling.

What happens now depends on your previous experience right?

The external event is visual – you see the clouds and rain. It is auditory – you hear the rain hitting the ground, roof and so on. When you step outside, it is kinaesthetic, you will feel the water hitting you, the air will smell fresh(er), you may even taste the rain. You will feel the cooler air. You know that it is raining.

Obvious right? Sure? Ok then, how do you know it is raining? That’s right. You’ve experienced it before. You have processed the data ‘sensed’ from the external environment, passed these experiences through your brain which has tallied the sensory experiences with a similar event in the past (or a combination of events) and applied a word or phrase which adequately describes the external event for you.

You will also realise that different people will react differently to this exact same external event and use different words or phrases to describe the situation. If you are in the UK it’s possible that a phrase such as “miserable weather”, “drizzle”, “slight rain”, “downpour” would be used. it is also likely that your tine of voice would be suggestive of dissatisfaction, or unhappiness, or resignation or something similar. If, on the other hand, you were a golf course manager whose course desperately needed water, you’d likely use different words and express a tone of relief, happiness, pleasure. Same event, different behaviours manifest… because the context has changed.

Let’s dig a little deeper. When we experience an external event through our senses, the incoming data stream that hits our eyes, ears, skin, nostrils, tongue registers in the millions of bits of data. All of this data is coming to us and our brains restrict the amount of data that is processed – typically a human being processes between 5 and 9 chunks of data at once – averaging 7 chunks of data and around 300-500 kbits of data (?? check numbers) We have filtered the incoming data stream and reduced the volume of data requiring processing. We ignore all the other data. Unconsciously we have chosen which data to process. So how do we filter?

Some of the data that we accept for processing is not important to us. Based on our previous experiences, we delete that data which we consider is not relevant. (Husbands, ask your wife about this – you do it all the time. Wives, you’re right, it appears that husbands don’t listen, that’s because they think it is not relevant – it is done unconsciously).

Some of the data that we have chosen to process, does not quite fit with our preferred experiences and we distort it to our preferences. That is, we bias our fresh data with past experiences.

Some of the data we process is recognised as a momentary event – you might say that we don’t really have sufficient data to be certain about this reality, so we generalise – again based on our previous experiences.

All of this non-deleted, distorted generalised dat is processed through our own language, memories, decisions, values and beliefs, attitudes and our very personal way of deleting, distorting and generalising.

This process then provides us with our very own, unique internal representation of the external event.

It is based on this internal representation that is influenced by and influences out internal state (the way we feel) which in turn triggers changes in our physiology and the behaviour we exhibit.

Wow! And that all happens in nano-seconds!

So what’s wrong with that? Absolutely nothing. Our brains are phenomenal organs and more powerful than any computer is or can ever be.

The important point here is to understand that we filter, in our own unique way, the external events occurring around us all the time. No two individuals will see exactly the same external event (they even experience it form different places in time and place), and even if they were in exactly the same spot – they would have a different internal representation of the same event. Each individuals changes in physiology will be different (maybe very subtle, but different nonetheless) and no two individuals will behave in exactly the same way as a result.

The good news is that you can leverage some control over your own filters. The even better news is that, we can learn how the great players, the great leaders, those people that you most admire, filter similar external events.

The truly great news is that you can apply some, or all of the same filters into your processing.

You may not be able to physically swing like Tiger, or Nick, or Jack, or Seve – but you can think like them. You can process data in a way that is very similar to them. Want to?