Yesterday I met with film and commercial director 
Disclaimer: These are my personal opinions and views. They do not represent the official positions of Steemit Inc. or any employees thereof
Coincidentally, I also discussed yesterday in my blog how we are evolutionarily designed to process massive amounts of social information incredibly rapidly. In that context I was referring to a hypothetical scenario where one realizes that a deal, organization, project, or network (really these are all types of networks) isn't going to work. Because networking with other humans has played such an important role in homo sapien evolution, it is highly likely that we evolved instincts, or "hard code," which enable us to recognize negative signals which were common and important throughout our evolutionary history.
Research on first impressions reveals that people can unconsciously acquire a lot of information about other people incredibly rapidly. When we know something before we consciously think about it, that necessarily means that we processed information unconsciously and so that process was dictated entirely by evolved mechanisms. That's not to say that first impressions are always right, the research suggests that isn't the case. But there's usually a lot of accurate information processed, which is still interesting, and even more interesting is the research which reveals that we are good at knowing when our first impressions are right. That, to me, is crazy.
What that means is that while our first impressions are sometimes right and sometimes wrong, we're actually good at knowing when we are experiencing one or the other! Somebody might make a wrong impression on me, but the odds are that I will know that the bad impression is not an accurate representation of the person!
My experience with 
As we conversed we both continued to get more excited and passionate. It was difficult to stop talking and throwing out ideas. The potential and scale of what we were talking about continued to grow and grow. We talked for hours until I personally felt mentally exhausted, as if my mind had been taxed to its extreme. For those gearheads out there, I liken it to running an engine at red line.
Since we both have lives and work to do, eventually the meeting had to come to an end, but I think we both left excited about the prospect of continuing to collaborate and eager to continue thinking about the potential of doing so. We continued our conversation online but eventually, of course, the time came to participate in the universal daily ritual of shutting our conscious brains down for 6-9 hours. Only mine wouldn't shut off--a common problem ever since I joined steemit.com, and one I know many people share. I shot off a couple of emails at 1 and 2 AM to Doug and finally crashed around 3 AM only to wake up (much to my chagrin) at 8 AM ready to get back to it. I found an email from Doug noting that he too had to "force himself" to sleep.
None of this to say is that the conscious mind is not at all involved. During our conversation we talked about incredibly abstract concepts which required a lot of conscious thought and analysis, but "excitement" is an emotional response. It is by definition not conscious. I've been in conversations before where I liked and agreed with everything the other person was saying. I might have even decided to continue working with them and developing some kind of deal or project with them. It might have even be productive. But I didn't necessarily get excited.
I think when we get excited our bodies are telling us that were are perceiving information that throughout our evolutionary history proved to be immensely valuable. When you are syncing up with another person--when you are interfacing with them in such a way that you are able to efficiently and effectively network with them thereby amplifying your cognitive capacity--there are common phenomena. Finishing each others sentences. Building on each others points instead of resisting an idea or proposing a mutually exclusive alternative. Recognizing common assumptions as opposed to divergent foundational principles.
When you're already on the same "wavelength"--when a large part of your shared cognitive network can be built atop pre-existing structures--your body should be able to recognize it (assuming there are consistent signals which were common throughout our evolutionary history) and should associate it with positive emotions like "excitement" so that you keep doing it. I had a similar experience recently with 
Although, in a way, today's article is the opposite of yesterday's it comes to a common conclusion that listening to your body can be incredibly helpful. The fact that it is capable of rapidly assessing potentially negative scenarios is only one side of the coin. The other side is that it also appears to be capable of rapidly assessing potentially positive scenarios. I believe that consciously being aware of this possibility holds potentially massive value. Listen to your body, in many ways it's smarter than you.
Thanks for reading!
