Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Dr. Maya Shankar: The Science of Decision Making | E126

Episode Date: August 9, 2021

Want to make better decisions? In this episode, we are talking with Dr Maya Shankar, behavioural scientist and podcast host. Maya is currently the Senior Director of Behavioral Economics at Google and is the Creator, Host, and Executive Producer of “A Slight Change of Plans”, a podcast with Pushkin Industries. Maya previously served as a Senior Advisor in the Obama White House, where she founded and served as Chair of the White House's Behavioral Science Team — a team of scientists charged with improving public policy using research insights about human behaviour. In 2016, Maya served as the first Behavioral Science Advisor to the United Nations. Maya completed a post-doctoral fellowship in cognitive neuroscience at Stanford, after receiving a PhD from Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship and a B.A. from Yale in cognitive science. She has been profiled by the New Yorker and has been featured in the New York Times, Scientific American, Forbes, and on NPR's All Things Considered, Freakonomics, and Hidden Brain. Today’s episode discusses Maya’s childhood as a violin prodigy, how she became a student at Juilliard’s pre-college program, and her career journey. We’ll also talk about Maya’s job at the White House, some common behavioural scientist concepts like the Sunk Cost Fallacy and Nudging, and how we, as humans, can make more realistic decisions.   Sponsored by -  Gusto. Get three months free when you run your first payroll at gusto.com/YAP     The Jordan Harbinger Show. Listen to the show here jordanharbinger.com/start    Social Media:    Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Follow Hala on Clubhouse: @halataha Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com   Timestamps:   02:44 - Maya's Childhood and Hand injury.  05:41 - How Maya got into Julliard 08;29 - Maya's lessons as a pro violinist.  11:19 - What is Behavioural and Cognitive Science.  22:35 - The Suncoast Fallacy.  25:50 - When is it time to move on?  27:21 - Maya's Journey in Obama's White House.  35:02 - Being Creative and Optimistic in every situation.  37;39 - What is Nudging?  44:02 - Why is it hard to change people's minds?  46:29 - Nudging in business and professional life. 50:27 - How to make realistic decisions?  53:30 - The Peak End Rule.  54:05 - The IKEA Effect  54:32 - Maya's Podcast.  59;48 - Maya's Secret to Profiting in Life   Mentioned In The Episode:   Maya’s Podcast, A Slight Change of Plans: https://mayashankar.com/podcast Maya’s Website: https://mayashankar.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of YAP is sponsored in part by Shopify. Shopify simplifies selling online and in-person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash profiting. You're listening to YAP, Young and Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. Welcome to the show.

I'm your host, Halla Taha, and on Young and Profiting Podcast, we investigate a new topic each week and interview some of the brightest minds in the world. My goal is to turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your everyday life, no matter your age, profession, or industry. There's no fluff on this podcast, and that's on purpose. I'm here to uncover value from my guests by doing the proper research and asking the right

questions. If you're new to the show, we've chatted with the likes of XFBI agents, real estate moguls, self-made billionaires, CEOs, and bestselling authors. Our subject matter ranges from enhanced and productivity, had to gain influence, the art of entrepreneurship, and more. If you're smart and like to continually improve yourself, hit the subscribe button, because you'll love it here at Young & Profiting Podcast. This week on YAP, we're chatting with Dr. Maya Shancar, behavioral scientist and podcast host. Maya is currently the senior

director of Behavioral Economics at Google and is the host and executive producer of a slight change of plans, a podcast with Pushkin Industries. Maya previously served as a senior advisor in the Obama White House as the chair of the White House Behavioral Science team and was charged with improving public policy using research insights about human behavior. In 2016, Maya served as the first behavioral science advisor to the United Nations. Maya completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cognitive neuroscience at Stanford after she received a PhD from Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship and a BA from Yale in Cognitive Science. She's been profiled by the New Yorker and has been featured in the New York Times,

Scientific American, Forbes, and NPR. In today's episode, we discuss Maya's childhood as a violin prodigy and her career journey. We'll also talk about her job in the White House, some common behavioral scientists concepts like the sunk cost fallacy and nudging, and how we as humans can make better and more realistic decisions. Hey Maya, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. Hey Halette, so lovely to be here with you. Yeah me too, I'm really excited for this conversation, human behavior and the science of decision-making, the science of change. These are all things that I'm really passionate about.

I love talking about them on my podcast. And so you're super impressive. You worked at the White House, you worked at the United Nations, you work for Google now, and you lead their behavioral science teams there. So really interesting stuff, but we always like to start from the beginning. So let's talk about you growing up. And from my understanding, you were super talented at the violin and the violin was essentially your whole life but when you were 15 years old you had a very traumatic hand injury that kind of changed the way that you thought your life would be there after and you had to kind of switch careers. So talk to us about what it was like for you as a child, a teenager, how you got into the violin and then maybe how you transitioned to some of the stuff

you're working on now. Absolutely, yeah. So violin, as you mentioned, was my entire life as a kid. When I was six years old, my mom went up to our attic and brought down my grandmother's violin that she brought with her all the way from India when she immigrated here in the 70s. And I think my mom had just meant to show me the instrument. I don't think she expected that I would be instantly captivated by it, but I was. And I really took to it, and my mom says that she never had to ask me to practice. It was just one of those genuine passions that I had as a child.

And I can't say that for many of the other things I was asked to do in school. So she knew that it was very rare. And then when I was nine years old, things started to get a little bit more serious. And I was starting to realize, hey, maybe this violin thing could be my life, right? Like maybe this could be a career. And so I ended up auditioning for the Juilliard School of Music in New York. And I was accepted into their pre-college program. And that began weekly trips every Saturday from Connecticut to New York,

in which my mom and I would get at about 4.30 in the morning, go to New York on the train, and I'd spend about 10 hours in the day studying the violin. And then, as you can imagine, like the intensity of that spirit, things started to get even more serious, and then in high school, it's up Roman, who is, you know, the greatest violinist of our time, invited me to be his private violin student. And that was an incredible vote of confidence for me, because I think, like so many, when we're in competitive environments, it can be very intimidating. You're not sure if you have what it takes to succeed. And him taking the Honours of Student,

I think, really helped me appreciate, oh wow, I think I could actually be a violinist and GoPro. So unfortunately, what happened is that when I was 15, I was in summer music camp. I woke up early, probably didn't warm up as much as I should have. And I overstretched my finger on a single note and heard a pop and it turns out I had torn tendons in my hand.

And I resisted, Hala, for so many months, the diagnosis that my doctors were giving me, and the fact that they were telling me I could never play the violin again, but ultimately I just had to surrender at a certain point, and the pain became too intense. And yeah, I realized that my dreams were crushed and I could no longer pursue this path.

Wow, that must have been so hard because that's what you were doing your whole life. So before we move on to your next phase of life, I do wanna talk about how you got into Juilliard because it was a really scrappy, interesting story. So I'd love to hear about that. Absolutely, so my parents had no connections within the musical sphere.

So my dad is a theoretical physics professor. My mom helps immigrants get green cards to study in this country. And they knew that I had these big dreams as a kid, but they weren't really sure how to connect the dots and how to make my junior dreams come true. So one day my mom and I were in New York. This was, yeah, this was when I was nine.

And we just were, we had a mother daughter triath and I happened to have my violin with me. And we walked by the Julliard school's building and she said, hey, Maya, why don't we just go in? Like what's the worst thing that could happen? I'm like, boom, get out of here. That's nuts. I don't want to go inside. We haven't even been invited.

But she said, let's just do it. Let's just see what happens. So we go in to the building, unannounced, un invited. And my mom strikes up a conversation with a student in the elevator and her mom. And she very politely asks her, oh, you know, at the end of your lesson, would you mind just introducing my daughter

to your violin teacher? Because it would just be so wonderful if they could have a chance to connect. And they were very gracious, very kind. They said, yes. I think a lesson I've learned over the years is just how generous people can be when you just ask them if they're willing to do you a favor.

But they let us, you know, me, her teacher afterwards. And I actually auditioned for him on the spot. He accepted me into his summer program. And it was only because of that intense bootcamp training that summer that I think I had any chance at all of getting into Juilliard. And what that lesson taught me, Hulles, that a lot of times the door will not open for you

on its own, right? You won't get that silver platter. But sometimes if you just force it open, I mean, literally in this case, my mom just walked into the building. You can try and inspire new opportunities for yourself. So I'm so grateful for that learning lesson because it wasn't the first time when I had to create an opportunity for myself that didn't necessarily exist beforehand. But I, yeah, I'm grateful for my mom's cheerlessness, I guess,

because it really helped allow my violin career to blossom. 100%. It's something that I always talk about at this podcast, is like, shoot your shot. Ask, you know, show up. Show up. Half the battle is just showing up. And the fact that you just went there, you and your mom,

you were so young, who knows? They could have laughed at you guys, but instead they embraced you. And it kind of set off a whole new path for your life. And it was a huge resume builder for you later on, even though you didn't end up becoming a violinist. I'm sure going to Juilliard really helped you in other areas in terms of your hard work and dedication.

So what other lessons did you learn as this like pro violinist as such a young age? Did you carry anything on later on that helps you? Absolutely. I mean, I think just hard work, just relentlessly devoted to my craft, because, you know, I'm really grateful that my mom opened the door for me that day, but it was important that I was able to perform on the spot,

and actually complete the audition. So I think just that relentlessness, that spirit of commitment to my craft, I think was so important for me to cultivate as a young child. Because again, I think I carried that also into other pursuits that do require that kind of relentlessness. We'll get to this later, but certainly working at the White House, things are not easy. You face so many barriers, and I feel like in many ways I carried that spirit with me

forward when I was working there, too, and not trying to see many obstacles, trying to feel like hard work could get me to the finish line. So I think that was certainly something. And I think actually looking back, the greatest lesson that I learned about myself from playing the violin is that what I really loved about music was not necessarily the beautiful sounds that it created.

Of course, I loved the way the violin sounded, but actually it was my ability to emotionally connect with my audience, to connect with listeners of my music. And I loved being able to forge that connection from an early age on stage, right? I mean, I'm going out to the stage, I'm in a room with a bunch of strangers, and suddenly we feel connected in this really deep, powerful way. And I think what that taught me is that, especially when I lost my ability to play the violin, that there was a feature of my musical life that I

could maintain afterwards, which was finding other areas, other passions, where I could unlock that same human emotional connection, my same fascination with humans, which is what ultimately drove me to become a cognitive scientist and to study humans as my profession, right? Like what it is that unlocks our passions, how we make decisions, how we develop our attitudes and beliefs, and certainly has driven me to create my new podcast, The Slight Change of Plans, which is all about how people navigate extraordinary changes in their lives. People like Hillary Clinton and Tiffany Haddish and Casey Musgrave.

And I feel like I'm able to emotionally connect with my guests. And I feel that same joy that I felt as a child playing the violin. Oh my gosh, I love that. So then you ended up going to Yale, right? And then you went to University of Oxford. You got your PhD and you had a Rhodes Scholarship, so super, super impressive journey. I love to set context for my listeners.

So some people might not be familiar with your field. So what is like behavioral and cognitive science? Like what is that? Absolutely. So it is the study of how our minds work, the science of how it is that we make decisions, how we develop our attitudes and beliefs about the world, how we develop motivational states. It's basically a comprehensive understanding of our minds.

And I will tell you, I mean, when I was, you know, on the heels of trying to figure out, like, what is my new passion? Right now that I don't have the violin, what is it that I do? What is it that I can do? I really struggled for a long time. I had no idea what it was that could captivate me in the same way.

And I was really lucky actually, Halle, because I was the summer before college, I was helping my parents clean their basement as a beautiful daughter does. I was actually supposed to be in China that summer touring with my musician friends, but instead I was helping my parents clean their basement as a beautiful daughter does. I was actually supposed to be in China that summer, touring with my musician friends, but instead I was with my parents. And, but I was helping them clean their basement, and I stumbled upon a book on how the mine works. And it detailed the incredibly sophisticated machinery behind

our ability to perceive and learn language. And I remember up until that point in my own life, I had taken for granted my ability to comprehend language and learn language. And I remember up until that point in my own life, I had taken for granted my ability to comprehend language and produce language, and it was fascinating to have the curtain pulled back and to fully understand what was behind this skill that I had taken for granted. I mean, I think so many of us can be really hard on ourselves in daily life, very critical of ourselves,

but when you learn about the mind, you will feel like you're crushing it all the time. You will be in total awe of what our minds are capable of. So I read this book on language, and I remember thinking, well, this is how sophisticated the machinery is behind language learning. What is behind our ability to do complex mathematics? I mean, I can't do complex math, but my physicist's dad

can. What's behind our bill, like what's behind falling in love, what's behind really high level decision making? I was enraptured. I mean, I could not wait to figure out. All there was to understand about the mind. So when I went to undergrad, I ended up being coming a cognitive science major,

which was a relatively new major at the time. Your audience might appreciate, because again, it's an education podcast, but one thing that I loved about the cognitive science major is that it is interdisciplinary. So you study the mind from multiple perspectives. So I took classes in neuro linguistics, I took classes in psychology, anthropology,

computer science, neurobiology. Like you're really trying to figure out some fundamental, anthropology, computer science, neurobiology, like you're really trying to figure out some fundamental, you're asking fundamental questions about the mind and then you are also answering those questions. I was sorry, I took philosophy classes as well. You're answering those questions using this rich canvas of insights from so many different fields.

And another feature I think of my undergraduate experience that really lit up my excitement for cognitive sciences that I actually got to do lab research. So I worked in a non-human primate lab. My mentor was Laurie Santos. You might have heard of her. Yeah, she's gonna come on our podcast soon. Yeah.

Oh, that's amazing. Okay, so she's been my lifelong mentor. I'm so grateful to have had her in my life from day one, but she took me on as that lowly freshman. It's her monkey lab. And so I got to do research on nonhuman primates and also on humans and study things like how our visual systems work, how we code objects in the world.

And yeah, I was just so excited by the idea of asking novel questions about the mind. So your trajectory was to actually just be an academic, right? I think a lot of people who go into your field, they end up becoming professors or writing books or things along those lines. And I think you had a change of heart at some point. So talk to us about that and what you did next. And maybe how you used some of your lessons that your mom taught you about getting into Juilliard for your next job position.

Great question. So, you're absolutely right. People who have degrees in this field often become academics. And I remember this one day, so I was doing my post-doc in cognitive neuroscience at Stanford. And I was scanning people's brains in the basement up in the Epimeride laboratory. I was on my whatever hour of doing this. I remember the sky came in, and within minutes

I'm peering into his brain. And I remember thinking, given my personality, I feel like the order of operations is wrong here. Like, I'm already peering into the sky's brain, and I don't know whether he has kids, what his favorite food is, what his passions in life are. I feel like I should be doing something that feels slightly more social and team oriented

where I get to know people first, and then maybe, you know, do the behavioral science piece. But as you can imagine, and I imagine as many of your listeners can relate to, when you put so many years into a pursuit, you feel a lot of anxiety about the idea of jumping ship, right? And I also didn't know what could come next. Like what does a postdoc in cognitive neuroscience do

other than become an academic? And so I remember thinking, you know, should I just keep at it just to, you know, avoid all this sunk cost? But I knew from my, you know, behavioral science research you avoid the sunk cost. But I knew from my behavioral science research to avoid the sunk cost fallacy, which is to not give in to that. But also, I called it Laurie.

I called it Laurie Santos. And I said, Laurie, I know you're an academic, you're a professor. You've been my role model all this time. It's one of the reasons I even went to grad school in the first place. What do I do at this point? And I said, I think media should

become a general management consultant. I had no idea what to do. And she said, Maya, I recently heard about this incredible work that's happening in the Obama White House, where they are using insights from our field to really change people's lives. In this particular case, they were using the power of defaults.

The default setting in a program can wildly affect participation rates. And they changed the default setting in the National School Lunch Program. The health enroll millions of kids into free or reduced price lunches. So prior to this change, people had to proactively enroll their kids into the program.

And that was associated with Estigma. It was also accompanied by a very burdensome application process that was required referencing multiple tax forms. And think about like a single mom who's working three shifts to make ends meet. And now they're being asked to fill up this very burdensome form just to allow their kids to eat lunch at school every day. And so what the government did is they

used existing data on these students and they automatically enrolled these kids in the program, such that now the default was for kids to be enrolled. And if you wanted to unenroll your kid, you could, but that was the default setting. And as a result of this change informed by behavioral economics, 12 and 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 were now eating lunch at school every day. And I just remember being blown away by this example. You know, I've been waxing

poetic about the promise of my field for years at this point, but to actually see it in practice was extraordinary for me. And there was just this light bulb moment of, oh my gosh, this is what I want to be doing. You know, I want to be actually taking insights from decision science and putting them into practice in people's lives so that they can live better lives. But the challenge that existed, hollow, was that there was no job for a behavioral scientist in the White House. And so I ended up sending a cold email,

so this is my mom's Juilliard method. I opened that door on an else, and I sent an email to an academic luminary named Cass Sunstein. So he had written the book Nudge, which is all about the science of how we can, you know, positively impact people's lives through these small tweaks and how we

design programs and policies. He'd also worked for Obama for four years as the head of their Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. And I basically just sent him a note saying, hi, I'm Maya. I've published nothing of significance. And I have no public policy experience.

And I even did this thing that I think a lot of women do in particular, which is I really downplayed myself. I said, I remember writing in parentheses, I know I'm not cool enough to work with the likes of Obama, but if there's a state or local government opportunity for me to apply these insights, I'd be totally gay. And thankfully for me, Cass ignored all the insecurity that was seeking out of my email and wrote back almost right away, again, generosity of spirit that I referenced earlier, and said, this is so wonderful, Maya, I'm going to introduce you to the president's science advisor.

Now, I remember nearly falling off my chair. I was like, what? It's happening in my life. I can't believe this connection's been made. And a week later, I was interviewing with top white house officials, I'm pitching them on the idea of creating a new position for a behavioral scientist like me. And there was this particularly powerful moment,

Hullet, I remember in the interview where I was proposing all these ideas based on behavioral science, like the growth mindset, which is the idea that, you know, we treat our minds like muscles, they can grow with time and effort, we can actually see a lot more potential in people. I was talking about social norms and how that could inform the first lady, Michelle Obama's, let's move initiative, which was all around health and wellness and exercise. And I remember this White House official telling me, well, that's great. I mean, I know Michelle Obama and her team. We can absolutely propose this change.

And it was in that moment I realized, wow, okay, this is a real thing that can happen. And I was so taken by that interview, and the promise that I saw in this position, that even before I had a formal job offer, I moved to DC packed of all my bags, I signed a one year lease, and I mean, he obviously expressed some degree of interest such that I would take this risk,

but I basically was like, I'm moving to see, I'm moving to DC. I'm going to be here whether you like it or not. We are going to make this job happen. And sure enough a few months later, I would be able to join the Obama White House and continue that work for four years. Wow, that is a really powerful story. She basically created her own dream career out of nothing,

but the willingness to ask and having the passion and the skills and the experience. And the other lesson that I find here is that a lot of the times people think, and I want to circle back to something that you mentioned, the sunk cost fallacy, they think that, you know, you go to school and if you switch gears or even evolve because you didn't totally switch gears, you just applied what you learned in a whole new way and probably learned new things to succeed in that avenue, right? You just layered skills on top of what you already had, but that actually was a huge differentiator

for you to actually create this dream job and so it wasn't a waste at all. And same thing with me, I was in corporate, I worked at HP Disney for many years, I was in marketing, I launched a podcast on the side, then I launched a marketing agency that blew up, and everybody told me, you're crazy, you're an executive at Disney, everybody would kill for this job.

And I was like, well, yeah, I did rise up to the ranks, but that doesn't mean I have to do this for the rest of my life, I could easily take these skills and transfer it somewhere else, right, and continue on that way. So talk to us about the sunk-cost fallacy. I'd love to hear about that from you. Yeah, I mean, I think it speaks to the fact that we feel so attached to the things that we've invested in or the things that we own, and we can make irrational decisions in the face of that emotional pull towards those things. You know, there's this interesting insight in behavioral science called identity foreclosure.

And it refers to the fact that, especially adolescents, though this can follow people into adulthood, can get very closed off very quickly regarding what their identity is in this world. They can attach themselves to an early identity that they claim and they can hold onto that with a firm grip in ways that make them close-minded in the face of other opportunities or other identities that they might occupy. And I think that that that at 15 I was forced to challenge my fundamental identity. I mean, as I mentioned to you, Hall I was first and foremost, a violinist. That was my defining trait.

But when that was taken away from me, I was forced to see my identity as far more malleable than I otherwise would have. And I think opening myself up to multiple identities at that point in my life and learning this valuable lesson of maybe I shouldn't attach my identity to things, to pursuits, but instead to traits of pursuits. I was mentioning earlier that one of the appeals of the violin

was the fact that I could forge this emotional connection and that I was so fascinated by the human mind and its response to music. And so maybe I can find that trait in another area of life, right? Maybe I can, maybe I can translate that into other pursuits. And so I think seeing my identity as more valuable as something that has served me well is very painful at the time, but I would certainly encourage listeners to try and avoid identity foreclosure and to instead keep an open mind about all of the identities that we can occupy, you know,

over the course of our lifetime. Young and profitors, do you have a brilliant business idea, but you don't know how to move forward with it? Going into debt for a four-year degree isn't the only path to success. Instead, learn everything you need to know about running a business for free by listening to the Millionaire University podcast. The Millionaire University Podcast is a show that's changing the game for aspiring entrepreneurs. Hosted by Justin and Tara Williams, it's the ultimate resource for those who want to run a successful business and graduate rich, not broke. Justin and Tara started from Square One, just like you and me. They faced lows and dug themselves out of huge debt.

Now they're financially free and they're sharing their hard-earned lessons with all of us. That's right, millionaire university will teach you everything you need to know about starting and growing a successful business. No degrees required. In each episode you'll gain invaluable insights from seasoned entrepreneurs and mentors who truly understand what it takes to succeed. From topics like how to start a software business without creating your own software, to more broad discussions such as eight businesses you can start tomorrow to make 10K plus a month, this podcast has it all. So don't wait, now is the time to turn your business idea into a reality by listening to the Millionaire University podcast.

New episodes drop Mondays and Thursdays. Find the Millionaire University podcast on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Your dog is an important part of your family. Don't settle when it comes to their health. Make the switch to fresh food made with real ingredients that are backed by science with nom nom nom delivers fresh dog food that is personalized to your dog's individual needs. Each portion is tailored to ensure your dog gets the nutrition they need, so you can watch them thrive. Nom-nom's ingredients are cooked individually and then mixed together,

because science tells us that every protein, carb, and veggie has different cooking times and methods. This packs in all the vitamins and minerals your dog needs, so they truly get the most out of every single bite. And nom-nom is completely free of additives, fillers, and mystery ingredients that contribute to bloating and low energy. Your dog deserves only the best. And Nom Nom delivers just that. Their nutrient-packed recipes are crafted by board-certified veterinary nutritionists, made fresh and shipped to your door.

Absolutely free. Nom Nom meals started just $2.40, and every meal is cooked in company owned kitchens right here in the US, and they've already delivered over 40 million meals, inspiring clean bowls and wagging tails everywhere. Ever since I started feeding my dog Nom-nom, he's been so much more energetic, and he's getting older, he's a senior dog, but now we've been going on longer walks and he's much more playful. He used to be pretty sluggish and sleeping all the time, but I've definitely noticed a major improvement since I started feeding him nom nom. And the best part, they offer a money back guarantee. If your dog's tail isn't wagging within 30 days, they'll refund your first order. No

fillers, no nonsense, just nom nom. Go right now for 50% off your no risk two week trial at trinom.com-shap. That's trinom-n-o-m.com-shap for 50% off trinom.com-shap. Hear that sound, young and profitors? You should know that sound by now, but in case you don't, that's the sound of another sale on Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform that's revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. Whether you sell edgy t-shirts or offer an educational course like me, Shopify simplifies selling online and in person so you can focus on successfully growing your business.

Shopify is packed with industry leading tools that are ready to ignite your growth, giving you complete control over your business and brand without having to learn any new skills in design or code. And Shopify grows with you no matter how big your business gets. Thanks to an endless list of integrations and third-party apps, anything you can think of from on-demand printing to accounting to chatbots, Shopify has everything you need to revolutionize your business. If you're a regular listener, you probably know that I use Shopify to sell my LinkedIn

secrets masterclass. Setting up my Shopify store just took me a few days. I didn't have to worry about my website and how I was going to collect payments and how I was going to trigger abandoned cart emails and all these things that Shopify does for me was just a click of a button. Even setting up my chatbot was just a click of a button. It was so easy to do. Like I said, just took a couple of days.

And so it just allowed me to focus on my actual product and making sure my LinkedIn masterclass was the best it could be and I was able to focus on my marketing. So Shopify really, really helped me make sure that my masterclass was gonna be a success right off the bat. It enabled focus and focus is everything when it comes to entrepreneurship. With Shopify single dashboard, I can manage my orders and my payments from anywhere in the world. And like I said, it's one of my favorite things to do every day is check my Shopify dashboard.

It is a rush of dopamine to see all those blinking lights around the world showing me where everybody is logging on on the site. I love it. I highly recommend it. Shopify is a platform that I use every single day and it can take your business to the next level. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com.sash profiting. Again, go to Shopify.com.sash profiting all lowercase to take your business to the next level today. Again, that shopify.com slash profiting shop fly.com slash profiting all lowercase. This is possibility powered by shop. Yeah, that's super powerful. I love that what you said about, you know, choosing to really not tie yourself to a thing, but rather than a trait, something that can involve and apply to many different things. I think that's a really great piece of advice for everybody listening, especially young listeners

who may not have gone through failure. You know, I can really relate, and I have so many stories, but I want to focus this on you. Well, I would like to hear one of your stories if you're really interested. Well, I used to work at Hot 97, and I actually dropped out of school for this radio internship at Hot 97. And I was the girl from Hot 97. I was the coolest girl, you know, with all the celebrities. That was my life, you know, all my branding on social was Hot 97's Hala, you know. And I was an intern working for free for three years and trying to get that my dream job on air. And then they fired me out of nowhere, you know, they fired me for no reason

because they didn't want to pay me minimum wage, even though I had sacrificed everything to work at the station. And again, like you, I felt like my identity was ripped from me. And I was like, wow, I've invested all this time. I have absolutely nothing. I'm not allowed to use their brand anymore. Similar to you, like you weren't able to use your hand anymore. It wasn't possible, right?

Yeah, exactly. And then I had to pivot quickly. And I owe a lot of my grit and being able to understand when it's time to move on. And also, you know, to your point, be more aligned to things you own as well as your mission rather than other brands or things. It's really important for people to understand. And I think if you don't get that early failure or rejection or tragedy, you might not know that.

And you might hang on to a dream that's worth letting go. I think that's completely right. And I'm personally so grateful that you share stories like that because I think in the same way that when you see someone's Instagram feed, you're seeing the highlights real, when you read someone's bio, you're not looking at all of the moments in which they failed and they were challenged. And I almost want all of our bios to say, you know, and then I tried this and it didn't

go anywhere. And then I tried this and I failed or I was rejected because I think one it humanizes people and it allows people to see the path is never linear. It's going to have so many twists and turns and it's having a perseverance and trying to build self confidence at those critical junctures that ultimately can lead you to thrive.

Yeah, 100%. As you did, clearly. Thank you. Thank you. And so did you. So let's go back to your time in the White House. So you were working for the Obama administration, and you basically were like a little startup

because you invented this job. I think you started with no team in a very male dominated, I guess, not industry, but male dominated culture, right? So how did you thrive there? What are some of the things that you did? What are your best memories from that work experience? Yeah, so interesting.

I mean, I thought, oh, the challenge is ended when I convinced them to give me this job. But actually, that wasn't the case at all. So on day one, I decided, based on the advice of my boss, that instead of just focusing on the impact that I as one person could have while in government, it might be far more worth it to actually build up an institution that would persist beyond my unique tenure in the White House and actually be able to keep doing this work well beyond my departure. And that can take a lot of effort and time because instead of just trying to get discrete

projects done, you're trying to convince the federal government and Obama leadership that they should actually build out a new functioning government, right, at the behavioral science team. And on day one, I started off with zero budget, no team, and I'm a 27-year-old at the time. Oh my gosh. With no policy-to-health experience, try to make this happen.

Now, I will say there was one advantage to lacking that experience at the time, which is that I came in so optimistic about what it was that I could accomplish. I didn't see barriers because I didn't know where they existed. And I think had I been a seasoned government official, I would have been like, okay, I've done this rodeo six times and I failed four or six times.

And so I'd be somewhat disenchanted and a bit jaded. But actually, I think my, you know, light naive atay served me well, which is that I came in and I was just absolutely resolute in my commitment to building this team. But I have to get very creative. So I recognized early on that the only way that I would succeed at this mission is if I could inspire organic interest in my government colleagues to translate insights from behavioral science into public policy improvements because I could not point to a high level mandate. I could not point to, at the time, President Obama is saying, you guys all need to do this. Instead, I had to

convince people because they saw genuine value, inherent value, and what it was that I was proposing, and that would help them achieve their existing program or policy goals. So I knocked on every single door I could in government. I engaged at all levels of government. And essentially, the tactic I used was to align my recommendations with existing goals they already had. So, if the Department of Veterans Affairs was already trying to get veterans enrolled in a program,

I would knock on their door and say, hey, I have some science-based insights that we can use to try to get you from point A to point B. Or if the Department of Education was trying to help student loan borrowers better understand their choices among repayment plans, I would say, oh yeah, here's some research on the most effective way that we can structure these choices. I kind of recognize in those early days that if I were to introduce a new goal or a new idea, it would just be too much for folks to swallow on day one. So that was one.

I lined these incentives. Really smart. Really smart. I decided I need to get some quick wins on the board. So I think one trap folks can fall into is that they spend so much time writing beautiful pros about what this

team could be in the future, what these insights could translate into in the future, rather than actually just getting your feet wet and getting some wins on the board. Because I realized like, yes, I can draft these 15-page elaborate policy proposals with the hope that one day

someone important might sign the dotted line, but that's not going to be the way that you actually unite people's imagination and creativity and excitement for the work. So I ended up organizing a meeting fairly on and early on in my tenure at the White House where I created an admissions ticket to the meeting. So I invited all these luminaries like Daniel Connan and Richard Thaler who are global prize winners in the field

of economics and also government luminaries. And I said, you can only come to the meeting if you submit a one or two page proposal on how you plan to integrate a behavioral insight into one of your existing programs over the next three to six months. And it was incredible to see the motivation levels that emerged from this ticket to the meeting. In fact, I probably got maybe 35, maybe 50 proposals in the door because people were so excited

to meet their intellectual heroes, right? Like Danny and Richard and have them evaluate their proposals, but also just creating a deadline of any kind was very motivating for folks. And those wins ultimately generated the kind of argument that I needed to get by in from government agencies to actually give me headcount to help give me a budget. Ultimately, build the argument for President Obama to sign an executive order that made my team a formal, persistent part of government. This episode of YAP is brought to you by the Jordan Harbinger Show.

The average podcast listener has about six shows in the rotation, so there's a big chance you're not only listening to Young and Profiting Podcast. And honestly, that's okay. And I'd love to share a new podcast to add to your list. The Jordan Herbinger Show, a top shelf podcast named Best of Apple in 2018. Jordan dives deep into the minds of fascinating people each and every week from athletes and authors to spies and hostage negotiators.

He's got a great talent for getting his guests to share never been heard before stories and thought provoking insights. Without fail, he pulls out tactical bits of wisdom in each and every episode. He's also got this really fun and strangely relatable weekly segment called Feedback Friday, where he covers advice on everything from escaping a cult or psycho family situation to relationships and networking and asking for a raise.

If you like YAP, you're gonna love the Jordan Harbinger Show, because you know, I've only been called the female version of Jordan about 100 times. Search for the Jordan Harbinger Show that's HRB as in Boy I N as in Nancy GER on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. This episode of YAP is brought to you by Gusto. If you're a small business owner, this is for you. Running a business is just plain hard. Endless to-do lists, employees to take care of, and you're ever-present bottom line.

So first of all, kudos to you for staying on top of it all. Gusto wasn't just built for small businesses. It was built for the people behind them. Their online payroll is so easy to use. And they can automatically calculate paychecks and file all your payroll taxes, which means you have more time to run your business. Plus, Gusto does way more than just payroll.

They can help with time tracking, health insurance, 401Ks, onboarding commuter benefits, offer letters, access to HR experts. You get the idea. They've got everything you need to help run your business. It's super easy to set up and get started. And if you're moving from another provider, they can help transfer all your data for you.

At Yat Media, we're actually gearing up to start our HR benefits on gusto. And this was the plan even before they sponsored me. Because after doing my due diligence and research, I chose gusto. They provide payroll benefits onboarding HR on one place. And the key is that it's an affordable price. It's a budget that suits my growing startup.

It's no surprise, 94% of customers are likely to recommend gusto. Here's the best part, because you're a listener, you get three months completely free. All you gotta do is go to gusto.com slash yap. Again, that's gusto, g-u-s-t-o.com slash yap. I'm telling you, you're gonna love gusto. Get started today. I love how you use creative solutions to kind of get your way and I love the fact

that you mentioned that your naivety really helped you because you approached the situation extremely optimistic and I know from my experience that when it comes to growing a team or influencing others just being optimistic, positive, confident, creative can catch you a really long way. So I could see why everybody kind of adored you once you got on the door and gave you those opportunities. I mean, it was definitely, it was so much hard work and I will say that the failure rate was extremely high, you know, for every hundred conversations I had, maybe we get one project over the finish line.

But in looking back, I will say that there were so many times that I wish Hala that like, Obama would just step in and be like, you all need to do this, my life would be so much easier. But in hindsight, I realized that the fact that I had to inspire organic interest from the outset at all levels of government meant that folks were doing this work because they saw inherent value in it. And you can't dictate someone to care about something, right? Like no mandating government can force a person to be excited about stuff.

And I do feel like this more start-up-y approach led to a lot more cultural change in the government and a lot more sustained change in the government. I'll share one story with you which is that I remember there was a career civil servant I'd worked with. Her name was Rosemary Williams. She'd worked at the Department of Defense for decades. And I met her just when she was on the cusp of retirement. She was like, oh, I've worked in the government for so long. I'm planning to retire. I'm done. And after working with us for a month or two, she came back and said, I no longer plan to retire. Like working with your team has energized me so much,

has allowed me to see that the government can, in fact, be very innovative, that I've decided to stick it out. And I'm going to stay here longer than I did before. And it was stories like that that really touched me in a deep way, because it allowed me to see one, the power of these scrappy, start of the environments where everyone feels like they're building this thing together.

And two, how you can really change minds. Not just the minds of Americans who you're serving through these public policies, but even the minds of government officials who have done incredible service to this country, but could do even more if they just find the right opportunity. I love this conversation. It's been so great so far. I want to dive deep into how you actually changed the minds of American citizens. So, for my understanding, I think that they

called your team the Nudge Unit. Is that correct? Yeah. So, we're formally known that way. Yeah, the Nudge Unit. So, talk to us about nudging. What nudging is, what's different from the way traditionally the government would try to convince people to take action. Yeah, I think what behavioral science teaches us is that there are a lot of surprising factors that can influence our decision that we might not even be consciously aware of.

And if we can better understand human behavior, we can in turn design public policies and programs and ways that reflect those surprising features. So good example of this is when people go into a voting booth, I think they like to think, oh, of course, I'm just going to vote for the person that I most like to see elected into office, right? That's just common sense. But it turns out that the order in which the candidate's names appear on the ballot can have a profound impact

on who gets vote share from different voters. In Texas, they found that if a candidate's name appeared first on the ballot, that candidate received a 10 percentage point boost in voter share relative to those listed below. And so this is again a very surprising feature, right? We might not think that the order in which the candidate's names appear has this outside impact. But once we understand that, we can then design ballots in ways that actually

randomize the order of candidate's names across ballots in order to help solve this problem. In government, there were so many instances where we had designed a really impressive program or policy, but it just wasn't reaching Americans in the way that we had hoped for. So a good example of this is I worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs. They were really eager to have veterans sign up for an educational and employment benefit that they could use after they had served our country overseas. And this was a very valuable benefit because as you can imagine, the transition from military to civilian life could be quite jarring, full of lots of obstacles and hurdles, psychologically and physically.

And we wanted to do everything we could to smooth that transition and open up as many doors as we possibly could for veterans. Now the challenge is that that's weren't signing up for this, in part because we haven't made a compelling enough case probably for the program or we weren't getting the word out, and because we are budget constrained, right, we didn't have a ton of dollars to throw at marketing this program. So the VA came to us and said, look, Maya and team, we have one email that we're sending out about this program, do it what you want, but that's all you've got. And so we set up an A.V. test, in which one version of the email was

the original email, and then we modified the email, and we actually just changed one word in the email. Instead of telling vets that they were eligible for the program, we simply reminded them that they had earned it through their years of service. And this one word change led to a 9% increase in access to the program. It's a spin off of an insight in behavioral science called the endowment effect, which basically says, we value things more when we own them, or in this case have earned them. And so when veterans feel, oh, I've already got this benefit, you know, in my hands, and now it has something to lose if I don't take advantage of it, it was a very compelling

way to drive interest in the program. And so that's an example, that's one example of a project that we worked on. In other cases, we are working on issues that had, wow, really deep and systemic underlying issues. So in my final year in the White House in 2016, I was working in collaboration with Flint, Michigan residents and officials in the face of the lead in water crisis. So as you might know, when there's lead in water, it can poison the brains, young children and adults and communities. And tragically, members of Flint, Michigan were on the receiving

end of this terrible change in water quality. And so I was working with my teammates at the time to make sure that information about safe water practices was written very clearly and was disseminated within the community. And we did everything from trying to dispel myths because there's, you know, disinformation was on the ride around water quality and so we had to make sure that we were conveying truthful information. But also making sure that the messenger was the right messenger. I think prior to this instance, we would have seen the Environmental Protection Agency as having been the beacon of truth and the best messenger and harness for this mission. But think about the fact that in Flint, Michigan residents don't trust their government. They've just been the trade and lied to by their local government.

And so naturally, you might expect there to be spillover effects. And they wouldn't trust their federal government. They wouldn't trust the EPA. So instead, the local EPA organized a can't-fusing effort where members of their community, members of the local Red Cross, the heads of Y of C.A., the heads of churches, would go door to door distributing

these water safety flyers around the community. Anyway, so we're working on this water safety piece, and I'm flying to Flint, Michigan a few times to make sure that they're responsive to residents' needs. And then I realize, it hit me like a freight train that the problem is so much deeper. And it is the result of decades of disenfranchisement among communities of color, decades of lying

from the government towards communities of color, and that at the end of the day, the breach of trust between the government and its residents was at the heart of this challenge. You know, the water quality was a symptom, but the underlying issues were barotious and deep, and deeply problematic in the result of a lot of decades of systemic racism. And so we were using behavioral science at the tail end of the administration. Obviously, a lot of these efforts got truncated after the 2016 election, but to try to

figure out strategies we could use to try and rebuild trust between residents and their government. But only justified trust, you know, if the government was sucking, then they shouldn't trust the government. But to try to restore some semblance of trust because the government would actually take better action moving forward. That's really interesting stuff. Thank you so much for sharing all those different stories. So I want to talk about why it's so hard for people to change their mind. So basically your job at the White House was to try to get people to make better positive decisions for themselves. You can't force them to do it, right? So you were trying to use these little tweaks, these nudges, to try to get people to make the right decisions for themselves.

So I've heard you saying the past that it is incredibly hard for people to change their minds. Talk to us about why that's true and what's that play there. In general, I think getting people to change their behaviors in ways that align with their long-term goals is achievable. In many ways, my working government was trying to do exactly that, which was, you know, you find a service member who wants to sign up for a retirement

savings plan, but you know, finds the options confusing or just hasn't gotten around to it because they're procrastinating, and then you can use these nudges to try to get them over the finished line. Changing people's minds is an entirely different beast. It's extremely hard for us to change our minds because we often attach our identities to our values and our opinions and our beliefs. And we feel a lot of cognitive dissonance when it comes to challenging these deeply entrenched views that we have about the world. In many ways when we challenge our own minds, we're challenging our sense of selves.

And importantly, this is researched by Dan Cahan and others at Yale Law School. We're challenging our group membership. We're challenging our tribal membership and the communities that we associate with. I think one thing I've learned from all of the research and behavioral sciences that people don't make up their minds just based on the facts,

just based on evidence. They make up their minds just based on the facts, just based on evidence. They make up their minds based on what their communities believe and value. And this played out in COVID, for example, right? A lot of those who are believers of COVID and believers of wearing masks are thinking, it's just a piece of damn cloth, like just wear the mask, it'll keep you healthy. Like, why is this such a big thing? But actually, if you appreciate the fact that sometimes people aren't wearing masks, not just because, you know, it's inconvenient, but because wearing a mask

would threaten their group membership. It would signal something really important to them about where it is they belonged in society. And so if they see their entire community not wearing masks, and it's a cultural statement, then it carries a lot more significance than we might get a credit for. And so what's important to appreciate in this space

is that when you're asking people to change their minds about a topic, you need to understand what gave rise to that belief in the first place. And just throwing more evidence at them is not gonna change the game. Yeah, bam. If you're ready to take your business to New Heights, break through to the 6 or 7-figure mark or learn from the world's most successful people, look no further because the Kelly Roach Show has got you covered.

Kelly Roach is a best-selling author, a top-ranked podcast host, and an extremely talented marketer. She's the owner of Not One, but 6 thriving companies, and now she's ready to share her knowledge and experience with you on the Kelly Roach Show. extremely talented marketer. She's the owner of NotOne, but six thriving companies, and now she's ready to share her knowledge and experience with you on the Kelly Roach show. Kelly is an inspirational entrepreneur, and I highly respect her.

She's been a guest on YAP. She was a former social client. She's a podcast client. And I remember when she came on Young and Profiting, and she talked about her conviction marketing framework. It was like mind blowing to me. I remember immediately implementing what she taught me in the interview in my company and the marketing efforts that we were doing. And as a marketer, I really, really respect all Kelly has done, all Kelly has built. In the corporate world, Kelly secured seven

promotions in just eight years, but she didn't just stop there. She was working in I-5, and at the same time, she built her eight-figure company as a side hustle and eventually took it and made her full-time hustle. And her strategic business goals led her to win the prestigious Inc. 500 Award for the fastest-growing business in the United States. She's built an empire. She's earned a life-changing wealth.

And on top of all that, she maintains a happy marriage and a healthy home life. On the Kelly Road Show, you'll learn that it's possible to have it all. Tune into the Kelly Road Show as she unveils her secrets for growing your business. It doesn't matter if you're just starting out in your career or if you're already a seasoned entrepreneur. In each episode, Kelly shares the truth about what it takes to create rapid exponential growth. Unlock your potential, unleash your success, and start living your dream life today. Tune into the Kelly Road Show,

available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, Yap fam! As you may know, I've been a full-time entrepreneur for three years now. Yet media blew up so fast, it was really hard to keep everything under control, but things have settled a bit,

and I'm really focused on revamping and improving our company culture. I have 16 employees, so it's a lot of people to try to rally and motivate, and I recently had best-selling author Kim Scott on the show. And after previewing her content in our conversation, I just knew I had to take her class on masterclass, tackle the hard conversations with Radical Cander to really absorb all she has to offer. And now I'm using her Radical Cander method every day with my team to give in solicit feedback, to cultivate a more inclusive culture, and to empower them with my honesty. And I can see my team feeling more motivated and energized already.

They are really receptive to this framework, and I'm so happy because I really needed this class. With masterclass, you can learn from the best to become your best anytime, anywhere, and at your own pace. And we all know that profiting in life doesn't just mean thriving in business. With masterclass, you can brush up on your art skills or your cooking skills, or even your modeling skills. With over 180 classes from a range of world class instructors. That thing you've always wanted to do better is just a few clicks away. On masterclass you'll find courses from many app alstere guests like Chris Voss and Daniel Pink. I've been taking their sales and negotiation classes

and I've been feeling like a real shark lately. I've totally leveled up my sales skills. How much would it cost you to take a one-on-one class from the world's best? A lot. But with masterclass annual memberships, it just cost you $10 a month. I have to say the most surprising thing about masterclass since I started this incredible journey

on the platform is the value. For the quality of classes, instructors, the platform itself is beautiful. The the quality of classes instructors. The platform itself is beautiful. The videos are super high quality. You can't beat it gain new skills and as little as 10 minutes on your phone, your computer, tablet, smart TV, and my personal favorite way to learn is their audio mode to listen on the go. That way I can multitask while I learn, get unlimited access to every class. And right now as the app listener,

you can get 15% off when you go to masterclass.com-profiting. That's masterclass.com-profiting for 15% off an annual membership. Masterclass.com-profiting. Super, super interesting. So I wanna go back to nudging a bit because I really want my listeners to understand how they could maybe use some nudging a bit because I really want my listeners to understand how they could maybe use some nudging tactics

and business in the workplace in their professional lives. Like do you have any tips and tricks or just little ideas you could throw out there that we can use? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one, I would definitely, if listeners are interested, I would have been listened to the conversations

that I had with Adam Grant and Katie Milkman on my podcast, The Flight Change of Plans because we dive deep into exactly some of these questions and they can get the longer version. They listen to those. I mean, Adam Grant's an organizational psychologist so he's all about workplace reform and Katie Milkman is an expert on the science of change

so she gives us lots of tactics we can use. I would say a few not just that I've used in my own life when it comes to trying to inspire change within myself is one is a concept called temptation bundling and that comes from Katie Milton's research. And it's the idea that if you pair up an undesirable activity like working out or doing your laundry or cleaning the home

or doing your math homework with a desirable reward, it can be much more likely that you actually commit to those activities in the longer term. So I have my favorite songs. I only allow myself to listen to them when I'm on the treadmill or working out. And it actually increases my motivation to do those things.

I deny myself that pleasure in the rest of my life. Another insight I share with listeners, as it pertains to the workplace, has to do with the power of my life. Another insight I share with listeners as it pertains to the workplace has to do with the power of social norms. So we are heavily influenced by how those around us act and behave. And if we understand this, we can actually leverage it for good in a lot of situations.

So for example, when they were trying to get homeowners to use less energy, this one company tried all sorts of tactics, right? Financial incentives, canvassing, door hangers, you name it. None of them worked. The one that did work was telling people when their neighbors were using less energy than they were. And that positive norm was so helpful at motivating people to use less energy. Because they're like, I don't want to be the highest energy user on my block. This would be terrible. And so I think in a worse place setting,

when you see pro-social behaviors, when you see desirable behaviors, if you can collect statistics around just how many people are engaging in those behaviors and just share the facts with people, it can have a really positive impact. Wow, that's super interesting. So far, I have an example to bring up

in which I've figured this out, but didn't know that there was some science backing to this. So I do live interviews on Clubhouse at this social audio app. And one of the things that I do is I say, DM me if you guys want to hear the replay. You know, send me a direct message if you want to hear the replay. And I noticed that when I say, I've got hundreds of messages. Everybody's asking me for the replay. If you want the replay, DM me replay, and then I get a hundred messages because I said that. It's so funny that people just like,

it's kind of like, you know, I hate to say it, but that phrase of how kind of people are like sheep, they kind of follow the path. It is true, like we want to be accepted, I guess. And so we're more likely to make decisions based on what everybody else is doing. Is that true? And well, importantly, I think we're really influenced by those people or populations

in particular that we socially identify with. So if you're a teacher, for example, and you find that a bunch of other teachers are doing something, there's an implicit queue in there being teachers that you share some of the same value systems, and that you might enjoy the same types of things. So I think Hala, in your case, when a lot of people are asking for the Ruth Bleu play and they know they're already fans of you, they're thinking, I'm a fan of her too. So chances are I might enjoy this replay as well. So I think we do find that social norms are even more effective when they're coming from people within a community or people who share a similar trait

as you. Very cool. So we're all about actionable insights and I just want to pick your brain even more about decision making. What are some other things that we need to know as young professionals, young entrepreneurs, in terms of how we can ourselves make sure

we're not using biases or like how can we make more realistic decisions for ourselves and make sure that our emotions are not getting in the way and that all these other things that you're talking about are not getting the way. Like how can we make clear good decisions for ourselves? I actually think the best way for your listeners to make more sound decisions is to just equate yourself with what those biases are. You know, for example, we're loss of Earth. So we find it super painful to lose things and we weight those losses much more than we weight games.

Another example is the way that we construct our memories is you wouldn't necessarily intuitively understand that we code our memories in the way that we do. So let me say a little bit more about that. So I think, at least I, when I was thinking about my memories, think, OK, well, you have an experience. And every single moment of that experience carries some weight. And at the end, your brain kind of averages

all those hedonic experiences and decides how enjoyable or not enjoyable the experience was. Actually, our minds don't work like that. We assign disproportionate weight to the most emotionally intense moment of the experience and the end of the experience. This is called the peak end rule. And what this means is that when we think that to experiences, that end moment and that peak moment are really important in terms of whether we want to do that experience again and how we think about it after the fact. This is really relevant in the context of health exams, like for example colonoscopies are very painful exams.

What they find is that when they elongate the exam, but they actually make the last few minutes slightly less painful, people are much more likely to return for follow-up visit. Which is kind of astonishing, because the overall amount of time that you are in some level of discomfort is actually longer, but the intensity of that pain is less at the end, and that can weigh in a pretty significant way in terms of how you construct that memory. And I think this is so important for all of us,

because when we think back on experiences, we might not be coding them super accurately, right? And if we're aware of this bias, then we can think back on experiences, we might not be coding them super accurately, right? And if we're aware of this bias, then we can think back differently on, you know, end of that, like, setting for that test those last five minutes were so brutal. But actually, there were moments of joy there. I remember learning something new. I remember feeling like my curiosity was ignited.

And so kind of reminding ourselves to take that full experience into account or making sure that when we do want to repeat a behavior We end the experience on a high on a positive note. It's a little bit of folklore But Danny Conovan who's you know a Nobel Prize winner in behavioral economics and his friend of mine He has said that there were times where he would end a vacation short when he was having the time of his life Just because he knew that the memory the memory would be more positive in his mind. He said this a while back and I think he now, now they're confirmed, so I don't deny it. But I thought it was such a charming anecdote because it is a side of just how powerful some of these biases can be.

Yeah, and I get it's that one I really like it. That one's called peak and what is that one called the peak and rule peak and rule I love that because I can also see that being really useful and like a job interview So on both sides like making sure that you are really strong in the beginning and end in some sort of positive way at the end Because you know that they're gonna remember the beginning and the end most but then also as a person interviewing Oh, sorry just to clarify so it's gonna remember the beginning and the end most, but then also as a person interviewing. Oh, sorry, just to clarify. So it's not necessarily the beginning, it's the most emotionally intense moment

of the whole experience. So it's the peak, it's the peak of the experience, and then the end, hence the peak end rule. Yep. Okay, that's really interesting. And then I think you also talk about something called the IKEA effect. Could you tell us about that?

Yeah, the IKEA effect refers to the fact that when we have contributed to something, when we have built something, we attach a lot more value to it. So even if you build the IKEA furniture and it's a piece of crap and the four legs aren't perfectly on the ground, you will assign more affection and it will feel like a more valuable item to you because it involved your inputs. Very, very interesting. So let's talk about your podcast. You briefly mentioned it before,

a slight change of plans. I'd love to hear more about that because it sounds really, really interesting. What gave you the idea to start this podcast and what are some of the things that you talk about on your podcast? My inspiration for a slight change of plans, I I think was twofold. One is my own personal experience navigating change early in my life, right? Losing the ability to play the violin

and not knowing who I was and asking all these deep existential questions about identity and whatnot. And the second came from 2020 and when I was feeling extremely overwhelmed by the rapid pace of change around me, I think so many people were feeling overwhelmed by the rapid pace of change around them. And it was just really daunting and intimidating to feel like we are totally out of control of our world and of our environment. And then I put on my behavioral scientist hat and thought, okay, maybe the specifics of what 2020 through our way are unprecedented. But our human mind's ability to navigate change is absolutely not.

And many ways our minds are built for change. There's no manual out there. There's actually no scientific textbook out there on how to navigate change. You can't just look up the answers and be like, oh, I'm in the throes of this horrible health diagnosis. What do I do? And so I thought, what if we can mind people's stories, people who have navigated extraordinary change in their lives, like Hillary Clinton and Tiffany

hadish and Casey Musgraves and Tommy Caldwell and folks who have just lived through extraordinary change in general? What if you can mind their stories and glean insights from them about how it is they've navigated change in ways that can teach us valuable lessons They can help us think differently about change in our own life And what are some of the key lessons that you've learned so far being on this show like have you learned something new from your you know college days? Absolutely, I mean, it's it's been so humbling to make this podcast because as you know, part of what I do is I study change, but my interview guests have talked so much about change in ways that I could never have predicted. So I'll give you a couple examples.

One is I spoke with a young woman named Elna Baker about her deep desire to become thin, to lose weight. She felt that if she could just become thin, she could achieve all of her dreams and goals in her life. And she did it. She lost close to 100 pounds in five and a half months. For a while, Elna thought she was actually living her dream life until she realized that she was starting to lose parts of herself in the process. She realized that she was becoming a more superficial person. She wasn't as kind to people. She was valuing the wrong things. She was losing her boldness and her authenticity. And what she learned from that experience and what it taught me about change is that change

doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's not like you can change one part of yourself and assume all the other parts of yourself will stay fixed through that change. Because you can't control the spillover effects, right? And you can't control the part of yourself and assume all the other parts of yourself will stay fixed through that change. Because you can't control the spillover effects, right? And you can't control the way people respond to you. And so I think it's taught her that she should approach change with a lot of humility and openness because you might not appreciate all the ways in which it might change you in unexpected ways. And the flip side of that is I spoke with a young man named Scott. He's a cancer researcher and a total health nut.

I mean, it's in a book somewhere he's done it. Intermittent fasting, high intensity, interval training, he's vegan, he adds turmeric to all of his food, he eats chia seeds. And when he was 32, he received a stage four bone cancer diagnosis that led him to have to amputate one of his legs, do 18 administrations of chemotherapy, moved to MD Anderson in Texas for inpatient treatment,

and in his mind this is his worst nightmare come true, right? He had spent so much of his adult life trying to avoid this outcome. He was the eighth-plus student when it came to managing his health. outcome. He was the eighth-class student when it came to managing his health. And yet surprisingly much to his surprise, he said, if I had known that I would respond psychologically in this way to my worst nightmare, I might never have been as fearful of it in the first place. And that was so powerful for me, because it showed me like sometimes the change that we will, that we encourage in our lives, doesn't actually have the positive impact we will, that we encourage in our lives, doesn't actually have the positive impact we think it will.

And so again, we need to have humility there, and be mindful and observant and audit our experiences to make sure it's having the intended impact. And then sometimes the changes that we dread, that are unexpected and undesired, can have silver lining that make us better people in our lives. And so I feel now that I would give the same advice that I would give the same advice to someone whether or not they were going through a will or an unwilled change, whether or not they were going

through what they believe was a desirable or an undesirable change. And that would be approach change with a profound amount of humility and open mindedness. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing. Everybody, make sure you go tune into her podcast. A slight change of plan. She's obviously super well-spoken, very, very interesting and bright. Thank you so much for your time. The last question that we ask all of our guests is, what is your secret to profiting in life? I think building a really strong community of supporters around me. I've been the beneficiary of so many incredible mentors in my life, and I try to

take forward by mentoring others, especially young women of color. And I feel like in tough moments, or when we're feeling insecure, or feeling like we can't accomplish that next goal, tapping into that community for strength and support and wisdom and warmth and insight can really help who you and help you get to that next phase. Don't do it yourself or don't believe you have to do it all on your own. 100% and where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you do? They can go to my website, myashunker.com, M-A-Y-A-F-H-A-N-K-A-R.com. But my current passion project and where all of my heart is out right now is with my podcast, the slight change of plans.

They can check it out anywhere that they subscribe to podcasts. Apple Spotify, I Heart Radio. And if they like the show, definitely please subscribe, great and share. Thanks so much. Amazing! Thank you so much, Maya. Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting Podcast.

If you haven't yet, make sure you subscribe to this podcast, so you always are notified when we drop a new episode. I loved learning about decision-making with Maya Maya and I was really inspired by her come-up story. When Maya was just 15 years old, her promising career as a concert violinist came to an abrupt end. She had a really serious hand injury and that forced her to not only give up on her dreams, but to also rediscover her identity in the process. Inspired by her own personal story, Maya spent the last two decades studying how and why we change. She ended up founding the White House Behavioral Science team,

also called the Nudge team, and she's worked to create better policy using insights from behavioral science. Behavioral science is the study of how our minds work, how we make decisions, how we come up with attitudes, beliefs, and even our own identity. This field plays a profoundly important role in our day to day lives, which is why it's a topic I love to talk about on the podcast.

Human behavioral and behavior science is one of the most frequently talked about concepts on this podcast because I know it's gonna help us move the needle and become more successful. In these outros, I like to summarize some of the most important parts of the interview to make it really help stick in our minds. Repeating concepts is what is going to help us remember things so that we can actually take action and utilize the things that you guys heard about in this podcast. So there's two things I want to recap. Nudging and temptation bundling.

These are the two things I want you to remember most from this interview. So nudging is a word that's used in behavioral science for structuring policies and programs in ways that encourage but don't compel particular choices. So for example, requiring people to opt out rather than opt into a program. So let's say there's a retirement savings program, we think it's good for people.

So instead of saying opt into the program, we say if you don't want to be in it, just opt out. So more people are likely to not opt out because they're automatically enrolled. Also maybe reducing the paperwork necessary to enroll might encourage people to take the quote unquote right action. So that's what nudging is. The next one that I want you guys to remember is temptation bundling. So we talked about how small habits change that can help us accomplish goals and stop procrastinating with temptation bundling. And this is the idea that you can tie together

undesirable tasks with very desirable rewards. So for example, you can only listen to your favorite music on a treadmill. It can be really helpful to limit these positive goods to bad activities as it allows you to then associate positive feelings with these activities over time. So this was one of my favorite conversations.

Like I said, I'm obsessed with human behavior. So anything on this topic I tend to enjoy. I hope you guys enjoyed it too. And if you wanna learn more about human behavior, go check out my episode number 43 and 44 with Robert Green. He is the world famous author of the laws of human nature. And number 43 and number 44 are true, yeah, classics there,

two of my most highly downloaded episodes. And personally, my two favorite episodes of all time across the podcast. So I hope you take a listen to number 43 and 44 with Robert Green. Here's a clip from that episode. Let's bring this down to basics. Your success in life and your happiness depends on your ability to get along with other people. To be able to understand them on a deep level. To be able to recognize people who are toxic and avoid them. Realize how to get along better and be more persuasive with the people you're dealing with

so that they will follow your ideas or be interested in what you have to do or what you have to say. So that you're not always kind of butting heads with people's resistance. So life gets easier and you're not always having any emotional drama. And also, you need to understand yourself better because the big problem life is, you don't really understand what motivates your own behavior and you do things kind of unconsciously and you get in trouble. So given that, I want to get at the root cause of why we misunderstand human behavior. Again, that's number 43 and 44, the laws of human nature

with Robert Green. As always, I want to shout out a recent Apple Podcast reviewer and this week's shout out goes to Dara Jawa. Already on the prowl for more. Great content and approach to getting to the reach to positive overall growth. Great conversation and panelists. Hala really prepares and resonates in each episode. I'm a new listener, but as I said, I'm on the prowl for more. Thank you so much, Dara.

I really appreciate you reaching out and writing us a review and welcome to the YAP family. I love hearing from our new listeners, and if you're new, I'd love for you guys to reach out to me whether that's writing us a review on your favorite platform or finding me on social media. You can find me at Instagram at YAHP with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name, it's Hala Taha. And if you tuned in all the way to the end of this episode, you earned some bragging rights. Do me a favor, take a screenshot of this app right now and show me

that you listen to the full episode. Take the screenshot of this app, tag me in your story at Yap with Hala, and I'm going to reshare it to all my followers. I love seeing you guys on social media. I love to connect with you on social media. Tag me in your story, DM me, whatever you feel comfortable doing, I want to connect with my listeners. Big thanks to Yap team, as always, this is Hala, signing off. Are you looking for ways to be happier, healthier, more productive and more creative? I'm Gretchen Rubin, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project.

And every week we share ideas and practical solutions on the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast. My co-host and Happiness Guinea Pig is my sister Elizabeth Kraft. That's me, Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore fresh insights from cutting-edge science, ancient wisdom, pop culture, and our own experiences about cultivating happiness and good habits. Every week we offer a try this at home tip you can use to boost your happiness without spending a lot of time energy or money. Suggestions such as follow the one minute rule.

Choose a one word theme for the year or design your summer. We also feature segments like know yourself better where we discuss questions like are you an over buyer or an under buyer, morning person or night person, abundance lever or simplicity lever, and every episode includes a happiness hack, a quick, easy shortcut to more happy. Listen and follow the podcast, happier with Gretchen Rubin. I don't know about you, it takes a lot to shock me these days, but to see our judicial system resemble a third world banana republic, to see trusted American companies embrace insane and destructive woke ideologies is frankly depressing. We must fight back and that starts with changing the way that we spend our money. For years, big mobile companies have been dumping millions into leftist causes and we've

had to take it because another option didn't exist. Well it does now. Patriot mobile America's only Christian conservative wireless provider offers dependable nationwide coverage on all the major networks. So you get the best possible service in your area without the woke propaganda pushed by leftists working hard to destroy this country. When you switch to Patriot Mobile, you support free speech and religious freedom, the sanctity of life, second amendment, and our military, veterans, and first responder heroes. Their 100% U.S. based customer service team makes switching easy.

Just go to PatriotMobile.com slash America right now. Get free activation today with offer code America. Ask about their coverage guarantee while you're there. PatriotMobile.com slash America. Again, that's patreonmobile.com slash America.