You can read everything there is to read about a bicycle and still not be able to ride one.

Episode 3 of What to Believe. In the first two episodes I exposed two of the automatic mechanistic ego reactions that run our lives — the need to be right, and the need to look good. This week I lift the hood and show you the approach itself.

Why seeing is different from thinking. Why all the information in the world won't shift your behaviour unless you can see the mechanism in operation. Why staring at a car that won't start and Googling "Toyota" instead of checking the petrol is most of what therapy does for the things this method is designed to address.

I work through the four words that underpin the whole series — automatic, mechanistic, phenomenon, seeing — and extend the bicycle analogy: awareness is to thinking what balance is to bicycle. With detours through Saul Bellow on intellectual man as an explaining creature, Lao Tzu on knowing oneself, why academics are often hopeless presenters, and Antonio Damasio's case of Elliot on what pure thinking does to decision-making.

Hosted by Neil Bierbaum — former investigative journalist, master coach (ICF MCC), MPhil Leadership Coaching (cum laude), faculty member at Stellenbosch Business School. New episodes Sunday mornings.

Come sceptical. Stay curious.

Chapter markers: 00:00 — Introduction 01:18 — Recap: the need to be right, the need to look good 03:00 — The four key words 03:30 — Automatic 05:17 — Mechanistic 07:51 — Phenomenon 09:08 — Saul Bellow on the explaining creature 11:13 — The bicycle revisited 14:37 — Awareness is to thinking what balance is to bicycle 15:57 — Why academics can be hopeless presenters 17:22 — Lao Tzu and the Eastern sages 20:11 — The practice of seeing 22:44 — Summary: seeing vs thinking 23:24 — Some links to the science 24:01 — What's next

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