Seeing Sideways: Your Brain Isn't Broken, It's Just Biased (The Surprising Truth About How We Think)

“Clarity is resilience. And it doesn’t come from being unshakably sure—it comes from staying grounded while allowing your ideas to evolve.”

What if your brain isn’t broken—but brilliantly biased? In this kick-off to the Seeing Sideways series, I explore how cognitive biases shape our perception, decision-making, and relationships—and how self-awareness helps us respond with clarity and build lasting resilience.

Have you ever been absolutely certain you were right—only to discover your brain was playing tricks on you?

Key Takeaway Insights and Tools (with Timestamps):

• Your Brain Isn’t Flawed—It’s Efficient
  Cognitive biases aren’t defects. They’re evolutionary shortcuts that once kept us safe but now can distort modern decision-making.
  [01:20]
• Clarity Begins with Curiosity
  When you prioritise curiosity over certainty, you create space for growth, insight, and better judgment.
  [02:46]
• Confirmation Bias: A Belief Magnet
  Our brains filter information to support existing beliefs—whether in the workplace, relationships, or how we see ourselves.
  [09:06]
• Contrarian Thinking Builds Resilience
  Questioning your assumptions, rehearsing the opposite viewpoint, and seeking respectful contradiction help sharpen clarity and adaptability.
  [13:47–16:41]
• Track Your Thinking Over Time
  Keeping a belief journal lets you reflect on how your perspectives evolve—and where your mind may be filtering reality.
  [16:41]

Jason Birkevold Liem is a leadership coach, author, and host of It’s an Inside Job. With over two decades of experience in psychology-based coaching, Jason helps leaders and professionals build mental resilience, improve communication, and lead with clarity. His latest work, Seeing Sideways, explores how to reframe cognitive biases and lead from the inside out.

Chapters

• 0:16 Introduction to the Podcast
• 1:42 Practical Tips for Everyday Challenges

Transcript

0:07

Ever catch yourself focusing on what's wrong instead of what's possible? Or judging someone too quickly only to realize you were off? That's not a flaw. It's your brain doing what it was wired to do, taking shortcuts. In this special series, we're walking through my book, Seeing Sideways, One Chapter at a Time. Each episode explores a powerful cognitive bias that quietly shapes how we think, choose, and connect. These mental shortcuts helped our ancestors to survive. But today, they can cloud judgment, limit perspective, and chip away at well-being. So this isn't about fixing your brain. It's about understanding it so you can lead yourself with clarity, respond with intention, and build resilience from the inside out. Well, welcome to this introductory episode of my new series, Seeing Sideways. Why your brain isn't broken, just brilliantly biased. Have you ever made a snap judgment about someone based on a first impression, only to regret it when you learned more about them? Or maybe you've ignored a gut feeling about a decision because you convinced yourself it was the right choice, only to discover later that your intuition was correct. What if I told you that your brain isn't broken? It's just following a set of clever evolutionary shortcuts that work most of the time but sometimes lead us astray. Your brain is designed to keep you alive and help you thrive. It evolved with a brilliant set of mental tools that helped our ancestors make quick decisions, avoid dangers, and navigate complex social environments. These mental shortcuts, cognitive biases, well, they are the brain's way of conserving energy and making decisions efficiently. However, while these shortcuts were once essential for survival, they don't always serve us well in modern complex contexts. They can sometimes have a detrimental effect on our emotional well-being, our decision-making, and our social interactions. The biases we'll explore in this series are not evidence of a broken brain. They are proof of a brain that's doing exactly what it was programmed to do. However, in today's fast-paced world, these biases often mislead us, creating blind spots in how we perceive others, ourselves, and the world around us. Understanding these tricks will help you see where the brain's shortcuts are working against you, whether in the workplace, relationships, or personal well-being. Now, I want to make a case for curiosity over certainty. In seeing sideways, the hidden patterns behind how we think, choose, and react, we're not trying to fix your brain. We're learning how to work with it. Instead of falling prey to the automatic responses that these biases create, we can take a contrarian approach, questioning our instincts, examining our assumptions, and choosing to act with intention rather than reaction. By recognizing and overriding these biases we become more resilient adaptable and aware of the forces shaping our thoughts and decisions in this series we'll explore 24 of the most powerful cognitive biases that shape our lives from the confirmation bias which makes us seek out information that supports our existing beliefs to the illusion of control which leads us to believe that we can influence everything. These biases affect everything from how we make decisions to how we see ourselves and others. Now, while these biases are deeply ingrained in our brain's programming, they can be counteracted. By adopting a contrarian mindset that values curiosity over certainty, we can recognize when our biases are leading us astray and take action to make more thoughtful, resilient choices. So instead of seeing these biases as flaws, we can view them as opportunities for growth. They are the brain's way of navigating an unpredictable world, but we can learn to sidestep their influence and see the world more clearly with awareness. Curiosity, well, it allows us to question the obvious, explore alternative perspectives, and ultimately strengthen our emotional resilience. A new approach to decision-making. Every day we make countless small and significant decisions, but the brain's biases, well, they often distort how we evaluate those choices. When we rely on these shortcuts, we can miss opportunities, make poor decisions, and even fail to recognize when compromising our well-being. But the good news is that awareness is the first step toward change. By identifying the biases in our decisions, well, we can stop relying on mental shortcuts and start making choices that align with our goals, our values, and our long-term resilience. In the episodes ahead, you'll learn how these biases work, how they affect our behavior, and how you can override them to make smarter, more informed decisions. As we dive into each bias, you'll gain tools to see beyond automatic responses, question your assumptions, and ultimately build a more resilient mindset. The goal here isn't to eliminate bias, but to be aware of it. The power of self-awareness. Seeing sideways isn't just about the brain tricks that can derail our decisions. It's about the power of becoming aware of those tricks. Understanding how and why our brain sometimes misreads the world can change how we approach challenges, relationships, and life in general. Self-awareness gives us the tools to navigate our biases, to think critically, and to act purposely in a noisy world. In future episodes, we're going to explore how to develop that awareness to embrace curiosity over certainty and become more resilient in the face of life's complexities. The more we understand the tricks our brain plays on us, well, the more we can turn those tricks into opportunities for growth, clarity, and emotional strength. So without further ado, let's begin this sojourn of seeing sideways, learning to recognize the hidden influence shaping our thoughts and actions. And discovering how to use that understanding to make better, more resilient decisions. So for the next five episodes, we are going to dive into part one, and that's the shortcuts that shape our perception. The cognitive shortcuts we all take. Our brains are remarkable machines, but they weren't designed for the complexity of modern life. To survive in a world of uncertainty, ambiguity, and overwhelming amounts of information, well, your brain developed shortcuts or heuristics, mental patterns designed to conserve energy and make quick decisions. Now, these shortcuts are often efficient, but they're not always accurate. They shape how we perceive the world, make decisions, and even see ourselves. They help us to navigate life, but they can also mislead us. These mental shortcuts or cognitive biases are often invisible. In the next five episodes, including this one, we're going to explore the most common biases that shape our perceptions. From how we interpret information to how we make judgments, these biases are the default settings of our mind. Confirmation bias, the availability heuristic, anchoring bias, and others distort the view of reality in subtle but powerful ways. These episodes are crucial for understanding how we see the world and how the brain often gets it wrong. The good news, once you spot these biases, you gain the power to step outside of them. The first step towards resilience is recognizing how our brains naturally distort the world. And the next step is then learning how to reframe our perceptions. So in the next few episodes, we'll examine how these shortcuts shape everything from our decisions to our beliefs about people in the world around us. Recognizing these biases is the first step towards seeing them with more clarity. And the sojourn starts here, with the shortcuts we all take. Music. So let's dive into the first bias that affects our perception. The confirmation bias. Why we only see and hear what we want to believe. You're in a heated discussion. You're sure you're right. And everything you hear, the facts, the tone, the silence, well, it feels like proof. But what if your brain collects evidence for the story it already wants to believe? Confirmation bias is the mind's habit of bending reality to fit our existing beliefs. It's not just about what we think. It's about how we protect how we think. This bias leads us to favor information that confirms our beliefs. And it dismisses or ignores information that challenges us. It feels like objectivity. But it's actually a kind of mental autopilot. Like a belief magnet. Your mind attracts anything that agrees with you and quietly repels what doesn't. This might sound like a flaw, but it's a feature that evolved to conserve energy and to avoid cognitive dissonance. The trouble is, the more we rely on it, the harder it becomes to hear anything new, question ourselves, or to even grow. The Trap Imagine this. You've developed a quiet but firm belief that a particular co-worker is unreliable. And one morning, they show up late for a meeting, and you log that as more evidence. Classic, you think. But the times they arrived early offered to help or stayed late? Well, these moments slipped through the cracks or were rationalized away. Well, that was just once, we'll say to ourselves. Now, you're not being malicious. You're being human. Your brain is efficiently filtering the world to match your expectations. This isn't limited to work. Think of the relationships you've been in, how you read the news, or even how you interpret your moods. When we're already convinced of something, whether it's I'm not good at this or they don't respect me, we begin collecting proof. Every small data point is sorted, not based on accuracy, far from it, but on whether it agrees with the story we've already written in our heads. Confirmation bias doesn't always manifest as a judgment of others. If you believe you're bad at math, for example, well, then you'll dismiss your small wins and amplify your mistakes. If you pride yourself on being a good listener, well, you may overlook moments where you're distracted because your identity needs to maintain that label. Confirmation bias doesn't just shape how we see the world. It shapes how we see ourselves. The twist. In ancestral environments quick judgment meant survival so if you believe the plant was poisonous you didn't need to run tests you just avoided it if a member of your tribe was once untrustworthy well your brain tagged them with that label and then watched them more closely sticking to established beliefs saved time then it lowered risks the brain wasn't evolved for truth it was evolved for efficiency and confirmation bias delivered exactly that. What began as a survival tactic now appears as a cognitive reflex in modern life. Now this reflex has outgrown its usefulness in a world full of nuance and ambiguity and information overload. So what once kept us safe now keeps us stuck. The cost. Left on challenge, confirmation bias narrows our world. We stop seeing people as they are and start seeing only what fits. New ideas bounce off and hard truths get softened. Eventually, well, we're living inside a self-reinforcing bubble, not reality. We stop listening to people who disagree with us. We hire people who remind us of ourselves. We double down on bad decisions because, why? We've already invested in believing they were good. It affects how we vote, who we trust, what we read and how we see ourselves. And over time, it creates silos in our minds, our teams and our relationships. It leads to echo chambers in leadership. It fuels resentment in personal life. And it definitely halts progress in learning and growth and development. and worst of all, it feels normal. Once we believe something, the brain will do everything it can to keep that belief comfortably intact. The contrarian move. Confirmation bias doesn't just distort how we argue. It shapes how we see, filter, and even define truth. It rewards consistency over accuracy and comfort over complexity. The goal isn't to reject every belief you hold, but to create space for those beliefs to be questioned, sharpened, or reshaped. That kind of mental flexibility isn't a weakness, it's an adaptive strength. Shift the question from, am I right to what am I missing? Instead of defaulting to validation, friction is created. Ask questions that challenge your view instead of reinforcing it. What's the counterpoint I haven't considered? Or what would someone I respect who disagrees with me say about this? Now, these mental problems don't undermine your position, but strengthen your thinking. When you move away from the need to be right and towards the desire to see more clearly, well, you unlock a mindset that's less defensive and more discerning. Use discomfort as a signal, not a stop sign. That uncomfortable twinge when you encounter an imposing idea, well, that's not your cue to shut down. It's definitely the goal light. It's your signal to pay attention. Emotional friction often signals cognitive opportunity. So ask yourself, why does this feel so hard to hear? Or is this idea wrong or just unfamiliar? The more you can sit with discomfort instead of automatically rejecting it, well, the more open your thinking becomes. Some of your most valuable insights will start with unease. Rehearse the opposite. Expand your range of thinking. Now, mental agility, it comes from practice. One way to stretch your frame is to argue for the other side. Not to change your stance, but to better understand it. So try asking, what if the opposite were true? Or how would someone else defend a view I dismiss? Doing this doesn't water down your beliefs. It sharpens your awareness of nuance, lights, and playful exercises like defending the rival in a debate or the unpopular opinion in discussion. Well, this can build mental muscle. Seek contradiction, not just confirmation. Clarity doesn't come from echo chambers. It comes from calibration. Build a habit of surrounding yourself with information and people who respectfully challenge your thinking. So in meetings, ask, what are we missing? Regularly engage with one credible source that opposes your typical view when reading news or researching. Another way is to ask a trusted colleague to poke holes in your assumptions. You know, seeking contradiction isn't about being oppositional. It's about keeping your views resilient through resistance. Track your beliefs over time. Build in checkpoints. Confirmation bias often works invisibly, reinforcing itself over time without you noticing. One way to bring it into awareness is to keep a belief journal. So, for example, when you form a strong opinion, write it down. And then revisit it in a month or a year and ask, Did my view hold up? What changed? And what didn't? This isn't just about proving yourself wrong or right. No, it's more about building the habit of reflecting on your mind. And so over time, you'll begin to recognize where your beliefs serve you and where they're limiting you. Clarity is resilience. And it doesn't come from being unshakably sure. It comes from staying grounded while allowing your ideas to evolve. Resilient people aren't addicted to being right. They're committed to staying real. They use disagreement as data, discomfort as a cue, and contradiction as a mirror. This mental openness, it doesn't weaken their beliefs. Far from it. It tests them and it strengthens them. So let me leave you with a little homework. I want you to think of one belief you hold firmly about work, about relationships, about yourself, or something else. Now, I want you to ask yourself, what kind of evidence would convince me that I'm wrong? Then challenge yourself to go out and find it. Not to disprove yourself, but to expand what you see. Whether or not you shift your view, the process alone, it builds clarity. So next time, we are going to explore what's called the availability heuristic. So let me leave you with a question. Why do you think we fear shark attacks more than slipping in bathtubs? Thanks for listening to this episode of Seeing Sideways. These biases aren't flaws. They're part of how our brains make sense of a complex world. but with awareness we can move from reaction to reflection from assumption to intention so if today's episode offered you a new perspective please share with someone who might benefit because the real work of thinking clearly choosing wisely and leading with purpose well it's all an inside job see you next time. Music.