Speaker 1: Pushkin. My research group has studied this phenomenon where at
Speaker 1: the beginning of sort of a new chapter in your life,
Speaker 1: you are more motivated and likely to make a change.
Speaker 1: That's doctor Katie Milden, author of the book had a
Speaker 1: change moments when you know, leave college and you shift
Speaker 1: identities and take on a new role, or when you
Speaker 1: become a parent. Those moments they feel like new beginnings
Speaker 1: and chapter breaks in our lives, and they free us
Speaker 1: from the baggage that we had before. A lot of
Speaker 1: people who do make big change are looking at moments
Speaker 1: that feel like breaking points and doing it. Katie Milkman's
Speaker 1: a professor of behavioral economics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: She's also a friend and collaborator. We got to work
Speaker 1: together on some projects when I was in the Obama
Speaker 1: White House, and she happens to be an expert on change.
Speaker 1: As you know, this show is all about how people
Speaker 1: navigate the big changes in life. We're talking swing for
Speaker 1: the fences, change your life type changes. What Katie's research
Speaker 1: has taught me over the years is that small tweaks
Speaker 1: to our mindset in daily behaviors can actually inspire big
Speaker 1: change within ourselves. I've personally been using insights from Katie's
Speaker 1: research in my own life for a while now. In
Speaker 1: this special episode, Katie and I dive deep into the
Speaker 1: science of change. I hope our conversation will leave you
Speaker 1: with some valuable tips to help your approach change differently
Speaker 1: in your own life. I'm Maya Shunker and this is
Speaker 1: a slight change of plants. Well, Katie, I was curious
Speaker 1: to know how you got into the topic of change. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I was in love with behavioral science, but it took
Speaker 1: me a little while to figure out that I wanted
Speaker 1: to focus on change. And what happened is I went
Speaker 1: to a seminar over at the med school and there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of brilliant people over there thinking about behavioral
Speaker 1: science and medicine. How can we help patients make better decisions?
Speaker 1: How can we improve the decisions of doctors as well?
Speaker 1: And I was in this seminar and a graph went up,
Speaker 1: which normally doesn't change your life, but this graph changed
Speaker 1: my life. The graph just showed a breakdown of how
Speaker 1: many premature deaths are due to different causes from accidents,
Speaker 1: to environment to daily decisions, and forty percent of premature
Speaker 1: deaths turn out to be the result of decisions that
Speaker 1: we can change on a daily basis about things like
Speaker 1: whether or not we drink or smoke, what we eat,
Speaker 1: whether or not we're physically active, we buckle our seat belts.
Speaker 1: Those kinds of decisions accumulate more than I could have
Speaker 1: ever imagined. I had just no idea of the magnitude.
Speaker 1: And when I saw that and realized, you know, the
Speaker 1: tools of behavioral science could be applied to improve health
Speaker 1: outcomes and health decisions, I could have this enormous impact.
Speaker 1: And then then I sort of started thinking, like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: if it matters that much with health, it's sort of
Speaker 1: obvious that it would accumulate in areas like savings and
Speaker 1: education similarly, even if I've never seen an exact breakdown
Speaker 1: of that sort. So that really just got me excited
Speaker 1: about the potential to use this thing that I found
Speaker 1: so interesting, so exciting and fun to actually have an impact.
Speaker 1: So that was it for me. I'm really curious about
Speaker 1: how your journey changed, because you've had many career shifts,
Speaker 1: but you certainly went from you know, a more laboratory
Speaker 1: based focus too, you know, jumping into the White House
Speaker 1: to tackle change head on from a policy perspective, how
Speaker 1: did how did you shift? It's interesting because in my
Speaker 1: mind my big shift in life was from the violin
Speaker 1: to cognitive science. But I'm just remembering, like, oh wait,
Speaker 1: I also had this other really big shift. And I
Speaker 1: think this is true across science too, But certainly when
Speaker 1: we were working in the government, the stakes feel so
Speaker 1: high you just can't screw up because these are real
Speaker 1: people's lives and they can be affected by the work
Speaker 1: you're doing. And yeah, it's so funny. I mean, we
Speaker 1: actually worked together on some projects. Actually one of them
Speaker 1: used an insight from your book, and it was the
Speaker 1: fresh Start effect. And I'm curious if you can share
Speaker 1: what the fresh start effect is. It was very exciting
Speaker 1: at the time to have caught off the press's research
Speaker 1: coming out of your lab actually applied to a problem
Speaker 1: that we were trying to solve in the government. So
Speaker 1: my research group has studied this phenomenon where at the
Speaker 1: beginning of sort of a new chapter in your life,
Speaker 1: you are more motivated and likely to make a change.
Speaker 1: And we've often studied small changes in this context, like
Speaker 1: you go to the gym more, or you search on
Speaker 1: Google for the term diet more frequently, or you're more
Speaker 1: likely to set a goal on a goal setting website.
Speaker 1: But I also think you know where the interest in
Speaker 1: this topic came from was the realization that a lot
Speaker 1: of people who do make big change are looking at
Speaker 1: moments that feel like breaking points and doing doing it.
Speaker 1: And so I tell stories about bigger changes in my book,
Speaker 1: moments when you leave college and you shift identity is
Speaker 1: and take on a new role, or when you become
Speaker 1: a parent. Those moments they feel like new beginnings and
Speaker 1: chapter breaks in our lives, and I think they're freeing
Speaker 1: in a way. They free us from the baggage that
Speaker 1: we had before. But they can also be freeing psychologically
Speaker 1: because we feel like you're a new person. You can
Speaker 1: take on a new identity, whatever wasn't working before, whatever
Speaker 1: ambition you failed to have before you couldn't shed that,
Speaker 1: and say okay, now I can do it. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I do think we could study big change, and I
Speaker 1: actually think some of the research we've done around small
Speaker 1: change is inspired by a recognition that these might also
Speaker 1: be the triggers for big change. Was there a particular
Speaker 1: moment in your life where you felt the fresh start
Speaker 1: effect play out where it really felt like a new
Speaker 1: beginning and there was a certain set of habits or
Speaker 1: behavior changes that you witnessed. Oh my gosh. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I do mesearch, so totally, meaning like a
Speaker 1: lot of my research is motivated by like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: that's weird. I wonder if other people And then I
Speaker 1: asked my friends, Oh yes, me too, and then I realized, okay,
Speaker 1: like this might be this might be something we're studding.
Speaker 1: I will say one example that I love is that
Speaker 1: I realized I wanted to write this book for a
Speaker 1: long time. Finally what happened that triggered it when I
Speaker 1: actually began. My son was three years old. We decided
Speaker 1: we were going to move out of our apartment into
Speaker 1: a house. We bought the house, we signed the papers,
Speaker 1: and that day I said, you know what, I'm ready,
Speaker 1: We're moving to a new house. It's a fresh start.
Speaker 1: This is the moment and the project started from there,
Speaker 1: So that that was a big one for me. Interesting.
Speaker 1: One of the anecdotes around the fresh Start that I
Speaker 1: love the most is Obama decided that he would stop
Speaker 1: smoking for good when the Affordable Care Act passed, and
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, a next level the fresh start effects,
Speaker 1: like he truly chose a once in a lifetime experienced
Speaker 1: to anchor his commitment on. And it was like aligned on,
Speaker 1: you know, it was aligned on like a health focus. Yes,
Speaker 1: of course, of course Obama one ups all of us
Speaker 1: and does the thing in the best way imaginable. Duh.
Speaker 1: But I do love that, Like there's no other future,
Speaker 1: one of those where he can be like old. Maybe
Speaker 1: I can cave a little now because they'll be this
Speaker 1: other right the other time I passed right the other
Speaker 1: times healthcare as president. I love that, and I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think I knew that. Actually, that's amazing. Um,
Speaker 1: have you used the fresh start effect maya, or like
Speaker 1: in hindsight? Have you ever noticed that a fresh start shifted?
Speaker 1: I have some I swear, I swear to God every
Speaker 1: Sunday I'm committing to eating healthily. It's just that there's
Speaker 1: too many damn Sundays, and so I always feel like
Speaker 1: I've gotten you fall on to give it a go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean, I think it's it's hard for
Speaker 1: so many of us to keep our resolutions. And in
Speaker 1: reading your book, it did make me think, okay, choose
Speaker 1: really remarkable milestones for pivoting, like big moves like when
Speaker 1: I moved from DC to California, getting married, big events
Speaker 1: like that, Because I do think you feel like your
Speaker 1: identity is changing a bit, and any behaviors at a
Speaker 1: company identity shifts might be more sticky, or at least
Speaker 1: they have than in my experience. I think that's right.
Speaker 1: And you get the benefit not only of the sort
Speaker 1: of psychological break and the fresh start and opening a chapter,
Speaker 1: but you also have physical change, which is so important
Speaker 1: to disrupting sort of bad habits or routines and giving
Speaker 1: you that real blank slate to build upon and say like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go to the burrito shop every
Speaker 1: day for lunch, or you know, whatever your bad habit
Speaker 1: is that you want to kick um exactly. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think one of my favorite insights from the book, and
Speaker 1: it's instead I've been using in my own life since
Speaker 1: I read your research years ago, is around temptation fundling.
Speaker 1: Do you mind for sharing what that is? And then
Speaker 1: I'd love to let you know how I've been using it. Yeah, yess,
Speaker 1: I want to hear about your temptation bundeling um that
Speaker 1: this is gonna be fun. So temptation. Bundling is a
Speaker 1: solution I came up with because I had two problems.
Speaker 1: Um taking you back to grad school again. I was
Speaker 1: taking all these hard engineering classes, and I was stressed out,
Speaker 1: and I'd come home after a long day of classes,
Speaker 1: and all I wanted to do was just like indulge
Speaker 1: in entertainment, right like turn on Netflix and binge watch TV,
Speaker 1: read tempting novels. So I just wanted I wanted to
Speaker 1: dive into that in a scape my reality, and I
Speaker 1: didn't want to do my problem sets. On the flip side,
Speaker 1: I also knew I should really be getting exercise. I
Speaker 1: was an athlete in college, but again when I came
Speaker 1: home from a long day, I didn't want to put
Speaker 1: on sweats and go to the gym. So these two problems,
Speaker 1: like I couldn't get myself to do my homework because
Speaker 1: I was procrastinating indulging in all this entertainment, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't get myself to exercise, And all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I realized, like, wait a minute, what if I solved
Speaker 1: them all at once? What if I only let myself
Speaker 1: enjoy this entertainment that I love so much while I'm exercising,
Speaker 1: I'd start craving trips to the gym to find out
Speaker 1: what happens next in my latest page turner. And I
Speaker 1: would stop wasting time at home on this sort of
Speaker 1: literary garbage that normally captures my attention, and I just
Speaker 1: focus on my problem sets. And I started doing it.
Speaker 1: Was just like magic. I worked out every day. Time
Speaker 1: flew while I was at the gym because I was
Speaker 1: engrossed in Harry Potter or Alex Cross. And when I
Speaker 1: got home, I was ready to work because I'd already
Speaker 1: had my indulgence and I wasn't as stressed out. And
Speaker 1: I also realized like I could use them not only
Speaker 1: to help me exercise, but in lots of places, like
Speaker 1: if you just tie something tempting to a chore, you
Speaker 1: can magically turn it into something you look forward to
Speaker 1: and do less of that indulgent thing and feel less
Speaker 1: guilty about it. Like you know, if only you get
Speaker 1: a glass of wine while you're making a home cooked meal,
Speaker 1: or listen to your favorite podcast while you're doing chores.
Speaker 1: For all your listeners who are doing laundry right now,
Speaker 1: Katie and I are carrying you on. Go for it. Yes,
Speaker 1: your temptation bundling. You didn't know there was a name
Speaker 1: for it, Yes, exactly. Okay, So I one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things in life is discovering a new pop song
Speaker 1: that I love. And what makes me really sad is
Speaker 1: that I very quickly like it loses the spark after
Speaker 1: a certain number of listens, Like you just know you
Speaker 1: only have fifteen amazing listens with a song and before
Speaker 1: before it kind of becomes old hat, right, So as
Speaker 1: soon as I discovered an amazing song, I will only
Speaker 1: allow myself to listen to it while I'm working out
Speaker 1: from that point on. And like, I'm a really non
Speaker 1: fun wife because my husband sometimes and I will discover
Speaker 1: the song together and we'll be cooking in the evening,
Speaker 1: We'll be having fun. He's like, hey, let's play that
Speaker 1: new album by Casey Musgraves, who's one of my favorite artists.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, you don't understand.
Speaker 1: That's only like a treadmill elliptical song because I just
Speaker 1: feel like I have to protect it and save it.
Speaker 1: But it certainly makes the work out a lot more
Speaker 1: tolerable and a little bit more exciting. So yes, I
Speaker 1: love pop music too, and I feel like we should
Speaker 1: trade some song recommendations later so we can each share.
Speaker 1: It's now very seriously tied to my exercise between In fact,
Speaker 1: the one thing that can happen is when you temptation bundle.
Speaker 1: Sometimes what can happen is the intrinsic extrinsic motivation balance
Speaker 1: gets thrown off kilter a bit. So it's like, initially
Speaker 1: I'm just using all of my internal will to go exercise,
Speaker 1: but now I've got this extrinsic motivator, which is a song.
Speaker 1: So on the rare occasion where like my headphones are
Speaker 1: out of battery or like my phone's Wi Fi is
Speaker 1: not working, I'm like, oh, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: can do this anymore. Just have to make sure your
Speaker 1: headphone are always working in your your iPhone is always
Speaker 1: charged or whatever. Yes, I'm wondering whether are for temptation bundling.
Speaker 1: You see this plate on the wild in places that
Speaker 1: were behavior change feels a little bit more serious. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think if I have a great answer
Speaker 1: for you. There's a study I love of teachers who
Speaker 1: are trying to figure out how to motivate their students
Speaker 1: to do more math. Problems, which kids apparently say they
Speaker 1: like doing math about as much as they like eating broccoli.
Speaker 1: So that tells you something about how delightful it is.
Speaker 1: And math is so important to everything, as we both know.
Speaker 1: So these two researchers suggested, basically a temptation bundle. What
Speaker 1: if the kids could, you know, listen to music, have
Speaker 1: snacks markers that they like using. And they did that
Speaker 1: all on the day when they're doing their math worksheets,
Speaker 1: but not at other times. And the teachers were sort
Speaker 1: of skeptical. They were like, I think they'll focus less
Speaker 1: could so I'll be distracted. And it turned out that
Speaker 1: kids persisted longer on math when they were randomly assigned
Speaker 1: to groups that had these i'll say temptations linked with them.
Speaker 1: It's not you know, it's not changing their lives in
Speaker 1: that day. It is cumulative. But I think that that's
Speaker 1: an example of like some of the big goals we
Speaker 1: have in life, whether it's getting through your math assignments
Speaker 1: or finishing a dissertation, if you can find a way
Speaker 1: to make it more enjoyable, that really matters. I love
Speaker 1: the math example, I think for two reasons. I mean,
Speaker 1: the first is I just love any time research findings
Speaker 1: violated our expectations, you know, when the teachers are like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure that this is a good idea,
Speaker 1: But then you're able to generate empirical data that runs
Speaker 1: counter to that hypothesis. That's wonderful because it's moving the
Speaker 1: field forward. And I think the other reason I love
Speaker 1: it is that, you know, success begets success, Passion begets passion.
Speaker 1: It's kind of one of those things where if you
Speaker 1: get a kid just through that initial period they're just
Speaker 1: learning the basics, getting over those initial super hard humps,
Speaker 1: then they might actually realize that they really like this thing,
Speaker 1: and that just becomes easier and easier and easier to
Speaker 1: do every problem from that point forward. So I do
Speaker 1: feel like it can have massive long term effects. I'm
Speaker 1: with you, And if they have positive associations with math,
Speaker 1: I mean, what more could we hope for. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back with a slight change of plans. In this episode,
Speaker 1: doctor Katie Melfin and I are talking about the science
Speaker 1: of change and the different techniques we can use to
Speaker 1: spur on that change. One technique is called a commitment device,
Speaker 1: which locks you into a plan to reach your long
Speaker 1: term goals. The key feature of a commitment device is
Speaker 1: that if you don't follow through with your plan, there's
Speaker 1: some sort of penalty in place. I remember, I'm curious
Speaker 1: if you actually remember the experience of first learning about them,
Speaker 1: because for me, it was like mind blowing how powerful
Speaker 1: they were, and actually mind blowing how few people use
Speaker 1: them given how powerful they are. But the study that
Speaker 1: I love that really I think illustrates nicely how much
Speaker 1: they can help us is a study where they partnered
Speaker 1: with a bank in the Philippines that saw low savings
Speaker 1: rates and wanted to figure out if there was a
Speaker 1: way to help people save more so they'd have the
Speaker 1: ability to have better health, have better life outcomes. Where
Speaker 1: they came up with this idea that one of the
Speaker 1: reasons people were having trouble accumulating savings balances is they
Speaker 1: were constantly tempted to dip in. They were like, they
Speaker 1: opened the bank account and then they put some money aside,
Speaker 1: but then somebody's birthday or there's a holiday, and so
Speaker 1: the money came right back out and it never accumulated.
Speaker 1: And that people said, you know, actually, I'd kind of
Speaker 1: like it if I couldn't get them money out I
Speaker 1: kind of wish I couldn't act on those impulses. So
Speaker 1: they developed this new kind of account. It was a
Speaker 1: commitment savings account. So you put money in and you
Speaker 1: are not allowed to take it out until a predetermin
Speaker 1: and date you choose or a savings goal you choose.
Speaker 1: They offered this kind of account to, you know, a
Speaker 1: random subset of customers alongside the usual account with the
Speaker 1: same interest rate, but free in and out access. They
Speaker 1: saved eighty percent more year over year than the control
Speaker 1: I mean eighty percent more savings. Right, you've studied savings
Speaker 1: like that. That's life changing. So I love that story.
Speaker 1: That's a hard commitment because when you put your money in,
Speaker 1: there is another you know, there's a third party, the
Speaker 1: bank that is saying like, you cannot have it. It
Speaker 1: is not accessible to you. I'm preventing I'm preventing you
Speaker 1: from So there's like a hard restriction on access to something.
Speaker 1: And a commitment device is something you voluntarily opt into
Speaker 1: that restricts you or penalizes you in some way if
Speaker 1: you don't achieve your goals or pursue your goals in
Speaker 1: the way you intend to. So that's a hard one
Speaker 1: because there's no fudging it. There's soft commitments in the
Speaker 1: world too, Like you know, you tell your partner or
Speaker 1: your mom you're going to do something, and then they
Speaker 1: ask them to give you a hard time if you don't.
Speaker 1: That's like a weak commitment device. You're gonna get a
Speaker 1: little You're gonna get ribbed a little bit. You're accountable
Speaker 1: to someone, but you can back out. Yeah. I also
Speaker 1: remember learning about commitment devices for the first time. Gosh,
Speaker 1: we sound like such nerds. Do you are? For you, Katie,
Speaker 1: do you remember where you were Remember the day you
Speaker 1: learned about commitment devices? I mean remember exactly where I was.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm like, yeah, I was in a classroom.
Speaker 1: My head exploded. Where were you? I was in my
Speaker 1: kitchen with my roommates, and I was reading this paper
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, this is so exciting. The
Speaker 1: researchers ran a study in which they had people outline where, when,
Speaker 1: and how they were planning to get vaccinated. So that
Speaker 1: was my study. Oh my gosh, this is so fun.
Speaker 1: The flu shot study I'm talking about is your study.
Speaker 1: See that's awesome. Okay, well, the seminal work by doctor
Speaker 1: milkman Um so in your study. You ask people where, when,
Speaker 1: and how you're gonna go get vaccinated? Right, And I
Speaker 1: think what was so studying to me is like you,
Speaker 1: so you write down this forum. You know, I maya
Speaker 1: nine am after or I drop off my husband at
Speaker 1: work and I go pick up my groceries. I'm going
Speaker 1: to go to the CBS can get my flu vaccine.
Speaker 1: And what was astonishing to me is that it significantly
Speaker 1: increased the vaccination rate despite the fact that you weren't
Speaker 1: accountable to anyone, right in this intervention. You were not
Speaker 1: required to send the letter back to anyone, No one
Speaker 1: was on your case. You were literally just planning it
Speaker 1: out for yourself, and that was enough to significantly drive
Speaker 1: the numbers up, which to me again was such an
Speaker 1: extraordinary lightlift, low cost intervention that could potentially save people's lives.
Speaker 1: And in your book you talk about the fact that
Speaker 1: we all have a fairly maybe not everyone, but many
Speaker 1: people have a very high view of themselves, so they
Speaker 1: feel like they might not benefit that much from commitment devices.
Speaker 1: And you know, we can be very over optimistic about
Speaker 1: our ability to use willpower to avoid temptation. And I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if you have any thoughts or advice for helping
Speaker 1: people overcome this over confidence so that they can achieve
Speaker 1: their goals. Yeah, it's funny. Optimism is a really good thing,
Speaker 1: but in this particular case, it plays tricks on us
Speaker 1: that are problematic because we don't in general persevere as
Speaker 1: much as we think we will, and we do tend
Speaker 1: to be present biased, right, so we dramatically overweight whatever
Speaker 1: value will get from something instantaneously rather than the long
Speaker 1: term value. So you know, I can buy a present
Speaker 1: right now for myself, or I can put money in savings.
Speaker 1: I'll take the present even if that's not really good
Speaker 1: for me in the long run. And if we don't
Speaker 1: appreciate that, this disconnect keeps happening, and we think we'll
Speaker 1: just barrel through and do what's in our long term
Speaker 1: best interests, we don't choose to use commitment devices because
Speaker 1: we don't recognize this challenge. So I think it's a
Speaker 1: really tough nut to crack. And for me, the big
Speaker 1: thing was sort of seeing the data and seeing here's
Speaker 1: the evidence if you see it with your own eyes
Speaker 1: and you see how powerful these tools are, how often
Speaker 1: we do stumble even though we think we'll be able
Speaker 1: to push through. Maybe that evidence will be enough to
Speaker 1: get people to recognize this can be a really potent approach.
Speaker 1: You have lots of colorful anecdotes sprinkled throughout of real
Speaker 1: people who are facing these challenges and using these behavioral
Speaker 1: tricks of the trade. And I do feel like in
Speaker 1: many ways you're wielding the power of social norms by saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: at least here's a collection of people who are willing
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that they may be a bit overconfident about
Speaker 1: their ability to use, for example, willpower to achieve their goals,
Speaker 1: and they're open to using some of these strategies. So
Speaker 1: maybe there could be a positive norm effect that comes
Speaker 1: from people reading your book Fingers Crossed. I love that.
Speaker 1: I like that the modeling, and you know, anytime I
Speaker 1: can use insights about social norms to make the world
Speaker 1: a better place, I'm it's a win. What do you
Speaker 1: see in the future of change research? In your ideal feature.
Speaker 1: When I think about what I'm most intrigued by and
Speaker 1: feel like we've only scratched the surface of in studying change,
Speaker 1: there's two big things. One is durability. What are the
Speaker 1: kinds of tools that really propel change? In an incredibly
Speaker 1: durable way, you know. I think a key takeaway for
Speaker 1: me has been, like, never stopped doing the thing that's
Speaker 1: working right. Don't like assume you can temptation bundle for
Speaker 1: a month, then you've built an exercise habit and magically, maya,
Speaker 1: you will never need to listen to a pop song again,
Speaker 1: and you'll always want to go to the gym. So
Speaker 1: you got to keep doing that. So we know that.
Speaker 1: But are there any magical things that where if you
Speaker 1: sort of can put them on autopilot or do them
Speaker 1: for a little while and they propel you for it.
Speaker 1: I wonder I would love to uncover some if they exist.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing I'm really intrigued by is
Speaker 1: setbacks and how to sort of how to prepare for
Speaker 1: them and recover from them as effectively as possible. I
Speaker 1: think some of the most interesting ideas I have encountered
Speaker 1: around change work because they have they help us with
Speaker 1: those setbacks. I think fresh starts sort of help us
Speaker 1: with the setbacks. They're like, okay, wipe the slate clean,
Speaker 1: You're I get to get up and go again. There's
Speaker 1: wonderful work by my colleague Mersa Sharif on emergency reserves
Speaker 1: where she's figured out these clever ways that you set
Speaker 1: a tough goal, but give yourself a couple get out
Speaker 1: of Gael free cards if you can't achieve it every
Speaker 1: day of the week, and found that that's way better
Speaker 1: than giving yourself sort of like a slightly easier goal
Speaker 1: because you're going for the stretch, but you're giving yourself
Speaker 1: a little leeway. I think that also is like about
Speaker 1: getting back up. So I think there's some really fundamental,
Speaker 1: interesting things to be explored around creating structures for success
Speaker 1: after a setback, and I look forward to studying that too, Katie.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I feel most intimidated by
Speaker 1: is this challenge of how it is we can change
Speaker 1: people's minds. It feels like one of those really elicit things,
Speaker 1: and there's no one size fits all approach, And I'm
Speaker 1: just wondering if you have any thoughts on the most
Speaker 1: effective strategies you've seen, either in research or just in
Speaker 1: your personal life around how to change people's minds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's such an interesting question. It's obviously really hard, just
Speaker 1: like behavior change is hard, changing opinions is really hard.
Speaker 1: I think actually there are some common themes though, and
Speaker 1: one common theme is exploration. So when we talked about
Speaker 1: the fresh start effect and how these disruptions in our
Speaker 1: lives can lead us to sort of be in a
Speaker 1: new environment and you can therefore explore and you don't
Speaker 1: have old bad habits necessarily already built to fall back on.
Speaker 1: There's also an opportunity to do that in terms of
Speaker 1: mindset shift. So I think when we have a set
Speaker 1: of beliefs and expectations, were less likely to explore and
Speaker 1: read and talk to people outside of our perspective. But
Speaker 1: if we can, if there's a moment that career or
Speaker 1: forces some experimentation an exploration, that can be incredibly powerful. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like that too, because it's not so pointed, right,
Speaker 1: It's not like I need you to change your opinion
Speaker 1: about this thing. It's let me just try to get
Speaker 1: you to expose yourself to stuff. Period. I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: you have any concrete ideas on how we can motivate
Speaker 1: people to engage in that exploration, because exploration is very uncomfortable, right,
Speaker 1: Like we all have deeply entrenched views within us. Purposely
Speaker 1: going on a mission to challenge those views is not
Speaker 1: exactly the most fun adventure. It's just it's filled with
Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance. It just feels uncomfortable. And so how do
Speaker 1: we incentivize people to go on those little missions? You know,
Speaker 1: I have to think that a big part of it
Speaker 1: is probably through social norms, which is such a powerful tool.
Speaker 1: For instance, if you end up with a roommate who's
Speaker 1: a good student, your grades are likely to be a
Speaker 1: bit higher. So you know, if we point out others
Speaker 1: like you who have changed their mind, it gives you
Speaker 1: license to say, like, oh, maybe, like it's reasonable for
Speaker 1: someone like meeting to keep exploring and keep thinking about
Speaker 1: different ideas. I think that might be a way that
Speaker 1: we can introduce this exploration concept and not have it
Speaker 1: be too threatening and have it be appealing. I think
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. I mean, it's reminding me. There's this
Speaker 1: one interview I did with a woman named Megan Phelps
Speaker 1: Roper and she ends up leaving this hate group cult church,
Speaker 1: and I was asking her, are you using your platform
Speaker 1: today to convince other people? Because there's so much research
Speaker 1: showing the power of a convert. So when you hold
Speaker 1: the views that this person in front of you previously held,
Speaker 1: and then you watch them walk you through their journey
Speaker 1: of changing their minds. It can open your mind in
Speaker 1: a really unique way because you feel attached to their
Speaker 1: former value system, right. You know that you started in
Speaker 1: the same place, but they ended up in a different place.
Speaker 1: I know the Department of Homeland Security uses this inside
Speaker 1: all the time by recruiting former extremists to try to
Speaker 1: convert potential extremists away from that craft. It's so interesting too,
Speaker 1: because I'm thinking about like the original, like nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: five Solomon ash experiments where he'd bring all these people
Speaker 1: into a room and he'd show them two cards. One
Speaker 1: had one line on it and one had three and
Speaker 1: you had to figure out which of those three lines
Speaker 1: was the same length as the one line. And it
Speaker 1: seems like this really simple task and it was fairly straightforward.
Speaker 1: People didn't get it wrong except when he introduced social pressure.
Speaker 1: So he'd bring a group in and have seven of
Speaker 1: them consistently give those same wrong answer before you give
Speaker 1: your answer, and people started messing up and they're like
Speaker 1: totally confused. But was really interesting, you know, that's the
Speaker 1: famous finding. When everybody else says the wrong answer, you
Speaker 1: go along with it a lot, and you actually believe
Speaker 1: that you must be seeing things. One of my favorite
Speaker 1: subfindings that I think gets less play is that if
Speaker 1: there's just one truthful person in that set, so six
Speaker 1: people out of the seven say the wrong answer, but
Speaker 1: one says the right answer, you're much more likely to
Speaker 1: follow your intuition and say what you really think is right.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I think that that's interesting in relation to
Speaker 1: the sort of power of the one person who broke free.
Speaker 1: Just seeing one person who agrees with your shows you
Speaker 1: a slightly different worldview, can make it possible for you
Speaker 1: to feel comfortable going against the grain. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: So I really want to get your thoughts on this.
Speaker 1: We are living in a world right now where we're
Speaker 1: almost in like this self help moment right where everybody's
Speaker 1: trying to optimize their lives, and I do wonder where
Speaker 1: the limits are of that. And at one point you
Speaker 1: have to say, you know what, like, I just can't
Speaker 1: spend my whole life trying to optimize. I just need
Speaker 1: to kind of be and live and exist. And the
Speaker 1: reason I asked that is it it's alarming to me.
Speaker 1: I'll hear certain people say, oh, yeah, no, it's super
Speaker 1: important to be bored because actually boredom makes you more productive,
Speaker 1: So even boredom is now an instrumental thing, were becoming
Speaker 1: more productive, Like oh yeah, make sure you stare out
Speaker 1: the window for at least five minutes a day, because
Speaker 1: that'll help you be more productive. I feel like sometimes
Speaker 1: we don't just do things because we've we just value
Speaker 1: those things. We always do things because they have some
Speaker 1: instrumental value in terms of achieving something else. And and
Speaker 1: that's also super interesting, maya, because those are like little hacks, right, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, stare out the window for five minutes. And
Speaker 1: if we like fill our life with all those little hacks,
Speaker 1: we actually don't make space for the big momentous change.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting. Yeah, and you're saying that because it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just taking up all your brain airwaves that you're
Speaker 1: not Yeah, you just don't have the time to think macro.
Speaker 1: It's a great point. I think I'll wrap by asking
Speaker 1: what the biggest change you feel you've experienced in your
Speaker 1: life is. Oh, my gosh, there's so many, which is
Speaker 1: part of what makes life so fun. I think honestly,
Speaker 1: one of the biggest most important changes for me went
Speaker 1: from being focused on figuring out how to do my
Speaker 1: own work or live my own life, to taking on
Speaker 1: the role of coaching and helping other people. All of
Speaker 1: those relationships sort of reinforce the same change, which is
Speaker 1: how meaningful it is to be looking out for someone
Speaker 1: else besides yourself, and how much you can learn about
Speaker 1: everything when you are coaching and helping someone else. And
Speaker 1: that helped me actually be better at everything. So I
Speaker 1: would say that's the biggest shift I've had in my life,
Speaker 1: and I hope everyone will get that opportunity to have
Speaker 1: that kind of a shift. Wow, what a positive change,
Speaker 1: What a positive feet to end on. I know how
Speaker 1: busy you are, and I know how much you optimize
Speaker 1: your life in order to make room for these kinds
Speaker 1: of conversations. So thank you so much. It was really
Speaker 1: fun to chat with you. This was so fun. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, hey, thanks for listening. See you next week.
Speaker 1: When I talk with rock climber Tommy called Well, he
Speaker 1: says a near death experience where he was taken hostage
Speaker 1: propelled him to become one of the best rock climbers
Speaker 1: in the world. I definitely always felt like adversity is
Speaker 1: what brings us to life, but this turned up the
Speaker 1: volume on that in a pretty incredible way. In some ways,
Speaker 1: my climbing ever since then has been an effort to
Speaker 1: almost get back there in a way and learn more.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is created an executive produce
Speaker 1: by me Maya Shunker. Big thanks to everyone at Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: including our producer Mola Board, associate producers David Jaw and
Speaker 1: Julia Goodman, executive producers Mia Lavelle and Justine Lange, senior
Speaker 1: editor Jan Guera, and sound design and mixed engineers Ben
Speaker 1: Holliday and Jason Gambrel. Thanks also to Louise Gara who
Speaker 1: wrote our theme song, and Ginger Smith who helped arrange
Speaker 1: the vocals, incidental music from Epidemic Sound, and of course
Speaker 1: a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya
Speaker 1: Schunker anytime they violate our sorry for frog in my throat.
Speaker 1: Actually like, even though I'm a vegetarian, I occasionally get
Speaker 1: a frog. You're not chewing all, it's not chewing, getting
Speaker 1: it right back out