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
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