Narrator: You're listening to the Humans of DevOps Podcast, a

podcast focused on advancing the humans of DevOps through skills,

knowledge, ideas and learning, or the SKIL framework.

Patrycja Slawuta: Old technology, ancient technology,

and new technologies is something that we need to know

more about because it's all speeding up and so you can see

systems online are just getting hot very often when you know we

work with clients, we say hardcopy hot.

Eveline Oehrlich: Welcome to the Humans of DevOps Podcast. I'm

Eveline Oehrlich, Chief Research Officer at DevOps Institute.

When we think about hacking, we immediately assume it's about

the act of identifying, and then exploiting weaknesses in a

computer system or network, usually to gain unauthorized

access to personnel organizational type data, but

mind hacking? Have you ever heard of that? Well, I have not.

But today, we will learn about what a mind hacker is and more.

Today, we have with us Patrycja Slawuta, founder of UnLab and

self hackathon, entrepreneur and mind hacker. But richer is

Australia based, New York City educated and Poland born

researcher, entrepreneur and mind hacker. She's a connoisseur

of complexity, non linearity and messiness of the human nature.

behavioral scientist by training, nerdy science and its

application is her passion and work. After spending 10 plus

years in academia, Patrycja found itself hackathon a New

York City based global boutique behavioral consultancy of

scientists, and we'll hear more about that in a minute. But

there's your beliefs believes the human mind is the world's

most untapped natural resource. She actually has that in her

signature in her email. As such, her mission is to give people

and organizations clear frameworks and practical tools

to meaningfully and efficiently mind their own minds in in order

to find purpose, clarity and alignment. In our free time,

which she has actually she has actually run marathons 28 So

far, and she reads audiobooks and meditates. Welcome to our

podcast. Patrycja, thank you.

Patrycja Slawuta: Thank you for having me.

Eveline Oehrlich: We are excited to have you here. I'm excited to

speak to you because I've watched your TED talk, and have

been trying to get into that activity you've done just

recently. But it had to be there in person which I was able to

travel. So I'm excited to have you with us. Now, just quickly

for your information. Our listeners are a variety of folks

in IT leaders, individual contributors, DevOps testers,

developers, infrastructure operations, folks, cloud people,

all kinds of, I would say, nerds but that's compliment not the

derogatory in any kind in any type. I want you to tell them a

little bit about unlap and self hackathon.

Patrycja Slawuta: Sure, so. So Hackathon, both Hackathon and

UnLab, their main idea is that we can actually hack and rewire

and upgrade ourselves. It all started about 10 years ago, when

I was writing my PhD thesis on shame. And my ex husband

actually came home and he said, "you know, you know so much

about shame. Why don't you teach it?" And I say, "Well, I don't

think anybody wants to learn about shame.". It's such a

obscured weird topic, that especially people in New York

City that are so focused on, you know, hustle and, and building

their businesses want to know about, and he said, Well, why

don't you just try and I put a little ad on Facebook, actually,

back in the day, and I called it shameless summer. And it was

really the idea was to how do we break down the science of shame,

so that people can understand it? And it turned out that the

event sold out within two hours. And I had, I think, 25 amazing

human beings in my apartment in New York City. And people were

coming from Warren saying, Well, why don't you explain this topic

and that topic, you know, topic, basic human topics, like fear

and uncertainty. And it turns out that even though we use it

on every in everyday basis, those are very complex

psychological phenomena. You know, how do you deal with

uncertainty? How do you deal with betrayal? How do you deal

with risk? How, what is loyalty? Group dynamics, and so it turned

out that actually there was a great need to take things out of

science. That's why I called on lab, the company that's based

here in Australia, we take it out of lab and we bring it into

life and we break it down into small chunks. Now self Hawk got

dawn, the interesting thing about and we talked about

hacking, I was trying to I was thinking I was living in Silicon

Valley and working in Silicon Valley with a lot of programmers

and a lot of nerds and you know, when they when they think about

psychology, they think it's this boring, weird topic that you

know, you go on a on a couch at a shrinks office and you know,

and you say, Oh, how do you how does it make you feel, which is

part of the therapy, but there's that much more to psychology

than just that and clinical psychology. And so the idea was

that, you know, programmers program us they, they create

tools, but who programmed them. And that was really the idea

that we actually programmable technology, we are probably the

oldest technology, one of the oldest technologies. We are

300,000 years as Homo sapiens, which means wonder knows, that

knows, and we interact with new technologies. And that being

metaphor, Evers, that being all kinds of new things, that you

know, that interaction, I find that interesting, absolutely

fascinating. And this is really where Cytec, that term comes

from. And that's kind of space that we explore, because I think

that interaction, old technology, ancient technology,

and new technologies is something that we need to know

more about, because it's all speeding up. And so you can see

systems around us I just getting hacked, and that includes our

own system, we are constantly hacks. And so my bottom line,

very often when you know, we work with clients, we say, How

could be hacked, back in the day used to be Know thyself. Now, I

would say it's hacked myself, because if you don't, somebody

else will. And there's entire industries that are built around

hacking us and our vulnerabilities, if you wish,

just as humans Yeah, that that we have as humans

Eveline Oehrlich: Love that hack thyself. So how did you get into

the field of behavioral scientists?

Patrycja Slawuta: Well, behavioral science, I would say,

is a simplified version of psychology and Maestria,

experimental social psychology. But if you tell that to people,

they freak out. And so the field that people are used to the

interface that people most people are used to dealing with

is behavioral science. And so I say, behavior science. However,

my field is way wider than that, you know, I specialized in a way

in the complexity and messiness, and non linearity of the human

experience, individual and then, you know, we already complex as

individual Now, multiply that by two and a couple, or multiply

that by four in a family, or multiply that by 100, or 1000,

in a company, and you get a very, very complex system. And I

find those systems, absolutely, utterly fascinating how they

work, how we hug each other, how we can influence each other, how

our behavior changes in group dynamics, you know, how can we

be one person wiser, one circumstance, and then

completely different person different circumstance. So

that's, that really is my field. The simplified version is

behavior science, because that's what people actually understand.

So the science of human behavior.

Eveline Oehrlich: So, in we do research every year on skills,

particularly in it, so in our 2023, we found that human skills

actually ranked as the third must have skill category, we

have these categories of process skills and technology skills,

and etc. So human skills was behind processing framework and

technical but as third, we also know that there are huge skill

gaps. And you know, that I don't have to tell you, it's not

surprising to you. I was doing some research, of course, on my

own looking for, you know, some smart questions to ask you and

I, and you did an event, I think, November 29, November 17,

we need to buy Florida School, I think it was orchestrated, and

you said, or in the event, it said the ability to connect

deeply, rapidly and authentically with others, is

also a hallmark of great leaders. And one of the most

important business skills in our current post pandemic world.

This actually gets me to your TED Talk, which is how I found

you on hacking humanity, which I was absolutely inspired by and I

was, I tried to get you into our London event. I'm sorry, that

didn't work out. Because I thought that would have been

fantastic. But it really inspired me and I was watching

it and anybody who is listening in go look for her hacking

humanity, TED talk, it's fantastic. But when you say for

those who might not want to go there, because they're so busy,

when you say hacking humanity, what did you mean, when you say

that? What do you mean, tell us a little bit more about that,

because I found it intriguing. But your words are so much more

powerful, and you can explain it so much better than I can.

Patrycja Slawuta: Well, that was five years ago. So back in the

day, five years ago, now I think it's even multiply and it's

happening stronger and deeper and faster. The idea was that

our systems were being hacked on many levels, our human systems

were being hacked by technology. The idea was that actually every

single event that we have created an opportunity for us to

upgrade or downgrade if you wish, and the choice whether

what happens is really up to us. And I think now after COVID This

is actually even more pressing. What a week. In a downgrade and

will turn into kind of against each other, and you know, it's

all about me, or are we going to connect up in a way and create

something that's meaningful now, hacking humanity, the idea was

that actually, at any point, we can hack, we are an upgrade

ourselves. And every single event that happens is an

opportunity to do that, as I say, we are 30 300,000 year old

technology that's has, you know, throughout ages has been kind of

upgrading if you wish, you know, we've been collaborating more,

we we've been creating more, etc. And every single big event

in in humanity creates opportunity to kind of upgrade.

Now we have had many, many main downgrades, and that includes

many wars that we have had genocides and things as such,

you can think of yourself as a code, and I see us as a code. So

your brain is a code, it has a very simple function. Every

single neuron has zero or one. And so multiply that by 100

billion neurons 100 trillion synaptic connection and you get

consciousness. But oh, it's a very simple system. It's like

system of dams. It's either on or off. Your DNA is also a code.

It's the we call it code of life ACTG. So those are the four

letters of life that create all of life. Now, that's also

hackable. And that's also upgradable. And we know that

from epigenetics, we know that things get transmuted through

generations, and there is no dispute over that. And our

behavior is a code as well. And you know, as a behavioral

scientist, I can write down your behavior. And it's actually not

that complicated. It's stimulus response and reward, we do

things because we want some type of reward, or we don't want some

kind of punishment. And so the idea was, can we as humanity can

understand how are being hacked, hack ourselves and actually kind

of upgrade ourselves. And I think now after COVID, we

actually have ability to do that, because things slow down.

And they're, you know, one of your question is, you know,

these scary times, and exciting times, and I think those are

precisely the times that actually require us to stop and

reflect because this is where wisdom comes from. And I think

this is where upgrade will come from. And so, it is about

practice, it is about tools. And most importantly, it really is

about awareness of how we function. And that's, that's why

I find those times, so absolutely exciting and an

amazing opportunity to actually change redefine, how things are

being done, and how are we with ourselves? Because I think, you

know, a lot of people are reflecting and after COVID, you

know, there's a quiet quitting this whole bunch of things that

are happening. And I don't think they're happening just like

that, you know, the burnout is happening. And this is actually

my newest tech talk that I gave two weeks ago. And it's not out

just yet, but it will be out soon. You know, we you know, we

want certainty. And we look around and we see the world

radicalizing, we feel burnout. When we look around and we see

the world burning. We get frustrated, we look around, we

see conflict around us. And so that connection of what happens

inside and while we actually is being reflected, I suppose is a

fascinating one. And, and I think looking around and seeing

what's going on, we actually have an amazing opportunity to

upgrade right now.

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Eveline Oehrlich: Upgrading sounds very attractive, I am

going to look for your next TED Talk, of course, but one other

question ever remember you were talking about in the second

humanity, heart, head and body? Can you elaborate a little bit

on that and be a little bit more specific if I want to upgrade my

head, my heart and my body? My body? I think, yeah, I'm, you

know, trying to do that. But heart and head is something

which is a thinker to our listeners and to myself, very

important, and I'd love to hear more about it.

Patrycja Slawuta: Sure. So as I said, you know, I work, we work

as psychologist, we work with technology that has 300,000

years and this technology has evolved over that time and has

certain rules and has certain schemes and certain system they

runs on and so I think of this as a back so you have the front

facing kind of a Um, software, user engagement and recall.

That's exactly right. And then there's there's the front end.

And there's the back end, right? The front end is the things that

I see this is, you know, kordia conversation we're having right

now. But you don't really know what's going on in my bucket,

right? There's whole bunch of things that are happening

computation stuff that is happening. Now for most of the

people that runs in the background. What we have done,

talking about human operating system is the system that

actually has 300,000 years, and it has four parts. And those are

four big branches of psychology. So the head is the software,

right? This is our thoughts. This is our assumptions that we

have about the world. How should this conversation look like?

This is our biases. This is you know, what I how I evolved as a

child growing up in Poland, moving to New York City and all

those assumptions what it means to be a woman when it means to

be a woman in business, you know, what it means to be a

mother, things are such so our assumptions and expectations

about the world. And those very often are a great source of our

pain, because you know, things don't look as we want it to

people disagree with us. And we know we are absolutely right. We

want to know what is the truth, oh, we know what the truth is.

But you know, all those idiots around us disagree. So this is

really the software. So this is the head. Then the second part

is the heart. And this is system one versus system two, as

Kahneman Tversky will call it those are our emotions and

motivations. And this is how we really make decisions. Right.

This is what our heart yearns for, what our dreams and desires

are. But this is also what keeps us up at night, when we wake up

at three in the morning, if some of us do, right with the

spinning thoughts and thinking, oh my god, what what is going to

be. And so this is really hard. This is the space of emotions,

motivations, what motivates us what we don't want it, what our

biggest fears that we're not even willing to admit to

ourselves. It's a fascinating space, because this is, you

know, in my, in my research, this is where the otherness

comes from. This is where secrets lie. This is what you

know, when conversations that should be have don't don't

happen, because we're afraid of what's going to happen. And

thinks as such. Then the third part is actually the hardware

which so think of the heart as the electricity that jobs, the

entire system into action, it then move towards a move away

from the third part is actually the hardware, which is the body.

The body is ultimately the hardware, I think what COVID has

showed us is actually we're not only the brain, but we actually

have a body, the body is very important because it affects

everything else. It's a giant, it's a gigantic communication

antenna, and not only to others, but also to ourselves, how we

stand, how our body is actually very deeply formed our thought

patterns, flex our mood. Others react to our bodies, others can

read our bodies, probably very often better than we can, our

nervousness, anxiety, anger shows in our body. And you know,

even though we can say, you know, now I'm perfectly fine,

others can read that. So it's a fascinating tool that we can

work with. And from my perspective, I actually think

our breath is the most portable mind hacking tool that we have.

Our ability to control, manipulate, withhold, our breath

is a fantastic capacity that we have as one of few species in

the world. So that's the that's the third piece is really

working with the body. And there's heaps of research about

embodied cognition that goes, you know, books written about

it. And that is really the field that's, that's blossoming right

now in my field in behavioral science. And then the four piece

is our network is ultimately we are hardwired to be social, we

grow up in social environment, we need others, and others need

us. And that's beautiful network of human to human connection is

actually what nourishes us. And so my, actually, my newest TED

Talk talks about distributed immune systems. So it turns out

that our immune system is not only internal, but it's also

distributed others our number one source of happiness, one of

the major sources of health, but also they deeply affect our

immune system. And so that is fascinating how actually our

relationship to others affect our directly affect our health

and functioning of the immune system. And that's called psycho

neuro immunology. And it's a fantastic field of study that is

connecting everything with everything. But it's very, very

cool. And so those four pieces, pretty much every skill that you

want to learn has to go through those four layers if you wish

of, of stacking. So there's the mind, very often we make a

decision to do something we get excited about something but we

never follow through, right because the heart is not there.

We don't know where to start. So the hand is not there in a way

you know, we don't have the discipline and ultimately we

don't have the social support. So very often, you know

decisions are made people go to inspirational event that they

come back to the net work and then at work pulls up back into

the old South. Right? So I go back home, and suddenly I can

see the old forces working on me, you know, my mom's saying

something that I reacted as if I was seven and not 37 or

whatever. And so those are the four elements that we work with.

And they're very, very nice, because it's a very nice

framework that you can hang any skill set off.

Eveline Oehrlich: So where do I start? Let me ask you exactly

this question. We're going a little bit off script. But as

you know, we're a community, we're trying to help people to

learn new skills, new behavior, and the community, as you said,

it's the network, right? The head, the heart, we at the

DevOps Institute sometimes feel like that, we're working on one

end, where we're trying to get their head into the game, but if

their heart is not in the game, so if I'm an individual, and I'm

sitting out there right now, if it's the end of the year, as we

have new year's resolutions, we all are trying to wade through

something. So what would your advice be for somebody who says,

hey, 2023 is going to be my year of success? And I will do x?

Where do I start? Do I start with the head, the heart, body?

Patrycja Slawuta: You start with them, they actually need to

stack up because one, we're running force the other. And so

first of all, it's the reflection awareness. You know,

your awareness is the most scarce resource in the world. By

far as you probably know, their entire industries that do

attention merchanting attention selling our attention is such a

valuable resource right now that companies feed off it. And so

first of all, do you own your attention? Do you do can we

reflect on the year I would actually start with reflecting

on the year? Like, what do I actually want? And I think what

COVID has caused is moloto People change the protests in

the life because it turns out, you know, it's not necessarily

doing the work. It's like, why am I doing this? And because

things slow down during COVID, a lot of people actually had time

to slow down and actually reflect. And a lot of those

reflections unfortunate, fortunately, show that Oh, my

God, what I'm doing is actually a not making me happy. Why am I

even doing that? I understand I'm making money, but my income,

you know, I'm missing how my children are growing up, or I'm

a stranger to my partner, or, you know, what I actually do

read my diary. Yes, you know, you will be surprised how common

this is, for so, so many people. And so I actually find it

fascinating because I actually do think that the human mind is

the most untapped natural resource. And so we need to dig

into those deeper and start using a full brain. But then

second of all, like, bring the heart into it, the things that

people are willing to do, because the heart is aligned.

It's absolutely fascinating. You know, this is where resilience

lives. This is where creativity lives. This is where innovation

lives. And so, you know, and it's not only inspiration, but

it's also things that frustrate us, I mean, the amount of

amazing things that started in the world, because somebody

said, you know, enough with that, we can do better than

this, I understand this is how things used to be, but I just, I

don't want it anymore. And so, you know, positivity is

fantastic. But actually being pissed off with the status quo

is I applaud that, because I've seen people do amazing things

just by saying, That's it, you know, we I think we can do

different, and we can do better. So reflect sorry to answer your

question,

Eveline Oehrlich: Reflect, bring them in. So feel, so reflect

what has happened, then bring my heart in and feel does this make

me happy? Or am I pissed? And what do I want to change? Okay,

so I'm there, I'm with you what's next then.

Patrycja Slawuta: And then you do the smallest thing possible.

There's a really good book that I recommend to everybody, I'm

sure you've read it, it's called atomic habits. But it's the

smallest thing possible that you can do. Because what it does is

creates this self auto loop and cognitive dissonance in which

you know, you start doing and then doing and doing and then

eventually the little habits become little runs that I used

to do because I am a runner and becomes identity and you want to

go to the identity ever because it's the bottom of the stack you

start at the top of the stack, which is a small action I can do

send a newsletter, do something speak up whatever it is put up

the website honestly, you know the amount of websites that in

amount of people say you know, the poorer the website, they try

to make it perfect. Dan is always better than perfect by

far. So the smallest thing possible literally go for run

around the block. Five minutes, you know, I had the same thing

with meditation. I mean, I am diagnosed with ADHD. So

meditation is absolutely excruciating to me, but I keep

hearing how good meditation is for you. And so I started with

three minute meditation because that's all like my brain could

handle And I remember even during even during those three

minutes, I will be had a pen and paper next to him because I

would get all those ideas. And then I'll open my eyes and write

things down, which was fine. And fast forward, I don't know,

maybe two, three years I've been sitting in, you know, 10 day

silent the task is not to say that this is, you know, amazing,

and I loved it. But those things stack up. And I think Warren

Buffett said that the most on appreciate a lot in investing

and I would say in psychology is compound interest. Those little

tiny things are compounding. And, and that's, that's what we

actually put our brain is very hard to notice that right? Like,

we want big change. Morrow, and that big change, the more just

doesn't happen. Yeah.

Eveline Oehrlich: To be fit tomorrow, I want to be

immediately running 10 kilometers. Yes, absolutely. I

want to be a DevOps engineer tomorrow. So awesome.

Patrycja Slawuta: And the final piece is the network. And I

think finding people that will cheer on us or people that we

can learn from, it's absolutely fascinating to see how willing

people are to help very often we're afraid to ask for help.

And not only that, they cheer on us. And what I always very often

do at the beginning of the year, because I know we're moving into

beginning of the year, or it is already beginning of the year,

and when you're listening to this, you know, share the vision

of where you want to go with the people that you respect and you

care about and ask them to hold that vision for you. So that

they interact with you from that perspective, you're already

there. In other words, they don't get you off the hook. But

they treat you already as a person who's a runner, who's a

ops developer, who's this, you know, who has written a book, or

whatever it is, they create almost this future self that you

can step into, and they act with you from that perspective. And

that that is such a strong pull forward. Because we do things

because we kind of don't want to disappoint others, you know, we

like to the social approval. And so this is kind of hacking the

social approval from so that it works in our favor.

Eveline Oehrlich: You are wicked good. Oh my god, I could listen

and talk to you another many, many, many minutes. But I want

to leave it right there. Because I think you gave us fantastic

advice for the next year. This has been fantastic. Pretty sure

I really, really love it. What else do you do besides

behavioral scientists when you go for besides running a

marathon? What do you do for fun on the weekend?

Patrycja Slawuta: Me? Well, I just moved to Australia after 13

years in New York City. So I'm trying to learn how to swim

properly. And so been exploring swimming, which is a very

different modality. For me, I'm a very grounded person I like to

be on the earth and running is my connection running is my

meditation, I always say running is my prayer as well. This is

how I pray. You know, this is how I give my thanks in a way.

And swimming is a completely different modality. And I you

know, it's completely out of my comfort zone. It's hard. I'm a

bad swimmer. Because I grew up in Poland, we own the Great

Plains, there was no water. And if you go into the Baltic Sea

gets even worse, you don't want to swim in this thing. And so,

you know, I'm eating humble pie, and I swim and all those kids

next to him because they grew up by the water. They're all swim

like fish. And I'm like, splashing. So but it's a

changing modality is very interesting. So I'm seeing

myself learn again.

Eveline Oehrlich: Wow, what a challenge. Fantastic. Thank you

very, very much. We've been talking to Patrycja Slawuta. I

hope I said your name correctly. Founder of UnLab and self

hackathon entrepreneur mind hacker, producer, thank you so

much for your time. I wish you the best wonderful, wonderful

holidays, enjoy, relax, travel safely, wherever you go. I know

you love to travel as well. I do as well. I'm traveling, you're

traveling, but we'll go different directions. So we

won't cross our paths. But let's stay in touch. And for our

listeners, this will be really, really exciting to have more

I'll share with you when the new TED Talk comes out. Again,

thanks Patrycja. Humans of DevOps Podcast is produced by

the DevOps Institute. Our audio production team includes Julia

Papp and Brendan Lay. I am the Humans of DevOps Podcast

executive producer Eveline Oehrlich. If you'd like to join

us on the podcast, please contact us Humans of DevOps

Podcast at DevOpsInstitute.com. I'm Eveline. Thank you.

Narrator: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Humans of

DevOps Podcast. Don't forget to join our global community to get

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