This is part of the transcript from a high school leadership workshop Dr. Lauber conducted in Indiana, PA in 2011.

Well, a lot of things become automatized including your conversations with other people.  Have you ever heard yourself give a reply and then say to yourself, “That was just the automatic reply.  I didn’t really think out my answer to that.”  I’m watching a football game, my wife says, “Remember to take out the garbage.”  And I go, “Yeah, after the football game, I will.”  I’m not even listening to her.  I’m just, “Yeah, yeah.”  And then of course, I forget to take the garbage out and I get in big trouble for that.

So a lot of the tasks that we have in life are going to become automatic to us. On another day we can discuss what we can do about that. What if we want to make a task un-automatic? What if we need to break a habit?

But for today let’s pretend it’s more important that we learn new tasks.  So I need another volunteer.  Who else can come up here?  By the way, this person can’t be color blind.  Thank you.  Come on up if you’re not color blind.  We’re going to do a new task.  I’ve got my stuff.  Here’s my watch.  Thank you.

Hi new friend, nice to see you.  Okay, I’m guessing that you’ve never had to read colors off of a large poster before, really quickly.  It’s a new task.  Everybody see what I’ve got here?  It’s a list of color blocks.  I’m going to ask you, out loud as fast as you can, to read the colors down as fast as you can.  And I’ll start and stop the watch, okay?

Strange task, I know.  Now the idea is that if you make a mistake, just fix it and keep going as fast as you can.  On your mark, get set, go.

Got you.  Twelve seconds.  Good job, stay right here.  What do you think?  Anybody think they could do a lot faster?  She did pretty good.  It’s a pretty good skill a for brand new task she’s never done before – twelve seconds.  I think mine is 18 – I’ve got a crusty old guy’s brain up here.  I can’t go that fast.  Okay, we’re going to make one change in the task.

The only difference now is that there are words, but ignore the words.  Just read the color.  Anybody see this before?  Did you take a psychology class, and they had this thing before?  It’s called the Stroop Task.  So I want you to read red, not green when you see this one right here.  All right, we’re going to time her.

I’ll reset my clock.  On your mark; get set; go.  Great, 15 seconds.  That’s really good.  That’s very good.  Everybody, give her a hand and say thank you.