Use behavioral science to improve your life & business.

When was the last time you looked at the sky?

I mean it. When was the last time you REALLY looked?

For me, it was this morning. My apartment sits on a lovely hill here in San Francisco, and so I spend about 15 minutes staring out at the Bay and its cloud-ridden neighbor each AM.

It's amazing what you can learn from this simple practice.

Behavioral science is full of ideas that seem really useful but are actually quite useless.

A great example of this is the "operant conditioning loop". This is one of the first things that undergraduates are taught in psych 101. It's also the centerpiece of the blockbuster best-seller, "The Power of Habit".

The other day, I was sitting on my couch and looking for cool new articles.

After a few minutes of scrolling, one caught my eye.

Its title?

I'm a DJ.

So are you.

You see, our brains are just gigantic remixers.

This last weekend, my worlds collided.

I was sitting down with one of my mentors, and favorite copywriters, in Phoenix, Arizona.

He was telling me his approach to behavior-change: take small actions.

I'm going to let you in on a dirty little secret: no applied psychologist, behavioral scientist, or neuroscientist knows how to change all behavior all the time.

*GASP*

We're not magical wizards, bestowed with mind-reading abilities and surefire spells.

I'm sitting at the airport, waiting to fly out of Las Vegas.

I've only been here for 17 hours but I feel like I've been here for 17 days.

It's a draining place to be.
 

The other day, I was talking with a friend of mine on the phone.

He wanted to know my thoughts on what I call the "doggie treat solution" to habit formation.

Here's how it works...

A few of months ago, I was visiting a friend down in Los Angeles.

We were hanging out at his place, chatting and catching up.

His girlfriend was sitting a few feet away, in the kitchen, watching a YouTube video on her phone.

It was pretty loud, so I asked her what she was looking at.

I've been experiencing a lot of FOMO this holiday season.

For those of you who aren't up to date on the lingo, FOMO means Fear Of Missing Out.

It's a powerful cocktail of cognitive biases.

I love watching Black Friday videos.

You know the ones I'm talking about.

There are the brawling videos, in which two determined shoppers tackle each other, MMA style, in competition for a Nerf Gun or Xbox.

You've probably experienced something like this before:

You're waiting in line at a restaurant and trying to figure out what to order. You have a rough idea of what you're going to get, but you're still on the fence.

After deliberating for a few minutes, you realize you're next in line.