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In a world where AI is ever-present, information never stops, and external opinions flood our feeds, it’s easy to lose touch with the one voice that truly knows: your own.
Return to Intuition is a podcast for conscious leaders, working parents, creatives, and seekers who are ready to pause the noise and tune back in. Hosted by Erin McMahon—marketing executive, mother of two, and intuitive seeker—this show explores how reconnecting with your inner voice can transform the way you lead, parent, create, and live.
Each episode offers grounded insight, personal reflection, and meaningful conversations with founders, intuitive leaders, and thoughtful creators navigating growth, ambition, and soul-aligned choices in a fast-changing world.
Let’s face the future knowing our greatest guide is within—and talk to each other about how to use the world around us to build the best every day and an even better future.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:28:19
Unknown
Hello and welcome to Return on Intuition, where we explore the intersection of behavioral science, spirituality, decision making and the deeper intelligence. We guides us in work in life. I'm Erin McMann, marketing leader mother, an insatiable, curious observer of what drives human behavior. So today I want to talk about one of the first ways I got into behavioral economics and behavioral science.
00:00:28:19 - 00:00:50:22
Unknown
And one of my favorite experiments that really sparked my interest. So first time I heard of behavioral economics was I was working in Boston at the time, and I would walk through the the Boston Or it was actually Cambridge and walk through the MIT bookstore in the winter from the train station to get to my office. And I worked at Google at the time.
00:00:50:22 - 00:01:09:00
Unknown
And so, of course, walking through a bookstore, I see a lot of key books on display that are new, and the book that caught my interest at the time was predictably Irrational, which I think is probably one of my favorite books, of all time. But then I would also say the title is amazing, amazing, and eye catching.
00:01:09:00 - 00:01:38:17
Unknown
So I bought it and I read it and, it is by Dan Ariely, and he talks about behavioral economics, which the premise of it is that although, the normal premise of economics is that humans are rational beings and act according to, you know, their best interests and, and predictable ways that, that really isn't true. And there are elements of psychology and behavioral science that can really help us, how humans do behave.
00:01:38:20 - 00:02:04:07
Unknown
And they do behave in ways that are irrational, but it's also predictable and understandable. So I love that, it's part of why I love marketing and just understanding psychology and human behavior. So one key part of, this book or one key experiment in this book was called The Invisible Gorilla Experiment. I had never heard of this before.
00:02:04:07 - 00:02:29:02
Unknown
And so I immediately looked it up and I couldn't believe what I saw. The premise is simple. You're asked to watch a video of people passing basketballs, and your task is to count how many passes one particular game. So focus on this task. Many viewers, you know, count 18, 20, and quite often this happens in a group setting.
00:02:29:02 - 00:02:52:03
Unknown
So they're trying to make sure that they are accurate counters and they see it, as others do. But the the catch of the experiment is in middle of the video person and a girl walks in and beats his chest and then walks out right in front of the eyes of the viewer. And surprisingly, most people don't catch this.
00:02:52:03 - 00:03:11:15
Unknown
Or a lot of people don't catch it. Now, unfortunately, I've ruined this a little bit in terms of you already know the catch, the of the video. And, you know, if you see the number of passes, if you're alerted to the gorilla and anticipate it, then you probably will spot it, but you can still try it out for the family.
00:03:11:18 - 00:03:36:21
Unknown
And I would, because I have and it is interesting to see who picks up on the the surprise in the video. So the point of this experiment is that if people are focused on a task, then they may not, and probably will miss key things that are happening. This is about selective attention, how our brain filters what we think is important, and turns out everything else.
00:03:36:21 - 00:04:06:26
Unknown
This is key for intuition. And it is, you know, debatable about whether this, you know, is a knock on intuition or enhances intuition and predictably, rationale. Dan Ariely tells us that this means that we can't necessarily trust our intuition because we are not seeing everything. My take on it is a little bit different. I think that if we are given a task and focused solely on that task, and that's our general mentality, then yes, we will miss things.
00:04:06:26 - 00:04:40:13
Unknown
However, what this experiment shows us is that if we widen the aperture and we are aware that we're not aware of everything, then we can potentially pick up on more signals that we wouldn't necessarily see if we just focused on our task oriented and task oriented and logical thinking. So I think that, in general, our practices of intuition or practices of mindfulness being present in the moment can help open us up to tomorrow.
00:04:40:15 - 00:05:05:22
Unknown
So what we pay attention to and the way we pay attention to things. So our intuition isn't necessarily deceptive, and also picking up on things that aren't necessarily part of the task. So, you know, in the last episode, we talked about ignoring things that aren't necessarily logical and don't make sense. I think this is an extension of that in that.
00:05:05:24 - 00:05:33:25
Unknown
And we're tasked with, you know, doing something like, you know, creating a short term, you know, blog post or campaign explaining a particular product feature. And you, you know, it's very like quickly executable tasks that, the engineering team has asked you to do. Think about the larger picture and think about whether your, your brain or intuition is telling you, can you make this something larger?
00:05:33:26 - 00:05:59:22
Unknown
Is there a difference spin that you can put on this that makes your product or what you're talking about stand out in the crowd? Our brains are wired for efficiency, so they are assigned a task. Focus on doing that task, doing it with completing with the lowest energy usage. So if we're used to doing something and executing getting it done, then that's what we'll focus on.
00:05:59:24 - 00:06:24:23
Unknown
The reticular activating system, which is a bundle of nerves at the base of our brain, acts like a filter tuning in what we've deemed as important, tuning out the rest. This is really interesting, and I wasn't aware of this until I, you know, investigated the invisible gorilla experiment and really dove into it more deeply. But it is it is true that we filter out a lot of what we see.
00:06:24:23 - 00:07:00:21
Unknown
So what we see is not and when we take in is not truly reality, which is mind blowing, but it means that we can use it to our advantage in terms of using our internal self and our feelings and internal guidance to focus and to look for things that we want to. An example of this that has been used countless times is if you are considering buying a certain type of car, you wouldn't necessarily seen a car on the street that much, but then all of a sudden you see the car much more in parking lots and things like that.
00:07:00:21 - 00:07:33:23
Unknown
And it's not because all of a sudden, you know, everybody is driving, you know, Toyota Priuses. It's because you're considering that car. And I see it. So the reticular activating system acts like a filter. It's why people in that experiment were so focused on, you know, counting the counting the passes and not necessarily seeing everything else. It's also the reason that we can hear our name call across a noisy room, because we're trained to listen for our name.
00:07:33:26 - 00:08:01:18
Unknown
So that shows up everywhere in the workplace. We're headed down goal oriented. But the real insight and game changing strategy is that we can broaden our perspective and think for creatively and contribute, more creatively in an emerging, noisy marketplace. So you can think about this both from how you do your work and the unique take that you have on certain things.
00:08:01:18 - 00:08:34:12
Unknown
And then you can also think about it from, the consumer perspective, which is, you know, we are bombarded with many, pieces of information signals, people trying to get their get our attention based on what we, what role we have in our personalized, what role we have in the workplace, etc., and how do we as marketers, communicators, innovators get across our message?
00:08:34:15 - 00:08:55:29
Unknown
And how do we break through and or activate what people are focused on? So I think this is key in marketing, because if you know, people are focused on, you know, a certain set of values or a certain set of things they want to get done, then your message needs to connect that in a, resonant and meaningful and memorable way.
00:08:56:02 - 00:09:18:04
Unknown
And in life, while the guerrilla might be your child's need for a connection, the moments of joy you miss because you're thinking about the daily tasks you've been doing. I certainly have this conflict on a daily basis, which is, you know, I have a list of things I get done. We have a routine that we're going through.
00:09:18:07 - 00:09:38:09
Unknown
Got to get the kids through dinner, got to get them through, you know, their bath and and they might, you know, be crying or have a tantrum and, you know, and I'm almost thinking about the possibilities of when I will get, you know, a tantrum or how much I'll have to convince a kid to get in the bath or things like that.
00:09:38:12 - 00:10:06:06
Unknown
But, you know, what are the things that we're missing that are not associated with the tasks? So I, I'd be open for suggestions for how to be more present and, enjoy those, quiet moments and, and use those moments of presence to understand what children's needs are and or make sure that we're listening for things that aren't immediately loud.
00:10:06:06 - 00:10:36:19
Unknown
So, you know, if a child does have a tantrum, one child dies in the other child's quiet. What is the other child need? Because the louder one is, you know, is the one that is immediate and is the task at hand. But what are the other considerations? Or what is the tantrum really mean? I've read a lot by, Doctor Becky Kennedy, who wrote Good Inside about how our children's intentions and really everyone's intentions are, are good.
00:10:36:19 - 00:11:07:07
Unknown
But ultimately, when we're raising our children, we will see outputs and or a behavior that are, more frustrating to encounter, such as tantrums, loud emotions, things like that. So you know, behind what you see, what is the visible? What is the invisible behind that? What is what is the tantrum really mean? And, I, I think that that's that's very helpful to look at, you know, what is the tantrum isn't necessarily the problem.
00:11:07:07 - 00:11:28:20
Unknown
It's a signal for something else that your child needs. So I think that's a way to think about what is the task at hand. What is that immediate like I need this is visible. This is what I need to do, which is, you know, call the tantrum and in the most manageable way possible. But what is what is that gorilla that I don't necessarily see that's underneath?
00:11:28:20 - 00:11:51:09
Unknown
Is it some, you know, my child looking for or individual attention? Is it, the fact that he's dealing with feelings that he doesn't know how to manage yet? Is it the fact that he has something in school that he wants to talk about, but he doesn't know how to express it? So again, thinking about not just the immediate what's the task at hand?
00:11:51:09 - 00:12:14:00
Unknown
But then what's behind that? I talked about personal life, talked about work a little bit. I want to talk about the world of AI because it is top of mind and part of my work. And I work with companies that are building AI as part of AI infrastructure, and it is certainly part of the news. Where's the gorilla now?
00:12:14:03 - 00:12:39:04
Unknown
AI is, you know, part of a buzzword. Everybody is talking about it and it it honestly is a blanket term that means so many things that it's kind of crazy that we put it all in one word. The news talks about it in terms of productive automation, fear, disruption, taking over jobs, but where's where's the gorilla? What's not being said.
00:12:39:07 - 00:13:15:02
Unknown
So I think about that because there are there are a lot of unknowns. There are a lot of fears associated with it. But, you know, for you personally in your life and then for us as a society as a whole, what are those things, those hidden elements that aren't being really talked about and that can emerge and hopefully benefit us for the better and help us individually in our careers, understand, how this will benefit, you know, how will benefit what we do and also what our kids do and how they learn.
00:13:15:04 - 00:13:48:27
Unknown
So in the case where I work, either with AI infrastructure, we're seeing emerging use cases that are really helping how people discover and connect with people. A lot in the news headlines are focused on just ChatGPT and how it's going to overtake people's jobs. But I also see, undercurrent of other innovations of, you know, how farmers are using AI to, you know, more efficiently produce crops or more efficiently use water usage where it's unavailable.
00:13:48:29 - 00:14:26:06
Unknown
So I, I encourage people to dive deeper both for what it means for you personally. I'm optimistic. So I like to think about the positive ways about how it's going to, differing use cases are going to change from using something like HSBC instead of Google in your personal life, and how you communicate with people. But then also, what are these other emerging companies and use cases that aren't necessarily related to, you know, taking jobs away from people, but, you know, related to changing meaningful ways that we work.
00:14:26:12 - 00:14:50:16
Unknown
So we're in a moment that demands both intuition and awareness. The future isn't what is being dictated to us from the news. And it isn't something that we can completely control, but we can harness it and use it to our advantage. And that's based on what we notice and what we create and then what we can build.
00:14:50:16 - 00:15:19:22
Unknown
And that's, you know, a lot of that is looking internally and seeing what signals and guidance you're taking, not using external signals as the main driver. And, you know, moving forward. And, flourishing that way. So this week, pay attention to what you're not paying attention to and ask yourself what you're, might be walking through my office space or my kitchen.
00:15:19:24 - 00:15:45:09
Unknown
Thanks for listening. I'm Erin, and this is returning intuition. If this sparked something for you, share it. Subscribe, sub or experiment. And remember, presence is power. See you next time.