EP 91 - What “I Don’t Know” Is Really Saying About Your Brain

If you are someone who has the habit of saying a lot of I don't know in your everyday communication, this episode is specifically for you. I am going to break down why you are saying that, what is the science behind it, what it is costing you, and how you can change it. If you're ready, let's begin. Are you ready to shine?

Come on, it's the shiny one.

You got this. Welcome to the Shiny Minds Show with Dr. Shiny. I am Dr. Shiny Burcu Unsal, the proud creator of the Shiny Minds Show, my own global award-winning transformational Neuroshine technology, and the founder of the Academy of Neuroshine technology, and your Neuroshine coach. Today we are going to talk about something very practical, the sentence of I don't know. Let's break down why you are saying I don't know, where you probably learned it, why you're probably saying that without being aware of what it is costing you, and how and why you need to change it. A little bit of a context: I have been teaching Neuro-Linguistic Programming since the year of 2011. I am one of the licensed trainers of Dr. Richard Bandler, who co-created Neurolinguistic Programming together with John Grinder. I was totally amazed by the brain and the language and the body connection. That's what Neurolinguistic Programming is all about. Neurolinguistic Programming— how you use your neurons, your brain, right, to program your language. You can program your mind, your heart, and your habits. Yes, your heart too, with the way that you think about what you think about, the way that you attach meaning to the words that you use every single day. And I am obsessed with language. I'm obsessed with clarity and using clear language. And because I keep hearing I don't know from so many different people, all the time, I wanted to put it under the magnifying glass and show you what is actually happening if you have the habit of saying I don't know. So let's start with why you might be saying that. There are 3 reasons why we say I don't know. Reason number 1, you really don't have the information. There is no knowledge No mental library that you can pull information from. So that's a factual statement, and that's why you say, I don't know, which is a very, very rare case that I've seen. The reason number 2 is because you have so many things to focus on that you haven't prioritized what to focus on, what to put your attention on just yet. So simply, You say, I don't know. What you actually mean to say is that I have a lot of things that is in my knowledge. I have just not picked the one that is the most important for me because I haven't spent more time digging deep into this. This is basically what you're saying, because there is a bunch of clutter in your mental library. It's kind of disorganized. You do not have this organized way of thinking and organizing information. In your mind, so that's why you might be saying I don't know. The third reason why you might be saying I don't know is because you are basically lazy. I am so sorry to break it down to you, but think about the times that you said I don't know. You're basically telling yourself and to the person that you are communicating with is that you know what? I don't even feel like putting my neurons, my attention, my energy, all that. Effort into digging deeper into my knowledge system, my information system, which is your mind. I am too lazy to do that.

Why?

Because I'm tired. I have spent and consumed and drained my life energy to so many other things that right now when you ask me, what do you know about this? I will just easily say, I don't know.

Right?

So those are the 3 things. Again, you literally do not have the information. That's number one. 2 is you do not have the priority or the clarity to pull the information that is required for you to know the thing. And the 3rd is you're basically too lazy. You don't have energy to put into that thinking activity in front of you. So now let's talk about the science behind it. I told you that I was going to break it down to you. So let me do it. Here is your brain, half of your brain. Okay, so in your brain there is a lot going on, right? About 100 billion neurons in your brain. 100 billion. Think about it. In those neurons, you have a lot of synapses going on, neurons firing and firing together. There is a lot of dancing going on in your upstairs. Think about it. Every single information that you wrap, including looking at a basic tree and noticing the flowers on it and listening to your manager where there is a huge project that you are responsible for. And then also focusing that you're kind of hungry and your subconscious is looking forward to the time where you sit down with your food in front of you. Oh, and then you also want to focus on the time because biological rhythm is kicking, and then you need the ladies' room. You see what I'm saying? A lot going on upstairs. Your neurons are always firing and wiring, helping you to connect information, helping you to prioritize your action, your activity, and so you can actually perform in your life and become productive, become creative, and become useful and feel fulfilled. feel like you're having a great day, and then you are important. Your existence matters. Your voice matters. Your actions matter. And all in all, the brain is trying to help you and trying to put the information in organized folders so that it just pulls from where it needs to pull from. So you know what you need to do. You need to give clear instructions to your brain so that your language and your actions are aligned. If you are all over the place, your brain, your prefrontal cortex, the part that is responsible for logical executive reasoning, is the part where your consciousness is all over the decision-making. If you are operating from your limbic system, which is the emotional center of your brain, then you don't necessarily go with your priorities or high-level decision-making because that's not the prefrontal cortex, it's the limbic. And then there is another part of your brain which we call the reptilian brain that goes towards your brainstem, and that connects your brain, your entire skull, to the rest of your body. And when you look at the anatomy of your brain, you can see the hierarchy. The brainstem is obviously the survival center. And that's why you have your survival mechanism that is controlled in that system. And now we're going to talk about amygdala. Your amygdala is somewhere between your reptilian brainstem and your limbic system, your emotional center that is managing your fears. It's literally the fear system. There are 4 functions of amygdala that makes you say, I don't know, sometimes. I'm going to come to that. Okay, I opened you a very long loop. I'm explaining the science behind it. What amygdala is responsible for is 4 functions. We call it the 4 F functions: fight, flight, freeze, and fall. 4 Fs, not the F you're thinking about, right? So those are the 4 Fs. When we talk about the autonomous nervous system, Which is your automated, automated system, which is literally your subconscious, which is not your prefrontal cortex because your autonomic nervous system is subconscious and your prefrontal cortex is conscious. If you are conscious, then it is not your autonomic nervous system. Your autonomic nervous system, ANS, is giving you automated impulses to do things automatically, including your selection of words, including the sentence I don't know, because the amygdala is part of that autonomic nervous system managing your survival. The fight-flight is the survival mechanism that actually happens in your communication. So now you have this information, let's tie it back to The I don't know. The sentence I don't know is most of the cases a sentence of avoidance. Think about it. So if the amygdala is controlling the fight, flight, freeze, and fall, and fall is just fainting, and so we can actually forget about it, ignore it within the context of this conversation. And if the freeze is something like you literally froze and there was a lot of information that literally makes you stop, we can double-click on that. Why? Because I don't know might as well be a sign of freeze. Why? Think about it. When you have a lot of things that you are sorting through, when you have a lot of open mental files, in my language, that you need to click on and gather information from, what does the amygdala do? Sometimes freezes you.

Right?

And that shows up with that kind of a sentence coming out of your mouth. I don't know why, because you're frozen in that time. Your brain cannot function consciously, can only function automatically, meaning your prefrontal cortex cannot really connect with the rest of your brain to gather the information from its necessary files and folders. Think of your brain like a Google Drive. So if you all have these files and folders in place, and if you connect your prefrontal cortex to the right files and folders, then it would be easier for your brain to pull that. But it is not that easy. We have emotions that we need to sort through. We have priorities that we need to sort through. So then what is this about phrasing and saying, I don't know? Do you see the correlation? When you're saying, I don't know, you might as well be demonstrating the frozenness of your amygdala, of your system. In that moment, what are you freezing? You're freezing your consciousness. You're freezing your prefrontal cortex. So everything that you need to do with a lot of effort, with a lot of like pushing through with the energy, with your conscious decision-making system stops. Why? Because there's so much. And it's overwhelming for the brain. And the brain, the prefrontal cortex, loses its agency, and it literally lets go of the driver's seat. And guess what happens? Your autonomous nervous system takes over and makes you say, I don't know. Why? Because you have just frozen it. You see what I'm saying? You are frozen, and you don't even know What to do at that time? Why do you do this? Because it might be dangerous for you. If there is information that you are going to pull from, which is going to make you feel that you need to face some uncomfortable truth, you know what's going to happen? You're going to want to freeze into it. You're going to want to put it into the freezer, into the refrigerator, because you don't want to face it. You're not ready. You don't have the energy. You don't have The stamina, the motivation to face it. You would rather freeze that moment and never face it. The other function— let's look at the other function of amygdala, because we talked about falling, which is fainting, so that's not a function, so we let go of that. Freezing, yeah, that might be the reason why you're saying, I don't know. Let's look at flight, because we have fight and flight left. Fight would never say, I don't know. Fight would say, I'm gonna go find the reason why. I am going to tell you why I say what I say, why I think what I think. It would find the reason because it is ready to fight. It's ready to face it. Versus if amygdala is also firing up the flight response, which is basically avoidance. If you look at The attachment theory in psychology, there is avoidance, there is avoidant attachment, there's fearful avoidant attachment. And all that psychological attachment to things and situations and even conversations in your amygdala makes you say, I don't know. Also makes you say, I don't know why, because you want to avoid it. That's the flight. You want to just flee. You want to run away from that scenery. You never want to face it. You follow? So that's where the connection is. You do not want to face it. You want to avoid it. It's very similar to the freeze function. The freeze function actually comes from the avoidance function. Avoidance might have more clear intention into why there is avoidance versus freeze is totally new. There is surprise into it. There is some sort of a shock into it. So that might be a lower percentage versus if you are in amygdala's flight response, you would find yourself more frequently saying, I don't know. I'll give you now a practical sentence. If you are working with a client, doesn't matter what kind of a client, doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter What you are working on with your client. If you are asking them, okay, what shall we do here? And they basically say, I don't know. Now you can think about what I just shared with you. If they just said, I don't know, do they have enough information? You know, you know that they have enough information. So that's not the reason. Do you know that they have a lot of mental files and folders open that requires them to have prioritization and value organization? Probably yes, right? So that might be the reason why they said, I don't know, and it might also be the reason of something that they just faced for the first time. Perhaps you ask them, why do you think your team members are acting that way? And then your client is like, I don't know.

Why?

Because they've never thought about it. They've never put their attention On that. They have never faced themselves. They've never looked in the mirror, their own behaviors, and they've never made themselves answer that question. So that's why they're saying, I don't know. It's really not that they don't know. The real fact behind it is that, oh, this is new information. Let me just think about it. Okay, which brings me To my final section in this video, what you can do instead of saying I don't know. So the first thing you need to do is obviously to understand the mechanics behind it, which I probably now made you clear about the reason why. It's literally amygdala. It's, it's science. It's just neuroscience. Okay? It's fight, flight, freeze, fall. And it's because of basically the flight and the freeze. functions of the amygdala that you say, I don't know, or some other people that you communicate with say, I don't know. Now that you know this, now that you are aware of this, guess what's going to happen? You're going to catch yourself because that is my incredibly simple yet proven formula for change. Change equals awareness multiplied by willingness And now that we've established your awareness around the situation, why you say I don't know, or some other people say I don't know, we established your awareness. Now that your awareness is in place, we're now going to tap into the willingness part. The willingness part is going to be about what you can do instead. So instead of saying I don't know, next time somebody asks you a question where you feel compelled to say, I don't know. Step number 1, catch yourself. Step number 2, now you're gonna double-click on your willingness, and then you're gonna find some other alternative statements and sentences that you can say that actually can make you sound smarter, more intelligent, wiser, more strategic, more thoughtful, more contemplative and reflective. Does that make sense? So that's why I will now give you some alternatives. Number 1, you can say, hmm, that sounds like a very interesting point. Let me think about it. Okay, what are you doing here? You're basically first making a comment about what you heard, saying it's interesting, and then you're also saying, let me think about it. What do you really mean when you say, let me think about it? You mean that you have not Thought about it before. There is acceptance, there's admittance, and then there is also willingness. Let me do something about it. Okay? Alternative number two, depending on the context and the question that you received, because I don't know the response you give, right? A response to a question. So I'm gonna give you a practical example. If somebody asks you, okay, what do you want to get out of this conversation? Which is a coaching question that we ask all the time. We want to ask you your desired outcome. Instead of saying, I don't know, here is the second alternative sentence that you can use. You can simply say, hmm, let me register, let me compute that question and command my neurons, my brain to focus on it. And then you literally go say, hmm, what do I think about it? What is my desired outcome? Um, so then you keep repeating it until you notice an internal shift in your brain. Literally pay attention to what's going on, and there will be a click. You will either see an image as a response, hear a voice, probably your own voice in your internal conversation, or you're going to feel something. Because we have sensory information. You have senses. You can see it, hear it, or feel it. You would also touch it if there's something to touch. I'm just not including the touch and the smell because most of the time we focus on visual, auditory, and kinesthetic information. And if you pay attention to your own internal state, and if you commend yourself To focus on visual, auditory, and kinesthetic information. I promise you, you are going to have the answer that you need. Third alternative statement, instead of saying, I don't know, to sound more strategic, wiser, and smarter is this. I would recommend you to say, you know what? I do not have clarity about this yet. I'm open to your input. If you have any clarifying questions for me to have my own answer, to have my own clarity, I would appreciate that. I would welcome that. There you go. You didn't sound like you are lazy to think about the answer. You didn't sound like you don't know how to think. You didn't sound like you're clueless. You sounded like a very grounded intelligent and wise person who is willing— again, the keyword is willingness because awareness is there— willing to do something different about it. And if you are wondering how you can actually have more alternatives to say and how you can program your mind, your neurons, your brain, your amygdala to have immediate answers to those type of questions and how you can use your language in a more effective and efficient way, then I invite you to work with us. You can basically go to shinyunsal.com, my website, and grab that PDF. Or alternatively, always alternatives, you can go to neuroshineteknoloji.com/coach and see your options, how you can start working with us, joining our programs, and rise and shine starting in your mind. Thank you for Watching and allowing my light shine your neurons. And until next time, keep shining your light.

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