Yesterday I met with film and commercial director @dougkarr for what turned out to be an insanely exciting conversation. We discussed a project which doesn't just have the potential to be extremely exciting and valuable to Steem stakeholders, but to the crypto world generally. I know when you all hear about it, you're gonna love it. Unfortunately, it's not quite ready to discuss publicly yet. But give him a follow so that when he is ready, you'll know :)

Disclaimer: These are my personal opinions and views. They do not represent the official positions of Steemit Inc. or any employees thereof

Leveraging Your Instincts ... Again

Coincidentally, I also discussed yesterday in my blog how we are evolutionarily designed to process massive amounts of social information incredibly rapidly. In that context I was referring to a hypothetical scenario where one realizes that a deal, organization, project, or network (really these are all types of networks) isn't going to work. Because networking with other humans has played such an important role in homo sapien evolution, it is highly likely that we evolved instincts, or "hard code," which enable us to recognize negative signals which were common and important throughout our evolutionary history.

Why First Impressions Matter

Research on first impressions reveals that people can unconsciously acquire a lot of information about other people incredibly rapidly. When we know something before we consciously think about it, that necessarily means that we processed information unconsciously and so that process was dictated entirely by evolved mechanisms. That's not to say that first impressions are always right, the research suggests that isn't the case. But there's usually a lot of accurate information processed, which is still interesting, and even more interesting is the research which reveals that we are good at knowing when our first impressions are right. That, to me, is crazy.

What that means is that while our first impressions are sometimes right and sometimes wrong, we're actually good at knowing when we are experiencing one or the other! Somebody might make a wrong impression on me, but the odds are that I will know that the bad impression is not an accurate representation of the person!

The Meaning of EXCITEMENT: Meeting a Kindred Spirit

My experience with @dougkarr proceeded as follows: I met him at the unveiling of Steem Park (see @hitheryon) and immediately received a good impression of him. He seemed intelligent, kind, passionate, open-minded, creative, industrious, and generally "good." We briefly discussed his project which got me excited. We scheduled a follow up meeting which occurred yesterday. Again my initial impression was positive. This validated my previous impression with an additional data point. My machinery perceived "good things" on two separate occasions in two separate environments.

As we conversed we both continued to get more excited and passionate. It was difficult to stop talking and throwing out ideas. The potential and scale of what we were talking about continued to grow and grow. We talked for hours until I personally felt mentally exhausted, as if my mind had been taxed to its extreme. For those gearheads out there, I liken it to running an engine at red line.

Positive Emotion and Insomnia

Since we both have lives and work to do, eventually the meeting had to come to an end, but I think we both left excited about the prospect of continuing to collaborate and eager to continue thinking about the potential of doing so. We continued our conversation online but eventually, of course, the time came to participate in the universal daily ritual of shutting our conscious brains down for 6-9 hours. Only mine wouldn't shut off--a common problem ever since I joined steemit.com, and one I know many people share. I shot off a couple of emails at 1 and 2 AM to Doug and finally crashed around 3 AM only to wake up (much to my chagrin) at 8 AM ready to get back to it. I found an email from Doug noting that he too had to "force himself" to sleep.

The Role of Consciousness

None of this to say is that the conscious mind is not at all involved. During our conversation we talked about incredibly abstract concepts which required a lot of conscious thought and analysis, but "excitement" is an emotional response. It is by definition not conscious. I've been in conversations before where I liked and agreed with everything the other person was saying. I might have even decided to continue working with them and developing some kind of deal or project with them. It might have even be productive. But I didn't necessarily get excited.

I think when we get excited our bodies are telling us that were are perceiving information that throughout our evolutionary history proved to be immensely valuable. When you are syncing up with another person--when you are interfacing with them in such a way that you are able to efficiently and effectively network with them thereby amplifying your cognitive capacity--there are common phenomena. Finishing each others sentences. Building on each others points instead of resisting an idea or proposing a mutually exclusive alternative. Recognizing common assumptions as opposed to divergent foundational principles.

The Same Wavelength

When you're already on the same "wavelength"--when a large part of your shared cognitive network can be built atop pre-existing structures--your body should be able to recognize it (assuming there are consistent signals which were common throughout our evolutionary history) and should associate it with positive emotions like "excitement" so that you keep doing it. I had a similar experience recently with @nickytothenines, and whether coincidence or not, I see a lot of synergy between their projects. And that's where I am now. I can't wait to meet with Doug again (as well as Nick, maybe both at the same time :) ) and am so eager to make progress on our projects because I am so excited about them. And because of that, I think you all will be excited by them too.

Conclusion

Although, in a way, today's article is the opposite of yesterday's it comes to a common conclusion that listening to your body can be incredibly helpful. The fact that it is capable of rapidly assessing potentially negative scenarios is only one side of the coin. The other side is that it also appears to be capable of rapidly assessing potentially positive scenarios. I believe that consciously being aware of this possibility holds potentially massive value. Listen to your body, in many ways it's smarter than you.

Thanks for reading!