How Role Models Change Our Lives - Fiona Murden - #223

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hi friends, welcome back. My guest today is Fiona Murden, executive coach, psychologist and author. You might have heard that old wives' tale your mum told you or you've seen on the internet about you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. But just how true is that? We might think that we're sovereign beings with independent will and agency, but the examples set by those around you are constantly shaping your behaviour. So today we get to find out just by how much. How important is your teacher in primary school? What impact do your parents' beliefs have on you by the time you've reached adulthood? How useful are bad actors at identifying behaviour that you should avoid? And how can we use role models to actually expedite our progress? There's some pretty big implications here, especially if you're someone who has children or is looking to have children in the near future, you really should be taking a lot of notice of what Fiona says today. In other news, this episode of the podcast is brought to you by Manscaped, who are the best in men's below the waist grooming. Manscaped offers precision engineered tools for your family jewels, and they've just launched in the UK, which means that you are finally able to get your hands on the Lawnmower 3.0, the greatest ball hair trimmer ever created, which features cutting edge ceramic blade to reduce grooming accidents, a 90 minute battery so you can take a longer shave, waterproof technology that actually allows you to groom in the shower, and an LED light, which sounds bizarre but is really, really useful. All of the guys that are listening, you know the embarrassment and fear and anxiety that builds up in the days preceding your inevitable gentleman's area trim, and it just reduces the amount of fear that you have to have. You're not so worried about nicking that weird section of your body that is in between balls and bumhole, which is terrifying. It's the single most vulnerable part of your body, and you don't want to be fearing accidents. Thankfully, you don't have to. So you can finally put away the old shaver, which has been pushed down the hierarchy from something that you got for Christmas about seven years ago, used on your face for a while, and now it's your chest and ball hair trimmer, and you can get something which is built for the job. All right. Head to manscaped.com and enter the code Modern Wisdom for 20% off anything that you buy plus free shipping. That's manscaped.com code Modern Wisdom. Check out for 20% off and free shipping on whatever you buy. Put the old shaver away and give your body a little bit of love. But for now, it's time for the wise and wonderful Fiona Murden.
What is the mirror system?

**Fiona Murden** (2:50)
The mirror system is a collection of neurons in the brain, which enable us to observe what other people are doing without actually carrying out that action ourselves. And how that functions is to enable us to learn, basically, because for thousands and thousands of years, before we had the written word, the only way we could learn was through observing, and actually through storytelling as well, which, interestingly, is also dependent in part on the mirror neuron.

**Chris Williamson** (3:22)
That's interesting. So how does it work? How do I watch you doing a thing? You're whittling a stick or I don't know what our ancestors would be doing, hunting a deer. How does it work?

**Fiona Murden** (3:34)
So it's easiest to go back to how it was discovered, because it was discovered in Palmer by some Italian psychophysiologists or I've got the name wrong there, but they were looking at how monkeys grasp, and they had electrodes in this, it's a bit mean, into the brains of the monkeys. One day they were eating their lunch and they noticed that the monkeys were doing the grasping in terms of what electrical output was coming off, but they weren't actually moving.
So they realized that the same part of the brain was functioning when the monkeys were watching as when the monkeys were actually doing it themselves. And so if you think about it, if you think about a baby, for example, watching a mother or a mum or dad eating, they might be watching them when they're not eating themselves, but each time they're watching, they're rehearsing it through in their brain, which helps to build up that capability of how to actually do that ourselves.

**Chris Williamson** (4:41)
And this is just automated?

**Fiona Murden** (4:44)
Yeah. I mean, it's complex. So some people actually argue against the mirror neuron, but that's going down a really geeky path.