428. Habits Unveiled: The Science of Good and Bad Habits with Dr. Wendy Wood (Refreshed Episode)

Welcome to episode 428 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. Today's episode is all about habits, the good and The Bad with Dr. Wendy Wood. 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. Today's episode is all about habits, what they are and how to change them or reinforce them. Now, habits tend to get a bad rap. We typically just think about them when there's a big thing we want to change. Maybe we only consider them around the first of the year when thinking about resolutions, what whether we set them or not. But in reality, our brains run on habit. They are foundational to everything we're doing. So there are lots of good ones out there. And understanding all your habits and how they work can help you to be more successful yourself and as you think about your teams, customers and more. This conversation with Dr. Wendy Wood, author of Good Habits, Bad Habits originally aired in November of 2020 and is still so relevant and valuable.

I know you're going to love it.

And the practical tips mixed in with the research. Now don't forget there are links for everything including my top related past episodes and books waiting for you in the.

Show notes for this episode which are.

Found within the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 428 all right, let's talk about good habits and bad habits. Dr. Wendy Wood, welcome to the Brainy Business podcast.

Oh thank you. It's lovely to be here Melina.

Yeah, so excited to be chatting with you today. As I said in our little pre interview chat, have done a couple episodes about habits and how they work and changing behavior, but love having this direct from the source. The audience is so lucky to be hearing from you today. So before we talk about some of applying habits and whatnot, can you just give the baseline for anyone that's new to habit research about how habits work? In a nutshell, I guess.

Sure. And it's interesting. Habits are something that is not intuitive. We really don't know how they work and that's by design. It's not that we are overlooking something that we could understand. Instead, habits are part of our unconscious. They're a way our brain learns by connecting what we've done in a given Context that got us a reward. And the reward can be something as simple as just feeling pride or could be a good feeling that you get when you do something that's enjoyable to you. All mammals have a habit learning system because it's such an important way of understanding our environment and it's such a basic way. So whales have habits, your dog has habits, rats have habits. So given that you get a sense of exactly how basic it is, it doesn't involve our conscious decisions. The self that we know is the introspective, thoughtful, decision making self. Habits sort of fly under that radar. They proceed without us actually having to understand what they are or make a decision to create them. Instead, they are a way of sort of storing regularities in our environment and the behaviors that we perform so that we can do them again easily. We know what to do when we get in that situation. My standard example is me and coffee in the morning. I get up, I go stand in front of the coffee maker and I just do what I've done in the past. It's actually quite complicated because I like espresso and I grind my own beans and I do the whole thing. But I don't have to think about it anymore. And I don't ask myself, so this morning, do I want coffee? Do I need coffee? Maybe this is a morning without coffee. That never even occurs to me. Instead I'm thinking, what am I going to do for the rest of the day? What happened yesterday? And that's characteristic of a habit. You're repeating what you've done before while your mind is off solving other problems.

Right, right. I appreciate the coffee example. I think it's something we can all kind of relate to that morning routine of the things that we do. We've taken to drinking this Starbucks cold brew at home. They sell the bottles of it. And in the way of pandemic life where it's like ebb and flow of products that are available and you just can't find it anywhere right now. And so we tried. I know. And so we tried a different one and just don't like the way it tastes, you know, yesterday. And so I have my husband, you know, we had to drive to Starbucks and get something else today, but because you got to have something.

Yes. And I bet that actually felt very disruptive, right?

Yeah.

If you had had a habit to go to Starbucks, you would have done it automatically without thinking about it. And it would have being part of your day. But your habit was to have it at home, which actually sounds more pleasant to Me. But anyhow, it was to have it at home. And so switching habits is really difficult. You get the experience of, wow, I have to actually think, I have to problem solve, I have to deliberate, I have to figure out how to make this happen now, whereas before you didn't. And that's one of the real benefits of habit is it frees our mind to do other things and when it's not there, we're stepped back making decisions.

Right. Well, one of. I really loved the phrasing one of my clients had used recently that they were talking about how they had the COVID blahs was what they were terming it as. And I've actually been talking about that quite a bit in this piece of where all the things that you were able to run in that subconscious space that it was just happening, all those habits are so disrupted as we're working from home, teaching our kids from home, not used to doing the Starbucks run anymore. All those even just tiny little things that are now so different. Have you done much research into that space yet or had a lot of conversations? Any thoughts or tips for people as they're continuing probably to struggle with that blah problem?

There's many reasons to feel that with the virus, but one is definitely that all of our habits are disruptive or were initially. And we had to start making decisions about things that we don't normally have to think about. And that takes energy. And add to that the uncertainty about how to keep ourselves safe. What is a reasonable risk and what's not. How do we see people losing their jobs? People who I would never have predicted losing their jobs have done so. And so all of us have this generalized uncertainty that we're still dealing with even if we've solved the habit problem. And the habit problem is just going to slow us down. And that's what I would tell people at the beginning of the pandemic. Don't expect as much from yourself as you normally produce because you have to make so many decisions. But in a way it's also kind of liberating because you might find a new brand of coffee that you actually like better than Starbucks. The one that you tried obviously didn't work. But once we're removed from our habits and our making decisions, sometimes we just end up finding things that work better. So I hope that's true for most of your audience, that they found a few things that are actually making their life better.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I've speaking, like you were saying about the benefits that can come from it, looking for that Silver lining, because I work with business clients a lot saying, this is such an opportunity that you will potentially never have again in your business. Everyone's status quo has been disrupted in a way that they're needing to look for stuff where they normally would. And so if you can kind of sneak in and fill a gap where there wouldn't have even been any sort of awareness before, there's so much opportunity for companies to gain new customers and really fill needs people didn't have before. So I think again that. But it all starts with that base of habits not being able to run anymore. So people are looking for new partners and companies to use.

Yeah. One of the best examples of that is Italians starting to use Amazon the way the rest of the world does. They had a setup of small villages, people went out and shopped every day. Nobody was ordering stuff online. But now with the pandemic, they've been forced to do something different and they've realized, oh, it is really so much more convenient and efficient to get stuff delivered. You don't get to choose it and you don't see other people at the market. So there are downsides, but they're experiencing some of the upsides of that. And of course Amazon is very good at being nimble and taking advantage of those sorts of opportunities.

Yeah.

Hopefully it doesn't change that too much. Italy is one of my all time favorite places and I love strolling. I did three months in Rome in college and so the nostalgia that I have for that, I love walking through the streets, all the little shops and everything. So hopefully that won't change too much.

Well, hopefully they'll keep what is good about it and then order online for things that they wouldn't maybe normally have access to.

Absolutely. Hopefully. Yeah. Good balance so that it is useful for them and still paying homage to the heritage of all of what they've done over time.

Wonderful lifestyle.

Yeah.

Well, I want to talk a bit about. You use several running examples in the book and I relate to that a lot. And one of the things that I found so telling and fascinating was that for people who have running as a habit already, there were different cues and maybe primes that you're able to put in for them that worked, that didn't work for those that were trying to start the habit. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah. So this tells us something about how habits work. And what we found is that for habitual runners, the place where they typically ran activated thoughts of running and we found in other research that those thoughts are what perpetuate behavior? Most of the time, we just act on whatever thought is in mind. We can make decisions not to, but decision making is effortful. People are busy. Acting on the thought in mind is quick and efficient, particularly if it's something that you've practiced a lot in the past, like a running habit and you know how to do it. So running, if you're a habitual runner, is closely tied in your mind to the context where you typically run. This study was conducted at Duke University, and most of the runners ran in Duke Forest. So we would prime them or bring to mind concepts of Duke Forest. And they were very fast then to think of running and jogging. What was so interesting to us is that the goals people reported for running and people all have habitual. Runners have goals, fitness goals, time goals, they have relaxation, weight control. All of those are important goals. When we primed those or brought those to mind, running didn't follow. So that's what we mean by habit automaticity is that the context in which you typically perform a behavior is the one that can trigger thoughts of that behavior. Just like me standing in front of my coffee maker first thing in the morning primes thoughts of what do you do next? Well, start to grind the beans, but it primes those thoughts without me having to consciously think, what am I going to do? And that's what we found with habitual rammers. We also had some people in the study who ran more occasionally, sort of once in a while, the context where they ran didn't have any effect. For those people, the goals that they had for running, the reason why they got out there, brought thoughts of running to mind. So weight control, fitness. They immediately thought of running. And we think it's because for people who do something occasionally, they're still forced to make decisions, what am I going to do today? Do I really have to go running? And so they think of the goal, and then that's what leads them to running. They can convince themselves that that goal is not very important today. Then they don't go running. So it's a very different process for people who have habits and people who don't. Context activates habits, and we usually just act on those habits in mind. Goals are what drive our more occasional behaviors, things that we have to think about, make a decision to do.

So is there some sort of a hidden trick or thought process in there? When I was reading it, as someone who has had a running habit formed before and then was unfortunately in a car accident that made it so I couldn't run for a very long time and you're trying to bring it back. And now it's back in the goal mindset.

Right.

Like, well, my goal of healthy lifestyle doesn't exceed my goal of not getting rained on here in Seattle or whatever that is. Right. So is there something as far as thinking more about the goals at the very beginning and making that essentially top of mind to help form it into a habit or running in the same place at the same time, more consciously building it into a habit for yourself and trying to nudge those triggers along? Is there any way to do that?

Yes. Yeah. So habits form from repetition, doing something in the same way over and over. And that's when your brain starts to pick up habit memories. It starts to learn habit memories. So there are a couple of things you can do to make that more likely. One is obviously do it in the same way every time. And if you do that, you're going to be more likely to form a habit, but you also want to be able to repeat it regularly. And there are a couple of tricks to repetition. One is we're just much more likely to repeat behaviors that we find rewarding. And rewards don't have to be money. This is not economic incentives. Rewards can be things like, whoa, I'm proud of myself. I'm back to an eight minute mile. That's what I was doing before I was, I had an accident.

Not even close, but I get it.

So that kind of thing. Or you could try on some clothes that you haven't been able to wear for a while and then think, well, whoa, I'm getting back to my former self. All of those things are rewards that you experience when you run and that makes it more likely you will continue to do so. For you in Seattle, it might take buying some really fancy rain clothes that you really like to wear and that are rewarding to wear and that keep you dry, not too sweaty as you work out. So those rewards are really important. There's another thing though, that research has shown is really helpful and that is to find situations that make it easy for you to run. And that just kind of sounds obvious wrong, you know, and do something more if it's easier. Easier, but you can actually engineer that. So you can take your running clothes and put them in a bag and put them in your car or put your running shoes, if you go from home, put your running shoes by the front door, you can sleep in your running clothes even so make it more likely that you will do it. And I have a, an older son who is A highly motivated bike racer. He is just so committed to this. But motivation is not enough. He still has to set up his environment to make it more likely that he will train pre Covid. He would come home from work and there would be the couch and there would be his bike trainer on the side. And he would think, oh, maybe I'll sit on the couch for a bit. And we all know where that's going. Because he was tired. It was the end of the day, he'd been at work. So what he learned to do is put his bike trainer in the middle of his living room in front of the couch so that he would actually have to move it in order to sit on the couch. And he found that by making it easier for him to work out and harder to do anything else, he was much more likely to keep his training schedule. And all of your business listeners already know this, right? For retailers in stores, there's a saying, eye level is bi level. What you're doing is you're making it easy for people to buy things on a certain shelf. And at least in the wine section of my grocery store, all of the cheap wines are way down the bottom that you have to reach for. The more expensive wines are eye level and slightly above, because that's where people look in a grocery store and shoppers are influenced by that. But that's sort of a. That's a marketing technique that we can apply in our own lives to achieve our own personal goals. Make it easy. There's a lot of science behind this.

Yeah, absolutely. I had Roger Dooley on the show. It's been a year now, I think, almost exactly, probably from when these two come out. But talking about his book Friction and in that reducing friction and how much easier that can make everything in the buying process and just in life in general. And I'm sure for the running habit, because, you know, all habits are essentially formed on the same basis of action, right?

Yes. You have to do something.

The running habit, the coffee habit, the checking my email first thing in the morning habit, and feeling like all everything gets sort of like sucked into or social media or whatever that is. If you want to be more productive, there are some things that you can do with thinking about habits. Do you have some tips about any of that space?

Yeah. Along with the idea of making the desired behavior easier, you want to make the things that are troubling you, that are problematic more difficult. The most sort of graphic demonstration of this was a study done by. With two bowls of food, one had popcorn, buttered popcorn the other had apple slices. When the apple slices were right in front of participants and the popcorn was a reach away, they consumed 50 calories on average. When the popcorn was close by and the apple slices were a reach away, they ate three times more calories. And this is just as a snack in a study. And they could see both bowls of food. So it's not like you can see them differentially. They're all there. It's just that simple difference in ease. Put the popcorn, put the high calorie food away from you, and it has an effect on what you consume. Consume again. It sounds too simple, but oh, my gosh, it's not.

Yeah, but that's where you have to get to the base, the motivation, what the brain is trying to get, why you have the habit in any given case. It's not the simple of like, well, Netflix is just too enticing. There's nothing I can do to not binge watch it. But, you know, if you say, well, why am I doing that? What's my brain trying to accomplish? And with the new, you know, really kind of digging in on those is how you can fix them.

Yeah. The way I think about it is you need to reverse engineer what your environment is pushing you to do. So there was a psychologist, Kurt Lewin, middle of the last century, who believed that we are all being influenced by forces around us as well as forces in our head. But he believed in the forces around us, unlike many psychologists. And he thought that our behavior was a product of both driving forces that made us do things and resisting forces that stopped. So reverse engineering those forces in your environment can be really powerful. As an example, there's a study done continuing our exercise theme. There was a study done of how far people traveled to paid fitness centers, and this was done over two months with hundreds of thousands of cell phones. They're tracking cell phones. And what researchers discovered is that if you travel 5.1 miles to your gym, then you're likely to go once a month. But if you travel three and a half miles to the gym, you're likely to go five times a month on average. So that simple distance, about one and a half miles, is the difference between somebody who has an exercise habit and somebody who doesn't. And what it indicates is that if you can incorporate the desired behaviors, like going to the gym into your daily routine, if you can make it easy, I go to work, I go to the gym, that's on my way home, and then I go home, it's so much easier to actually get yourself to do these things. Friction is real in our lives. Those resisting forces are real. But we can reverse engineer them.

Yeah, well, and then I like that last point you made there too, being that the even if there's not a gym that's within three and a half miles of your house, maybe there is one that's within three and a half miles of your work. And so you can build the habit off of that location that you stop at or where you drop off the kids at school or you know, something that you can make it part of a routine, but something still close enough. And knowing that 5 miles is too far or 5.1.

Yes, you're just not likely to go. I mean it adds to the time, it adds to the hassle. Anything that adds to hassle reduces behavior. And Netflix, you know, you can actually disable the continued play on Netflix.

No, don't tell me.

So that you can gain control of it back again. Again, reverse engineering to try to gain control over the things that are causing you problems. For some people that won't be a problem, but if it is one for you, you can think through how to do it.

Right.

Yeah. No, I love that. So Nir Eyal has also been on the show and so for everybody who hasn't already listened to that episode on Indistraction, you'd want to check that one out. There's going to be lots of links in the show, notes to stuff we've been talking about, for sure. Wendy, I want to give you a chance. I promised you or you know, primed you with knowing that I like to ask, you know, if there are studies you haven't really talked about much you love that you've worked on that either didn't make it in the book or just don't come up all that often that you wish you could talk about. Do you have any that you would like to share with the audience of some favorite studies or insights or tidbits?

Yes, every researcher always has a favorite study and for most of us it's the one we're currently working on. Yeah. So this particular project is under review, so it really hasn't been published at all. But it's with social media because so many people you hear complaints about how social media is manipulating us. It's forming habits that we don't necessarily want takes up huge amounts of our time. All of those things are true. We went through and analyzed all of the habit forming aspects of social media. Even the scroll that you see has a way of heightening the reward for certain posts so you get one post that's really interesting, and then you get 10 others that are just bleh. And you just scroll through them. But the scroll allows you to experience that sort of unexpected, inconsistent reward. So your social media becomes kind of like a slot machine, right, for people who gamble that there's an unexpected reward. And we know that that's highly addictive and it's set up on purpose. But the two. So it forms habits very quickly, given how it's structured. And that's just one example. But we show two things in the paper. One is that the success of social media sites depends on. On habitual users. So it's the habitual users that make them successful. In fact, if people use social media only occasionally, they're negatively related to revenue. So if you have a social media site that people are using only occasionally, they're not clicking on the links and other sorts of things that generate revenue, and they're actually a drag on the system. So habits are central to that particular industry. So that's one thing we show is that revenue is closely tied to habitual use. And that's true probably in more industries than we're aware of, because we haven't really looked at those data in much detail. But I suggest your audience, because I think they'll be surprised at point. Some suggests very different ways of handling a particular customer group. Consumer habitual users respond very differently than non habitual users. And we show that in a study of Facebook, Facebook changed its posting display in 2008, and we have data on how that affected use. Facebook did that to get people to post more. And that was true in general. It did get people to post more, but it didn't get the habitual posters to post more because what it did is it changed the cues that they were responding to, and they actually posted less after the change than they did before. So back then in 2008, they had a good number of occasional users, and those occasional users were more likely to become regular users with the change, but it disrupted the habitual posters. So you have to be careful as a marketer that you're not creating by improving a product that you're not creating a problem for people who use it habitually. And probably the best known example of this is with Tropicana. Tropicana changed their the design of their orange juice cartons at one point and lost huge numbers of customers because people couldn't recognize it anymore on the grocery shelves. They may have gained new customers that way, but they ended up losing a lot of their habitual customers because they changed the cues that people were using to choose that product.

Yeah, yeah, I've talked about that a little bit in. And I give an example that is fictitious, but I talk about if you were marketing Cheerios, and if you have your habitual Cheerio buyers, that that's what they do for breakfast every morning. We get, you know, Cheerios, or maybe it's Honey Nut Cheerios. That's the thing that we get. Don't even think about or look at anything else. I get my orange or my yellow box and I'm good to go. But if you're marketing Cheerios and you think, well, there's Frosted Flakes and Cocoa Puffs and fruity whatever, you know, so we want to make the cinnamon version and the frosted version and the chocolate version and the fruity version. And so now maybe you're attracting some of the people that were buying Fruit Loops to buy yours, but you're probably actually, if you get those people, you give coupons to those who are buying Honey Nut Cheerios to go get the other ones. Now you've introduced this idea of doing something else for breakfast and, like, broken their habit. And if they like fruity cereal now, they're maybe more likely to think, well, maybe I should just go to the source, the original version of what this is, and it's probably better. So you're kind of pushing customers that were your best clients essentially out the door and in hopes that you're going to get some new ones in. So it's a really risky space to be in.

It is, yes.

And that. That's the end of that sentence.

It is, but what it suggests is that product manufacturers have to take habits seriously. They're designing to create habits, but any changes need to consider whether they're disrupting habits as well. I mean, if Campbell's Soup, if they got some wild idea that they should switch from that red and white can to something else, my husband would just freak out in the grocery store. He wouldn't know what to buy exactly.

And then you would just be distracted by trying to find and remember what you're getting. And maybe those blue cans look a little bit interesting now and you're going for something else. So. No, I love that example. It's so feel like we need to be chasing trends, but more often than not, it's good to just sort of keep with the habits that you already have.

Yeah. So that is the trick, how to keep up with current developments while taking advantage of the cues that already keep Your habitual customers coming back.

Yeah. Well, I was thinking as you were talking about that how most, for most industries, company types, what have you, the, you know, habits and revenue go together. And like you were saying, obviously with social media, Netflix, those sorts of things.

For social media, that's certainly true. I don't know if it's always true for other products. I just have the data on social media at this point.

Of course, of course. So I was thinking though, of as we've been, you know, got to bring it back to fitness again. And so when you look at that though traditional kind of a gym model, their revenues are actually kind of have an inverse relationship with the habit. Right. So not to say that they don't want people to come in because they do. We're giving the benefit of the doubt. They want people to be healthy, that's why they have a gym. But their model does rely on people not necessarily using it. But I did an episode earlier in the year about Peloton and one of the things I really like about the Peloton model, I don't know how much you're familiar with them, but because they use the network effect and it's from home for most people, there actually is a benefit for them of people building the habit and sticking with it and continuing to use what they have. So I really love that it turns that traditional fitness gym membership anti habit setup and making it about helping people to have healthier habits and that ties in with their revenue.

Yeah, it's an interesting perspective because one of the things I talk about in the book is Weight Watchers and weight loss programs in general. Now there's no that claims to form new habits. Those programs don't benefit from you actually losing weight and keeping it off. Their model is you lose weight, put it back on again, then you come back and pay the program again. They have a lot of repeat customers and unfortunately a lot of disillusioned customers as well. So it's a case in which the business model is not really well tied to the consumer. The reasons that consumers use.

Yeah, it's interesting to think through. I really appreciate that as we have more behavioral science, more understanding of the brain of habits from your work and so many others. And knowing I've talked to Julie o' Brien who's now head of behavioral science at ww, formerly Weight Watchers and know they want to be able to have a different model, but it just doesn't necessarily fit with what people do. And so hopefully as we're getting some of those behavioral scientists Behavioral economists into those industries be able to crack the code of what's actually happening with habits. And so more can be on the good habits tied with revenues and good companies doing great work.

That would be nice. Yeah. Yes. Align consumers goals with company goals.

Yeah, I think a lot are doing that these days and hopefully, hopefully more. So is there anything that you feel that we've missed? We've obviously talked quite a bit about examples from good habits, bad habits. There will be a link, of course, in the show notes for people to check that out. And I will give you, of course, an opportunity to share, you know, more ways to learn from you and get in contact. But are there any questions you wish I had asked or that you think are really important for the audience to know about before we wrap up?

There's one insight that people should take home from studying habits and that is if you want to change your behavior the way you typically go about it is not the most effective. We focus on our conscious decision making self while our habits run off sort of in the background without us realizing that they're there. And there's a study that illustrates this really well, I think the issue of the different approaches you can take. And it was a study to try and get people in a four story office building to use the stairs more and to quit using the elevator. So the researchers started off doing just what we do in changing our own behavior, which is they started off trying to convince people how important it was, commit them to this whole thing about taking the stairs. It's good for your health, take the stairs, saves energy. So they put signs up all over the elevators, had no effect. People kept taking the elevator. So what they did is they tried a little bit of this friction which our behavior is very responsive to. They slowed down the closing of the elevator door by about 16 seconds and with that a third less trips on the elevator. The elevator tricks were cut by a bird. So what that shows is that people are really sensitive to small amounts of friction on their behavior. And what was so wonderful about the study is four weeks later, when the researchers put the elevator back to its normal speed, people kept taking the stairs. They had started doing so when the elevator went wonky and they couldn't, weren't willing to wait for it anymore. But they kept doing it because they formed a habit to take the stairs. They figured out how to do it. They figured out that it actually does increase fitness and is good for you. And so they started to feel good about doing that and they kept doing it even when the elevator sped up to normal. So if you can do those sorts of things in your own life to make it easier for you to do the right thing and harder to do the thing that's plaguing you, it's giving you problems, then you'll make it much easier to change your behavior, change the environment.

Awesome. That is a fantastic example. I love how it shows just the tiniest little tweak that can make such a big difference. So thank you so much for that and all the wonderful insights that you've shared with us on the show today. And now, what is the best way for people that want to learn more from you? Get insights, any of the socials or how do people get a hold of you?

I am on Facebook, I'm on Twitter and I'm on Instagram. My Twitter handle is Rothwendywood. It's great if people want to get in touch with me that way. I'm also on LinkedIn and I teach at the University of Southern California. So all academics have easily discoverable emails.

Yes. If someone wants to do just a tiny bit of work, they can figure that out. So we will link to your Twitter in the show notes, we'll have a link for good habits, bad habits. For everyone that I know is excited to go pick that up, it is definitely worth the read, as is all of Wendy's work. So thank you again for joining us on the show today.

Wendy. Thank you, Melina.

So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about habits from Dr. Wendy Wood today? For me, there are a few things that always come to mind for me when thinking about habits. First is that cycle of a cue which is repeated in a specific context and is resulting in some sort of a reward. Understanding these details and how habits work is so key in knowing how to reinforce the good stuff and change the ones that aren't serving you anymore. Next is in making those bad habits harder and good habits easier. Like sleeping in your running clothes, making.

It easier to go out and run.

In the morning and not keeping your favorite indulgent snacks at arm's length so you have to put in a little effort to get them. Or another great study.

I love sharing. Now when I talk about incorporating what.

I call thoughtful sludge is the one where they slowed down the elevator doors by 26 seconds and people started to naturally take the stairs. These were people who had likely intended to take the stairs, who knew logically it was better for them when they.

Were in a cold state.

But in the moment, the elevator is just so easy and convenient. It's easy to say you'll take the stairs next time, but when the doors take what feels like an eternity, it's a simple nudge to take those stairs now and can quickly form a new habit. As you consider habits for yourself, your team and your customers are Remember the default an episode I just refreshed and what their status quo is. Where's the reward, what's the context and what's easy and convenient? Where do you fit in and how can you make the good habits easier and the bad ones harder? Keep all this in mind and get ready for this upcoming Friday's episode with Scott H. Young, who will be here to talk about his new book, Get Better at Anything. You definitely don't want to miss this one, so if you aren't already subscribed to the Brainy Business podcast, set up a good habitual cue by doing so.

Now to ensure you never miss an.

Episode, including that one. There is of course a link in the show Notes to make it easy, along with links to my top related past episodes and books like Good Habits, Bad Habits and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 428. And just like that, episode 428 with Dr. Wendy Wood is done. Join me Friday for a brand new episode with Scott H. Young to discuss his book Get Better at Anything. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don'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. Melina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.