You are constantly making decisions, at lightning fast speeds, mostly without your conscious awareness. From the time you see something, interpret it, make conclusions about it, then react to it and begin to act upon the conclusions you have arrived at, less than 13 milliseconds – or .013 seconds – will have passed. That is faster than you can blink your eyes. Less time than it takes you to read these four sentences. How much of that is manipulation and how much of it is conscious thought?

Your eyes are finding concepts or images and your brain is trying to understand them all day long. Even after the image has disappeared, the concepts may linger for processing in your brain, adding more interpretation, reinforcing your belief systems about people, ideas and situations.

This rapid processing helps keep you safe, enables you to recognize complex patterns so you know instantly who familiar people, places and/or situations are and develops habits so you can move through your days quicker. And, it gets you in trouble when your interpretation, conclusions and reactions are wrong. It can cause arguments and conflicts with other people inappropriately.

Much of the research about how fast your brain processes information is funded by marketing companies and political parties who want to ensure their messages influence you, your thoughts, beliefs and actions in a particular direction – dare we say manipulate how you think?

Worldview Intelligence is an approach that offers you the opportunity to short-circuit this unconscious messaging. It gives you the awareness, knowledge and skills to press the pause button, to be curious about your interpretations so you can act more mindfully, intentionally or strategically.