In this episode of the Foster Your Voice Podcast, Kristi explores a powerful idea inspired by an interview between Simon Sinek and Ellen Langer: certainty is often the enemy of attention. Using Dr. Langer's simple question—"What is 1 + 1?"—Kristi explains how context transforms meaning and why assumptions can prevent both learning and persuasion.

Applying this concept to trial advocacy, she argues that jurors enter the courtroom with countless mental shortcuts about injury, responsibility, corporations, and lawsuits. Rather than trying to immediately convince them they're wrong, effective trial attorneys first create curiosity. By helping jurors recognize that context changes everything, attorneys encourage deeper attention, more meaningful learning, and ultimately better decision-making.

In the Communication Tip segment, Kristi reminds listeners that working memory has limits. Overloading jurors with information reduces comprehension and retention. Strategic pauses, changes in pace, brief moments of humor, and intentional cognitive breaks help jurors stay engaged throughout the presentation.

LISTEN HERE... 

Key Takeaway:

Persuasion begins with curiosity. When jurors become certain too quickly, they stop learning and simply filter new information through existing beliefs. By providing context, challenging assumptions thoughtfully, and inviting jurors to discover the case rather than merely receive it, attorneys create the conditions for genuine understanding.

Equally important, jurors can only absorb so much information before cognitive overload occurs. Strategic pauses and moments of relief aren't wasted time—they're essential for learning.

Favorite Moment:

"When you know you don't know, you pay attention."

Links & Resources:

Simon Sinek & Dr. Ellen Langer - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZcejrdFUlb/?igsh=a3pzNTEwYXV3eHE3

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If you're a trial attorney, challenge yourself to identify every place in your opening where you're assuming the conclusion is "obvious." Instead of handing jurors your interpretation, provide the context that allows them to arrive there themselves. Curiosity keeps attention alive, attention creates learning, and learning is what ultimately moves jurors toward confident, well-reasoned decisions.

Until next time, keep fostering your voice.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hellooooo!!! Hello Foster Fam! I hope your summer is going well and that, in the midst of family busyness of camps and vacay, that you’re able to enter in, slow down a little, and enjoy the weather and the rest. There’s just something about these summer months that changes something in us, well…it changes something in me at least. Even though I haven’t been in school for decades, and I don’t have kids of my own to structure around, that idea of having Summer Break is so deeply ingrained in me. I’m trying not to fight it as the shadow of responsibility and guilt over unproductive days press in. I’m reclaiming summer break. Ha!

Today, I want us to explore and discuss and interesting thought shift that I saw in a reel recently. It was an excerpt from Simon Sinek interviewing Dr. Ellen Langer. Now, those names may be familiar to you because, well, not only are they both famous thought leaders, authors and educators respectively, and inspirational speakers, but I also have mentioned them in previous episodes. In Ep 55, I shared an excerpt of Simon Sinek interviewing Trevor Noah about the differences between being kind and being nice and how I connected it to an attorney’s approach to the “brutal honesty” tactic. And then, in Ep. 57 I was introduced to Dr. Ellen Langer, a Harvard professor who is often referred to as the “Mother of Mindfulness” for all her work around reframing stress, anxiety and intentionality. Revisit those episodes and the show links if you want to just be reminded of them.

But in this most recent interview excerpt that I saw, Dr. Langer asks Simon the question, “What is 1 + 1?” Now, of course Simon answered the way we’ve all been trained to answer. We all know that 1+1=2. Except when it DOESN’T. Not always. Ellen gets a sparkle in her eye as she explains to Simon that “If you take one pile of laundry and add it to another pile of laundry, 1+1=1."

Her next statement is the one that stopped me and made me rewind to re-listen. She says, "Anytime we give an answer based on our absolute understanding of things, we're no different from robots."

She goes on to say, "Now when someone asks you how much is 1+1, now you suddenly have a choice. And that means you're going to be present. You're going to pay attention to context, and then decide.

When you know you don't know, you pay attention. And when you recognize that nobody knows, then everything becomes new again.

So, how does this relate to your trial work? Well, isn't that exactly what you're asking jurors to do? Keep a curiosity and pay attention?

Every juror walks into the courtroom carrying thousands of assumptions about how the world works. They're not bad assumptions. They're simply mental shortcuts. Our brains create them because they help us move through life efficiently. We like patterns. We like rules. We like predictable structure and the brain is always looking for it.

"If someone is really injured, they'll look injured."

"If someone waited to file a lawsuit, it must not have been that serious."

"Big companies wouldn't knowingly sell dangerous products."

Those assumptions are the juror's version of "one plus one equals two." And, most of the time, those shortcuts probably serve them just fine. Until they don't.

Because in your case...

One plus one might actually equal ONE, not TWO.

Your client is emotionally blank on the witness stand—not because they aren't devastated—but because trauma doesn't always look the way we expect it to.

The client waited to seek treatment—not because they weren't hurt—but because they didn't have insurance.

Same facts. Different context. And context changes everything.

Here's what I think is just so fascinating.

As trial lawyers, you often think your job is to convince. But maybe your first job is to help jurors become curious. Because certainty is the enemy of attention.

The moment I think I already know what's going on...I stop looking. I stop listening. I stop learning.

If a juror decides in the first twenty minutes, "Ok, I've got this figured out," they're no longer processing information. They're filtering everything through that first impression.

But if something causes them to pause...Maybe they'll ask themselves, "If that's true...what else might I be missing?" And NOW, they're paying attention again. They're engaged and present. And that's where persuasion begins.

So, let's take this concept and apply it to how you present evidence. We've all heard the phrase,

"The facts speak for themselves." No, they don't. Facts require context.

Imagine you introduce a text message that simply says, "I'm fine."

Without context, it means almost nothing. Now imagine you tell the jury that text was sent three minutes after someone received a life-changing diagnosis. Same text. Completely different meaning. The facts didn't change. The meaning did...because of the context. The facts didn't "speak for themselves."

This is where YOU play a critical role. As a great trial lawyers, you don't simply present information. You help jurors understand the context that gives that information meaning.

Then, another layer to all this, is a direct connection to how jurors learn. You know I talk all the time about the neuroscience of learning. So you know by now, that people don't learn simply because we dump information on them. Real learning happens when the brain has to adjust an existing mental model. This is the "new neural pathways" you've heard me talk about.

This happens when your brain has encountered something that doesn't fit its existing framework, so now it has to slow down and try to make sense of it. THAT'S learning. And THAT'S what you should be creating throughout your case. Moments that are designed not to confuse jurors but to perk them up. Wake up and stimulate their brains, or as you've heard me say before, "tantalize their ears" so their attention is activated and their presence is elevated. This is when jurors move away from that robotic "absolute understanding of things," and start to gently challenge assumptions they've been carrying for years.

Just start paying attention to all the times where you present your case as if every conclusion is obvious.

"This clearly proves..."

"Obviously..."

"The evidence will show..." (that's my personal favorite)

Jurors just don't experience evidence that way. As we've said, evidence is often ambiguous until someone (ie. YOU) helps them understand why it matters.

Instead of handing them conclusions (that make perfect sense to you because you already have the context and the history and have worked it all out), invite them into curiosity and discovery. Walk them through the reasoning. Help them connect the dots.

Because people remember what they discover far better than what they're told. THIS is why I press for my clients to do all the teaching up front. THEN, as you're telling the story of what happened, THEY are the ones that are putting it together. They are the ones that are discovering the negligence. They now have agency to make a decision. SO COOL!!!

THAT'S the type of engagement that changes everything.

Remember what Dr. Langer says: When you don't know, you pay attention.

So, just consider that maybe one of your biggest jobs, as a trial attorney, isn't to give jurors all the answers as quickly as possible. Maybe your job is to help them set aside what they think they know just enough to become curious again.

Curious jurors pay attention.

Attentive jurors learn.

And jurors who truly learn your case are far more likely to understand it the way you hoped they would.

—BREAK—

I'll keep today's Communication Tip brief, just to keep this episode at a reasonable length and to model the point I'm going to make.

Just a reminder to avoid overloading the working memory of your jury. Too much information at once, without strategic pauses and breaks, will cause jurors to disengage, or will make them miss details.

There's a limit to what the brain can take in. Think of it like you're filling a cup. Once it's full, it just starts to overflow and is not stored anywhere. It just makes a mess, right? We've all experienced this. Maybe you've attended a conference or a workshop and you're drinking from a firehose. No matter how engaging or inspiring the material is, you mentally hit a wall.

And that's when you WANT to be there. When you've PAID to be there. When you've prioritized your TIME to be there. That's not your jury. It's the opposite for your jury. haha!

So, add in the the stress factors of their lives and the sacrifices they're being forced to make to be there, well...it just makes sense that they're working with a much smaller cup to begin with.

I know there are planned breaks during proceedings, but you need to strategically implement more for them mentally and emotionally. Actively look for moments to pause, moments to break eye contact. Tap into some human connective moments and change the energy with humor, even self-deprecation. Just SOMETHING to offset the edge and give a moment of reprieve.

If you want the jury to be WITH you, you can't afford to NOT slow things down, adjust the pace, and do everything you can to avoid cognitive load thresholds...at least until you are done presenting YOUR case-in-chief.

Until next time, keep fostering your voice.