Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - The Science of How People Change | Behavioral Scientist, Dr. Katy Milkman

Episode Date: May 12, 2021

This week’s conversation is with Dr. Katy Milkman, a behavioral scientist and professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Over the course of her career, she has worked with or advised dozens of organizations on how to encourage positive change, including Google, the U.S. Department of Defense, the American Red Cross, and Morningstar. Her research is regularly featured by major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and NPR. She currently codirects the Behavior Change for Good Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania and has a new book out titled, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.And that’s why I wanted to speak with Katy… to better understand the research around behavior change.How do people change, what are some things that get in the way, and what are some ways to amplify the rate of change?_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And what my research with Hengchen Dai and Jason Reese has shown is that these are moments when we feel like we're opening a new chapter in our lives because we don't think about time linearly. We actually think about our lives in chapters. There's your 30s, your 40s. There's a certain job. There's all these different moments. And whenever a new chapter opens, we feel like we have a new beginning and a

fresh start. And that causes us to step back and think bigger picture about our lives and our goals and what we want to accomplish. And it also makes us feel like we have a clean slate. So if there was something we wanted to do or achieve that we failed to do last year, say, and then along comes this fresh start, the start of a new year, or even a new week, by the way, can be a fresh start, or the celebration of a birthday, move to a new home, or a new job. We feel like that was the old me. This is the new me, and the new me can do it. And so that increased optimism is one of the things that can propel us to change. Okay, welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast.

I'm Michael Gervais, and by trade and training, I am a sport and performance psychologist. Now, the whole idea behind these conversations is to learn from people who are flat out committed to both their craft and their inner life. Literally, those who are on the path of mastery, so that we can better understand what they're searching for, the way that they use their mind to make sense of themselves, make sense of the world around them. And we also want to understand the mental skills that they use to build and refine their craft. And if you want to learn more about how you can train your mind, there's just a quick little reminder here to check out the online

psychological skills training course that I created with the head coach at the Seattle Seahawks, Pete Carroll. And you can find all of that at findingmastery.net forward slash course. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships,

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She is a behavioral scientist and a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Now, she's worked with or advised dozens of organizations on how to encourage positive change, including companies like Google, the U.S. Department of Defense, the American Red Cross, Morningstar. So she has this rich understanding of what it takes to create positive change. She earned her Ph.D. from Harvard, her undergrad from Princeton, and her research is regularly featured on major media outlets like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR. And she currently is co-directing the Behavioral Change for Good initiative at the University

of Pennsylvania. And she has a new book out that's titled How to Change, The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. And that's why I wanted to speak with Katie to better understand her research and the research around optimizing behavioral change. And I'm just convinced that most of us, especially in the Finding Mastery community, we love learning. It feels quite comfortable to learn. It's soothing almost for us. We are craving information, but knowledge alone does not create positive behavioral change. And this accelerated change that you're looking for in your life, or you're looking to

help others with in return, it's a big part of the engineering of becoming the person you want to be. And so we dive into methods on how people change, what are some of the things that get in the way of behavioral change, and then also what are some ways to amplify the rate of change that you're looking for. Now with that, let's jump right into this conversation with Dr. Katie Milkman. Katie, how are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm actually really good. Yeah. And I say actually, like, it's like, that's rare. Like, the actual year, it's been a year. That's the actual part. Right? Yeah. Like, I sometimes I don't know if you feel this way. But it's been a hard year. It's

been there's been new challenges. And there's parts that I have loved. And I don't know if it doesn't feel cool to say that because of people that I have loved. And I don't know if it doesn't feel cool to say that because of people that have really struggled. And, but I don't want to hide behind my experience. Like there's been parts I've really loved, like being at home with my family. And it's, that's been, for me, it's this amazing gift. And have you had any silver linings and bright spots that like are notable? Totally. And I love that you went there. And I share your, you know, number one, obviously, this has been a horrible year. But there have been things we all discovered that we never would have discovered about ourselves if we'd just been going about life

without this huge disruption, because it forced us to experiment, we had to come up with new routines. And I actually think that's really fascinating. There's a lot of research on why being forced to experiment can be good because we get stuck in our ways. But yeah, for me, it's been really great to have the experience of working from home with my five-year-old son. And we've been teaching him to read, which isn't something I ever would have, frankly, spent time doing.

I don't think I would have just trusted the teachers to take care of that. But watching him learn that skill has been absolutely magical. So I'm really grateful for having had the time and the space to do that and the motivation. So I didn't think I was going to start here, but it's just kind of grabbing me a little bit. It's like, what is it like to be because i i can't begin to know so i ask this question a lot what is it like to be um a mother who has obviously love for their child and then also have this big career and the reason i ask you that way because i being a dad and having a career, it's been one of my challenges because I want to be there at every stumble, every step, every laugh with my son. And I know that that's not necessarily healthy by any means for either of us, but I traveled a lot. And so I missed a lot.

And so I'm just curious what it's like for you. And for me, it's been a hardship. And I say that lightly curious what it's like for you. And for me, it's been a hardship. And I say that lightly, but it's been it's been my part of my suffering. And that's why this year has been such a reward, you know, for me, but like, what is it like to be a mom and have a big career? Honestly, it feels great. And that the kind of career I have is one where I have a lot of flexibility with my time. So I, you know, I can be at home if I need to be to see my son come home from school if it's important to him that day because I can work from home unless I have a lecture to give, which I normally don't. And I have the flexibility to sort of do some of my work after he goes to sleep and so on. So the flexibility is amazing. And then he knows what I'm doing and he gets it. And sleep and so on. So the flexibility is amazing. And then he knows what

I'm doing and he gets it. And he's so excited. I have a podcast and he likes pretending to make his own podcast with me. We did a holiday podcast where he answered interview questions and then we sent it to our family about his favorite holiday story. And he's really proud of me, which is neat to see. And I know the research also showing how important it is for young men to see their moms in careers if they're going to support future spouses. And imagining that someday he might grow up and marry a woman who wants to have a career and that having had a mom who was working will make that easier for him makes me really proud. I'm proud of the way he's proud of me. When you say that, what happens inside?

Oh, it feels great. It really does. It's really wonderful. I mean, I think... Where do you feel it though? Like, where do you feel like when you feel, when you tap into not, there's not a feeling called great, but like when, you know, I'm imagining it's joy or like there's something called great, but like when, you know, I'm imagining it's joy or like there's something going on, but like, how do you, how do you feel it? Pride? I think pride actually. And like satisfaction. Yeah. And I would say those are the key feelings. And I certainly feel joy when I think about the way he sees women, that he thinks of women as authors, as leaders, as podcasters, as people who are having busy, exciting careers

filled with activity that they can share at the end of the day. I love that that's the way he sees it. And I should say, I had a very successful working mom too, who was super involved, as I am, but who also was running a big government agency. And I was really proud of her. And it's exciting to see the same thing reflected in my son's eyes. Cool. Okay. So I wanted to have you on Finding Mastery, because you've committed yourself to helping people change their behavior in ways that allow them to perform better and live longer, potentially, and like to sustain, you know, wellness. And you've also followed a path of excellence. And I'm interested in understanding both of those. And, you know, the third factor is that you're committed to making the world better,

right? So this is moving us from the 19 kind of eighties and nineties in like self-improvement into, um, improvement to help others improve. And that's where we get the rising tide, um, the floats all boats. And so I get a rash when I think about self-improvement only and it kind of the conversation stops there. So somebody can move higher on the hill and collect bigger cars and watches. And, you know, like I get a rash at that. And so this is the reason I wanted you to share how you've become. And so if we could just start with a basic framework, like what was it like growing up? And I'm talking about socioeconomic status. I'm talking about conversations around the kitchen, the dining room table, what was it like playing? What was it like

in school? If you could just give a framework of growing up, it'd be great. Yeah. Let's see. I grew up in Washington, D.C. in the suburbs, in the Northern Virginia suburbs. And both of my parents were... So did I, actually. Oh, really? I didn't know that about you. Yeah. What was your suburb? Oh, my God. I wouldn't even call it a suburb. It was a small town called Warrington. It's turned into be... It's nice now. It's in the bubble. And I think it was pretty far out, but. Oh my God. No, no, no. We were, we didn't have streetlights. It was dirt roads. It was really cool if we had a road that somebody threw some road that we had that threw some gravel down because you know, that meant it wasn't going to wash out but so now we're we're out in the in the hills there okay i was closer in i was in mclean which is now it was actually when i was

there it was all like one story um you know sort of tiny homes and now i feel like it's just changed a lot there's giant sidewalks yeah you had sidewalks we we didn't have sidewalks when i was a kid no we did not have sidewalks. It was like it felt rural, but it's changed a lot. My parents moved away 20 years ago when I went off to college. So I haven't spent a ton of time, but I've done the pilgrimage back to my street and it looks really different. All the houses that were one story have been knocked down and replaced with just giant, giant buildings. It's very different. But when I was there, a lot of woods, not a lot of kids, a lot of old folks on the streets. And I was an only child. So I did a

lot of like biking alone thinking, actually, which ended up being useful. My parents both were really into education. My dad's dad was a math professor at the Naval Academy. And so from a really young age, there was a big emphasis on school and doing as well as possible in school and learning as much as possible and knowledge. And so that was a thing we talked about a lot around the dinner table. We watched the news often at night and then we would dissect it and DC. So lots of politics. And when I was about 10, my parents sort of noticed that I was quite good at tennis and really liked it and started helping me develop into a pretty serious competitive tennis player. So that was also a major part of my childhood,

was trying to advance as far as I could in national tournaments and develop my skills on the tennis court as much as I could. The goal was never for me to be a professional player. It was always if I could play Division I tennis in college and have that experience, everybody sort of felt like that would be great. I thought that would be great fun. It felt like it might open doors to go to a university I wouldn't otherwise get into because I was a good student, but not a great student. And so tennis felt like maybe it would be my ticket to get into a great school. And also, I really, I liked the physical activity.

I was a very energetic person, so it helped keep me balanced. And so that was kind of what my childhood was like. I'm happy to go deeper on it. Now I'm curious about how that differed from your Northern Virginia upbringing. Oh, it was, yeah, it was pretty different. You know, like, I was wandering in the, like, if I didn't make it back, and I'm talking, like, as a nine-year-old,

if I didn't make it back with the lights when the sun went down, like, it would get scary. And, like, my parents were like, yeah, that's right, like, you should probably be back by, you know, when the sun goes down. And so I was playing in creeks and, you know, with crawdads and craw, like playing in creeks and you know with crawdads and crop like it was like it was a totally different experience I had a creek out back

it was called dead run and I built many a dam and and okay there we go dad okay did you yeah that is so funny was it a creek or a crick you know like it depends on how far out you are. Yeah. Okay, so beautiful. So I'd like to know, do you live in your head or your body? Like, where do you naturally go? Definitely in my head. Yeah. So that's why you said sport would balance you. Yeah. And then do you? Do you lean on the side of anxiety or depression? If you had to pick one? Anxiety. This is not hard. These are not hard questions. Do some people struggle with these? No, no, but not enough people talk about them. Like here you are, you know, Wharton School, UPenn, you know, and then you're like, yeah, I could lean on the side of anxiety. And then good. Okay, beautiful. Because you know what,

like 30%, 15% report clinical anxiety. I think it's more like 30 have it 30%. And I think the number was like 60% had an increase in their struggles of mental wellness over 2020. So like, how about it, people are struggling with anxiety. And here you are as an emblem, and like a beacon of excellence. And you're like, Oh, yeah, no, no, I struggle. So like, do you have to I don't know anyone who's achieved a lot, who doesn't struggle with things. It's part of the impetus for the book I wrote, I should say, but totally, yeah, I'm happy to admit all sorts of struggles, and hope that no one has the misconception that that's not, that's not what it looks like at every level of every activity. So I, you know, your science of

behavioral change, you know, and as a behavioral scientist, understanding what it takes to change, are you, now let's kind of dig right in here. Are you more interested in the psychology of change or behavioral tactics to help with the psychology shifting? Which direction are you entering the conversation? And you could say, no, no, it's both. And we should be thoughtful. Yeah, that one's a hard question. Because I think initially, I was more interested in like, what works? Let's figure out what rigorous evidence suggests works. What are the tactics? But then what I learned after 20 years studying what works is it depends on what the underlying psychology is.

So I couldn't answer those questions that I fundamentally cared most about unless I backed up and understood what the psychology was that was underlying the problems. That's why I was asking like somatic or cognitive, you know, like, because depending on which one somatic anxiety, meaning I feel it in my body, cognitive anxiety is like, no, my mind races. Well, there's going to be different tactics and strategies, but the principles are the same, right? And the principles are okay. Awareness, um, and consistency in practicing new skills. And so I want to double click. Before you lay out your genius on how to help people change, I would like to know what has been the hardest thing that you've had to change. If we just started with that, I think it just it'll it'll give me

some context too about how you drink your own champagne yeah oh there's so many things where to begin you you sort of took me back to youth so i'm gonna i'm gonna double click there i think although i could have stopped at many places on my route. When I went to college, I played Division I tennis, and then I decided about halfway through to drop off the team, to quit the team, so I could focus more of my time and energy on academics, because I was falling in love, which makes sense, given where I ended up. And I felt like I wasn't giving it my all if I was splitting my time. But that was a really hard change. I mean, it wasn't hard to call the, well, actually, it was hard to call the coach and

tell her I was not going to play anymore. That was hard. But what was harder was maintaining my identity or figuring out what my new identity was going to be. I'd been an athlete for my whole sort of adult life. It was a short adult life at that point, but it felt like this huge deal to make that shift it wasn't just an identity to be a scholar athlete. It was also how I spent my time. And it was how I kept myself happy and sane. And so figuring out what would be the new me, how I would find balance in the post-tennis days, that was a big change I struggled with. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life.

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Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMasteryMASTERY20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. Okay, so if we use that as a leaping moment here, was it cognitively difficult or was it emotionally, somatically difficult? A little of both. Probably harder emotionally than cognitively, but it was hard in both ways. There were different parts that were hard of both. Yeah. Okay. The letting go is part of the re-imagining. And for some people, it's like,

I just get so knotted in my stomach and my breathing changes. And like, it just, I'm just so uncomfortable. No, no, let me go back to the old. And for some people, it's like, I just get caught in this loop. Like, can I? Should I? I don't know. You know, it's up in their head.

And it sounds, and some people have a balance between both. But those are one of the roadblocks. Feeling that suffering, let's call it small suffering with a small S. You know, if it's chronic, obviously it's a bigger suffering. But that small tension slash suffering often is something that forces people back to safety. And so I want to use this as a jumping off point to say, okay, how do people change? Now, this is right down your kind of bowling lane here. Can you talk about that?

And then you've also got some really cool frameworks about some of the problems that people run into impulsivity and forgetting and confidence. So I'd like to just open the framework or open the aperture up to say, how do people change? And what are some things that get in the way? And what are some ways to amplify the rate of change? Yeah. So much, you know, 300 page book about it. But let me start with actually, one of my favorite insights about how people change, which is that the timing has to be right. And that's one of the things my research has shown is really important. There are moments in our lives that feel more conducive to change. I call them fresh starts.

And what my research with Hengchen Dai and Jason Reese has shown is that these are moments when we feel like we're opening a new chapter in our lives because we don't think about time linearly. We actually think about our lives in chapters. So we just talked about my childhood chapter and we were doing the college years. Clearly, there was a chapter that ended when I quit the tennis team and started the next phase. But there's also the chapter that opened with the start of the coronavirus when we all got locked at home. There's your 30s, your 40s. There's a certain job. There's all these different moments. And whenever a new chapter opens, we feel like we

have a new beginning and a fresh start. And that causes us to step back and think bigger picture about our lives and our goals and what we want to accomplish. And that causes us to step back and think bigger picture about our lives and our goals and what we want to accomplish. And it also makes us feel like we have a clean slate. So if there was something we wanted to do or achieve that we failed to do last year, say, and then along comes this fresh start, the start of a new year, or even a new week, by the way, can be a fresh start or the celebration of a birthday, move to a new home or a new job. We feel like that was the old me. This is the new me and the new me can do it.

And so that increased optimism is one of the things that can propel us to change. So let me pause there and see if that's the beginning of an answer. No, that's cool. Yeah. Oh, I like how you phrased that too. So maybe you can pull on this idea about, because you hinted at it twice now about my best self. And there's an imagination that needs to get involved to explore what better could look like. And can you speak to some science there? Or does that still feel like it's in the

artistic frame about using your imagination to imagine ideal or upgraded or whatever language you might put to, you know, the next version? Yeah, no, there's science there for sure. The research we've done on the fresh start effect shows that at these fresh start moments, we really feel like a better version of ourselves because we can set aside, you know, that was the old me. All of those failures were of a different person. We take on this new identity. It comes with, you know, this is the 2020s me or this is the, you know, Philadelphia me because I've moved to a new city. Or, you know, if you've moved to a new job, you feel like it's a different role. And with it comes a better you because we're so optimistic. We're always expecting more of ourselves in the future, which I think, you know, it has some downsides, but it's a pretty wonderful feature of human beings, our optimism. Yeah. So I think that optimism is not the default. And are you suggesting that it is?

I'm suggesting that optimism comes at these fresh start moments that we might become pessimistic and feel like we can't do it. But we seem to be wired to have a boost of optimism and a sense that maybe we can, that's greater when we can sense the start of a new chapter and we can put whatever has not been going well aside on a shelf and bookend it and say, you know, that period is over. Maybe this period will be different. Okay. What I really love about what you're saying is that there's agency involved, is that you can choose, right?

You can choose the fresh start as the beginning of the day, the beginning of the week, beginning of a semester, maybe it's a beginning of a move. And so you can choose. And then you can also ride the momentum when there are some forcing functions that are taking place that change is happening. And you're saying in those moments, one of the sub capabilities would be to choose what could be amazing and to water and entertain and explore that side of the fresh start, as opposed to maybe a default of pessimism or critique or cynicism or, you know, finding all the what ifs that could go wrong. Does that map into your research? Absolutely. I think you've got it exactly right that those moments give us license to be more optimistic and help us turn off

all the pessimism and the what-ifs and the worries and the recognition of all the ways we've failed before. Not completely, but they give us some excuse to be more optimistic and also to think bigger picture than we usually would about our goals. And that seems to be productive. We see that people are significantly more likely to set goals on goal-setting websites around Mondays and the beginning of a new year and after birthdays and other fresh start dates like the start of the month or following a holiday that feels like a fresh start to people like Labor Day, for instance.

So those moments give us that optimism. I love this because optimism is a core capability that I've learned needs to be trained for most people. And this feels like there's an opening during a fresh start, which you can decide when that is. There's an opening that takes place where people, there's two things that I hear you say. One is to be more optimistic and to maybe think bigger. And so if we can use that opening before it closes down, right? And you grab that opening. But then if I would say, if you have the skill of optimism that you've trained it, that you keep that aperture open longer. And then therein lies this, you know, triple down effect that could take place. Hopefully, hopefully.

I mean, so the tricky thing about fresh starts and by the way, like every New Year's, because I've done this research and written about it, I get flooded with calls from reporters who want to talk about New Year's resolutions and will they last? And, you know, is it all just a crock? And I always am sympathetic to the reporters who say, like, you know, most New Year's resolutions fail. Is this all just silly? Are we deluding ourselves? And I do think that's the ugly underbelly of the fresh start effect is that if you don't capitalize on it the right way, it'll pass and it'll be over and you won't have made a change.

So it's an opening, but it depends on what you do next, whether or not you're going to go anywhere with it. Very cool. Okay, that's exactly it. And then so let's stay here before we get into some of the pitfalls and some of the the problems that that get in the way of us taking it for a little bit more distance than maybe before in life. So once that fresh start happens, what are some concrete practical ways that people can double down and ride the change in a more optimistic, optimized way? Well, one thing that can be incredibly valuable is setting something up that really just takes one action to take you a long way. So let me give you a couple of concrete examples of what I mean like that. Maybe you need to get a colonoscopy. I know that's like the weirdest place to go.

Where are we going? You only have to do that once every 10 years. That's the kind of thing, like, can you think of a thing that if you just do it this once when you're feeling motivated really is going to be quite effective? Or let me give you a slightly less weird example than a colonoscopy. If you want to save more, say you want to save more, say you want to save for retirement. If you go and set up a 401k deduction, you just need to do that once. And then if you make it automatic, it's going to carry you forward. So I think the first thing we can do is just think about are there like small changes you can make in that moment

when you're feeling motivated that will have a lasting effect? That's an easy one. So a big thing you've been procrastinating on that'll have big long-term effects, whether that's a checkup with your doctor of some sort, doing something that you can put on autopilot financially, killing all your subscriptions to things that are a waste of money. Those are things that are really, really ideal to do at Fresh Starts. And then, of course, there's a whole bunch of other tactics, and I know we're going to get into them, that you can use to try to actually make change that's going to last and that's going to work. But I wanted to start with sort of like, check off some of those big things that one time in one moment of motivation can really help. I want to stay here because I

love that frame. That's really cool. Really? You love colonoscopies? Your eyes got – we can see each other. I don't know if listeners know we can see each other. Your eyes got really big when I gave that answer. I did not expect you to. Wow, I wasn't thinking we were going there. You're right on the money though. Maybe like where I was going was mold.

You know, it's like if you think you've got mold, which I'm weird about mold. We don't have any. And we did a rebuild and we're checking. And so like that would be important. If you ever thought you had mold or you're not sure and you understand the dangers of mold, like one check could be significant for you for a long time, right? There you go. Right. All these one-time things that have big, big effects. I love it. That's the stuff to check that off first. That's my opinion. Do you have any others that you've thought about or marinated on there are cool one checkers?

Other big one checkers? A lot of them are health things right like you know going for your primary care visit um getting you know a mammogram or the colonoscopy that i already mentioned yeah there's a lot of health stuff yeah yeah yeah and i think for us like in this and even in the podcast space it's like um let's say that you want to have a more optimized sound or setup or something like go upstream and afford the best product that you can. Yeah, yeah, set that once and then it's downstream effects from there. Okay. Yeah. I love that. I have one more, which I'll just say, because I'm in the education industry. And I do actually think that's another one that sometimes we put off. You're thinking about getting another degree, an advanced degree, or even just doing some sort of certificate program and enrolling or taking the standardized test you need to take

in order to be able to apply. That can be another big barrier where it's just a one time. If you put in the effort for a couple days, you can get that done and you can set your life on a different course. Totally. Yeah, I love that, too. That's like enrolling in something and then you need the micro changes or the micro adjustments to stay with it. To succeed.

Absolutely. But enrolling takes you a long way. Now you've been sort of swept into that current, the riptide of change. Yeah, I like that. Ooh, riptide. Yeah, that's good. That's exactly how it feels. That's why I think personal training or fitness coaching, or even like working with a psychologist, kind of making that first call, and then you're down the path. Exactly. Now you've got the first appointment, and it's going to carry you forward. That's exactly the kind of thing that can be so powerful. So this is the calling, you know, you're ringing the bell to go upstream and say,

what are the, what are the big things that you want to, um, what are the big currents? We'll stay with the analogy. What are the big currents that you want to make sure that you're, you're tapping into health, education, um health education um finances finances technology at this point too as well okay i love that and then let's let's double click so let's say you you set your you're meeting with your psychologist or your practitioner and whatever but let's let's go psychologist because it's got some downstream kind of maintenance that's required yeah um or fitness it doesn't matter then what are some of the let's do. Yeah. Or fitness, it doesn't matter. Then what are some of the... Let's do fitness. I love fitness. Yeah, we both do. Yeah. So let's stay there. So let's say that you want to stay the course.

What are some of the best practices that you're coming to understand from making those behavioral changes that people can employ? One of my favorite lessons is something that is going to feel so obvious when I say it, but is shockingly underappreciated. And that is that when most people start something new, like a new workout routine, and they have a big goal in mind, they try to do it in the most effective, efficient way possible. Right. So if I'm new to the gym, I'm like, what's the optimal calorie burning machine if that's my goal is to burn calories? And they're like, OK, I'm going to do the Stairmaster.

That's the one. I'm not actually sure it's the Stairmaster, so don't quote me on that exactly. But, you know, they go for something really tough. Very few people do the opposite calculation, which is, what am I going to enjoy most? What am I going to have the most fun doing so that I'll come back? Because it won't be a painful experience and I'm going to want to keep doing it. But it turns out if you do the other and if you actually pick the thing that's most fun, like the Zumba class, you're much more likely to stick to it. You're going to persist longer. And that's because even though doing the effective and efficient thing

might seem like the optimizer's solution, the way that we actually decide what we'll do on a given day is that we focus a lot on the immediate experience. And if it's not instantly gratifying, if it's no fun, if we dread it, we procrastinate. And so we actually do much better in terms of creating long-term behavior change. If we find ways to make the thing that's good for you, and that you have a big goal to achieve more of, fun and inherently enjoyable. So that's a major lesson to me is rather than looking for the most effective way to achieve that goal, find a way to do it that you'll enjoy because then you'll keep at it. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with

how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised me the most is how much it actually helps regulate temperature. I tend to run warm at night and these sheets have helped me sleep cooler and more consistently, which has made a meaningful difference in how I show up the next day for myself, my family, and our team here at Finding Mastery. It's become part of my nightly routine. Throw on their lounge pants or pajamas, crawl into bed under their sheets, and my nervous system starts to settle. They also offer a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty on all of their bedding, which tells me, tells you, that they believe in the long-term value of what they're creating.

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And they make my morning routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high-quality personal care products

that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash findingmastery and use the code findingmastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. So the foot, get your foot in the door. And one of the ways to do that is to make this, make a first decision. One way to make a first decision is to have some fundamental commitments in your life that are important to you. And then if you toggle back down to actually putting your foot in the door,

wherever you're going, make sure that early days you're finding some fun in it because that will keep you in that room a little bit longer, whatever that room is. I'm thinking of Zumba class. And, yeah, I think I want to share this with you. There's two really cool things that bang around in my head. One was from a mother of a world champion, single sport athlete, one gold. And we're having a conversation about the best type of fitness.

I don't know why we're going there. And she said she was very clear. She goes, oh, it's the one you'll do. That's great. Yeah. Right. Like if it's dancing or if it's stair masters, whatever the one you'll do. And she's like, the one that you'll do is probably the one that you're having fun with. I was like, that is the best fitness, the one that you'll do. And then the other is the heaviest, um, the heaviest thing to lift is the front door so getting isn't that good like the getting in the front door is the heaviest weight that you're going to lift because once you get in there and you kind of get some of the brain chemistry moving in the right way it's like

it's good you know i can't remember the last time i left a exercise or whatever class um or self-directed and i was was like, that was a mistake. Right. No, absolutely. You're always glad you did it. It's just getting there. I'll give you one more like little piece while we're on the fun thing that I enjoy sharing, which is actually a little bit of me search. A lot of my research comes from self-reflection and my own struggles. But this one I think is particularly useful, especially since we're talking about exercise. In order to get myself to go to the gym, one of the things I found worked really well for me was listening to really fun, tempting, page-turner audio novels. And only letting my- Oh, God. We just turn nerdy quickly you know i i this is a

safe space katie we can do that here we did colonoscopies now we're doing audiobooks i know it's too much i know some people do this with binge watching their favorite tv shows it's that's too much sensory input for me i can't like watch and bounce on the treadmill and listen so it's this isn't nerdy i'm'm talking like the Hunger Games, you know, like Twilight. No, I'm not listening to like Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow by a Nobel Laureate.

OK, I'm talking lowbrow, page turner, like Alex Cross by James Patterson, murder mystery style. And it leaves, I'm not allowed to do it unless I'm at the gym. So no wasting time at home on this do it unless I'm at the gym so no wasting time at home

on this but when I'm at the gym I get to hear what happens next in my latest thriller and as a result I crave those trips to the gym to find out what happens next and I don't even notice the time passing so that's you know a personal I call it temptation bundling I've I've done research showing that it's not just me other people people benefit from this too. It can be helpful to tie something alluring with whatever it is that you find to be a little bit of a chore but want to do more of so that you start actually looking forward to it and don't even notice the boredom or whatever else might be unpleasant about the activity. So you can do it with exercise, but you can do with other things too. You know what? And I know you know this,

but I think it's worth mentioning is that that pairing is pairing something that might be scratchy and irritating and difficult. Like what comes along with exercise, yes, you get some dopamine and some serotonin and stuff, but like you also get cortisol and adrenaline and some more neurochemicals that have some irritation involved in them. Lactic acid does not feel good. Brandykinase does not feel good. And, and then you're saying, let's pair something that has some natural dopamine, right? It's not, it's not serotonin, it's dopamine. And dopamine is the reward system, mostly. Yeah, that's cool. That's really cool. I would not have thought of that having evidence to it. Inherently, I would know that that is a good strategy. But it works. We've studied it. We've proven it can help people exercise more. Like, is that a double blind study or is it more like a pilot research that you have?

We've done two big experiments on it. One, I guess you could call a pilot. One of them we did with about 150 undergraduates at UPenn. And we gave them audio books that they could only listen to when they were at the gym. They were locked in a monitored locker. And they exercised about 50% more than folks who we gave an equally valued gift certificate to Barnes & Noble that wasn't nearly as motivating. So both groups did a 30-minute workout at the start of the study, but one group did it while listening to the start of an audiobook that was tempting that they had selected from a list that we gave them that were the kinds of sort of tempting books I just mentioned. They listened to those first 30 minutes. If they want to hear what happens next, they got to come back. It's locked in this locker. And the other folks, they just do a 30 minute workout and we encourage them

to exercise more. So 50% boost in exercise among the group that has that temptation bundling trick. And that lasted, it lasted actually about seven weeks until the university's Thanksgiving break when the gym closed. Everybody went home for Thanksgiving. And then, you know, they came back and they seemed to have maybe forgotten about where they were in the audio book. So one of the things that was a takeaway from that particular study was, how can we make it last? And we did a second study that was about 1000 people in it. And in partnership with 24 hour fitness and audible audiobooks gave us free audiobooks to give people. And in that one, we did we did it all at different times of the year with people all around the country, and found that giving people a free audiobook and encouraging them to only listen while they were exercising increased exercise about 7% reliably for about 17 weeks, which is

as long as we studied people. So that was a smaller effect because we weren't literally locking away their iPods. They had to self-impose this rule, but it was still beneficial. And so that was exciting to see in this very large study that it could help people even if we basically they download an app and it suggests they do this that they can, here's a code for an audio book, why don't you try only listening while you exercise, that was enough to have a significant boost in exercise and endure for 17 weeks. It's really cool. I actually, I don't feel like I personally have a challenge of getting up and going and getting moving because I actually materially like the way it feels. That's great. You've found other ways. It's fun without any tricks.

Yeah. But there are times, yeah, there are times, but I think that, let me explore this with you. Is that because we're talking about behavioral change, but this is really about staying, this is a, we're talking about consistency at this point, because I've been exercising for a long time, right? So it's not like you've already got the routine. You don't need to change. Yeah. I think that's, that's a really good way to put it. So these, a lot of these strategies are meant for someone who is struggling and there's some barrier, and in this case, the barrier, a big one that often prevents us from making changes. Whatever the changes we want to make, it's not enjoyable in the moment. And that's going to keep us from actually sticking to it and

persisting. So then there are these little tricks we can find from just, you know, looking for a more fun form of the activity you need to do to linking it with something enjoyable or gamification that can help create durable change. Okay, so can I double click on this almost poke at it and see where there might be a hole here? Because I, let's go intrinsic and extrinsic, you know, rewards and internal and external motivations. If we're doing something we want, we would hope to have some durability that it's an intrinsic reward and an internally driven internal drive. Right. Yeah.

Totally. To play the long game. And I hear that you're leveraging an extrinsic reward, but I don't know if that's the case. You're leveraging an extrinsic, and I think that handoff is actually quite tricky. That's why I don't, we built in, Coach Carroll, the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks and I, we built an eight-week online course for the basic psychological skills that we hope that all of our athletes have. And then we're translating that for business folks. And I had a rash against having a leaderboard because we're all about competition. It's a great lever. But I was like, I don't think that that handoff from extrinsic to intrinsic is as easy as technology would suggest.

So if you can wave me off of that thought, I would. No, I love that you're going there. And this is actually something I talk about at length in the book, which is that you're absolutely 100% right. So these strategies to make something fun work if you're bought in intrinsically already and just trying to figure out how to make it work for you, which is the example with exercise, right? Like I totally intrinsically want to exercise more. I'm just I was struggling to motivate myself at the end of a long day to get to the gym and I found a hook to help myself. And so it's the intrinsic motivation

is so strong. There's no crowd out happening because I'm adding an audio book. I'm just now I'm doing the thing I'm intrinsically motivated to do and I'm enjoying it. So that that's easy. But you're absolutely right. Now, let me turn to another example from research by a couple of my colleagues, Ethan Mollick and Nancy Rothbard. They were trying to take this to an organizational setting and they were like, let's make work fun by adding leaderboards and gamifying it. You know, we're going to put animations about basketball up and whoever wins and gets the most is going to get a bottle of champagne. And they, you know, did all this chintzy stuff to sort of make it more fun to do your sales job. And what they found is it

didn't work at all. It really, in fact, demotivated a lot of people. The only people who benefited were a small group who said, like, this was super fun for me. I love basketball and I love the way they did it. But most people hadn't, they call it, entered the magic circle. That's a term in, like, game land for buying in. Like, if you're playing Monopoly with a kid and the kid doesn't play by any of the rules, right? They like to steal the money from the bank. They haven't entered the magic circle. They're just futzing with you. And it's not that fun. When it feels like someone else is pushing us into these activities, when gamification is imposed by someone else to achieve some other

objective, it's not fun. We don't enter the magic circle. We aren't intrinsically motivated. It doesn't have an effect. But when it's something we use to motivate ourselves in a domain where we're already intrinsically motivated, it can be really effective. And there's a study by some of my other colleagues looking at gamification to help families who wanted to exercise more achieve their exercise goals, and that was hugely effective. There they gave people like a mug if they beat the other families and you could level up with more points. But people came to it voluntarily and said, this is something I want. And then you

see the benefits. So it's absolutely right that just imposing an extrinsic reward structure like leaderboards or artificial gamification isn't going to help people unless they raise their hand and say, hey, I want to do this. This is going to help me. It's interesting because I pulled it out of our technology. I thought, I don't think that we can be sensitive enough with this lever to actually get to the long lasting change. Because I don't want to be in the knowledge sharing business. I want to be in the transformation practices, you know, and work from first principles and then move into evidence-based frontier informed practices to help people become the very best. And I don't mean to be doe-eyed when I say, you know, be one's very best. That's why I'm asking like, where's, where,

we're in the behavioral change conversation, but there is some sort of imagination that is required. And so using that, what's the language you had? Fresh start. Using the fresh start opportunity, I think, is a cool moment to say, right, let me engage my imagination. Maybe we could do a study here, right? So find a fresh start, maybe it's each morning, and then use that for a moment to double click on imagination about what is an optimized, a best self, a version whatever of oneself look like today, I bet that we could find that there would lie some real neurochemical and potentially behavioral changes for folks. But maybe you've already done it and I haven't read it. I don't know. We haven't done exactly what you described. We've done some studies where we tried to use fresh start moments as a hook to get people to, for instance, start saving more. But we haven't done that sort of reflection, big picture thinking, set goals at each fresh start and see if that can take you further. Yeah, no, I'm saying just purely use imagination.

So mental imagery is a skill. Yeah, no, we totally haven't done use imagination. So mental imagery is a skill. Yeah, you know, that is why we totally haven't done that. Yeah, that would be a fun study. Actually, if I don't know what what are dependent variables? Yeah, our our science would say it should be easier to imagine a more ideal self because at those moments, you feel more distanced from your past self. So it should be easier for your imagination to go further. That's right. What version are you on? Of you? Of me? Yeah. How many massive upgrades have you had? I don't know. A lot. Like 10? Oh, I wasn't going to say that. I don't know. I'm trying. How many have you had? A lot.

Yeah, that's really cool. Now you're going to make me want to like try to count all the chapters of my life and all the upgrades. Yeah, it's funny because I, you know, I'm sure like me and even studying it it really is easy to like think back on my life and treat it like a book with these chapters and they bookend one year and the other but not all of them involved upgrades some of them involved downgrades so that's what makes it trickier oh god that's good okay good two forward, one step back, right? Yeah, like 10 is a cool number. 10 is a cool number. Yeah, most people don't come back with such a big number, but I believe that...

Most people don't study behavior change. I was going to say, but I believe you because this is your life efforts too. All right. Now let's go into some things that get in the way. Okay, fatigue. Yeah, things that get in the way. Okay. Fatigue. Yeah. Fatigue definitely gets in the way.

Um, it's hard to make a change when you haven't been sleeping, right? It's hard to make a change when your nutrition is off because, you know, it affects so much of brain chemistry, call it willpower as a, as a placeholder for something. So, uh, sustenance,ance, recovery, both of those are really important to be able to create change. But also pain is an accelerant. So this is an interesting nexus, right? Like when people are sick and tired of being sick and tired, then it's like, no, I'm going to make some fundamental changes. And so I'm not necessarily talking about those, but I would say as an accelerant to create

and be the man, woman, person you want to be is to get in touch with some suffering that you have and to really be honest with it. And if you can stay with that suffering a little bit longer and a little bit longer, there's going to be some incredible, it's an incredible forcing function to make the change, you know, and so, but what are some things that you're finding get in the way of people staying the path of the change?

We've talked a lot about exercise research, and there's a lot besides that, that I've done, but I'm actually thinking right now of another study that's about exercise that I think has really interesting implications for this conversation. So I'm going to stay there. I promise. I promise we'll talk about other things too. It's really not all I've studied. I'm thinking about some research I did on building routines for people that would last. And it was a project actually with Google. And we ran this experiment where we were testing two different ideas of how to build a lasting workout habit for their employees. One of the ideas was, and it was built on a lot of habit research, we said, let's try to get these employees for a month to consistently go to the gym at the same time of day every time they go.

Real consistency. That consistency is going to help them build a lasting routine. And then after the month when we've really held their hands and paid them for going every time at the same time, we'll let go and see if they've built a lasting habit. But we wanted to compare them with a different group that was going to be rewarded for going to the gym just as often during that month. But this group would be a lot less consistent in when they went. So about half the time they would go to the gym at the same time. And the other half of their workouts were sort of varied all over the place. Okay, hold on real quick before you take it further. So you're measuring autonomy and agency in some respect, but did that second group also have a reward, an external reward? Yes. Everybody was being basically paid to follow our schedule,

if you will. So everybody told us their ideal workout time, and then half of them are getting a small cash payment for going if they go at that ideal time. And the other half are getting reminded to go at that ideal time, both get the reminder, but paid whether they go then or at some other time. And through varying the size of the incentive and so on, we were able to basically end up with two groups who are going about the same frequency, but in different ways. So one group is going 80% of their workouts are at the same time. The other group, 50% are at the same time. And then we let go and watch what happens to their habits after a month of training, if you will.

And we were pretty sure we'd find and we surveyed top psychologists. What was your hypothesis? Our hypothesis was the routine was the right way to go. That consistency was going to build habit. Yeah, I would not have had that as the null hypothesis. I love it. Well, 80% of psychologists at top departments shared our prediction. We surveyed them.

And you are the person I should have talked to because we were wrong. My whole history of zigging when the world's zagging. Like, okay, finally. Now you have to tell me why you had the opposite hypothesis. And I'll tell you what the data said and why, but I bet you know. No, this is not research-based. No, I know. It's your experience. Yeah. So I grew up counterculture. I know, I grew up for real appreciation for autonomy. And I am I know I'm supposed to go to school. This is high school. I know I'm supposed to go. But you know what? I don't feel like it today. Honestly, this was my high school experience. I'm going to stay in the water because surfing was my sport. There's no coaches. There was very little supervision I had.

There's no coaching in surfing as well. And so it was me with Mother Nature and it was so compelling and I had this strong drive to try to figure something out that I didn't – I had low regard for structure. And so I just came at it like autonomy is one of the first principles for me. And agency is a first principle. And I've seen when you strip away, you and I both know the research on autonomy and agency, like self determination theory, self efficacy theory. Like when we look at that, we go, oh, that's, that's gold and bureaucracy strips it, external rewards, strip it. And so give me an opportunity where I can say I choose. And so that's the zigging when the world's zagging and the counterculture. It's so interesting. Yeah. I wouldn't have said autonomy was what was different because both groups are being paid for going to the gym.

Both groups are being reminded to go at a time that they chose. So they tell us at the beginning, what's your ideal time? And they both get reminders every day to go at that ideal time and get paid for doing it. The only difference is one group gets a reward only if they go within two hours of that ideal time. And the other group gets a reward whether they go at that ideal time or any other time. So I think we probably destroyed autonomy for both of them actually. Honestly, you did. Yeah, you did. Okay, good to know. Yeah, yeah, that's perfect. We also had a third group that didn't get any rewards. They just got reminders. And I should say that group did the worst. But I don't think that's super surprising. And they did the worst in the long run, too, because, you know, it does take a little kick in the butt to get started, as we've talked about.

And that's sort of what we were trying to give people. And these were new people new to exercise. These were not lifelong. There were people who signed up to try to kickstart a more lasting exercise habit around New Year's. Yeah. So some of them might have had some kind of habit before, but they felt like a program was going to help them. So, okay. So we have this month where we're holding their hand, then we let go and we see who does better. The folks who we've given

these routines, very consistent routines, the folks who have been more flexible in when they exercise, but they both go about the same amount. And what we found is that the flexible folks built a more lasting habit. And the reason we think it's happening based on the data analyses we did after the fact is the following. So we weren't totally wrong about the benefits of routine. So the routine people do build a habit that's sticky around going to the gym at the very same time they had been going for a month. They're more likely to go then than at other times. They're a little bit more likely to go then than the people who are in the flexible group. But if they miss their usual time, they don't go. Oh, it's almost like addiction. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Whereas the flexible people...

Relapse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got it. The flexible folks, you know, 7 a.m. is my usual workout time, but I miss my 7 a.m. workout. I still get there at noon because I've built a flexible habit. I've learned to be flexible rather than sort of a rigid automaton. this. But what we learned is how important it is to learn to roll with the punches and to basically have a backup plan that you'll go to if you don't do what's first best. That is critical to habit, just as so many other things in life. And so I think that's a really important takeaway about resilience. And by the way, I will say that when I analyzed this data, I was totally surprised. But the thing that then started to make sense to me, and I think you'll appreciate this as someone in sports as well, is it made sense to me when I thought about it in a sports context, and I thought about the way we train as athletes.

Like as a tennis player, I did not train to hit a forehand always standing in the same place in the same position at the same time, right? Like, and I would have been a terrible player if I hadn't learned to hit it on the run, you know, after someone lobbed the ball over my head off balance. You've got to learn to do it under all different conditions. And what we'd done is we'd trained people in one rigid, narrow way to figure out how to get their workout in. And that's just not what life is like. And so if we want to build robust habits, just like if we want to build robustness in any other skill domain, we need to be flexible and learn how to deal with all of the off balance things life throws at us. Very cool. If you were to build a best practice

for a company that wants to be more agile, psychologically agile, how would you go about that? Knowing that part of agility is the counterbalance to bureaucracy. So let's say that there's some bureaucracy in the system and you're saying as a thought experiment or actually design, you're saying, right, they want to be more agile. How would you go about maybe small changes to get to a more agile psychological agility across people or within people, I should say? It's a really interesting question. I think, I mean, it would depend on the exact objective I was working on. I don't know if I would know how to do it for sort of a person holistically, but if there were an objective in mind, like say even just helping them set goals for themselves, I would probably want to

make sure that when they set goals and made plans, that it's not not just that it's not done rigidly with a single path to success, but that there's a reflection going on about the obstacles and the backup plan and what you'll do when things go wrong, which, you know, there's a lot of research outside of mine that supports that showing how important it is to think through those obstacles and be ready to pivot. But I think I would try to coach people when they're setting goals, not just to set the goal and the plan A, but to think about the obstacles and the plan B. So are you a fan of goal setting? I am a fan of goal setting. I think it's just the beginning. I almost barely cover it in the book because I think it's like, we all know you should set goals. And I talked a little bit about, you

know, break them down into shouldn't be a giant goal that's distant, it should be what's your goal this week? And how are you going to accomplish it? But yeah, absolutely. I think that's an important part of behavior change. I'm going to share something I think is probably counterintuitive to the goals research that I accidentally found. And I'll explain the research here in a second, but I want to stay on goal setting for a moment. Yeah. So let's call it high, hard goals, right? So starting with a high, hard goal. I am not a huge fan of goals. And it's one of the core tenets in sports psychology is clarity of goals. And it started with that old acronym, SMART goals, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time. You know, like I'm just not a fan.

And because most of the goals and then you can you can move them down to performance goals, process goals, outcome goals. Right. And what happens, my experience is that it becomes almost overwhelming and people just map up to the outcome goal. And it's required that we're supposed to work the performance and process goals and then chunk them even further down to say, well, what can I do today? And so I like having like a target out there that we're looking for. And if we can put some metrics to it, it's cool. And I like the intellectual exercise of doing it. And then I, maybe, maybe you can shape, wave me off here, but then I say, right, okay, the middle part, let's actually leave that kind of blank right now. And let's, let's triple down on three goals today that are 100% under your

control that are going to get you closer. And then we'll come back from time to time and measure and see if you're getting actually better at stuff. So I don't know. I think you're just doing goals, right? I think you do like goals. You're just doing them right. And most people do them wrong. And there's there's research I should note that says if you have too many goals, if you make a bunch of goals, and then plan them all out, it's demotivating because it's too many darn things on your to do list. And you're like, I can never accomplish all of that. So it's really important to zoom in, just have a few things, have them bite size, focused on the here and now. And then that big

overarching motivation needs to be there, too. So I think you've done them. You've just figured out how to do them exactly right. And and everybody else was doing them wrong. This is, this is, this is part of my, my aversion to rigidity. It's like, I feel like now all of a sudden, I'm really bound by these things. And I don't want that. I want that life is an uncharted path. And because I don't know anyone that has my unique neurochemistry, my unique physiology, my unique life history and experiences and psychological frameworks and skill bag that I carry around with me. Like, so, so I don't, it's an adventure of one. Now I want to do it with other people that, that really enjoy the adventure of one with many. And so I've never quite said it like that, but so anyway, anyways,

but yeah, but so let's, let's, let me flip over though, is that high heart? No, no, before we flip over high, hard goals, there is some discussion about what that sweet spot is for a high, hard goal. When we're thinking about behavioral change. Can you talk about that kind of, yeah, call it a sweet spot. How high, how hard? That's a great question. It has to be something that's feasibly achievable, right? It can't be, I'm going to run 100 miles today and I've never run before. That's ridiculous. It has to be achievable by someone with your abilities. But it should be a stretch. So that's what the research says very clearly, a strategy she calls emergency reserves. So there can be this tension, and this is really related to what we just talked about with flexibility and rigidity. There's this tension between you want to have a high, hard goal, but if you miss a goal,

it can be incredibly demotivating. There's this whole literature on the what the hell effect. You miss your goal, you throw up your hands, you give up, what the hell, and you walk away. So how can you get that high, hard goal that's motivating without the risk of the what the hell effect? So she came up with this really clever strategy she calls emergency reserves. She'd give people a tough thing, and she said, try to do this seven days a week. That's the high, hard goal, because it's every day. She tells another group, just try to do it five days a week. It's a tough goal, but not as tough. And then a third group, and here's the clever part, try to do it seven days a week, but you get two emergency reserves. If you absolutely can't do it, you can pull out that emergency card and say, I got a free pass. It doesn't take you

off track for the week. And what she found is that people were about twice as successful in that group with the emergency reserves. They got to keep the high, tough goal, but they had a get-out-of-jail-free card if they had a true emergency. So they're still striving for this really tough thing, but if they slip, they don't give up. They don't have the what-the-hell effect. So they're achieving their goals at roughly 50% of the time, whereas the other two groups were more in the 20%. And notice it's exactly the same as trying for five days a week. It's the same goal. But by saying it's seven and you only use those emergency reserves in a true emergency, people keep pushing harder. So anyway, I really like that framing. Like, can you give yourself

the high, hard goal, but give yourself a little flexibility. Not enough that you're going to go running, you know, head for the hills and say, like, I'm not trying that hard, but emergency flexibility. Okay, so then we're, so you're building on consistency, right? Because you're saying seven, and we know that consistency is really important. And then you're giving a psychological pass. You get eight of those a month, like two a week? Yeah, she tested it with two a week. I think, you know, the exactly perfect number of passes might differ person to person and setting to setting. But in her studies, she was doing goals for seven days a week of different tasks or activities and found that two was really effective. Okay. All right. Cool. And then so here's the research that was a bit jarring to some of the research around goals

is that I took, we're on now over 300 interviews on this podcast. And we took the first hundred, I think we took the first 150 and called them down to a hundred. Oh, there were seven factors that we ran them through to get it down to a smaller group that had demonstrated a higher level of mastery than others. So we went from 150 to a hundred. So it was a high bar to get to the 150 and then a higher bar to get to the 100, which meant that you've been in the field for X number of years. You've got some recognition by your peers. You've done some externally

recognizable things that have been game shifting. So it was like this, a second high bar. And we ran that through all the transcripts through with the, some thought stems, and we ran it through an LSA, a languaging processor, like an artificial intelligence algorithm to say what was being said. And we're looking for the themes and the streams and then the applied insights. And interestingly enough, let's call it the ones that passed over that high gate of mastery, they were less interested as a group in goals and more interested in purpose. So when we compared the two, it was actually, they were more interested in immersive practices

that could help them get closer to a present moment, call it flow state experience. And that was purpose-driven and actually goals had a negative correlation to get to the end game that they were looking for. So I'll send you the research. It was really quite... That's fascinating. There's this paper that I love by a few of my friends called Goals Gone Wild. That's about all of the ugly things that come with goals about sort of managing, just like incentives, managing to a specific target and crowding out intrinsic motivation or other things you might also want to strive towards. So anyway, don't get me wrong. I think what you're saying about goals is right. They're not perfect.

But I do think there are ways to use them that can be really effective. Awesome. Okay. I feel like I could go on and on and on with you. Aw, thanks. This is really fun for me too. Oh, good. Okay, really cool. Thanks for having me. Oh, no. Yeah. I just want to say thank you for the clarity of your research, the eloquence in which you explore, and the clarity that you have to be able to say, no, this is what we found. And you're not stretching outside to say, well, if we ignore the science, this is what I, you know, it's like, it's super grounded, and I really appreciate it. So just a couple more questions, if you don't mind. Yeah, no, totally.

If you could sit with somebody who is a true master in your mind, dead or alive, it's cool. Who would that be? And where would you want to be with them? This is easy. I'm such a nerd. Ben Franklin. Probably in a library but in a library where you're allowed to talk because I want to hear what he has to say so maybe I should change that all right Ben

Franklin at a dinner table that's where I'd want to be did I answer the full question I got so excited when you said who and where. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell you what I talk about? Well, the next part is like, let's be a reductionist for a moment. If you only had one question, what would that be? What do you think made you successful? Is that a weird question? I want to know what, like how he, he's so amazing.

He did so many things. He achieved so much. Like what, what worked for him so well and helped him solve so many of the world's problems around, you know, from politics to understanding the nature of currents to electricity. I mean, I would like to know what it is that helped him be so darn effective. That's awesome. So how do you think he would answer it? I don't know, maybe with one of his famous quotes, like, haste makes waste, or, yeah. I don't know. I hope he would give me a really long and detailed answer. Honestly, that would be great, because obviously it was many things. And he had so much self-knowledge, which is one of the things that is fascinating about him. Right. He had these like incredibly elaborate journaling methods for tracking his progress. And he had a set of virtues that he was trying to achieve. And and he kept track of how he was doing on those. I think he had just an enormous amount of self-awareness that helped propel him to achieve in so many domains.

And I would hope he'd give me, I'd hope he'd write a book for me, actually. That would be much better than the one I wrote. Oh, look at that. Yeah. And the virtue training is really cool. Isn't that like, it's remarkable that he was doing virtue training. Such an interesting, interesting person. Yeah. Okay. And then this is not to be glib, but what has led to your success? Like how, how have you done it? I think two things. One is that I do work really hard and don't think I'm great. So I, that's actually part one. So I guess it's three things. I've never been, I've never felt

like I was a natural at anything. It's always come with really hard work. On the tennis court, I was an okay player who got to be pretty good by working like crazy at it, really focusing on fitness and practice and just giving it my all. In school, it was the same. I wasn't my high school's valedictorian, and I don't think anybody would have expected me to end up where I have. But I was smart enough and I worked like crazy. And then I guess I'd say the second part of it, besides sort of the hard work and not having too big of an ego or expecting too much for myself naturally, I would say is I've always tried to follow what I love doing. And that makes it easy to work hard and enjoy it. And so loving what I do and finding every day to be, frankly, a gift. I'm so lucky to get to go to my job and work with brilliant people and talk about fascinating ideas, feeling that I love it makes it easy. So it doesn't feel like

work. So even though I guess I'm working really hard, I'm actually just like playing really hard. I think those are the things that have made, and then I should also say a tremendous amount of luck because that's probably actually the real answer but but answers that are slightly more useful to other people uh would probably be the ones i gave the science of luck is really interesting to me it's really interesting it's like we all under appreciate it yeah it's almost like a problem for me you know it's what i think it's one of the big problems for me because it's involved in so much and I want to minimize it so much. And the reason I want to minimize it is because it takes away like the amount of effort. I think the value or the valiance of the amount of effort that I have to put in to actually understand something.

And, you know, the truth is sometimes I'm at the right place, the right spot in the line at a coffee shop and I met the right person. You know, it's like, how does that happen? So, yeah, luck is like I think it's something I want to really better understand. And so there's a frontier there for me, for sure. Because part of a big part of sports science and sports psychology and performance psychology is reducing chance, reducing luck by increasing the potency of the other variables and the consistency of the other variables. Yeah. But, but if we don't acknowledge luck, then we can't appreciate, you know, and be empathetic with others as well.

I think, I think it's a problem. I've not had as much of it. Yep. Yep. Certainly. Yeah. Like where I was born, the color of my skin, my genetic coding, all of that, I had nothing to do with. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. And it has so much effect. Anything else in particular? Okay. The one thing we didn't cover that I think is really interesting that I think you'll love. We've done this research that was led by Lauren S. Chris Winkler, a former PhD student of Angela Duckworth's, who's my colleague and frequent co-author at Penn. And the research was trying to figure out if there was a way to build kids' confidence so they could do better in school based on an insight Lauren had, which was that she'd done all these interviews with people, kids, athletes, salespeople, and she was talking to people who were struggling about how they could achieve more

and consistently hearing they really had deep insights about what would work. And she had this insight that maybe we shouldn't be giving them so much advice. Maybe by sort of talking down to people and constantly telling them what they should do, they kind of already know when they're trying to achieve more. Maybe we should actually put them in the driver's seat and ask them to be the advisor and to advise someone else. So we did this big study where we asked kids in high school to give some study advice, study tips to their younger peers. It was like an eight-minute survey we gave them at the beginning of a marking period on, you know, where are good places to study? What are strategies that you think would work? And they felt like role

models. They came out of it and they said, that was amazing. Can we do that again? Across the board, these kids improved their grades in the class they most wanted to improve in more than the kids in a control group who hadn't been asked for advice. And I should say, it didn't turn C students into valedictorians to be mentors and to be coaching other people. It was a small change. It raised their grade point average one point, but it was significant. And all it took was putting them in that role of the advisor so that they could introspect about what worked for them.

They could feel like a role model, feel like the kind of person we expect to succeed. And I think that's a really powerful lesson about change as well, is that sometimes we have it in us. And if we're just given the opportunity to give guidance to others, to feel like a mentor and a role model, we can bring it out. I love that. Talk about agency and talk about the ability to self-determine in many respects by shining their competency. I love that as a practice. I bet that same practice holds true with adults. Lauren has done some other work, just not at the same scale with adults, showing when people describe their motivation after having a chance to give advice about other kinds of things, you see exactly what she would predict. So I bet it holds true there, too. And I hope it's a lesson that people can immediately use. It's an easy one.

It's not lost on me that Angelaela's involved in good science changing the kids lives across the planet you know and uh thank you for sharing that all right last one it all comes down to oh god that's so hard loving whatever you're doing what a great note to end on appreciate you thank you thank you for having me this was really fun yeah it was awesome and then so where can people go find more? Oh, I should have a really good answer for that, shouldn't I? I guess katimilkman.com. They can read about my book, How to Change. How to Change, yes.

And also my podcast, Choiceology. I have a newsletter, a research center, any of that stuff. And let's bounce them over to Twitter as well for social K A T Y underscore milk, man. So Twitter is a good place. And I really want to encourage people to check out your book, you know, how to change. And so we've got a really strong community and and they really want to get better. And I think behavioral change and good science that will support enduring change is right down our strike zone. So I'm stoked to introduce your book to our community. So thank you. Thank you so much for having me. This was really fun.

Okay. That was such a meaningful conversation and that's all the time that we have for today. And I bet you're feeling fulfilled, bet you're feeling inspired. I know that I am. And I just wanna say I'm incredibly grateful for you to be a member of this community. And it'd mean a lot to me and our team if you take a few actions.

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