212. That Time I Went Viral… with Dr. Daniel Crosby

Welcome to episode 212 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today's episode, I'm so excited to introduce you to Dr. Daniel Crosby. 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 friendly. Now here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Before I introduce you to this week's guest, I want to take a moment to celebrate a very special anniversary. Two days before this episode airs. On July 6, 2022, we celebrated the four year anniversary of the Brainy Business Podcast. Four years, 212 episodes, including this one of course. And we're also dangerously close to 600000 downloads of the podcast from over 170 countries, which is so awesome. I think there's a chance we'll hit that number when this episode releases, but it might take a little push. So if you can help me in celebrating the anniversary of the show by sharing this episode with a friend to help ensure we get over that milestone, it would be amaz so appreciated by me. I know that it can be traditional to do kind of a best of or reflecting back on the year when you have an anniversary. I tend to do my best of episodes at the new year instead of, I guess half year on my anniversaries. So I'm not going to get too much into past content and top moments on the podcast today. But if you want to check out the most downloaded episodes of the back catalog to do check out episodes 184, 133 and 82 which did the top content of 2021, 2020 and 2019. Those are of course linked for you in the show notes so you can get to them easily. And of course when you check out those show notes which are waiting for you at the brainy business.com212, you will also get links to other past episodes and related books, including some of those By Today's guest, Dr. Daniel Cross Crosby, as well as ways to connect with him in the episode today, we do talk a little about his books and the work he does in behavioral science around investing, which is very cool and so relevant. As you know, investing is a time where we tend to throw logic out the window and the subconscious runs a bit rampant. But the main reason he is here today, what inspired the timing of our conversation is that he recently had a tweet go viral, like retweeted by celebrities and millions of views from around the world. It had nothing to do with his work and seemed like a fascinating opportunity to hear what it was like to create a tweet like that and live in the space of something everyone says they want to go viral and see what it has done for him personally, for his business, his outlook, and any insights on what this says about human behavior that we can keep in mind for all the applications in business. As I'm sure you can appreciate, this is so relevant to his work in investing and how people will randomly jump on one bandwagon over another and invest because the herd is doing so even when they haven't done their own research. But I won't get too into it now because I want him to tell you all about it again. Links to check out his Twitter account and get his books the Behavioral Investor and the Laws of Wealth, which was named the best Investment Book of 2017, are waiting for you in the show notes atthe brainy business.com 212 now let's jump right in. Dr. Daniel Crosby, welcome to the Brainy Business Podcast.

Thank you. It's awesome to be here.

Yes. So, so excited to have you and as I know is going to be in the intro for this a little bit where we are going to talk some about your work and I want you to introduce yourself and your background of the work that you do. But the bulk of our conversation is about something that is not completely outside of the realm of what you do, but kind of a random happenstance that brought us together to have the conversation about something interesting that very few people get to actually experience. So it's nice that we happen to be connected on LinkedIn and I could ping you to come and talk about it on the show. So first tell us all about you and what you do in this world of behavioral science.

Yeah, so I'm the Chief Behavioral Officer at Orion Advisor Solutions. We're a financial technology platform for Advisors. Got about $3 trillion in assets on our on our software platform and tens of billions under management. So I help the good folks at Orion create technology that is architected in such a way that it induces good investor behavior. So that's really what I do and do quite a bit of educational stuff as well. Teaching advisors how to connect with and how to communicate to their clients in ways that bring about the best behaviors.

Yeah. Was investing something that you are always interested in and just found yourself there?

What's that journey, like, so that journey. My dad is a financial advisor, so I grew up very interested in investing. I grew up talking about stocks around the dinner table and really just burned out. Candidly on clinical psychology, that work is so important, but it's very heavy. I had a large client caseload all through grad school and into the early years of my career. I was working with people with some pretty heavy problems and some court ordered folks. And I just candidly didn't manage my stress well, didn't manage my empathy fatigue and things well as well as I might have, and just took work home with me to the point that I didn't see a path forward that didn't just sort of make me extremely cynical and eat me up in a real way. And so I came to my Dad, I was 27 when I got my, when I finished my Ph.D. and I was already kind of beat up and just came to him and said, look, I love studying human behavior. Like, I love thinking deeply about why people do the things that they do, but I don't want to do it in a, in a clinical context. And he said, you know, there's a ton of psychology in my work. And I was like, what are you talking about? Like, I mean, you know, I, you know, my dad did not know the words behavioral economics, behavioral finance, but just that simple comment by him sort of set me down a path of exploring this and you know, long story short, lots of writing, thinking, consulting later. I've tried to be a bridge between sort of the ivory tower and everyday, everyday practitioners like my dad, who have people sitting in their office who are worried about their money. So that's been kind of my, where I've made my career as being a translator from folks much smarter than me in the behavioral world and trying to apply that work to everyday financial advisors.

Very similar to the type of work that I see myself as doing of taking the academic research, making it applicable for people and being able to say, this is why this matters to you, this is what you can do with this and help people to work with the science that already exists. Yeah.

Yeah.

Awesome. So just a little. So you have your two best books or two bad, most most popular ones that you like to promote the most, being the Behavioral investor and the laws of wealth. Can you give a little bit of insight on, you know, the behavioral stuff? I've, I've done an episode, so really, really early on it was maybe 31, I think episode 31 of the podcast I called Booms, Bubbles and Busts, which is, I Guess the most extreme I've gotten into some of that aspect of investing and you know, everything from tulip bulbs to beanie babies, as are the most common, I think examples there. So other insights though on investing don't have a ton that has been talked about on the show. So what are some high level things, you know, that people should know when it comes to behavior and investment?

Yeah, so the laws of wealth was really prompted by a pre commitment device that I was recommending to some advisors. When you work with a financial professional, they have something called an investment policy statement or an ips. And it basically says I, your advisor will adhere to the following rules in sort of the trustworthy management of your assets, which. Good. Right on. Great. But what I was recommending was one of the biggest points of failure in the advisor client relationship is the advisor is doing what they ought to do, but the client is panicking and becoming emotional and things. So I said, look, here's the research on pre commitment devices. You should have a behavioral policy statement that you sign. And so it's really kind of a partnership. You know, the advisor, here's the things I'm going to do. But then the client says, you know, here's the things that I'm going to do. And so an advisor said, well, what would go on your behavioral policy statement? And it ended up prompting this reflection of sort of like the, this I believe about markets and human behavior. So the laws of wealth is sort of my ten commandments of investor behavior, if you will. And it talks about, you know, it talks about the power of behavioral principles like having a coach. You know, we know that people who work with someone like a financial advisor have on average 2.7 times the wealth of those who don't, even when you control for things like income. And it comes down to behavioral reasons because it's just like keeping people out of their own way. I mean it's all the things that you talk about on your show. It's not that advisors have any special insights into markets. It's not even what people think advisors are good for. In fact, if you look at what people value in a financial advisor, it's actually the place where the advisors add almost no value and then what the, the things that they aren't looking for are actually quite valuable. So you know, we talk about everything from, from sort of herding and crowd movements like you did in your earlier episode, to the power of an external, you know, source of advice to things like automation to sort of the nitty gritty of picking stocks and funds. So it's a pretty sweeping book. And then the behavioral investor was sort of this deeper dive on neurology, physiology, environment, all these sort of externalities that I thought there was basically a gap in the literature around. I didn't think people were thinking enough about things like sleep and things like nutrition and things like environment and even the people you surround yourselves with with respect to financial decision making. So among other things, it's a deeper dive on some of these externalities that I think are incredibly important and often overlooked.

Awesome. So there is an episode on Pre Commitment that I've done on the show before and I know you talked about, you said herding in there, so I'll be linking to those. I also think you didn't call it out specifically, but you're sort of getting close to that like counterfactual prefactual thinking problem. Right. So when you're in that investment space and starting to think of all the what ifs or why didn't I as you know, seemed like it was relevant. So I have notes to link those episodes in the show notes too. Then also what I hear from you is kind of the overarching tip is kind of in that hot cold empathy gap. Don't get too wrapped up in the moment and having the coach is important, even if it's that it keeps you from making those bad emotional decisions. Don't make emotional decisions about investing is like the high top. Top, top, top, top, you know, 300,000 foot view of like top. Some top advice.

Yeah, if, I mean if I just had to give super quick advice, you know, advice, point number one would be to automate. You know, I looked at some, some meta analyses of automation in finance versus discretionary decision making and it was I believe 94% of the time just doing nothing and sort of automating your process beats making a decision even among the, the highly educated in these things. So I mean automation can't be overstated how important that is. And then the second piece is get some help, you know, get that, get that impartial third party advice. You know, there's lots more to be said beyond that. But yeah, if you, if you do those two things correctly, if you automate and have a process, I mean and get that third party opinion, that's pretty, pretty dang good.

Well and hey, good news, that means like do less stuff, right? You don't, don't worry about it, let it kind of run itself. Once you make some early on decisions, which the decision is get a third party to Help you so you don't have to get all sucked into the drama of it all, which, you know, relies on our own status quo bias. It's an interesting thing that comes to mind for me now, and I don't know if any of your work digs in on this, but is there a reason why that you know, of where. So that status quo being, you know, we're all really prone to that status quo living, that we want to just let things go as they are. But investing feels like it's kind of counter to that rule. Right. Because we feel like we need to be getting our fingers into that and are constantly like feeling this pull to be doing something. Any reason that you've come across as to why that really kind of bucks tradition of how we make so many other decisions?

Well, it's interesting, you know, I talk in the book about what I call Wall street bizarro world, and I think that one, you know, one of the reasons folks have such a hard time investing is because it's so counterintuitive, as you've stated, and things that serve us well in other parts of our lives serve us poorly in investing sometimes. So, like action bias in a lot of respects, like has it works like, you know, if you, if you want to get stronger, lift more weights, if you want to be smarter, you know, listen to more podcasts, read more books, whatever. But then in every country where it's been studied, 19 different countries that I looked at, the more you trade, the worse you do. You can even look at investing as one of those rare places where the completely unknowledgeable routinely outperform the knowledgeable. I mean, if you diversify into two broadly held index funds and contribute a little money every two weeks and never touch it, you will beat almost every Ivy League educated hedge fund manager on the planet. And the fact that you can do that with relative ease and consistency, it doesn't compute. Right. We think that complex dynamic systems like the market have to be met with a level of dynamism and complexity as well, and they just don't. I mean, there's. There's sort of an overfitting problem here where it feels like we've got to get complicated for it to work, but the only thing to do in the face of massive complexity is to just break it down to the nuts and bolts.

Interesting. Yeah, that's. Obviously our herding instinct does not serve us well in. In investing. And because then people tend to be kind of behind. You're. You're always too far behind by the time you see it and go to jump on board, which. Any thoughts on. We haven't talked too much. I've had a couple people that have been willing to touch on cryptocurrency and haven't really Talked much about NFTs yet on the show. Any thoughts or insights on any of that?

Well, I, you know, at a high level, I think one of the most powerful formulas for whatever we want to call it, extreme investor sentiment is when you pair the, the ability to get rich quickly with something that has sort of a moral underpinning. So if you look at things like the meme stock mania from, you know, during the thick of COVID yes, people were getting rich, right? Like people were making a lot of money, that the prices were growing rapidly. But also there was this sort of underlying narrative of like we're getting rich and we're doing it by sticking it to the man. We're doing it by kind of giving it back to the hedge funds that took our parents houses during the great financial crisis. And I mean, bitcoin is the same thing. Not all, but many bitcoin enthusiasts are of a particular philosophical stripe that has to do with sort of libertarian political thinking. Many of them even follow the same sort of diet and exercise regimen. So there's this whole sort of philosophical underpinning to bitcoin as a moral good and as a way to disintermediate what's rightfully ours. That I think you combine what's effectively a religion with the opportunity to get rich quickly and you have something enormously powerful on your hands. So to me, that 12 is sort of the secret sauce of bitcoin. It's that combo of, of religion and the religion of wealth.

Interesting. When Rachel Laws was on the show, who's an expert in semiotics, she was talking about Gamestop and the whole investing situation that happened there. So we'll definitely be linking to that in the show notes. So now that we've talked about that aspect of your work, the reason that we're here today at this particular point is so we've been, we'd been connected on LinkedIn but didn't really know each other. And then you had posted that you had a, you did a thing that so many people strive for kind of in the same investing world. Right. Our optimism bias says we should be able to do this because we know it happens and, and no one ever does. But you did go viral with a tweet, tell us about this whole process and experience kind of what happened And I guess any, like, where was your Twitter before? What's happened since? Like, let's go back to the beginning of time, you know, the BV right before virality, I guess, since this way. And then we'll. We'll go through the journey.

Perfect. So I've been on Twitter for some time. The exact number of years escapes me. But, you know, 12. 12 years or something, like quite a while. I'm fairly active on Twitter and I have a, you know, a respectable following. 30ish something thousand followers. Right. And this is from my behavioral finance work. These are primarily advisors and sort of adjacent folks who follow me for boring market talk, the occasional picture of my kids, and like the occasional dad joke. So that's sort of the, you know, that's sort of the setup is I have a good, not great Twitter following and I'm fairly active, so. A few months ago, I started having horrible dental pain. I had been clenching my teeth really badly. You know, long story, but I cracked a tooth. So I. I cracked a healthy tooth. And it was super painful. We didn't know what it was forever. I had all these migraines, and it was just really gnarly, like, really painful. Took forever to figure out because the tooth was not. There's nothing wrong with the tooth. I just cracked it. So anyway, when I finally figure it out, I'm like, I never want to go through that again. So I need to, you know, I need to make some better decisions, some better health decisions. And one of the most obvious ones was I drank a truckload of Diet Coke. And that's, you know, clearly not great for your teeth. And so, you know, the dentist says, look, you know, here, here's the thing you do. You get a night guard and stop drinking so much Diet Coke. So sure enough, I quit. And the first couple of days are horrific. You have headaches and every. I mean, I was drinking tons of Diet Coke, but I shake it. I feel, you know, I. I feel okay. But then one day I was sitting there and I'm like, all these people have told me, if you stop drinking Diet Coke, you're gonna lose 20 pounds. Like, you're gonna. You're gonna up your deadlift at the gym. Like, life's gonna be, you know, all these sort of. All these sort of wonderful things are gonna accrue to you. And it occurred to me in this moment that, you know, besides maybe having better teeth or whatever, not much was different. I didn't feel healthier. I didn't feel better. I didn't feel bad. But it just, you know, I. I had just kind of missed out on my daily treat, which. Which felt like this sort of low stakes, guiltless, you know, indulgence, right. To have, like, it's been a long day, get a big Diet Coke. And, you know, it feels sort of sin free or whatever. And so I tweeted out something to the effect, and it was this kind of snarky tweet about like, hey, I quit Diet Coke a month ago. And here are. I've observed in my health. And it was, you know, something to the effect of my one source of joy is gone. I have nothing to look forward to. You know, I haven't lost a pound. This. I can't remember exactly what I said, but this, you know, this sort of thing. And. And then it just. It went crazy. So the. The first day I looked at the end of the first day, and it had had like 8 million views, which, you know, which was incredible.

Yeah.

And I was actually out in Utah. I was actually out in Utah visiting my in laws at the time. And the next afternoon we were at a minor league baseball game. So I'm at a Salt Lake Bees game and my phone just starts blowing up with people who are texting me, like, Elon Musk, exclamation point. And Elon Musk had responded to my tweet and was talking about how much he loved Diet Coke and how it was the perfect accompaniment to popcorn in a movie. And Elon Musk's mom tweeted it and was talking about it. She now model, former nutritionist. And then it just went crazy to the point that later on that day, it had 32 million views and over half a million likes and retweets, and it just ran. Really went truly crazy. Yeah.

And I like that the 8 million views isn't the crazy part. Right. Which I'm sure you're like, whoa. And then, yeah, Elon Musk chimes in. And then that goes crazy. And so I believe from. So I was kind of digging in and looking to kind of what happened here. So Elon tweeted like three separate tweets. Times, I think. Yeah. So that obviously doesn't hurt. Were they all like one after another on the three Elon tweets, or did they come separated? And did you respond to any of it? And that got him talking like, what do you even do when these are.

All, like, pouring in so you freak out a little bit? And I did. I did respond, but he wasn't. I mean, when. When Elon Musk, he's such a polarizing individual and has such big fans and big detractors. And so anything he says is accompanied by this whole comet, you know, trail of insanity. And, and so I tweeted back to him, of course, but I don't know that he was necessarily responding to me, to me, per se. He just kind of like couple of sort of off the top of his head, seeming thoughts about Diet Coke and, and then movies and, and things like this. But. But, you know, part of what made it go so viral was that you had at least two camps sort of in the comments. You had big Diet Coke addicts like myself. You know, people sort of, sort of like, you know, chiming in about how much they love Diet Coke. And what's fascinating for me is it subsequently went viral on TikTok and Instagram and sometimes without credit. So, like, you would, you would find like some fitness influencer or something reading my tweet word for word, without attribution. And it was sent to me and it had. That had millions of, you know, views. And so there was something about it among Diet Coke addicts that was just articulated. You know, they've probably, like me, been told by friends and family they need to quit. They probably didn't want to. And then here I was giving them permission not to. And so that was, you know, that was like a huge thing of people sort of saying, look, I knew it all along. I'm never listening to anyone who tells me to give this up, because there's nothing sort of on the other end of that rainbow. But then the other group, we'll call them the Health, you know, the Health Nuts, were in there talking about aspartame kills and this is going to give you cancer. And so there was a whole sort of like healthy eating, healthy living contingent that was just as vocal. And they're in there fighting with each other. And so, so those two groups, I think just, you know, it struck something powerful in two very different groups of people.

Yeah. And so then, because they're in there for different reasons, they're like, perpetuating it, being popular and talking on both sides, keeping that engine moving along, right?

Yes.

So did your follower count go up very much in that process?

So here, this, to me was the most, the most fascinating piece. The most fascinating piece to me was follower count because so many people were. I was getting stuff. They're like, oh, you're gonna, you're gonna double your follower count. Like, you know, overnight, I initially lost thousands of followers lost I. For reasons that are not totally Clear to me. Yeah, it was the most benign, like, if, if you're gonna go viral, go viral on something very like vanilla, you know, that was, I was, I was happy about that because of course my work is like, what is going on? And you know, how does, you know, how does this, how does this reflect on us? And you know, so it was a really kind of like wholesome way to go viral, which is all you can hope for, I think. But I initially lost followers and then I ended up about where I started. And Twitter you can see on your personal analytics, so other people can't see this, but on your personal analytics you can see how many followers you've gained or lost based on an individual, like as a direct result of an individual tweet. I gained 87 followers from a tweet. From a tweet that 32 million people saw in one day. And so I just, I know it's a pitiable number, but so, so I just had, I just had a marketing agency reach out to me and share the results. They did, they did a whole breakdown of the tweet and they asked me if I would share the metrics with them and I did. And they're like, this is fascinating. Yeah, it's fascinating to me because it shows that a couple of things, how fleeting our attention is. You know, what was this huge deal to me was, you know, a passing, sort of a passing giggle for 32 million people. And then the other thing is it shows that going viral sort of in an off base brand way doesn't do much for you.

Right.

I think anyone that looked at my profile would very quickly know it's just stock market nonsense, behavioral science stuff. And again, the off picture of my kids and they were like, nah, which, which candidly is the right response. Right. I don't want those expectations.

And it's, you know, you're not necessarily going to be posting about like quip, quippy little like, yeah, Brandon, Diet Coke things. Right. But yeah, I think that that is amazing. Is it a net 87 then? Because you said you lost thousands then, like it happened in that way or it just, it says that you had like 87 people that clicked to your profile then and followed you and other things unrelated, if they looked at another tweet or something before they followed or unfollowed.

Yeah. So I, I wish I knew my exact follower count going into the viral tweet because I don't follow it very closely. So I know it initially went lower and that it ended up about where it started. I couldn't kind of tell you exactly. I don't know Twitter's exact mechanics for accounting for how that tweet, you know, directly leads to new followers, but I trust it's pretty close.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, 87 people off of 32 million views. And it's like we spend so much time thinking about going viral, and then it just doesn't. At least if it's sort of out of context like this, it just doesn't help much.

Yeah, well, and I was thinking about this too, and having, you know, in your investors investing space, and we were just talking about crypto type, you know, bitcoin, and we didn't talk about dogecoin. Right. But it seems like you had an opportunity with Elon Musk being in there to. To really pivot in a way that people who were looking at it might have been turned off by if you would have started talking about investing in the comments to, like, loop people back into what your branding was about. Like, did you have any. And I feel like most companies would feel the need to be like, well, now let's talk about us and our real agenda now that these millions of people are watching. Did you have any pull toward that or thoughts in that direction or just sort of sitting in awe of what was happening?

So it's a great question. So, first of all, I have to say it was really uncomfortable. Like, even though my tweet was so kind of vanilla, it was uncomfortable to have the kind of the heat turned up that high and know that many people were looking at you. And there was even an industry, like a financial industry magazine that sent out a tweet that was basically like, hey, if anyone has any dirt on Daniel Crosby, like, now's the day to spill it. And it was just like, oh. Like, it was just kind of strange to just feel like kind of the eyes of so many people were on you. So that was sort of one emotion or experience that was going on. Then my work. So the marketing department at work and our external PR agency, and I kind of had a huddle. And again, like, I'm at a baseball game, so I'm like. And then, you know, afterwards at a museum. So I'm in a museum in Salt Lake in, like, the basement, trying to have this sort of war room meeting with our marketing company folks. And they, you know, we sort of had that conversation like, hey, is there a way that we can use this attention and kind of turn it back on what we do? And the. The answer we came to was no, because you Know, it's where this niche technology platform, financial advisors, that has nothing to do with Elon Musk has nothing to do with Diet Coke. And so we felt like trying to torture it in that direction would be so sort of opaquely goofy and ham handed that it would just backfire. And I honestly, I have my settings, I have my notifications on Twitter such that I only see exchanges between myself and mutuals, like people who I follow back. So 99% of the hundreds of thousands of comments I never saw and kind of had the sense not to look at. But you could see a world in which I try and make it about my business, about me, about something that, that helps me and people really turn on that. You know, I put a couple of joking tweets about Coke and tagged Coke because I didn't tag Coke in the original tweet, but tagged Coke and said like, hey, like I'll, you know, you can send my check here. Kind of like joking about getting paid. And then a lot of people tweeted at Coke and were like, yes, like, pay that. Like pay this man. Like, think what, you just got an endorsement from the richest person in the world. You need to pay this guy.

Yeah.

And so it was, it was interesting to see that. But that was the closest I got to any sort of self promotion. And it was pretty transparently, like unserious, right?

Yes, that's. I recently wrote an article for INC. That was about the brand lessons from the Michelob Ultra guy. Did you? So this was like right around the same time. I don't remember which happened first, do you?

He did, and he got a much better gig. The guy holding the beer watching golf, right?

Yes, yes. So I'll link to my article in the show Notes as well. But so the. It was watching where Tiger woods was at the PGA Championship, I think. And everyone's on their phone and like watching through the phone and there's just the one guy who's standing there. And they kind of joke. It's like label out perfectly placed, watching Tiger where everyone else is on the phone. And I, I forget the exact phrasing of. So Michelob Ultra then makes an ad of it that's of the, you know, panning across the photo. And it's like some champions play in the moment, like others live in it. And it's like focused on this like, random guy that's just standing there watching. And you know, his name is. I feel like I'll throw this out and say Jeff, because, you know, Jeff, I know my friend who will Listen to this and appreciate. But it's like, Jeff, the guy is watching, right? I forget what his actual name is, Dan or whatever, but just the guy that's watching. And then Michelob. And so. But the. They created it, turned it into a commercial. As I said in my article, they have no obligation to give this guy anything because at any of these events, 100, you signed something somewhere saying they can use your image however they want in whatever version, in all of perpetuity, in time, and you get nothing. Right? It's any event you go to, I promise you sign something that says that. But so many comments were like, you better have found this guy. Like if, if you didn't. Like, we're going to be so angry as like the tweets are just raging about if they didn't. But they found the guy, tracked him down, gave him a deal of like. And they made shirts and custom cans with his image on it and hats that they were selling and they created a Twitter account for him of the real michelobuller guy or whatever. So yeah, a little bit different. Maybe Diet Coke has more notoriety than Michelob Ultra or what that they didn't care as much.

So it's, it's interesting. I think what it was. So the Michelob Ultra guy gets this great set up. The, the gentleman drinking the ocean spray on the longboard. I don't know if you remember this. Listening to Fleetwood Mac a couple. Couple of years ago. There's this guy just like carving on his longboard listening to Fleetwood Mac and drinking Ocean spray like from the bottle. And he was like really down on his luck. Like, I feel like he was like housing insecure or something. They like bought him a new truck and gave him all this money. So for me, Coke, Coke. I got a LinkedIn InMail from an intern at Diet Coke's external PR agency. And they're like, thanks for the tweet. We'd like to send you some Coke. They sent me a 24 pack and two six packs to, to my work because I was creeped out and didn't want to give them my. I was like, I don't know who this is, like. So I just gave them my work address and so they sent me like $20 worth of coke Diet Coke to my work address, which I'm not even drinking, so.

Well, I think it's also because we'll say it's because you're. They're respecting that your tweet was about not drinking Diet Coke anymore. Right? So we'll say where the Others are embracing their love of the thing. You were embracing your love of it while have given it up. We'll say that.

That's why I think if. If we want to get super. If we want to dive deeper on this than we should. I think that. I think the reason, at least partially the reason why they weren't more receptive is because sort of implicit in my message was the acknowledgment that it's not good for you. And I mean, I was, I was saying, like, look, it hasn't, you know, hasn't helped me much, but I think there was sort of a negative tinge to mine. Whereas these other folks are just enjoying it, like full on.

They're guzzling their ocean spray. Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, no, it is just all across the way. Very fascinating to see and observe. And you're like, you said yours was this interesting kind of like juxtaposition of love of a thing that you shouldn't, you know, in that way. But some. I bet, I bet Elon got sent more Diet Coke than you did.

Probably the rich get richer.

Oh, that's so funny. I will say too, I think as for anyone who wants to go test and try to have their own viral tweet. So one, I will definitely link to the tweet in the show notes and I will go back and find it and read. Read the exact. When I do the. The outro so you can hear. And I'll talk about this a little bit more when I record the outro for the episode. But it does a really nice job of. We've all seen, like, you said that like over the top tweet or thing that people say where it's like, oh, my skin is clearer, my life is happier, I'm amazing. Dreams are made, whatever. So you're extremely expecting that's what you're gonna read of, like, and you, you still read those of like, for people who do drink too much soda. And then you see the thing and you're like, well, like, what's the. Is there some benefit I haven't seen yet that is gonna make finally help me get off of the, you know, Diet Coke wagon or whatever? And then the things you listed are like, just making fun of it in a way that's like so perfectly phrased that it's like the flip of everything that everyone usually says. So it was just funny. Like, it's surprising that I think there's some of that, like dopamine that you get from it and then you want to look Smart and share to somebody else. It makes you laugh. It's funny, but it is, like you said, still vanilla. Good thing you didn't tweet about vanilla Coke. I feel like that is where the lines would have been drawn because that's even more polarizing of a topic.

So delicious. So good.

Oh, you like vanilla Coke? My husband.

I love Vanilla Coke. Yeah. Yeah, I love vanilla Coke.

0Oh, well, see, there we go. Whereas my husband's like vanilla Coke for anything. Absolutely not. It's a terrible thing to do. So perfect. Well, any last thoughts or insights for someone? And are you changing any of your behavior on your socials or anything from the glory of your 87 followers?

I've honestly just been really quiet, you know, because what it showed me was how quickly things could go wrong. So if you. If you think about most viral tweets, I mean, even. Even my viral tweet had a little cynicism and a little edge to it. Now it's pretty, like wholesome edge, but, like, you know, it had a little bit of negativity in it. And I think what was so relatable about it was that everybody has had that experience of trying to quit a bad habit or, and not being able to, or quitting it and not having the desired result. And so I think it was something people could empathize with. But a lot of the way that tweets go viral is they're controversial or they're negative or they're sort of bombastic. And it gave me. Even on such a low stakes tweet, there were people saying things to me like, you're an embarrassment to your profession, like, what kind of behavior change expert can't change his behavior? Blah, blah, you know, and you're like, oh my gosh, like, there's nothing, you know, there's nothing so low stakes that people on the Internet can't make a big deal about it.

Right?

And so it gave me a sense of the. The power and the ferocity of a crowd if it had truly been about something truly controversial or important. So sort of interestingly, it's made me kind of go into my shell a bit and just not. Not want to tweet at all.

Right. I can appreciate that. And where, you know, it is the. The dark side of going viral, I guess. And, and. But a really important lesson, like you said, where the be careful what you wish for, right? Like the. That we do, we want the going viral. But like you said, if it's in the wrong thing, you get the millions of views and Lost thousands of followers is such a. For something so random. Is. Is. Is so interesting like you said. And for that silly troll person that's saying that you couldn't even change your behavior. And I'm this is why like you said, you didn't go through and read all the comments because you should not. But that's where you want to say, like if you read it, you know that I haven't had it for 30 days. Like I obviously changed my behavior guy. So.

And.

And I'm sad about it, but I'm still moving on. I'm still sticking with it. Oh my gosh. So funny. So of course everyone should follow you at Daniel Crosby on Twitter even though you won't be posting anything.

No more hilarity. No, I will.

It's totally banal. Nothing of interest moving forward.

Exactly. Just boring market updates from now on. No. Yeah. So at Daniel Crosby on Twitter, I'm super active on LinkedIn, as you know, and then have a have my own podcast, Standard Deviations, where hoping to get you to be a guest and talk about your. Your new book. So. Oh, that's where you can find me.

Perfect. Well, yes to that. We'll definitely come and do that and will link to your LinkedIn and your Twitter and your books in the show notes and all of that so everyone can connect. And please do share. You know, if you have thoughts on Diet Coke or going viral or Vanilla Coke or whatever else or maybe something to do with behavioral science and investing, you can tweet tweet us about that too. So look forward to seeing you there. And thank you again, Daniel for joining me on the show to talk about this totally random thing that happened.

Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks.

Thank you again to Dr. Daniel Crosby for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? Before I get into my brain buzzing moment, as promised, I want to read the full language of the original tweet he posted, which was on June 8, 2022. Funny enough, I just realized that this episode is coming out again exactly one month later. Fun and serendipitous. I love it. Anyway, here is what it said. I used to drink tons of Diet Coke, but it has been one month since I've had a drop. I want to share some of the changes I've observed in myself over that time. My health is unchanged. I'm less happy. My one source of joy is gone. Thanks for encouraging me on this journey. As of pulling this a little less than a month later, this Tweet has over 522,000 likes, 6,098 quoted tweets, and nearly 44,000 retweets. Not to mention those posts from Elon Musk and lots of other mentions for Daniel on the Internet though again, he said it hasn't had a huge impact on his business or net number of followers and for me that is the biggest takeaway from the episode. Personally, I love this reframed perspective on what it's really like to go viral and what it means for individuals and brands. It feels like going viral is the ultimate and if we could only find that one perfect tweet or video or TikTok dance or reel or blog post or article or feature or whatever else, that everything will magically work out. We as humans feel this need to strive for that silver bullet, the one thing that will change everything. But in reality, it's a lot of little things, a lot of the right little things that add up to a life and business that makes a difference. Don't flit around and dabble in a little bit of everything, hoping you're going to hit the sharing lottery. Instead, put in consistent work in the right places and good things will come to you. It's a natural human tendency to get bored when things don't live up to your high expectations in an unreasonable time frame. But that doesn't mean you have to be a victim of your brain's biases. That's why you're here, to understand your brain a little better and use that insight to shape the life and business you want, know the problem you're trying to solve, who you're speaking to, where they're most likely to hang out, whether it's LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok or anything else, and then show up consistently. When I was recently speaking at IEX Europe and Amsterdam, my friend Priscilla McKinney, who was on episode 196 of the Brainy Business, did a session talking about showing up for for the LinkedIn cocktail party, treating virtual networking on social media, and considering every interaction as if you're speaking with a real person at a cocktail party, since you know there is a real human person, at least usually on the other side of the conversation. And perhaps my favorite phrasing of all time, she said to not go around pitch slapping people, which is amazing. And that can all go so much for further than others around you who are focused on their own message. That pitch slapping and never listening to other people or asking them thoughtful questions. Don't sit around hoping and lamenting over that one thing that could change everything. Instead, focus on one thing you can do each day to get a little bit closer to your goals and show up where it counts so people can rely on you and your content. That's what I've done here with the brainy business. Four full years of weekly episodes, 212 of them come out every week and never missing. That's 212. Well, really 209, I guess. Continual weeks because we came out with three episodes on day one anyway. Yes, it takes effort, but it's so worth it and has done more than if I had done a little bit on every channel. And before we close out today's episode, I want to thank you again for listening to the Brainy Business. Whether this is your first episode with us or you've been here for all future four years since those first three episodes dropped on July 6, 2018, I appreciate you. And as mentioned at the beginning of the episode, whenever you're listening, will you pay it forward and share an episode with a friend? If you love the brainy business, let's share it with more people from around the world who would love to be a little more brainy. Whether it's this episode 212 with Dr. Daniel Crosby or another of your favorites from the back catalog, I would so appreciate you helping to spread the word. So we hit that 600,000download mark right now and whatever the next milestone is whenever you're listening. None of this would be possible without you. So thank you again for listening, subscribing, sharing, rating and leaving those five star reviews. I appreciate you. And as a reminder, the show notes for this episode are waiting for you in the app you're listening to and at the Brainy Business. And just as a note, you can easily share a link to your favorite episode with a friend using that episode number after the URL. Like that. So the brainybusiness.com 212 is for this episode. And if you wanted to share the most recent best of episode, it would be thebrainybusiness.com 184 anything along those lines in the show notes for this episode you are going to find of course a link to related episodes like my conversation with Priscilla McKinney and those best of episodes I was just talking about, as well as related books like Dr. Crosby's Ways to connect with him to see that tweet and you can see how effective it was in the way he broke down the bulleted list. If you still want to try to go viral and have some good sharing and things like that and so much more. Again, it's all waiting for you at the brainy business.com 212 thank you again to Dr. Daniel Crosby for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me next week for another brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. Kicking off year five of the podcast. 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 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.