How Regular People Become Millionaires & How The Power of Suggestion Works
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Today on Something You Should Know, can you really tell anything about a person based on their handwriting? You'd be surprised. Then, creating wealth. Really anyone can do it if you have the right mindset.

The average millionaire, for example, in the United States is self-made and most of them are employees and professionals. They're not necessarily entrepreneurs. And when you do study the mindset of these self-made wealthier people, they tend to describe themselves as frugal. Also, the names for things that you didn't know had names and the power of suggestion. There's a real science to it that's important to understand.

Many factors influence the way that we accept or reject suggestions and most interesting thing about suggestion is that they work whether you believe it or not, whether you detect them or not, they still work because we're all suggestible to some extent. All this today on Something You Should Know. When you're looking to hire someone, there's no better feeling than when you match the job to exactly the right person. I've seen it. It can be magical.

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Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome. Thank you for spending some time today listening to Something You Should Know. And we start today with something I know you've heard of, handwriting analysis. It's been used as evidence in court trials and actually helps send people to jail.

But is it really a science? Well, first you have to understand there are two types of handwriting analysis. Forensic handwriting analysis is when an expert testifies that two signatures were made by the same person, or that a signature is a forgery or not, stuff like that. It sounds simple enough, but two Supreme Court cases, one in 1993 and one in 2001, have

have cast grave doubts on the validity of handwriting analysis. You see, there's no standardized way of testing, and any analysis appears to be completely subjective. One study compared experts, so-called handwriting experts, with average people in analyzing handwriting samples. And the experts did no better than average people, and both groups were wrong 52% of the time.

Now graphology, that's something else. That's where someone tries to figure out a person's personality based on their handwriting. In France, employers often use this, or used to anyway, as part of their screening process for new employees. But there is no evidence, none, that this has any validity to it. In fact, one of the basic principles of handwriting analysis, that like fingerprints, everyone's handwriting is unique,

How do wealthy people get wealthy?

It's an important question, and there's no simple one answer. And a lot of the advice on getting wealthy is somebody's opinion. But today, I want you to hear some of the very best wealth advice I think you'll ever hear that's based on research and looks at how most wealthy people acquire their wealth. Be sure there are TikTok stars and tech billionaires and sports superstars, and you can try to go that route.

But there are more reliable ways to build wealth. Brad Klontz is here to tell you about them. Brad is a financial psychologist whose work has been featured in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Washington Post. And he's been a guest here before as well. He is co-author of a book called Start Thinking Rich, 21 Harsh Truths to Take You from Broke to Financial Freedom. Hey, Brad, good to have you back.

Thanks for having me. So I think if you were to ask most people what makes a wealthy person wealthy, the answer is money. That it's about your cash, your net worth, your whatever money measurement you want to use. Wealthy people have a lot of money. So what is wealth to you?

For me, it's when you own as much of your time as possible. Time is your most valuable resource. It's not about material items. As a matter of fact, I think many people are, I would consider, quote, poor with regard to all the material items they have because essentially they have to keep funding those items and paying for those. And so it can keep them stuck in situations that aren't ideal for them.

When you talk about owning your time or owning more of your time, it starts to sound a little like retirement, like you don't have to work. So now you have all this time that you're trying to get more time to play golf or do whatever you want. But that's not what you're talking about.

I actually think that retirement is for dead people. So it's not about not working because what is work? Work is essentially activity designed to pursue a purpose or result. And so I feel like it's a big mistake to think that sitting on the beach and sipping Mai Tais is going to lead to a lifetime of happiness because that's not usually the case. But for me, it's about flexibility. There's a, when you talk to people and you really get down to it, many people are, aren't

entirely satisfied with their nine to five jobs, or they're looking to pursue a passion or a purpose that's beyond what their company or their boss is telling them to do each day. And so I think it's ideal to spend your time making money doing things you're passionate about. But I think that most people, if they were really honest with themselves,

would, you know, prefer to own more and more of their time. Not that they would just sit around, but that they could pursue things that are the most fulfilling for them. I don't know the statistics, but my guess is that most people don't consider themselves wealthy. So why not? Where do people go wrong? Well, I think part of the reason that I talk about wealth the way I do is because I see so many people go wrong

by buying stuff to try to make themselves feel better, to try to impress others and show their status.

And then they later wake up and realize that they can't, quote, retire or they can't have more of their time to spend with the people they love because they've essentially been misinformed around how people get wealthy and how wealthy people spend their money. And so that's been a big part of my research. And my educational efforts are trying to teach people what we have discovered in the research around how people become wealthy and how wealthy people become.

typically spend their money because as a culture, we've got it all wrong. And so how do we get it right? What's the formula?

Yeah. So essentially, the concept of owning more and more of your time is crucial because what we think is when we buy more stuff, then we've made it. That's actually not the case. And so the average millionaire, for example, in the United States is self-made. And most of them are employees and professionals. They're not necessarily entrepreneurs. As a matter of fact, entrepreneurship is a great way to lose money. It's a dangerous way to try to get money. And I'm pro-entrepreneurship, but just understand that most people are

getting there and meeting their financial goals because they're saving and investing a percentage of every dollar they make. And when you do study the mindset of these self-made wealthier people, they tend to describe themselves as frugal. So interestingly, they are more likely to downplay outward displays of wealth, which makes sense when you think about what it takes to become wealthy, which is essentially nonfiction.

not spending your money, or at least all of it, and then saving and investing some of it. Well, it's interesting how sometimes people who have a lot of money are described as kind of cheap. Like, gosh, he's got so much money and he never spends any of it. Well, that's probably why he has so much money, because he never spends any of it.

That's right. And, you know, I think the United States is fairly unique in the amount of consumerism and materialism that we suffer from. And I'm reminded of

birthdays when you're a kid and it's like we're sort of obsessed with getting this really cool toy because we think it's going to make us the coolest kid on the block and it's going to make us happy and we're going to immerse ourselves in the joyful experience. And then a week or two later, you've kind of forgot about it. And the problem with that mindset, which is basically how we're wired as human beings, is that in adulthood,

it loses its luster relatively quickly, but then you're stuck with the credit card bill that can go on for months and months and months and keep you from really achieving, uh, that financial freedom that so many of us crave. So what are the things wealthy people do? What do they have in common that poor people don't do? What, what is the roadmap to wealth? Yeah. And so when, when I talk about poor, um,

I differentiate that from broke because poor for me is a mindset. You can have a poor mindset and make a bunch of money and you just blow it all and you have a very low net worth. You can be broke and have a rich mindset and be well on your way to financial freedom and success. And so there's a lot of things and there's a lot of mindset differences. One is spending habits. So one of the studies...

that we conducted, we looked at people at 11 million in net worth and we compared them to a group of people that had 500,000 in net worth. And then we asked them how much money they had spent on their last house, vacation, watch and car. And what was shocking is that these people in the ultra wealthy group had like 20 times more money, but they only spent twice as much on those things.

which is really, really sort of surprising. I was surprised when I saw that research. I knew that they were frugal based on surveys, but I was like, really? Because you would expect mathematically it'd be 20 times as much. So that's one is they just don't spend the way we think they spend. And social media is just setting so many of us up to feel deprived and give us a false narrative around how wealthy people behave. And since we want to be them, we go spend in ways that they actually don't.

Another thing is that in psychology that has been studied a lot is locus of control. And so, the people who are the most successful in life financially, income, net worth, doing better in school, doing better at work, better relationships, have what we call in psychology an internal locus of control.

And so that means where is the location of control in your life when you think of the outcomes you're getting in life? And the wealthier, more successful people have this internal locus of control. So they're looking at, you know, I'm getting a certain salary, for example, and perhaps I'm not happy with it.

Well, whose fault is it? Or who has the power to change that? An external locus of control would say, well, it's my boss. It's the economy. It's the unfair system we're in. And by the way, you can find all sorts of examples to prove that right, if that's your mindset. An internal locus of control says,

Well, maybe I need to negotiate a better raise. Maybe I'm working in an environment where I'm not being appreciated. Maybe I am not working hard enough. Maybe I need to let my boss know all that I'm doing and I'm not doing enough marketing of myself. So it's really that mindset that we've studied many, many times that is very consistent across the board with people who tend to have better results. So when you say that people who are wealthy...

are frugal. What does that mean? Like, are they using coupons at the grocery store? Are they going to the early bird dinner before four? Like, what does frugal mean?

So sometimes it is annoyingly frugal and people will complain about it. But really, it comes down to another rich mindset that we found in research. And by the way, over 100,000 people have done studies on. And it's called money vigilance. And so it is very specific beliefs around money that they tend to have beliefs like it's important to save for a rainy day. What's sort of surprising is there are people who don't believe that very strongly.

I'd be a nervous wreck if I didn't have enough money saved for an emergency. If people ask me how much I made, I'd probably tell them I make less than I do. There's this mindset towards, I have a clear vision of the future and I have financial goals. And so I'm willing to do what it takes right now in terms of cutting back, managing my money very closely, paying attention to it. There's some vigilance associated with it that is very much associated with

with higher income and higher net worth moving forward. And I'm sort of reminded of a squirrel who's, you know, if a squirrel's not very nervous about the approaching winter, they're not going to spend all this time gathering nuts and hiding them. And they'll probably end up starving as a result. We're talking about building wealth and the wealth mindset. My guest is Brad Klotz. He is author of the book, Start Thinking Rich.

As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But at Realm, we also sell some pretty cool merch, and organizing that was made both possible and easy with Shopify.

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Go to shopify.com slash realm to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash realm. As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But at Realm, we also sell some pretty cool merch and organizing that was made both possible and easy with Shopify. Shopify.

When you think about successful businesses like Allo or Allbirds or Skims, an often overlooked secret is the business behind the business that makes selling and for shoppers buying simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. That's because nobody does selling better than Shopify. It's the home of the number one checkout on the planet. And the not so secret secret that's definitely worth talking about is that ShopPay boosts conversions up to 50%.

That's more happy customers and way more sales going. If you're hoping to grow your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed and everywhere in between. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout we use with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash realm, all lowercase.

Go to shopify.com slash realm to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash realm. So Brad, in a real practical way, what does this look like? Like how much are you supposed to save? What is it you're aiming for? Because the idea of owning more of your time, I get that, but I don't get what the steps are to get there.

Because the idea of owning more of your time, I mean, I get that. And that's great. But I don't know what the steps are to get there. Essentially, it is this.

every dollar that comes into my life, a percentage of that I am setting aside for my financial freedom. That could be in an IRA. It could be in a 401k. I mean, that is actually much less important than this mindset. And so if people could get this when they're 10, 12 years old, they'll be millionaires for sure. You could work in a fast food job, for example, for your entire life and be a millionaire by retirement age if you have this mindset. It's

It's probably the most critical mindset. And the earlier you have it, the better. Every dollar that comes into my life, a percentage of it I'm saving and investing. Now, what percent? Well, that really does depend on how wealthy you want to become and how fast you want to become wealthy. So the standard financial advice is 10% of your income. I always shot for 30%. There's an entire group of people. It's called the FIRE movement, which is Financial Independence Retire Early. These people try to...

put aside 50% of their income or more because they want to achieve that freedom faster. So essentially, it's that mindset that I think is really, really important. And Mike, what is so fascinating about this is that in my grandparents' generation, you didn't have to have this mindset because the government was going to take care of you with Social Security, your company was going to pay your pension. All that has shifted. A lot of us are afraid there won't be Social Security. Companies have

offloaded their liability of funding your retirement. And now you have to contribute to do it out of your own salary. And maybe they don't match, maybe they don't. So essentially, our entire culture has shifted in the last few decades to put it entirely on the shoulders of us as individuals. Yet so many of us are sleeping on this because we weren't taught it. And that's one of the things that

Kids aren't taught much about how to handle money. And if no one ever teaches you and you have to learn by trial by fire and with all the temptation in the world, it's very easy not to know what to do and just go, you know, screw it and throw down the plastic and buy whatever you want and end up in trouble.

That's absolutely right. And that is a mindset that we have found comes from real life circumstances with this sort of like, there'll never be enough money, so why bother trying?

And the unfortunate part is, like, I learned this relatively late in life. I grew up lower income. And, you know, the biggest factor in terms of wealth building is time too. Like, you can put aside a lot less if you start earlier and achieve the same goal than if you wait 10 or 15 or 20 years. Now you're having to set aside 10 times the amount of money each month to try to hit

a retirement goal. So the earlier we do it, the faster we put it in place, the easier it will be for us. One of the things that people, I've heard people say is, well, but I own my home and it keeps going up in value. And if I sell it, I'll be a millionaire. Yes. So home ownership is a really interesting topic. One of the worst things I see on social media are all these like

misinformation. Like I hear things on like college isn't worth it anymore. And so as a scientist, I go, is that right? So I go research and I'm like, oh, nope. Turns out it still is. The average college grad makes about a million and a half more during their lifetime. And now there's a new meme that it's better to rent

than it is to buy. And I understand the math on it because the argument is that if you rent, you're going to pay less because of phantom costs and all this home ownership stuff. And then if you just invest all the rest of that money, you'll perhaps be better off 20, 30 years from now. People don't invest the other money. So the great thing about a house is it's a bit of a forced savings and it's great for net worth.

But it's also not it's it's also what are you going to do with that net worth? You know, maybe you can cash out when you sell. But where are you going to you're going to have to go find another place to live. And all the other houses in your neighborhood have got up in price. But as you get older, you can downsize. You can sell your big house, move to a little house and pocket the difference.

That's right. And that's what a lot of Americans do, which is why it's like upwards of 90% of millionaires in the United States are homeowners. So I think it's a really great goal because part of that element too of like, you're going to pay your mortgage every month. And so part of that mortgage is going to go towards building your net worth. And if you didn't have that expense for most Americans,

the money's just going to disappear because people don't have very clear financial goals. And I'll mention this too, because I think it's probably one of the biggest hacks. And we did a study on this and we got people to increase their savings as a percentage of income by 73% just after doing this for about an hour. So I'd love to share it with you.

Essentially, what we had people do is get a very clear and exciting vision of their top three financial goals. And when I say vision, we had them close their eyes and picture this thing. Is it a house? Is it retirement? Well, what are you doing in retirement? Is it a college fund? How does it feel having money to send your kid or grandkid to college? We got people really excited about it. We actually had them create visual images. So like vision boards, you can imagine.

And what we saw when people got really excited and could taste it, that's kind of what you need to do. You need to be able to taste it and feel it right now because that's how we're wired. We want to consume now. And then what we had people do is

set up separate accounts named after those goals. And then this is probably the most important part. Now you're all excited. You got a clear vision of the goal. Then you automate. So you take money that's coming in your checking account and you automatically deposit a certain dollar amount to these goals. Maybe it's your paycheck to your 401k. Maybe it's a college savings fund. Maybe it's a European vacation savings fund, whatever it is. That money gets sent to those financial goals

before anything else. We call it paying yourself first in personal finance. And then it's automated, so you never have to revisit it. So it capitalizes on the status quo bias, which is basically we'll just keep things the way they are because it takes too much energy to change it. And we saw an incredible, massive shift for these people by just going through that exercise.

Yeah, and that sounds so right. In fact, I remember someone saying, maybe it was you before, about how naming accounts is a big deal. Like if you just are putting money into a savings account and it's all very vague, but if you have a new house account, that somehow that brings it alive and it makes it more desirable and more easy to...

picture it and really make the effort. That's right. And when you do see money in a checking account, I fall prey to this myself. I'm arguably one of the world's leading experts. It happens to me. When I see money in the checking account, I have this sense of like, oh, yeah, we've got some money. And so then I'm more inclined to spend more, frankly. And so what I like to do is take that money, immediately move it out

into these larger, more important goals. Because the bottom line is, when I'm staring at one of my son's names is Ethan, when I'm staring at Ethan's college savings fund, I am not going to go steal from that for something that matters less to me, like any other purchase, frankly, you know, because I have an emotional attachment. That's what's so powerful about naming those accounts, because you're actually protecting that money, because you've set it aside on something that really, really matters to you.

So I imagine there are people listening to this saying, okay, but wait, you know, wouldn't that be great if I could make all these accounts and put all this money aside, but I wouldn't have enough money left over to pay the bills. And I'm not living extravagantly. It's just life is expensive. Maybe you can't do 10% of your income, but you can invest a dollar this month.

And if you commit to investing a dollar this month for your top three financial goals, and you put those systems in place, they will be there for you the next time you get some unexpected money, perhaps a raise, perhaps a bonus. We tend to trend in an upward direction in terms of our income as we get older. And so putting those things in place, even if it's a dollar, even if it's 1% of your income, if you can start taking action there,

I know for a fact you'll be able to do 2%, 3%. Eventually, you'll get up to a much higher percentage by putting that in place. The other side of the coin of saving and investing, which can be hard, is you can also find ways to make more money. And I know that's a part of your whole pitch. It's never been an easier time to have side hustles to increase your income. And I'll give you a quick example. My son, 11 years old, wanted a job and

He wanted to do a car wash, wanted to do a lemonade stand, all this stuff that, quite frankly, is annoying for me as a father to put in practice and make the neighbors feel guilty. So I was thinking, well, are there other ways he can make money? And sure enough, there's... I'll just give you the specifics. There's a bunch of these that we talked about. But you can review products on Amazon. And so this last month, he made 60 videos in his spare time as an 11-year-old. And he made...

about $5,000 this month, which sounds insane. And it is kind of crazy, but there's all these opportunities around us and it didn't, he's 11, you know, I mean, so, and he's learned how to make videos and edit videos and all this stuff that he does on the weekends, instead of being on his iPad the entire time.

And so I think there are a lot of opportunities to increase your income if you don't want to make all the hard cuts that are painful that nobody really likes to make. It took some learning, had to figure out how to do it, had to, you know, but this is an opportunity that's quite frankly available to everybody right now. I really like this advice because it's so doable.

And I love the fact that you pointed out that most people, most millionaires today are not, you know, the superstar tech millionaires. They're professionals. They're working people who just have the right mindset and automate things. So the money just goes where it needs to go and anybody can do it.

I've been speaking with Brad Klontz. He is a financial psychologist and author of the book, Start Thinking Rich, 21 Harsh Truths to Take You from Broke to Financial Freedom. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks for coming on again, Brad. This was great. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Stop. Stop.

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The power of suggestion. It can make mediocre food or wine taste fabulous. Suggestion can alter your memory of an event. It can convince you to buy something you had no intention of buying. It can make you feel better if you're sick. It can make you sick if you're feeling better. The placebo effect is all about the power of suggestion. But how does it work? Why does it work?

Are some people immune to the power of suggestion? Here with some insight into this fascinating topic is Amir Raz. He is a neuroscientist and renowned expert on the science of suggestion. He's author of a book called The Suggestible Brain, The Science and Magic of How We Make Up Our Minds. Hi, Amir. Welcome to Something You Should Know.

Thank you very much, Mike. Great to be here. Well, I love this topic because everyone, I think everyone, has had some experience with the power of suggestion. Generally, I bet we're more susceptible to suggestion than we realize or wish we were. And I don't think we really understand how it works. Is that a fair statement?

It's a fair statement, and I can tell you that if you think that you're excited about suggestion, I've been, you know, dedicating the better part of more than three decades of my life to study suggestion and to understand the brain mechanisms and the psychology and the sociology of it. So it's definitely an exciting field of study, and it's completely applied to our everyday and every moment life. Absolutely. So let's first talk about, because suggestion takes many forms, I would assume.

assume you would agree with that, that it's not just people making suggestions to you. It's who's saying it, it's how they're saying it, it's what they're saying. So talk about what the world, the landscape of suggestion. Yeah. I mean, first of all, uh, there's no question that suggestion comes in many shapes, many colors, many forms. There are many types of suggestions, of course.

It's not just the question of who's making the suggestion. It's also the question of the when of the context that the suggestion is made. And it's also a question of whether you're even aware that the suggestion is being made. Suggestions can be made outside of our awareness, right?

Suggestions can be made about us, about others. Suggestions can have all kinds of ulterior agendas and unspoken reasons behind them. Sometimes suggestions are meant to sway our behavior or affect us in some way. Sometimes the suggestions are meant to help us.

Sometimes they're meant to hurt us. Suggestion is a very tricky field because we are aware of turn of phrase, or if you want to terms of art, like the power of suggestion, everybody hears about the power of suggestion, but very few people know what suggestion actually is or what we mean when we say suggestion. And very few people know the science behind suggestion and how we can leverage suggestion to both influence people in their behaviors and to

how we can protect ourselves and avoid the effect of certain suggestions. So the science of suggestion is, what does that mean? What is the science? What do you study when you study the science of suggestion? The science of suggestion is basically an umbrella term.

for understanding how factors such as expectation effects, motivation, placebo effects, hypnosis, and other situations such as context, how do they influence people's decision-making, people's voting,

voting behavior, people's ability to observe certain things, if it's through perception, through sensation, if it's their pain thresholds, and so on and so forth. So this can affect your enjoyment from a meal at a restaurant, if I make certain suggestions about the chef, about the ingredients, about how great the pedigree is, and so on. And it can also impact

in a more clinical kind of hospital context, it could affect recovery time. It could affect pain thresholds. It could affect things that are related to blood flow and so on. Suggestions are really part and parcel of our physiology. So could you give some very specific examples

Examples of some of those, those principles of suggestion, like, like the, the placebo effect and like, you know, in a restaurant and like, cause we've been talking about suggestion kind of in the abstract, but like, so for example, how does it work? So I invited a whole bunch of my friends who are known to be wine connoisseurs, people who spend a lot of time and money, um,

uh, on, uh, fine wines and on fine dining, uh, people who spend time, not just reading about it and not just learning about it, but also drinking, uh, good wines and, and traveling the world and collecting good wines and so on. And I told them,

that my doctor told me that I should drink a little bit of wine to lower my cholesterol or whatever it is. And I told him, I have some wines, would you like to join me? And I bring out wines and I tell them stories about the wines. I tell them stories about the wine that I have.

And it's very easy to demonstrate that the story that I tell about the wine is actually a lot more important than the actual wine itself. In other words, if I tell a very fancy story about a wine that I got from France or from a particular mansion or a particular region, if I tell them how much I paid for it, if I tell them who gave it to me, if I tell them the whole story around it, that would affect to a large extent the ranking that the wine is going to get.

Something in my life that I've noticed that I'd like to get you to comment on is I'm much more suggestible depending on who's doing the suggesting. There are certain people that I give a lot more stock to, and not because necessarily they deserve it, but somehow, you know, your doctor, my doctor, when my doctor tells me something,

I'm much more likely to listen to what he says than if you told me that thing. And I don't even know how great a doctor he is, but he's my doctor, so he must be right.

Factors such as trust and chemistry, the interaction between individuals, things that have to do with the twinkle in your eye and body warmth and bedside manners and your ability to laugh at a joke. These are all very important parameters in determining trust.

how people will react to what you say and to the suggestions that you make or receive in addition to the academic credibility, to the clinical training, to the intellectual prowess of a particular professional or a friend. A suggestion that you would get from your physician

is one thing. A physician could, you know, physicians come again in many flavors and there's a spectrum of them. And some of them, you know, would charge you an astronomical amount for one hour of consultation. You will make that suggestion different. It would come with a different weight attached to it. If you have to wait very, very long time before you see the doctor, if you have to pay a lot of money in order to

see the doctor, it would change the weight that is associated with that suggestion. Many factors influence the way that we accept or reject suggestions. And the funny thing is that sometimes they're not even known to us because sometimes we receive suggestions without even realizing that

that we receive them. And the most interesting thing about suggestion is that they work, whether you believe it or not, whether you detect them or not, they still work because we're all suggestible to some extent. Well, and that story about the doctor, as you say, if I had to pay a thousand dollars to get his advice, I'd take it much more seriously than if I saw him in the park having a beer and he said the same thing to me. I go, oh, okay, sure, okay.

That's right. That's right. And there are ways to heighten the effective suggestion, you know, more than just the fee that the physician is going to charge you. If you have to wait for three months before you see the physician, if the physician shows up and seems busy, if the physician spends a lot of time with you or a little bit of time with you,

And so on and so forth. There are ways that we can, from studies, evidence-based ways to increase the power of suggestion, to increase the effect, and to milk the suggestion for more than what it is by playing with certain parameters. And this is really the science of suggestion. There is a link, at least in people's minds, between suggestibility and

and being gullible that the more gullible you are, the more you are prone to succumb to someone's suggestion, right? Gullibility does not equal suggestibility. A feeble mindedness is not the same as suggestibility. Suggestibility is basically your ability to accept or reject, or in general, to respond to some kind of a communication.

that is telling you to do something or is telling you to think about something. And some people would add that it's an uncritical acceptance of a particular opinion or an idea or a behavior. And the tricky thing about suggestion is sometimes we get suggestions that we're unaware of. And that's where it gets interesting because it sort of interferes with our autonomy, with our free will. A lot of people don't like suggestions

to think of themselves as suggestible agents because it tells them in a way it interferes with their autonomy. It interferes with their ability to be the authors of their own actions. They feel that somebody else is manipulating them or deceiving them or causing them to do something that is against their will. So what's an example of that? Give me an example of a suggestion that I'm not aware of.

So let's say that, you know, let's start with some silly ones and then move up. So let's say that I say to you, you know, what's the, Mike, what's the name of that liquid that we sometimes drink? Oh, it escapes me. I guess I have a senior moment that, you know, white liquid that cows sometimes drink.

That's enough. What I just said is enough to trigger in the minds of most people, the notion, the concept of milk. I didn't say the word milk, but I said enough things around it. I said cows, I said drink, I said white, I said liquid. It's that there's enough information there that through some kind of a very simple semantic triggering, semantic activation, most people in our culture will think about milk, but I didn't say milk.

So I can create a situation. Of course, this was very childish. It was sort of a caricature of a very crude way of invoking milk in people's mind. But in a very carefully crafted way, I can bring about concepts and ideas in people's minds without talking about them directly, not even intentionally.

as far as they're concerned, they're not going to even register that I'm talking about them obliquely. They're going to think that I'm not talking about them at all, but there's going to be enough information there that they will connect the dots. I will know how to get them to connect the dots for their mind to connect the dots through some kind of a cognitive fill-in system that I know a little bit about as a researcher, as a scientist, as a cognitive neuroscientist. And they will sort of do that

not even feeling that they're doing that by doing the, by, by putting them on this garden path, by creating this trajectory for them, I can actually lead them to thinking about ideas. I can lead them to doing certain things when they think that they are the authors. They are the people who came up with this because I didn't even talk about that. But clearly some people seem more suggestible than others. And why, what, what's the difference?

Suggestibility is a complex profile that allows some people to respond more to some suggestions, again, based on where they come from. It also depends on the showmanship of the person doing the suggestion. So, for example, I used to be a magician for many years and part of the shows, part of the performance that I would do is I would do theatrical acts of mind reading.

And sometimes people will come to me after and ask for some serious advice on their life. And it was very strange for me that, you know, as an entertainer who, you

acts like a wizard and very clearly disclaims that, you know, this is all for entertainment purposes. This is all a performance. Still people come and they ask you for advice because they take the suggestion very, very seriously. So some people are suggestible almost like a fingerprint. It's like a biological trait. They're very, very suggestible. When they hear something, they believe it. They're not, they don't have a very critical understanding

uh way of thinking or processing information if you tell them that they look tired they begin to feel tired if you if they if you suggest to them that they you know that they seem hungry they begin to feel hungry some people are like that other people are extremely skeptical

And it's very difficult to penetrate them with a suggestion. It doesn't mean that they're not suggestible. It just means that there's more resistance to pile through. Suggestibility is probably a very strong biological trait. It has a biological component to it. And the propensity or the proclivity or the tendency to be suggestible is also a function of culture. It's a function of upbringing. It's a function of education.

The placebo effect, I think, is something that people find interesting, this ability that human beings have to respond to something because we believe in it. We believe it works, and therefore it works. Can you, at least medically speaking, can you explain the placebo effect?

A placebo effect is really a very interesting expectation effect where what people think plays a very big role as opposed to the ingredients that are actually bioactive or chemically active in the drug or in the medicine that they're taking.

So I can give you something that is actually inert, inactive, but I can tell you a story about it or what it's supposed to do. And I can create your expectations going. I can get your expectations going on it. And as a result, just because I tell you this is going to reduce your pain, this is going to be good for you. When you take it, you're going to feel better. You're going to actually feel better, but not because of what you're thinking, but because of what you're thinking, because of your expectation. Expectations work.

no differently than biological agents that we introduce to the body, but in reverse. They start from what the brain wants to experience or feels that it's going to experience, and it cascades downstream, as opposed to a

a situation where you're taking a particular molecule and it changes your physiology in a way that goes upstream. We're not fully sure exactly if they're using the exact same systems, but in some cases we can demonstrate that they're using similar systems. When it comes to placebo effects, it's a lot more complex than just using molecules or something like that because

we can even help people or change people's physiology by letting them take imaginary pills. They don't even need to take pills at all. They can just pretend, they can just act like they're taking pills. If they go through the ritual of taking a pill, so we can give them imaginary pills to take, we can even then see some changes in people's behavior. And because this is happening, because we can demonstrate that this is true, the placebo effect really is

a very strong expectation effect that can change our physiology in a big way. Does it also work, I imagine this has been studied, because when I think of a placebo, I think of a sugar pill. Like here's something that doesn't do anything and you get some effect. But what if you take real medicine but really sell it and really tell a story about it? Does it make it more effective even though we already know it is effective?

- Absolutely. The story that goes with a medication is as important as the story that goes with a placebo. Every medication that you take,

every placebo that you take, the component of the story is very important. The understanding that you have, the expectation that you have as to how it's going to work, why it's working, how many people have been tested? Has this been shown to be effective? Who gave you? How much did you pay? All these things, the color of the pill, the size of the pill, all these things are extremely important. How much do you pay for it? How many people do you know who took it and it helped them?

All these factors are very important in the big equation of how effective it's going to be. And there are ways to make drugs even more effective, effective drugs, even more effective by tweaking and by tailoring the story to the individual.

Do we know that medicine knows that and doctors do that? That that's going to help or that's not part of medicine? That's not a doctor's job to sell the story. It's a very interesting question. I have been in some of the top medical schools in North America throughout my career. And I can tell you that what most doctors or doctors to be, if we're talking about medical students, know about placebo effects and expectations effects and in general,

Social factors in medicine is usually very minimal. Medical schools are very busy places where the physicians-to-be are busy cramming a lot of information that has to do with biochemistry and clinical know-how. And usually these things are...

the domain of psychology or I would say soft, non-specific factors that medical schools offer little by way of teaching about.

On the other hand, when I was teaching in medical schools, I was able to introduce courses, elective courses to young physicians about placebo effects, about expectations effects, and those were very well received. It's going to take some time and it's going to take some effort and it's going to take a lot of science in order to convince people in medicine. Medicine is a very conservative profession.

to demonstrate to them the importance of understanding these effects and how to leverage them clinically.

Well, great. I think this is really helpful for all of us who we know we're subject to suggestion, and we know we can make suggestions in a way to other people to get them to do what we want. So it's interesting to understand some of the science behind it. Amir Raz has been my guest. He is a neuroscientist and author of the book, The Suggestible Brain, The Science and Magic of How We Make Up Our Minds. And there's a link to that book in the show notes.

It was good talking to you, Amir. Thanks. Thank you very much, Mike. It was a pleasure. Do you know what your glabella is? Your glabella is the space between your eyebrows. Here are some other unusual words that you probably didn't know were words that were put together in a cool little video on YouTube by the people at Mental Floss. That tingling feeling you get when your foot's asleep, that's called paresthesia.

If you're having trouble getting out of bed in the morning, you're suffering from something called dyspnea. If you get a prescription from your doctor, you might notice some griffinage. Griffinage is a doctor's illegible handwriting. An apthong is a silent letter, like the K in knife. And do you know what your Google Ganger is?

Okay. Google Ganger is the person who shows up when you do a Google search for yourself and somebody else shows up in it. And if you feel awful after eating or drinking too much, that feeling is called, is called crappulous. It's perfect. It's perfect.

And that is something you should know. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I certainly hope you enjoyed it enough to tell someone else about it so they too could enjoy this episode. It's easy to do. Just use the share button on the app that you're listening to this on. Send them the link and let them become our next new listener. Working hard every day to bring you exciting information and interesting guests?

Our producers, Jeffrey Havison and Jennifer Brennan. The executive producer is Ken Williams. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Do you love Disney? Do you love top ten lists?

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