Would You Prefer a $5 Bottle of Wine or a $90 Bottle?

Antonio Rangel, an associate professor of economics at Caltech did a study in which the participants tried five red wines and rated them.  They showed a price for each of the wines ranging from $5 - $90.  As would be expected the participants rated the wines basically according to price. The higher priced wines were rated higher than the cheaper wines. The researchers had connected brain scan equipment that showed the activity in the pleasure centres of the brain were highly active when they tried the higher priced wines. The participants experienced more pleasure cognitively when they tried the expensive wines.


Here was the catch.  The $90 bottle of wine and the $10 bottle of wine were the same wine and yet the ratings showed the $90 bottle to be highly preferred and the $10 wine to be less preferred. The pleasure centres of the brain were significantly more active when tasting the $90 bottle versus the same wine labelled at $10. "The area of their brain that is thought to encode for the pleasantness of the experience was more active when they drank wine they believed had higher prices."


Now it makes sense that we consciously prefer the $90 bottle given our  past experiences that tell us that  a $90 bottle of wine will be better than a $10 bottle.  Add in that generally people want to be viewed as knowing a good thing when it is presented to them, and that higher price generally dictates a better wine. But how do we explain an actual physical reaction in the brain to a $90 bottle and a completely different physical reaction in the brain to that same wine with a $10 price tag.


The researchers concluded that "the brain encodes pleasure because it is useful for learning which activities to repeat and which ones to avoid, and good decision making requires good measures of the quality of an experience. But the brain is also a noisy environment, and thus, as a way of improving its measurements, it makes sense to add up other sources of information about the experience. In particular, if you are very sure cognitively that an experience is good (perhaps because of previous experiences), it makes sense to incorporate that into your current measurements of pleasure. Most people believe, quite correctly, that price and the quality of a wine are correlated, so it is therefore natural for the brain to factor price into an evaluation of a wine's taste."


It exposes how vulnerable we are to marketing and persuasion. Our brains, seeking to be efficient in evaluating our world, learn short cuts and in actuality that very efficiency encourages conformity as we seek to hurry through our environment and evaluate the endless choices offered. It also highlights that our expectations can create our experiences.  Our expectations can create a physical experience in our brain! This one has immense potential if we use it.


Just a note that when the same researchers had the participants evaluate the wines without price tags the highest pleasure centre activity came from the $5 bottle. Hmmmm....


I like studies like this as they make me become more conscious in how I choose.  I find it insanely fascinating when we get to watch our brains in action.  Years of learning layered in and influencing choices that we are unaware that we are even making. Seeing into our subconscious mind is enlightening.  It makes me want to see more and it changes the way I view my life.


Thanks to researchers at Caltech for sharing your experiences.

New Things are Hard

It is interesting that no matter how much we try to focus on doing new things we always revert back to what is safe and comfortable.  We profess that we would like to shake things up a little by stepping out our groove and trying something new.


But that old familiar demon of fear stands before you with hands on hips, and challenges you on why would you want to do something new.  Why shake the status quo?  Why move out of this comfy little spot that you have worked so hard to create? Why try something that you don't really know how to do?


And you know that little demon is loud and intimidating and so you go back to that small place that you have stayed in for a very long time.  You go to work, watch television, sleep and eat and maybe, just maybe get to the gym here and there.  And you long to rattle that cage that you have created.


So, we need to challenge fear.  Most successful people say that they feel the fear and go forward anyway.


Fear of not succeeding, fear of looking foolish, fear of regretting a decision that you cannot go back on.  Life is full of these choices and we all make some wrong and some right.


But staying in one place and not making a decision to change, is still making a decision.  A decision to stay where you are.  A decision to not grow.  A decision not to try new things.


That makes not deciding almost as scary as deciding doesn't it.


Most people on their death beds regret the things they did not do, not the things they did.  Hmmm.....

10 Reasons to Try Something New Every Day

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new". Albert Einstein.


Two years ago I shook things up by trying to do something new every day. It was challenging to find something new every day but two years in, I have accomplished about 650 new things. (That is 70 short to compensate for the less than motivated days that creep in here and there. On those days old habits feel like just the right thing.)


These 650 new things ran the spectrum of trying a new wine to reading a new genre of book to trying a new menu item in an old restaurant. I took a Photography course to learn about all those cool buttons on my camera, I started a second blog, ran a new race that I had never gone into before and went cycling in Wine Country with friends. I ran on a new path while running, and tried new spices in new recipes. I spoke to people I might not have spoken to. 


So you see some of the new things were simple and instantaneous; others took time and commitment. But all of them took me out of my comfort zone even if it was just a tiny step out!  Admittedly though, I also did about 600 things wrong. Because when you try something new you make a lot of mistakes. 


And although that was not the reason for my quest, it turned out to be an amazing lesson for that safe little person who never likes to fail.We all start out trying new things when we are young. We try them with the excitement and abandonment of trying something new that is inherent in that age of discovery. 


As we get older we learn not to embarrass ourselves by doing something wrong and so we back away from things that are new and different. We learn to value what others think over learning new skills. And so we stop learning and recede to our safe little status quo. We do not try new things so we do not make any mistakes. Life is safe and maybe the days start to look the same.  And you wonder what happened to that exciting try almost anything person that you used to be.


So here are 10 really good reasons to Try Something New every day.


1.  It is exhilarating to try something new and different and see it through.  To accomplish what seemed to be hard.  There is no other feeling like looking back and realizing that you have this new skill in your portfolio. 


2.  Having multiple skills in your portfolio makes you interested and interesting. (which are two different things.)  You get jobs that you would not have gotten, you speak with people that you might not have had anything in common with and you go places that you did not even know were out there.


3.  One new experience leads to another and the sequence takes on a momentum of it's own, taking you on one adventure after another.  After the initial month or so new things start leading to other new things and the natural inertia that originally made this difficult, falls away.


4.  It takes the sameness out of each and every day.  You might say that you like the comfort of sameness but really that is inertia and that old comfort zone that you prefer. Resistance.  Staying in your comfort zone.  Most people when they blast through that initial inertia become addicted to the variety and stimulation of the path to trying new things.


5.  Trying new things gives you new found energy and it compounds itself as it takes hold.  Energy breeds more energy.  When you get stuck in a rut you lose touch with your personal energy. It emerges again when you try new things. And it comes roaring back when you begin the quest.


6.  Trying new things does not cost anything but gives big returns. We spend a lot of money trying to soothe the restless self inside of us.  Trying new things does not cost money but stirs your soul in ways you could never have imagined.


7.  Trying new things feels awkward and uncomfortable and exciting and pleasant all at the same time.  You plan to do it.  Then when the time comes to do it, you wonder why you set yourself up for all this worry and discomfort.  You feel the need to retreat and cancel.  But you must go forward towards that thing you fear because the other side feels so great!


8.  Trying new things makes you grow as a person.  You just cannot do 650 new things and still remain the same.  Your life is propelled forward in new directions and to new places. Big changes for small initiatives.


9.  You can change your life in repeated small ways. Huge changes, especially at first, are too fearsome to fathom so they never get done.  But small ones do.  And small ones accumulate to big changes.  And your confidence in your ability to handle change grows as you accomplish each small change. So you become confidant that you can handle increasingly bigger changes.  So you try them and succeed and your confidence grows.  


10.  Small changes let you make small mistakes and you learn that making mistakes is okay and that your world did not come undone because something did not work the first time.  Your natural instinct when something does not work is to put it away and not try it any more.  When you get on a path of trying new things, you expect to make mistakes and so you just keep failing your way to success. 


It turns out it is fun!  Making mistakes. Laughing at your attempts. Trying new things. Growing and changing. Learning.  Living. Gaining confidence.  What's not love about this process!  


Try one new thing each day.  Make them small at first so you can feel the vision of what bigger things will bring. Record them each day to keep you accountable and not to let too many 'same' days slip by.  

The Watchers

Mark Nepo is a genius at putting words on paper that succinctly describe a multitude of feelings. He is easily able to describe things and feelings in ways that I feel, but am unable to describe. In his book The Book of Awakenings I am repeatedly awed by his ability to do this.

In his September 3 passage, he speaks of growing up under our parent's and teacher's watchful eye and then going forward in life and feeling as if they might still be watching. By then we have internalized their watchfulness and made it our own. "As I reached adulthood, the habit continued. I walked around constantly troubled by what others must be thinking of what I was or was not doing. In this, we are burdened with the seeds of self consciousness. From this we trouble our spontaneity and the possibility of joy by watching ourselves too closely, nervously unsure if this or that is a mistake."

I loved this passage and it puts words on a feeling that runs in the background and self monitors our actions and words. There is a trade off in that it makes us monitor our behaviour for success and acceptance where we wish it to be. It is only as we grow tired of behaving that we seek to escape 'the watchers' as he calls them. To feel the spontaneity that has succumbed to the need for propriety. As we age and see the world from a different perspective we realize that no one is really watching. Those we thought were watching have their own life tales unfolding. And we also see that if people are watching to judge, it really does not change us or our place in the world.

We need to laugh out loud, dance and sometimes behave outrageously to really feel our freedom from our self-watch. We need to try new things without concern for who is deciding whether we should or should not be doing it. We need to have new experiences without being fearful of making mistakes.

"Now the audience of watchers is gone and I can feel life happen in its quiet, vibrant way without anything interfering. Now, sometimes at night, when the dog is asleep and the owl is beginning to stare into what no one ever sees, I stand on the deck and feel the honey of night fall off the stars, feel it coat the earth, the trees, the minds of children half asleep, feel the stillness evaporate all notions of fame into the unwatched space that waits for light."

His way with words takes my breath away.

Our Greatest Achievements Are Ahead...

Marti Barletta is head of a marketing company Trend Sight Group that consults with companies who seek to market to women. She has determined that women, especially those in their 50's and 60's wield the most purchasing power due to their role in both the workplace and family and their comparatively high disposable income.

For all the amazing strengths that this company brings I still find a singular quote that Marti makes as one of the most revealing and motivating statements about women at this point in our lives. She says that we "experience the joy of being, relish liberation from expectation,rock our world, brim with confidence and live life in drive, who feel our greatest achievements are ahead of us." Amazing in this simple sentence and between each set of commas is a unique profound thought, each segment of the sentence worth thinking on.

We "experience the joy of being". For all its advantages, being young just never let you feel the joy of just being. Or maybe it did, but we were too filled with angst and expectation to really see it for what it was. A deeply thought filled, peaceful, joyful state where there are no expectations or performance requirements and we can see and appreciate a moment for just what it is. We need to expand those moments so they fill a greater proportion of our day.

We "relish liberation from expectation." A whole lifetime of doing what was expected of us from our early years to high school, to marriage and children and jobs. A now we just want to define what it is that makes us tick and shed the shackles of expectation. A virtual explosion of joy each time we are able to make a small change in the process of liberating ourselves from the demands and expectations of life as it should be.

We "rock our world, live with confidence and live life in drive." Get out of the passenger seat and drive. Where was it you wanted to go? What was it you planned to do in your private dreaming moments? We get to find those dreams and create them now. Not easy. Scary...a little. But exhilarating to go towards them. I love that 'rock our world' phase. How long has it been since something has truly rocked your world? Brings us back to the quest for safety and conformity that eventually becomes the self created box in which we live our lives.

In his book Awakenings, Mark Nepo shares an enlightening passage that applies to how we live. This entry is for January 9 in his book and it is called "Life In the Tank". I will quote the passage in order to do it justice. "It was a curious thing. Robert had filled the bathtub and put the fish in the tub, so he could clean their tank. After he'd scrubbed the film from the small walls of their make-believe deep, he went to retrieve them.

He was astonished to find that, though they had the entire tub to swim in, they were huddled in a small area the size of their tank. There was nothing to contain them, nothing to hold them back. Why wouldn't they dart about freely? What had life in the tank done to their natural ability to swim?".

You can, no doubt see the analogy to how we live our lives. We work hard to establish this safe place in the world and then at this point we need to work really hard to shed our quest for safety and move into DRIVE. "Rock Our World!" And the truly amazing part of the phrase is "who feel our greatest achievements are ahead of us." That is simply the most exciting part of the quote. Because the typical view of this stage in our lives is that our best years are behind us. But that does not need to be true. She shatters the typical view that our years ahead should be a gradual slide into old age. Is it possible (and a bit exciting) that our greatest achievements are yet to come? It changes the playing field to think like that and it changes how you look at your personal future. And it makes you accountable to create what could be. Drive!



If you want to read more of the life changing stuff by Mark Nepo:
The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have

For those of you who would like to read more by Marti Barletta PrimeTime Women: How to Win the Hearts, Minds, and Business of Boomer Big SpendersMarketing to Women: How to Increase Your Share of the World's Largest Market

Yoga Rocks!

I have been attending Yoga classes for a month or so now and I think I now have a modicum of experience which allows me to share my first impressions. Having spent my life participating in sports with a harder, faster, stronger ethos, yoga always seemed to me to be a sidebar in my life. Something I would eventually get to, but never did.

I have now attended a series of yoga classes with different instructors, on the advice given to me by a woman at my club. She had suggested not making my judgement on yoga until I had tried a series of classes with different instructors.

One class I went to seemed focused on muscle strength and the ability to hold tentative poses for a long time. I figured that since I lift weights this would be easy. But it wasn't. And when we did the exercise designed to move you closer to being able to do the splits, I realized just how inflexible I have become. And I thought, I want to do that. I want to be able to do the splits again.

Another class focused on multiple short poses seemingly designed for opening up parts of the body that are seldom stretched in real life. It was amazing. We did a pose with the blocks which opened up my spine and chest area and it felt so good, I could have held it forever.(See below)The instructor was young and assumed that nobody knew the poses and so it was great for a beginner like me.

And the third instructor took us through a series of contortions that I found difficult to coordinate. I followed it exactly through the whole class and thought that this went against all the ideas of what yoga should be. Complex, difficult, and always thinking. And I realized that it is a combination of my learning curve and stretching parts of me that do not get stretched that was causing me to lose my Zen. But after the class, as I went through my day, I felt amazing. My body felt limber, and seemed to be there at my command.

Despite all my different abilities in fitness, I have never achieved that mind body congruence that was hinted at in my first month of yoga. I now understand what all the excitement is about. I like where the first month and eight classes have taken me. From skeptic to zealot, I think I will continue with this and see where it takes me.

Here is a great pose for stretching a part of your back that until now was only attainable by a visit to the chiropractor. You will be surprised at how effective it is. And you can replace the blocks with anything soft like towel stacks.

Image compliments of Elsie's Yoga

Do You Like Me?

I find it interesting that in all my interactions with people, I seek to leave them with a positive impression of their time with me. It is not something I actively work on, but something intuitive that compels me to create positive feedback from each person I come into contact with. It tends to make my life more pleasant in general because most people appreciate the effort and reciprocate. But it is a win some, lose some kind of game. Because not everybody shows the same deference to this civil mode of interaction. I am fascinated and slightly envious of people who do not have this compulsion though. John Tierney writes in the New York Times of a quote from Jeffrey Miller of the University of New Mexico. “We evolved as social primates who hardly ever encountered strangers in prehistory,” Dr. Miller says. “So we instinctively treat all strangers as if they’re potential mates or friends or enemies. But your happiness and survival today don’t depend on your relationships with strangers. It doesn’t matter whether you get a nanosecond of deference from a shopkeeper or a stranger in an airport.” It is true that it doesn't matter but somehow most of us intuitively act as if it does matter. I love the reference to the evolutionary imperative that lies beneath the behavior and the need for positive response from those we do not know. He calls this desire to impress strangers "a quirky evolutionary byproduct of a smaller social world."

It somehow makes this slightly compulsive behavior less toxic and more amusing than anything else. And it reduces the significance of the less than pleasant interactions.