100. 100 Episodes - 1 Big Insight

Welcome to episode 100 of the Brainy Business. Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. Today's special anniversary episode is sharing lessons learned in 100 episodes of the podcast. Ready? Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain free. Now here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the hundredth episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It is amazing to realize that we've been together now for a hundred episodes and that by the time this comes out, there will be more than 180,000 downloads in over 150 countries. It is a significant understatement to say that the podcast has four far exceeded my expectations for what it could be. And leading up to this milestone, I've been reflecting a lot and trying to decide the best way to approach this important moment in time. I thought about doing a hundred small tips and insights for a hundred episodes, which would have been a very rapid fire hour to be sure, but in the end I've decided to boil that into one really big thing that has set me and the Brainy Business apart from looking back on these a hundred episodes and the success I've seen in the podcast, knowing there's always a lot of opportunity to be better and do more, but relative to the average podcast, this one has done significantly better. And there are many things I've done intentionally and because they're my natural style that have helped to support that along the way. And that's what I'm going to try and articulate for you in this episode with the hopes that it can bring some increased success for you as well. In whatever corner of the world you may be listening from, there will be be a lot of stories from my life and experiences that come together over time to show what I think is at the root of the success of the show and business and everything else. But before we get to that, I want to share some important top numbers. The top 10 countries with downloads have shifted quite a bit in the past few months since I last talked about them, with some new countries making appearances for the first time ever. Of course the US is still the most downloads by far for followed by the uk, Canada, Australia and India which have been in the top for some time. The country with the 6th most downloads is Germany, followed by Brazil, Mexico, Spain and Israel. Those last three, I believe are all making their first appearances in the top 10. So thank you to everyone in Mexico, Spain and Israel for listening, and of course to everyone in all the other countries as well. The top 10 states listening have remained pretty much the same, with California still having a commanding lead ahead of my home state of Washington, as well as Texas, which I know there's some controversy there, but every time, you know, California just has so many listeners. So thank you all for listening, subscribing and sharing the podcast wherever you may be. A couple shifts in highly downloaded episodes have happened as well since I did the last recap about 20 weeks ago, so it's been quite a while. Number 73, the Behavioral Economics analysis of Starbucks has continued to climb the charts. It ended the year as the seventh most downloaded episode of all time, and it has now officially cracked its way into the top three, the third most downloaded podcast episode ever. There are also two new episodes from 2020 that have made their way into the top 10. The Behavioral Economics analysis of Peloton has made it to number eight on the list, and episode 83, how to organize your brain with behavioral Economics, has hit number seven on the most downloaded list. If you haven't listened to any of those great episodes, there are links for you in the show notes which can be found within the app you're listening to or@the brainybusiness.com 100 and I'm taking the signal here that maybe some of those behavioral economics analysis of businesses have been doing pretty well and so expect to see some of those in the next hundred episodes as well. This is also the time to let you know that if you're not yet on the Brainy Business list, where you get emails with new episodes and instant access to all the freebies. You should do that right now. Each Friday I send emails with a story about the current episode, often something that's not included within the episode itself, as well as links to related content to make it easy for you to learn more, and other tidbits I think that you're going to find valuable. When you download any freebie, you'll be automatically added to the list that includes the ebook and master your mindset mini course, which are both in the show notes for this episode. And with that, I want to talk about what I think has made the brainy business successful in these first 100 episodes, and what I think will continue to help it to be successful in the years that follow. While this is about learnings from these hundred episodes, I think it's necessary to move further back in my life. You see, I've always been pretty confident in my abilities and generally stubborn, which has culminated in me having big dreams and ambitions that I expect will work themselves out. I believe in luck, but also in making your own opportunities and believing in your ability to make those big things happen, even when you don't know what they are yet. When I was in kindergarten, apparently the office called my mom because they wanted to move me to remedial classes. She knew me to be a bright child and that it shouldn't be needed, so she asked why they were insisting I was behind the rest of the class and needed more help. They told her that I could not and would not spell my name, which signaled to them that I was not smart enough to be with the rest of the class. My mom, and if I haven't said it enough, thank you Mom. But my mom knew I could in fact spell my name and followed up with some clarifying questions. This is where that confidence in myself comes from her a lot. So it turns out they were trying to force me to spell my name as Melinda, adding a D to my name that wasn't there, which is the more popular spelling, and I refused to do it. At five years old, I had the gumption, we'll call it, to stand up to the adults telling me to do something I knew was wrong. I believe I was polite, but I was five, so who knows. And I would not waver in my stand so much that they had to call my mom. Apparently this was over several days of them trying to get me to spell my name, and she promptly told them that my name was in fact Melina no D, and they were actually the ones who didn't know how to spell but my name. Fast forward to fourth grade when one of my teachers told me I had a missing assignment, which I was confident wasn't true because I never, ever missed assignments. I'm sure you're not shocked that I was that kid. So this story has lived on because the teacher actually called my mom to tell her about what happened, which makes me think this may have happened with other teachers as well, who just never told the stories or they never made it back to me. But my teacher apparently said that in 40 years of teaching, she had never had someone of my age do what I did. As legend goes, and I believe I might have told this story on the show before, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. So I apparently walked to her desk and politely this one does have the statement from the teacher's mouth that I was polite. She said, I calmly explained that I was sure the assignment had been turned in and asked if I could go through the files to find it. She said yes. I went to the filing cabinet, found the missing assignment, got my grade changed to the 10 out of 10 it deserved, and I went on my merry way. Another story as I grew into middle school junior high was what it was called where I went. And I know I told this story when I was recently a guest on Behavioral Grooves a few months back, but I'm not sure I've told it here on the Brainy Business. So I think most of you know by now that I sing. But in case you don't, I'm a classically trained opera singer and have done a lot of national anthems over the years. The first time I did the anthem in front of a group was in junior high school. They were putting together an assembly of stars to celebrate all the best athletes in the school in their various groups. I, confident as I was, very modestly went to the heads of the school. I'm pretty sure I scheduled a meeting with the principal or the vice principal to petition that if they were putting on an assembly of the best in the school, they needed the best person to sing the national anthem at the assembly. And that was in fact, me. They were kind enough to oblige my request or insistence, and I sang the national anthem at the Stars assembly that year. As a little side note, in case you're interested, I have linked in the show notes to a video of me singing the national anthem for the Seattle Mariners a few years back. You'll notice my last name has changed since then, but if you want to listen, it exists. It's there for you in the show notes. So why in the world am I telling you all these stories from my childhood? Because they showcase some very important characteristics that I've come to realize about myself, my style and my nature, which have carried into my work and helped to make my business successful. I've been called many names throughout my career besides Melinda Ha, some of them good and some of them not so kind. All my life I've been an old soul, as they say, someone who as a child was more comfortable speaking with adults than the other kids. I used to skip recess and work in the office or help clean the cafeteria in elementary school and felt very awesomely important doing that. I was also the one with the megaphone corralling all the adults on the movie set When I was young. My mom worked for a casting company, so I've been in several movies and spent a lot of time on set growing up at the end of those long days, who was the one with the megaphone telling everyone where to stand, dancing around and being goofy to keep spirits up while people were waiting for their checks to be doled out, telling them how to fill out, where to put their Social Security numbers, asking, asking questions and joking along with those adults while wielding my authority and again, feeling very important. Me. It might not surprise you to find that I've also been called bossy shout out to all the other women out there who have earned this badge of honor and too ambitious. But I know this is what makes me me. Much like Tina Fey, I'm proud to wear my bossy pants every day and have been my whole life. And in previous jobs when I've been given constructive criticism, I typically adjust very quickly to that. But when I've been told that my ambition didn't fit, that was something I was never willing to compromise and I stand by that. I'm very happy with those choices that I've made. So fast forward from the kid on the movie set to when I was in college and some jobs I had at that time I thought I was going to stay at Alaska Airlines forever. I love that company, even starting in a call center, and was excited at the opportunity to move up into the marketing department when I finished my degree. But timing wasn't really on my side and they were changing hours, moving departments together and I had a decision to make. I could keep my job with a company I loved or finish my degree. Thankfully, I chose to finish my degree, which was an awesome choice and it allowed me to go live in Italy for three months as a study abroad. But I needed a job. When I got home and found a paid internship with an electrical wholesaling distributor as inventory management specialist, that job was even more boring than the name implies. It was quite literally my job to take a list each day of many sheets of paper, walk around the warehouse and say this bin should have 874 screws in it. 1, 2, 3. Yes, that's not a joke, that's true. All day, every day. That was what my job was. However, in my interview, when the hiring manager asked why someone working in marketing would be interested in that job, I explained that I believe it's important when you're marketing things to understand how everything works and how the business comes together from the warehouse to the sales floor. And while truth be told, I would have preferred to go straight into a marketing internship, that wasn't the opportunity that existed. I answered the question in the best way that I could. And as luck would have it, they were a relatively small business, family owned. He was one of the two sons that had taken over the business from their father. He said they didn't have a marketing department but should probably start one, and asked if I would like to help them do that as part of my internship. I said absolutely, knowing that I wasn't going to have any love of counting screws and copper wire spools in the warehouse. And before I graduated from college I had turned that random internship into a full time position as director of marketing. Similarly, I got my job at the advertising agency, the job I had immediately after that, whom I have been told never traditionally hired right out of college because when taking a tour there with school I asked the owner if they were hiring and because I read the trade press, I was able to talk about agencies and campaigns through our time there. At the root of all this is a common thread that has carried into my time with the brainy business. I believe I will be successful even if something doesn't work out and there are plenty of setbacks along my journey, I promise. But even when something goes wrong, I just assume it isn't the end and that it will all work out for me in time. Actually, with the advertising agency that I ended up working at the when I first interviewed, I did not get the job. They called me three months later and said another position had opened up and asked if I was interested in that one. It was on the credit union side instead of the healthcare side. And so it all worked out to be fantastic for me in the long run. And again, it just goes to reinforce that mindset that things happen the way they're supposed to and and I'm always looking for how it's going to work out positively in the end. I like to think this is the peak end rule at its best here. If there's a negative peak, I tell myself it's not the end and it's time to go get some new data points. My networking skills and genuine interest in people have also worked to my advantage in building my career. In that example at the advertising agency to be the best I could at my job as head of marketing at the electrical distributor. I was reading Advertising Age and other magazines regularly to be on top of the industry when the marketing club was touring the agency and the president was asking questions about various topics that he didn't expect anyone to know the answer to. Do you know who the top firm is? Where they're located? I knew at the time it was Ogilvy. We created a dialogue in that meeting that left a positive impression on him and helped me get the job later on. I asked good questions, gave good answers, and had the knowledge to back it up when it came time to start this podcast. Having the confidence in myself to know I could do it when I had no friends who had one and a need to go out on a limb was scary but exciting and I looked at the silver lining and I was able to take confidence in the advice from my now friend Natalie Ekdal, who is the host of the Biz Chicks podcast, which I've mentioned on the show before, and that in meeting her and doing one of her masterminds, she said it was time for me to do a podcast and I just jumped in and knew it would be okay. So I got the I have one, I think you should have one and I don't typically tell people this, but you need one yesterday and I said okay and I did it and I launched within just a couple of weeks. I kept my positive attitude and went into it as if it would not fail. And more than that, I went into it as if it would be wildly successful beyond what I could even imagine. I invested in sound quality and editing right away. I spent tons of time researching and writing those first episodes and was comfortable talking about the podcast and my business as if it was already super successful in this new avenue. Even when it first launched, it became part of my identity. Every role I've ever had and every company I've ever worked for or business I've started has been this way. In some ways, this is a hazard of running a marketing department. You create a brand that's your baby and thus the company and your role within it becomes a huge piece of who you are. This business, the brainy business, is me. I own it and I'm confident in its potential, just like I was as a five year old who wouldn't misspell my name. I mentioned this briefly a second ago, but my genuine interest in people and wanting to have lots of positive relationships and associations with everyone I can is really critical to the success I've seen at the brainy business and before that in my career. Every email, LinkedIn connection, Twitter conversation, in person, meeting after speaking at an event or person I happen to be seated next to at a conference is an opportunity to learn and engage. I suppose that's the extrovert in me, but that you never know mindset has served me well in my entire life. You never know who's on the other side of that email, who they know, where they'll be in five years, or what project they may participate in down the road. It would be really, really easy to ignore the emails I get from listeners, to let them go to a bulk box, or to respond with very simple answers like thank you, I appreciate it and leave it at that. But instead I take that one tiny extra step and it makes all the difference. When someone emails me and says, I'm in South Africa and I love your podcast, I say, thanks so much. What's your favorite thing about behavioral economics? Or when someone will reach out on Twitter and say, I'm in London and I'm starting my degree in behavioral science? I'll say, that's awesome. What are you passionate about for the coming year? Or what are you working on these days? When someone connects on LinkedIn, I have dedicated time on my calendar each week to have conversations with people who are already in the field or those who are looking to pursue careers or study behavioral economics or behavioral science to help those people feel more comfortable in the choices that they make and just to have those conversations, get to know people, see what other people are working on. Maybe we'll work together someday, maybe not. It doesn't really matter. I just like to be helpful when I can and to have those conversations with people and see what's going on. One great example of this is the relationship that has blossomed with the Human Behavior Lab at Texas A and M University. And this is just one example of many, many that have come after and before that. So you may know that I do shout outs on the show from time to time of people who leave reviews on the apps where they listen or Facebook or whatnot. And even when I don't know who they are and can't link, I may say something like, hey Pool Jeff, I'm not sure if we're connected anywhere else, but I appreciate the comments you made. So send me an email to let me know who you are and I'll give you a proper shout out on an upcoming episode. Apparently I said something just like that on episode 20 of the podcast when I gave a shout out and talked about a review that someone had left. And then a couple weeks later, cool. Jeff sent me an email with the subject line of great job that read Molina, I just wanted to say great job on your podcast. I left a review of your podcast that you read on episode 20. I'm the program manager at the Human Behavior Lab at Texas A and M. We do the type of research that you talk about on your Podcast we're primarily a research lab. However, we do take outside business where you consult and provide expert strategies. We perform research for clients in order to provide them with solutions. So everything that you're doing to promote behavioral economics benefits us all. I've even got our postdoc students listening to you now. Thanks again for all that you do best. Jeff. I remember exactly where I was when I got this email. I was at a conference in San Diego and I was ecstatic when this email came through. I mean, how cool was that? Again, it would have been easy to respond with thank you so much, I appreciate it. Instead and I looked back in to get the actual responses and everything here. So my actual response says, wow, Jeff, this is amazing. Such a wonderful email to receive. Thank you. I would love to learn more about the projects you're working on and see how we can continue to help each other. For example, as I have clients looking for research partners, it's good to know who is around and what they do. Would you be open to a call sometime? Melina and the rest, as they say, is history. One month and I think four days later was my tour of the lab and we've continued to work closely together since then. The postdocs have given recommendations for episode topics and I've learned about their work. When others from around the world email me or connect on social media and say they love the show, I'll often ask what they might be interested in hearing about next. Just in the same way that I have been open to suggestions from those postdocs. Some people say whatever you want and others suggest concepts or topics and then I get to give them a shout out when I cover that topic. And it keeps keeps everything moving up in a virtuous cycle. You may have noticed that technique of mentioning people on the air is rooted in herding and social proof. And that's no accident. It's how it started. But it has turned out to be so much more important for the benefits of the business behind the podcast as well. Most podcasts don't make money. A lot of them cost businesses money in fact. But the brainy business has allowed me to have some amazing connections and clients and to be very, very profitable very early on. Every project I have done since the podcast launch, I can pretty much tie back to the show. Large global clients whom I can't mention by name, who found me and reached out to say thank you for a specific episode. And my response in an email led to a conversation and and 18 months later we're doing some work together. Sometimes it's shorter than that, thankfully, and I'm sure there are many that are out on the horizon and it's all going to just work out awesomely in the end. Giving out my actual email address in episodes is a big piece of this as well. I share my actual email melinathebrainybusiness.com in most episodes and in speaking engagements and encourage everyone to connect with me on LinkedIn, LinkedIn and Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. It's me behind it all and I want to talk to everyone and I know this is going to be a problem for me over time, but what an amazing problem to have. Too many people who want to have conversations about this thing I'm so passionate about. So many people excited about behavioral economics and the work I'm putting out there that they can't help but send an email. Is there anything more wonderful in this world than that? In the end, all these things come together in a beautiful way to have made this podcast and the business behind it very successful. Confidence and a belief everything will work out. Genuine interest in people and a willingness to give the gift of time to have conversations that may never be more than just a few moments of interaction, but could turn into something amazing and a deep passion for the work I do, allowing it to become an extension of myself in a way that I know you can hear through your earbuds. It's one of the things I hear from listeners all the time. Some of the most common feedback I get is that one reason people love this show is you can tell how much I love the work, the opportunity, the future of the field, and what it can all mean. It lights me up so that I don't begrudge spending eight hours a week on episodes. Maybe sometimes, but usually not. And that I can't wait to see what the next email, LinkedIn message or other interaction will bring. And that brings it back to the biggest lesson from all this. A huge learning from these hundred episodes and something I want to pass on to every single one of you. Whatever your vision of the future, whatever you see for yourself, what you think the top of the mountain is the place where you think you'll say that you made it. That thing out there that you think is a super big deal, you aren't thinking big enough. When I started the podcast, I thought people in Washington would listen. People in my networking group, maybe some other small businesses, as I have a lot of connections and deep roots with female entrepreneurs and credit unions. But. But that was all I thought there would be. And then More and more states and countries were finding the podcast, and I realized it was so much bigger than I could have imagined. When I got that first email from my now dear friend Jeff at Texas A and M, I couldn't have fathomed that postdocs working in a Human behavior lab, the largest academic lab in the world at one of the largest universities in the country, would be listening to my podcast and binging it, basically all being assigned to listen to as many episodes as they can when they start at the lab. And that Dr. Palma and I would be on a panel together and all these projects and one really, really cool thing that I'm absolutely busting about not being able to share yet, but hopefully that announcement's coming soon. All these opportunities and the ability to fly to London to work on a project and international listeners who have joined the Be thoughtful revolution or H1 on one. It's all so much bigger than I ever thought it could be. And I never know what's coming tomorrow or the day after that. And I know that even today, when it's bigger than I thought it could be, it's still so much smaller than it will be as time goes on. And I love it. Everything that happens now. I think this is amazing and I'm so excited for what tomorrow has in store. You never know who may be listening. You never know who's best friends with the person sitting next to you at the coffee shop when we can actually go out again, or who you might meet tomorrow. The podcast has touched thousands of lives across the world, many of them future behavioral economists who discovered the field through the show and have gone on to enroll in masters and doctoral programs of their own. The lesson and what I think has made this podcast successful Be open to the possibilities of tomorrow. Be generous and kind with your time and confident in your abilities. And of course, be thoughtful in all you do. You're bigger than you can possibly imagine and you will do great things if you're open to them. I'm here to cheer you on. And if you haven't reached out and connected yet, please do. There are links in the show notes atthebrainybusiness.com 100 for how you can find me, but in general, here are the options. Email me melinathebrainybusiness.com make sure that there's no D in my name. Find me on LinkedIn as Melina Palmer. You can also follow the Brainy business page. The YouTube channel, which has every full episode posted there each week as well, is also the Brainy Business page. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as the Brainy Biz B I Z Comment on a post, send a direct message. Who knows what benefit we might get from connecting today? I for one am excited to find out and look forward to meeting you soon or catching up if we're already connected. And just like that episode 100 and it's big lesson is done. We're kicking off the next hundred with a fantastic interview. Drum roll please. Dan Ariely. You know that name by now, right? Dan Ariely of Duke University's center for Advanced Hindsight, author of Predictably Irrational and so many other amazing books and research papers, will be joining me to talk about a company he co founded called shapa. It's a numberless smart scale and it's awesome. I love mine and I'm excited for you all to hear this interview with Dan. It's going to be a lot of fun. You won't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me. And remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops, and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness. Com.