Rain chains provide a useful image of how neurons work.

Neurons link information to actions.

• Actions can be thoughts (neurons activation), emotions (hormone release) or movement (motor neuron activation).

Rain chains provide reminders that:

• Acts, words, emotions and thoughts are triggered by sensations (sights, sounds, touch, taste, smells).
• Sensations accumulate over time. A lot of individual drops on the roof combine to form the water at the bottom of the rain chain. Actions link back to sensations but it may take some work to tease out the link. The original sensation may be a very weak signal and there may be a long delay between signal and action.
• The sensations we’re exposed to, the books we read, the shows we watch, the music we listen to, the sights we see, the things we hear, the people we’re around; all impact how we act, what we say and what we believe.

• Tony Hsieh
• Jeff Bezos
• Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• Daniel Coyle
• Adam Grant
• Scott Adams
• Ben Thompson
• Tiago Forte

We argue about signals, interpretation & effort

By “we” I mean all of us.

You and I aren’t arguing. We get along great.

We as people argue a lot.

When people argue it comes down to three things: signals, interpretation and effort.

Dan Roam in his brilliant book The Back of the Napkin provides a remarkably clear explanation of how we take in information.

We’re visual creatures. Even if we’re listening to information we’re “picturing” six things:

1) Who / What

2) How many

3) Where

4) When

5) How

6) Why

After we take in information, especially if it’s the same information, we argue about signals (who/what, where and how many), interpretation (how and why) and we argue about effort (what should be done next and how much blood and treasure should be spent doing it).

Depending on attention and experience people will see different details of who/what is in a scene. Two people will look at the same scene and see different numbers, different locations and perceive different timelines and orders.

“How” is an interpretation of cause and effect. It’s a story we start telling ourselves about cause & effect relationships based on how the whos/ whats, the numbers of the whos/ whats and the location of the whos / whats change over time.

We take the story a step further with “why?” “Why?” is an interpretation of meaning, a reason behind the cause.

We see different things, argue about what we saw, get frustrated with different interpretations and then argue about what to pay attention to and what to do next.

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/safe-enough-to-try-an-interview-with-zappos-ceo-tony-hsieh