Remarkable People - Behind the Podcast: The Science Behind Change

Foreign. Hello, It's Guy Kawasaki. I am the chief evangelist of canva, creator of the Remarkable People podcast.

And.

And I am the host of this show every Wednesday at 10am Pacific. And the reason why it's 10am Pacific is because that's just perfect timing. So I can surf in the morning and then do the show. So here I am. I'm in Santa Cruz, California. Today's Wednesday, obviously. And every Wednesday at 6:30am Pacific, we release a new episode of Remarkable People. And this week's episode is Katie Milkman. Katie is the professor at Wharton. And I forget exactly what she's a professor of because it's a very complicated title. We go over that in the podcast. But yesterday was a very big day because her new book came out. I got to get the light right here. So it's not so easy. So it is called how to Change. So guess what this book is about. Actually, it's about $25, but it's about how to change, and it's both about how to change yourself and how to change other people. So how to influence and persuade people. A good model for thinking about Katie is she's kind of like a younger female, next generation Bob Cialdini. So if you're into Bob Cialdini and he has a book. Wait, let me get that book. This is actually Influence Fortnite, not. Not the game. So how to Change from Katie. And the next week's guest is Bob cialdini with influence 2.0. This is the new version. It is roughly twice as thick as the previous version. So think of her as a young Bob. So it's a young Bob this week and old Bob next week.

And.

And. Well, first, as an icebreaker question, you know, because I think it may be a dangerous assumption to think that everybody thinks that change is important. Some people may think that the status quo is good enough. So let me know your opinion, your thoughts, your comment. How important is change for you? And do you think change is important? Fire away the comments because we're using restream, who is a sponsor of the live broadcast here. And so with Restream, all the comments, believe it or not, come into one place. So Restream can actually stream your live video to roughly 30 sites at once. And what now we're doing right now is Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. So I'm getting the comments from those sites at once, in one place, which is the only way you can do multiple sites, multiple comments, because if you try to have multiple windows open for each platform, you would make yourself freaking crazy. So send your questions in, send your thoughts. You know, just do you think change is important? And let's see. Jeff, any comments coming in right away because I got a lot of time today. Oh, okay. Thank you for that reminder. So I have started a what I call a text based extended ohana. I'm sorry but it only works for U.S. and Canadian numbers. So if you send a text message to 831-609-0628, we'll walk you through signing up for this text based communication. So it's kind of like mailchimp. Well, with some differences. So it's like mailchimp only text based because I think more people read their text messages than read their email. And the way it works is I send out a text message that goes one to many because there's like a lot of subscribers already. And then if you write back to me, that's now one to one. And then if I write back to you, it's also one to one. So it starts off one to many and then it goes one to one after that. And I position it as a way to keep in touch with me. Extended ohana machines are standing by. 831-609-0628. So I'll tell you one of my favorite stories. Oh, okay. Let's go with Helen. Change happens all the time. How did. How to do it smartly and gracefully is important. Helen, I agree with you 100%. And you will therefore love Katie's book. You'll love Bob's book too, but you'll love Katie's book. There's a great, great example in her book. So there are these services I didn't know about till I interviewed her. There are these services where you, you have to. One of the principles is you kind of have to make a, like a reward system or an anti reward system. I'll explain what that means to force you to discipline yourself. So for example, you could say, you know, my goal is to write a book. Or my goal is to lose 10 pounds. Or in my case, my goal is to be able to walk to the nose of a surfboard in the water. Of course. And so you set up these goals and then you can have two kinds of rewards. So one reward is if I don't, if I don't achieve the goal, then I have to Give, pick a number. $500 $1,000, $250, $50. I have to give it to my friends. Or you could also do kind of an anti goal where if I don't Achieve what I want to achieve, then the money is going to something that I dislike. So, for example, with my scenario, let's say that I set up a goal that if I don't learn how to walk to the nose of a surfboard, then I have to give $1,000 to the NRA or the Republican National Committee or, you know, I have to buy $1,000 worth of my pillows or contribute to the Rudy Giuliani Defense Fund. So the thing, the thinking there is, guy you like, dislike those things so much that the last thing on earth you'd want to do is give them $1,000. So you will force yourself to lose weight, walk to the nose, whatever there. I love that theory. So yeah, so that's one of the great examples. And not, you know, send in your comments. Do you think that would work on you? So you can give it to something you like or you can give it to something you hate. And either of those I think would be a very strong motivation. Let's see. What if I say I want to bring change in other people's lives? Is change always about oneself? I would say Amitra Amart. I hope I got that name. Amartya. That it's, there's, there's, in this, Katie's book, there's things about how to change yourself, I. E. Those two examples I cited of a positive or a negative, you know, a thousand bucks to someone you like or giving thousand bucks to someone you don't like if you don't achieve the goal. So that's about self change, just weight loss skills, you know, doing things. But much of the book is also about how to influence and persuade people. Absolute principles. So I'll read you the, I'll read you the table of contents. So the table of contents, it starts off with the negative factors of impulsivity, the negatives of procrastination, the forgetfulness, how that impacts change, laziness, how that impacts change, confidence, how that impacts change, and finally conformity. So these are the things that she tackles. She calls this tackling the obstacles to change. Impulsivity, procrastination, forgetfulness, laziness, lack of confidence and conformity. So yeah, so those apply to both internal and external. And it is quite an interesting book. If you read this book in influence, you kind of have it covered. So yeah. So let's see, any questions here? If you could change anything in your life, what would it be? I can answer that. Well, you guys send your comments, your answers to that be very interesting. What if I could change anything in your life? What would it be? I have to say that I'm pretty happy with my life. Not that I can't walk to the nose yet, but I wish I could lose ten pounds. Actually, maybe I should do one of those services and say if I don't lose ten pounds by. See, this is May. So let's see. Let's not be unreasonable. Let's say I lose a pound a week, 10 weeks. Call it 12 weeks, three months. So June, July, August. So by September 1st, if I'm not 185 pounds, I have to give $1,000 to the NRA. I might do that. I might just do that. All right, so my answer would be I want to lose 10 pounds. So there you go. Okay. What is Katie's last name again? Kerry Keller. It is Milkman. So just like you think you would spell it, Milk and man. Somewhere back in her life, in her heritage, there must have been a dairy farmer in there. So just like if your name is Taylor, I would have studied harder and learned more in my engineering college. Yeah, I guess you could. That would be. That would be a fair thing for many people to say. But I think at least you realize you should have done that. So my. Also my answer to that would be that, frankly, your life is not over. So maybe you should have learned back then, but now you can still learn it now, so what's the problem? Oh, and Jeff, that just flashed by. I wish I could find motivation for tasks that I don't enjoy. That's what I would change if it could be anything in my life. Well, Mary, you know, there is that idea of the negative or positive donation of money. I would also say last week's guest was Mark Manson, and he had a very interesting observation, which is that instead of simply looking for the things that bring you great joy and you're very good at, you know, just like that whole positive kind of wonderful experience. He said what you should do is you should look for shit sandwiches that you enjoy. Now, that may seem like an oxymoron, but what he's basically saying is that, you know, you get great value and you progress. When you find something that's difficult, hard to do, you may not even like it, but you feel passionate about it, you're interested in it, so you're willing to put up with the shit. And so because anybody can like to do something they're good at, how many people can like to do something? How many people can like to do something they're not good at? So when you find a shit sandwich that you like. I think that that means you're onto something because anybody can find a great sandwich that you like. That's not hard. You got to find a sandwich that you like. So life is about finding sandwiches. Basically my impulsivity and my procrastination. £15 sounds great too, you know, Impulsivity and procrastination. There is a chapter about procrastination in here. Let me just, let me just go to it here. I'll read. I'm gonna do readings from people's books now. So let's see. Procrastination is chapter three. Starts on page 61. See? Oh, okay. This is a great example. So the example she opens up with her chapter about procrastination is there was a bank in the Philippines that created a kind of checking account. Wrap your mind around this. Okay. It created a kind of checking account where you could only put money in, you could not take it out. Well, I mean obviously there were conditions under which you could take it out, but you couldn't just take it out willy nilly. So there was a time, a minimum amount of time or a specific, you know, milestone or something like that. But it wasn't just a checking account. That stuff goes in and out. And so they tried this experiment and people who, people who got that account save much more money because they could not procrastinate about. Was already being taken and you couldn't touch it again. It's kind of also the power which she discusses the power of a default, which is to say the classic example is if a company, when you become a new employee, if the default is to contribute to your 401k or do a stock purchase plan, if the default is set to that, then you have to deselect the default to get out of it. That is much more powerful than saying click here if you want to join the 401k. So I think that absolutely totally makes sense. Now imagine if the IRS tax return said you are going to contribute $1 to the presidential campaign unless you click this box. Did get a lot more donations. Not clear to me. That's a good goal, but so it's that kind of thing. Yeah. So what's stopping you from doing what you want? That is a great question. What is stopping you from doing what you want? I think that for many people what's stopping you from doing what you want is uncertainty and lack of self confidence. And what my podcast has shown me over and over again is that the ability to fake it until you make it is a very valuable and important Skill. And I would further tell you that the bulk of people out there are faking it until they're making it. I might even further tell you that with some exceptions, but not many, the more confident a person appears, the more that person is faking it until you make it. So this has two consequences. Number one is faking it until you make it is a good and important skill. Number two, when you find somebody who's totally confident, that person is probably faking it. So you should use that to your advantage. Because if the person is faking it, call him. Call him or her on the bluff because it'll help you in your negotiation. So when somebody says, I know this is true, I know this is going to sell, I know it's whatever, call them. They're faking it. 90% of the time, they're faking it. So don't be afraid of calling people. What else here? What's stopping us from getting what we want is a difficult pathway to get there. Well, yeah, I mean, that's hard to argue against that. But I will tell you, there's a level of sophistication to that thought, which is what's blocking you on the path. I think many people focus on the externals. Cost, availability, expertise, education, whatever, right? Competitors, colleagues in your way, whatever, all these external things. But I think what I learned over the course of my lifetime is that the bigger barriers are the internal things. It's the ones in your head, which is getting back to fake it till you make it. So I would recommend a great book for you, and I've done this over and over again. So the book is called if youf Want to Write by Brenda Uland. And now, many of you may not be writers, but no matter what skill you're trying to accomplish, just stick that verb in there. For if you want to write, if you want to engineer, if you want to program, if you want to market, if you want to entrepreneur, if you want to video, if you want to photograph, just whatever you want to do, put that verb in there. And you should read this book. The gist of it is, if you want to write, write. Don't wait for that perfect day. Don't wait till you have your PhD in English, don't wait for external approval, and don't work for internal self confidence. Just freaking right? And that book, when I was younger, changed my life. Absolutely changed my life. So there you go again. I want to mention that this, this podcast is sponsored by restream. This is not. Not the podcast. I'm sorry, the Live stream is sponsored by Restream. And, and remember the key selling points of Restream, because if you ever go live, seriously, if you ever go live on social media, you got to look at Restream. So you can live stream on 30 social channels. You can see chat messages from all the platforms. You can have up to 10 guests who can come onto the live stream with you. Maybe we'll try that later today. You can play recorded videos into the stream. You can customize with overlays and logos and backgrounds. You see that Powered by Restream in the upper left hand corner? That's what we're talking about. You can schedule the date and times and also have reminders go out automatically. People can download or you can download the audio and video of your stream for archival or repurposing. And you're streaming with stereo sound in full hd. So that's Restream. So if you are a person who ever needs to stream live, you ought to look at Restream. That's what we use. Okay, any other questions here? Any other comments? Fire away here. The fear of failure and loss, loss of whatever you've already gained, stops many people. Absolutely, Mary. And you know, one of the principles that Katie and I just discussed is the concept that the fear of a loss is more powerful than, than the joy of a gain. And to put this in monetary terms, think about this. If somebody says you're gonna lose $50 versus somebody says you could win $50, which one would be a greater motivation? And I don't know, in terms of weight loss, let's say somebody said you're gonna lose $1,000 if you don't lose 10 pounds by September 1st. Or if somebody said, if you lose 10 pounds by September 1st, I'm going to give you $1,000. Research says that the loss of $1,000 is more motivating than the gain of $1,000. You need to think about that if that applies to you. So my thinking would be, you know, $1,000 is not going to move the needle in my life. It's not going to change my lifestyle. So gaining $1,000 is not that big a deal. Now you could say, well, guy, it's the same loss of $1,000. If gaining a thousand is going to. Isn't going to move the needle. Losing a thousand isn't going to move the needle. But it would just so piss me off that I lost $1,000, you know, because if I saw $1,000 laying on the sidewalk, I tell you something, I will bend over and pick it up. Right. So then you could also say, well, guy, if you're losing $1,000, you really, it cost you $2,000 because you're losing 1,000 of after tax. And so now you would lose 1,000 in after tax, which means you had to make 2,000 to lose that 1,000 after tax. On the other hand, if you gain $1,000 by losing weight, like, who in their right mind is going to report that as income? So it really is a , it's not 500 after tax. So anyway, yeah, we're going deep into the hole of the concept of the fear of a loss versus the positive factors of a gain. So what else, what else have people said and commented? If you could ask one person for advice, who would it be? That's a good question. Ask yourself that. If you could ask one person for advice, who would it be? Who would that be? For me? Let me think about that. I. Okay. You may find this bizarre. It may be Bob Cialdini. Because I just, I hold Bob Cialdini in such high regard. He is the social psychology whiz. He wrote the book Influence. You know, this book. He will be the guest next week. So I love to ask him questions about how to get more subscribers, how to get more people to get vaccinated, all these kind of practical and tactical questions. So in fact, in my case, I actually do get to ask the person that I want to ask the question that I want to ask. But who is that for you? That would be very interesting. I bet a lot of people say Steve Jobs. But let me tell you something, let me give you a piece of advice there. If you ask Steve Jobs a question, if you could, obviously he's dead, but if you could ask Steve Jobs a question, you better be frickin prepared. In fact, I would make the case that if you ask Steve Jobs a question, you better already know the answer. And even more important, you better already know what he's going to answer. Because Steve Jobs was not the kind of person to pull on the side and say, so Steve, casually speaking, what do you think about this? Just that that is an unimaginable scenario because basically you did not want to give Steve an opening to rip you. And asking a dumbass question like that would definitely he would rip you. So if you're thinking you'd want to ask Steve Jobs, like, let's say you're an entrepreneur and you're saying, okay, so my fantasy is I would be able to ask Steve Jobs what he thought of my patent pending Curve jumping, paradigm shifting, New way to, I don't know, new kind of cyber currency. Let me tell you something, you do not want to ask Steve a question like that. So I'd be interested in your comments. So, speaking of Carl Jung. I like that. Yeah, that would be a good case. Yes, yes. Peter Drucker would be another one. Bill McDermott. I don't know who Bill McDermott is. Peter Drucker would be interesting. Richard Branson would be interesting. Also. Elon Musk, you could ask Elon Musk and then do the opposite. So I. I have a question for you. Now, this is a really dead serious question, so. And I really want a response. And in fact, you know, comments, it's going to be hard to tally comments. So really feel strong. Who is.

That? Hello, It's me. It's Katie. Can you see me? It. Guy? Can you see me? I'm here. I'm excited to be.

Here. Well, oops. The best laid plans of my mice and men go astray. Okay, now.

Katie.

Hello. How you.

Doing? I'm great. How are.

You? Good, thank you. So, everybody, this is Katie Milk mode. How to change. So I've.

Been. I have it, too. What a.

Coincidence. So how is it going so.

Far? Oh, my gosh. Everyone told me this was a roller coaster, but I didn't get what they meant until I got on.

It. So are you. Are you going up the roller coaster or down the roller.

Coaster? I'm not sure right now. Honestly, yesterday was. I couldn't eat yesterday. I was, like, queasy from all the things that. All the things that were pummeling at me. I think I'm feeling better today. Getting used to the roller coaster. Yeah, it's been lots of fun. Many great.

Conversations. I've done this 15 times. So trust me that the roller coaster does end. And you're gonna say, God, I wish the roller coaster ride lasted longer. So.

Enjoy. You've done this 15.

Times. Why? I have written 15.

Books. I don't think I knew that. That's amazing. You are even more incredible than I.

Appreciated. I don't know about that. But, you know, some people think that I wrote one book 15 times as opposed to 15 books one time. But we could get into that debate. So I. I told everybody the story of giving a thousand dollars to the NRA if I don't lose weight. So. And I also told them the story of the bank in the Philippines. So, Katie, give them. Give them your best tips for how to change. We have thousands of people watching right now.

So. So have you told them about making it.

Fun?

No. Or temptation.

Bundling? Well, no. I mean, Katie, I had to leave something for you. Geez, thank.

You. You left me the good stuff. I mean, not that giving a thousand dollars to NRA isn't highly motivating and good stuff, but I'm glad you left me the fun. The fun part. Okay. One of the most interesting things that I have learned about change is from research by Ayelet Fishbach and Caitlin Woolley, who are professors at the University of Chicago and Cornell. And they have this really brilliant insight that different people go about change different ways. And they found that most people, when they want to pursue change, what they do is they. They say, I'm gonna find the most effective way possible to achieve this goal. So say you want to build a fitness routine. They go to the gym and they say, what's the maximally effective way to do this? And they jump on the punishing stairmaster and they burn a lot of calories and they have kind of an unpleasant time doing it and they maybe don't come back. Then a smaller subset of people makes a different decision. They say, I'm going to do this the most fun way possible. So they go to the gym, they look for the thing they'll enjoy most. They say, I'm going to go to Zumba class with my friends. They love it and they keep coming back. And their basic insight is that if we actually instruct people, encourage people to pursue change in ways that are fun, you'll end up seeing more persistence. Maybe that individual gym visit won't be quite as ideal in terms of your long term goal, but you keep at it and net net, it's much better. So they've done all sorts of research showing this, you know, in the domain of exercise, when it comes to eating, when it comes to studying, if we pursue these goals in ways that we enjoy, we persist longer. And I actually had done some research before I knew about this, because they hadn't even yet had this insight that I think is really related, but it's really a tactic for making it fun to change. And the tactic I'd studied was something called temptation bundling. And the simple idea is linking something you enjoy immensely, a temptation, with something you need to do more of, but find to be a bit of a choreography. So for me, it was exercise. I needed to exercise more, I wanted to exercise more. I didn't love it, and so I only let myself. And I'm a nerd, so you might binge watch TV shows instead, but I Only let myself listen to tempting audio novels. So think like Alex Cross by James Patterson series or Harry Potter only when I was at the gym. And I started craving trips to the gym and loving it while I was there and not wasting time at home on this entertainment when I should have been doing other things after I'd gotten my workout in. So those are a couple of tactics that I really love. Make it fun. And one way to do it is temptation.

Bundling. So I just want to bring you up to speed that my nose walking on in surfing is much better now that I thought that I might have to give a thousand bucks to the.

Nra. I'm so glad you hear that. I had a lot of trouble remembering what you were calling that nose.

Walking. Yeah, well, you know, it's like you play tennis. What. What can I say? So. So what, what. What do you have? Like, any great. You know, you're gonna be on Good Morning America or ABC or CBS or Fox News or something. You know how to get people to not get vaccinated. You. You got any, like, big media things.

Coming? Planet money, 10% happier. I did a CNBC thing yesterday. What have I done? I can't even remember all the things. Hidden brain, Bill Nye. There's a lot of things. Doing a lot of things, which is fun as you. Yeah, I've made it.

Fun. So. So you got interviewed by Bill.

Nye. I'm doing Bill Nye, I think, on Monday. And actually, you will love this. This is such a. This is a nerd fact. I'm extra excited. He was an alum of my high school, and when I was a senior in high school, I organized an event, like, a special day, and he. He was the keynote speaker. And I. So he's like the guy that came and that I get to talk to him about my research next week. So extra heartbeat palpitations for happiness. Also, I don't know if I told you, I'm married to an astrophysicist, so I love hard.

Science. You're married to an.

Astrophysicist? Have I not told you that?

Yes. Wow. So your kids must be really bright. That's why your son must be really smart. That's why he likes his remarkable.

Tattoo. I'll let you know. He's fine. He's really liking that tablet, though. It actually is.

Amazing. So how many. How many things have you already recorded or been on?

Dozens.

Dozens.

Really? This is a weird era for doing a book launch because it's all about podcasts.

That's. Yeah, but you know Kate, let me tell you something. So I'm so old, I used to do book tours. Okay. And I mean. I mean, if you're Michelle Obama.

You were so old that you had a book come out before the.

Pandemic. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I mean. Yeah. But I'll tell you, you know, if you're Michelle Obama and you do a book tour and, you know, you go to New York City and you're on Good morning America at 6am and then you do a signing at Barnes and noble and there's 3,000 people, and then lunchtime, you're on, you know, CNN, and then you do another appearance with, I don't know, Martha Stewart. And at night, you do another one at Borders bookstore and another 3,000 people. That's like Michelle Obama book tour. Okay, but most people like me. Yeah, yeah. So most book tours, for most authors, you. You get on a morning talk show, maybe in radio, right? And then. And then you. You have a couple signings a day, 100 people show up for each signing, 25% of the. So you 25% of the hundred buy a book. So you sell 50 books, and then you get on a plane, you go to the next city, you sell another 50 books. But now, doing the way you do, you're sitting at your house, right? You have your son near and your astrophysicist husband, and you do 40 or 50 interviews, you probably reach 5 or 10,000 people right now. With me, there's no way that you would have reached 10,000 people. Yeah, there's no way you would have reached 10,000 people on an analog book tour. 14 days, 14 cities. Yeah. This is better. This is.

Better. It seems better. Although I have to say, you know, I miss the personal connection, and I would have liked to see all my former students in cities around, and I like traveling. But you're right. I'm sure this is more. More.

Efficient. It is. So I just. I just want to know, am I the best interviewer you've ever.

Encountered? The very.

Best. Yeah. You're so full.

Of. Hey, you're great. I've. I've connected you, lots of my friends, and actually not with many people. So reveal.

Preference. Well, you're gonna. You know, you're live on my podcast today. You're gonna love that episode. So you're gonna listen to it? Yeah, you're gonna listen to it, Katie, you're gonna say, wow, I had no idea. I'm so.

Intelligent. That's because you cut out all the ums.

Right? Well, not all of Them, you know, I. I, like, literally, I would cut them all out. But Peg and Jeff, who work with me on this podcast, they think that some connotate the fact that you're deep in thought. And so if I eliminate all the ums, sometimes there's not enough of a pause, so people don't think you're thinking hard enough. And then, you know, you're like, flip.

It. And we don't want scientists. There's, like, a research study that half of my graduate students would be ready to run on that right.

Now. What? Where their arms make you.

That's. That's stuff on. If you have books behind you in your background, people rate you as more intelligent and more interesting and warmer. I know you did a good job. Mine. I think mine are actually. I'm ducking the wrong way because I have bad spatial instincts. I don't think mine are prominent.

Enough. Well, I mean, who has. Who has their own book at the end of the shelf on two shelves in real life? I just wanna. I just wanna point out that my book is not on that shelf behind.

Me. Look, that's because you're not on your book tour anymore. No, thank you. It was blurry. What are we. What she said now I want to know. Sorry. I'm glad that whoever it was just zoomed out of my face. I'm so interested. Which of those do you most.

Recommend? The book that I.

Wrote. No, I love Steven Pinker, the book that you.

Wrote. Of course. That's my most. You see that space right there? You see the red one and the next one.

Growing. I've read my book. I know you love my book, and I thank you for loving my book. Thank you for making my book better, by the way, and giving me amazing feedback on it. But. But now I need a book to read. I already read my book. What's your second recommendation from that.

Shelf? Let me think about that. Well, first of all, the algorithm for that shelf is every one of those books is written by a guest on my podcast. Because I only have remarkable people on my podcast. You know, you gotta have accomplished something to be. Well, there's no sense telling you to read Angela D. Duckworth book, because I know you read.

That. I did. And you know, you know what's the weirdest is when you listen to. I actually listen to it. I'm an audiobook person, as you can probably tell from my story about temptation bundling. It was weird to listen to a book by a friend because I talked to her all the time. But then I was Interrupted be like, but Angela. And I was like, wait, nope. I'm listening to a recording of Angela. This is not a.

Conversation. What if you find out that your friend in real life is not as intelligent as in.

Writing? Well, all of all humans are not as intelligent in real life. That would not be a discovery. Well, because you don't get to reflect. There's not a. All we get is one to say.

Something. I have a book for you to read. So, you know, when I need some light reading, you know, beach reading under the sun, I read this.

Book project to find the fundamental theory of physics. Oh, this is. And it is the wrong person in my.

Household. Yeah, I should send him. Tell your husband. Seriously, tell your husband. Husband that Stephen Wolfram is one of my.

Friends. He will be impressed. Very.

Impressed. He will be.

Impressed. You know, I'm an engineer, so I use Wolfram stuff for a lot of Mathematica. Yes. That's where I learned to do machine learning. Is in. In Mathematica or. No, that's how I learned a different. What did I. Integrals. Integrals were Mathematica. I'm mixing up matlab. It's all so blur. So mathematically important.

So. So I, I. You know, so far in my podcast, I've had two MacArthur Fellows, right? So Angela and Stephen. And then you're helping me get the third. You're gonna send them, and then someday you're gonna get one, and I'm gonna say, I have four. How do you.

Know? I know. I know these people. They're my friends, and they're in another.

Category. No, Katie. Like, oh, my God. Katie, you know, may I reckon. May I recommend this book, how to Change, so that you can change your outlook, your mindset that you think that those people are in another category, and you can't win a MacArthur Fellows Award. You need to read this book. You know, like, first of all, you should think about being a MacArthur fellow, and you should bundle that with some kind of real positive, fun event in your life. And then you should have these great temptations that go with it. And then you should say, if I don't win a MacArthur Fellowship, I'm going to give $10,000 to the Republican National.

Committee. Oh.

Gosh. These are just.

Thoughts. Wait. Actually, this is a really important prescription. It's not a good idea to use a commitment device for a goal that is not where you don't have the agency to achieve it. That's me under your.

Control. Well, first of all, it is under your control to win a MacArthur Fellows Award. You just have to be freaking remarkably outstanding. So that's in your control. Oh, my God. We're gonna have to censor. We're gonna have to cut this interview because you're showing signs of a little bit of hypocrisy here, Katie, that you know of anybody in the world. It would be like. Okay, let me give you a metaphor that you will truly appreciate. What if I had Carol Dweck on my podcast or in this live stream, and I said, carol, I'm going to take you surfing. You. You would love surfing, Carol. And what if Carol said to me, guy, I cannot learn. Yeah, what. What if Carol Dweck said, guy, I cannot learn how to surf? That would be such. I would. My jaw would be on the ground. I would have to say, carol, have you heard of this concept called the growth mindset? No. A fixed mindset would say that you cannot learn a new skill like surfing, but a growth mindset means that you can learn that. So, Carol, I recommend this book called.

Mindset. I Don't Want to Learn to Surf. I think that's.

Different. Yeah, but saying you don't want to learn something is just a thin disguise for saying you don't think you can achieve Jesus.

No.

Maybe.

Okay. I bet you, Bill Nye you're gonna teach me to surf, by the way, which is really the question I've been meaning to get.

To. It would be an honor and a privilege. It would be an honor and a.

Privilege.

Excellent. So, okay, enough of this drivel from me. Jeff, do we have any questions from the audience for the Katie Milkman? And by the way, while we're waiting for. Oh, okay, wait. Leave that question up there, Jeff. But, Kate, I have to ask you a question. So somewhere back in your family history, were there really milk men or dairy people in your family? Is that how.

You. There was. My great grandfather immigrated on Ellis Island. They said, what are you gonna be? And he said, you know, some people said Carpenter, and that's how they became Carpenter. Some people said, Smith. That's how they became Smith. And we were Milkman. Not many people said Milkman, because it's an uncommon name. I don't get why everyone says. But anyway, that's a separate. That's a whole different.

Lineup. So when my answers went to Ellis island, they said, what are you going to be? And they said, a motorcycle. And that's why I'm Guy Kawasaki. There you go. Okay, Jeff, put the question up. Oh, yeah. I guarantee you, you are not gonna have as much fun with Bill Nye. As you had with Guy Kawasaki. There's no friggin way. Okay, so, okay. How important is an accountability partner when you want to make a change? A serious question for.

Once. Oh, I like that question. It's not absolutely necessary, but it can definitely add a lot of value. It reminds me of the study. I feel like I'm talking about the gym a lot, which, anyway, there's a lot more than the gym in the book. But the gym is a nice. It's a nice. It's like a work. I think of it sometimes as like our fruit fly for studying habits because everybody wants to go to.

Nowhere. Okay, so by the way, if the gym is for fruit flies, that undergraduate college students are the flies themselves. They're the drosophilas of.

Psychology. That's fair. Okay, so this study involved people going to the gym. Everybody signed up for the study with a buddy, a friend, an accountability partner, if you will. But some people were just given independent rewards, so they got a dollar every time they went to the gym. And other people got a dollar if they went to the gym at the same time as their workout partner. So actually an economist would say, like, that's a worse incentive. It's harder to earn, so it's going to be less motivating. But what we found, and this is research that was led by Rachel Gershon at UCSD, we found that people went 36% more when their incentive was linked to their partner's incentive. When we surveyed them about why, there were actually two things that came out. One was it was more fun, so we already talked about that. But the other was accountability. I'm going to be a jerk if I basically cost my friend a dollar by not showing up. Accountability in that context was really powerful. And it can also be a powerful tool when you think about commitments. I know you talked about commitment devices already earlier. Commitment devices come in many forms and it sounds like you talked a lot about the hard commitments, like a cash commitment. You're going to send $1,000 to the NRA if you don't achieve your goal. But a softer commitment can be, you know, I'm going to be ashamed in front of this person I care about. I don't achieve my goal because I announced it to them. And of course, the more the shame, the better. Right? If it's somebody who you really feel will love you no matter what, like your partner or your best friend or your mom, it's not likely to be as much shame and as effective as if you say, tell your boss, maybe your new boss, someone who you're just trying to make a good impression on. And so accountability can be an effective tool of commitment in that, in the way that just like a penalty would be, it's a cost if you, if you make a fool of yourself. So those are the ways that accountability seems to be most useful. But it's not the only tool. It's just, it's sort of, it ups the ante for.

Achieving. What about because I like to go to extremes, so what if I publicly announced that if I don't lose ten pounds by September 1st, I'm gonna donate a thousand dollars to the NRA and I plaster social media with that so that now there's like millions of people holding me accountable. Oh, my.

God. Huh, that sounds. That sounds rough. I don't, I don't love commitments that are that big. One of the problems with that kind of commitment is it's not bite sized. Like, the ideal commitment actually is more of a like weekly style commitment so that you have a really concrete time frame and you can make a plan that's very detailed about how exactly you're going to get from here to there. If you're Talking about losing 10 pounds by the fall, that's a pretty long term goal. And you may sort of slip up a little bit in the next few weeks feeling like, gosh, you know, it's forever away and I'll get to it later. And by the time you actually get motivated, it's literally too late to have it even be healthy to lose 10 pounds in the time frame that remains. So bite size is.

Important. Okay, how about a pound a week for 12.

Weeks? Yeah, I like that better. And then, sure, plaster it all over social media and that seems like it would help. There's work. I don't remember if we talked about this because as I was just telling you, I've done too many podcasts to have them all be distinct in my brain, every single part of every conversation. But one of my favorite. Oh, of course. I said, how many times did I do it? 153, something like.

That. But don't worry, I wiped them all.

Out. I'm thinking it means. I'm thinking. I really like that framing. I'm thinking, thank you. So no, one of my favorite studies involved voter turnout and accountability. Does this ring a bell? So there, this fascinating experiment that was done, I think it was a Michigan primary in 2008 where people were randomly assigned to get different pieces of mail encouraging them to turn out and vote. And these are all registered voters so some people get just a reminder, you know, you should, you should turn up and vote in this election. And then there were various other versions. The most extreme version was here's a list of all the neighbors you have and their voting records. And by the way, they're getting this too and your name is on this list. So here's who voted in the last couple of elections and we're going to update this after this election and post it and all of your neighbors will get it again. So you'll see who voted and they'll see if you voted. So you better turn out and vote or you're going to be outed. So that's really extreme accountability. And it increased voter, voter turnout by 8 percentage points, which is the single largest impact that any piece of junk mail has ever been documented to have on voter turnouts. It looks like a mind bogglingly big.

Effect. What an important point for our listeners is it's the study did the. They weren't saying that they're going to tell you who you voted for, just that you voted or not.

Right? Yes. Another important point for our listeners is we are not endorsing this tactic because people were outraged. Even not having who you voted for put out there without your, without your permission, having your voter history made public to all of your neighbors was something that infuriated people for good reason. I would be furious if that happened to me. So I'm not endorsing it. I mean, I think it's a fascinating, but it worked data point. I think it's fascinating because it shows us how much accountability works. So, you know, we don't see politicians using this for the by and large, despite the fact that it's a very famous study in poli sci political science circles. People recognize this is about as cost effective as a piece of voter turnout mail could ever possibly be. But it's not being widely used because people were outraged and almost certainly would vote against whatever candidates sent them that piece of mail. So anyway, I think it's interesting in illustrating the point of how much accountability changes our behavior, but it's not a tactic for voter turnout per se that I would.

Recommend. Well, except that I recall this part of the interview now that I said, well, what you should do is not that we're advocating such a nefarious thing, but you should make it seem like the mailing came from your opponent.

Which I think is.

Illegal. Oh, oh, there's.

That. So I will say there were some mailings. So you know, my students know about these studies because I teach my MBA students at Wharton and I did get some emails in this last election cycle. There were definitely some groups that weren't, you know, maybe they were super PACs. They weren't clearly affiliated with a candidate. Yeah, that definitely they were trying to do a slightly less anger inducing version of this and trying interesting things, but. And then the affiliation was a little ambiguous. So as to. Anyway, so. So we make it a lot more male like this. I'm not looking forward to that.

Era. So a few weeks ago, I had a guest named Melissa Bernstein. She's the Melissa and Melissa and Doug toys. You ever buy your kids Melissa and Doug.

Toys? I, I have more Melissa and Doug toys in my basement than you.

Would. Anyway, anyway, so she's the.

Melissa.

Yeah. And now Melissa, Melissa is a poet, amongst other things, including an author and CEO or co founder. And she has this rare ability that you can basically be talking to her about anything. And off the top of her head, she can whip out from her memory a poem that's relevant to what you're talking about. Seriously, I've never seen anything like it. Okay, now I have a theory that you're like the influence, persuasion, change, motivation equivalent of Melissa. So I could be talking to you about something. Like, I wish I. Yeah, I could be talking to you about anything. Like, oh God, I wish I could surf better. And you'll say, well, according to Hodgkins and Smith at a study at UCSD in 1975, the way you should do this is you should bundle it with something fun. So is that how every conversation goes socially with you? You find some study in your mind that you cite to prove how you can do.

Something. Not all of my friends appreciate that. So I have learned that there's a time and a place for the citation game. Really, it's not a lot of conversations with my graduate students go. And it's certainly happening in my head, which is fun because I feel like, you know, I'd rather have data to bring to bear on any.

Interaction. So I mean, so like let's say you go to McDonald's, right? And the person in front of you ask for ketchup. And the McDonald's person gives like 10 packets. And you're now talking to the cashier and you say, well, you know, according to a study in 1975 at Wharton, you know, you should ask people by default for the packet if they want a packet. Not you should just load up 10 packets because that's bad for the environment. You, you don't do.

That. I don't because like, people don't love getting advice. Remember? They like giving advice. They don't love getting it and it can, it can hurt their self.

Confidence. Well, Katie, in any conversation we ever have, if you can cite, you don't even need to cite. I just trust you. Quid pro quo, you know, ad hoc. If you can, if you can just tell me a way to do something better. You just feel free because, because I'm all about improving my.

Game. I, I appreciate that. I will totally do that with you. I feel at home.

Now. Do we have any more. We got to let you go because you know, Good Morning America is probably on the phone and like Oprah wants you on the show. So everybody go on Oprah and give air. I don't even know if Oprah has a show anymore. So go on Oprah and everybody gets a book or don't go.

On. I don't know if Oprah has a show anymore. But if you can get me on the Oprah Show, I'm, I'll be.

There. Yeah, you, you would owe me a lot. I can't get myself on Oprah. Well, I did get you on that show with that 13 year old golden girl in Arkansas.

Right? That was, that was, that was one of my favorite podcasts that I've ever done. So memorable. So thank you for that. That was.

Awesome. Okay. Okay, Jeff, do we have any final question for Katie? Because she's got bigger fish to fry. How to sustain, how to sustain a change behavior pattern for long and not relapse back, like gaining weight back, for example. Okay, Fire a Katie Milkman. The future Bob.

Cialdini. That is like the highest compliment a human could be paid in my field, by the way, as a God. This is one that I think I even completely botched until a couple of years ago because so many people in academia and outside of academia were looking for these solutions where you'd say like, if we just do this program for a month or two months or one week or whatever, and then you are done with the program, you'll be changed forever after. That's what we wanted. We wanted to find that sort of temporary tactic that we could apply and then magically people would be different and they would build a habit that would last forever. And what I have since realized after doing a lot of work to find that sorcerer's stone, if you will, like is it was a silly, it was actually a silly objective in the first place. And I had this great conversation with a colleague who's a medical doctor who studies Behavior change, that really helped open my eyes on this. What he said to me was, Kevin Volp, brilliant guy. He said, katie, why do you think that behavior change is sort of a one time, a one and done type of deal? Like when, when we look at someone who comes in and wants to change something in their health and we diagnose them, say as a diabetic, we don't expect to put them on insulin for a month and cure them. We expect this is, you know, it's a chronic disease and we have to keep treating it throughout their life rather than thinking there's like a one time solution. And why aren't we thinking about behavior change the same way? All of the obstacles that stand in the way of change, all the things that make it hard and then we have to overcome from procrastination and temptation to forgetting, to inertia and self efficacy. It's not like you can just make them go away. They're human nature, they're part of us. And it was such a great insight, it was like a great moment for me where that light bulb went off that he's completely right. And the change that we see that lasts, the programs that last are persistent. So you, for instance, send people mailings every month comparing them with their neighbors in terms of how energy efficient their home is, and you see persistent change and you don't ever take that away. It doesn't go away. If you take away the mailings, they revert back to using more energy. Right. So same thing happens with programs where you're trying to encourage people to exercise more, eat better, while you're in the middle of that program. It can be very effective. But as soon as the program ends, we see a lot of reversion. So even the best gym studies where you're trying to build a gym habit and you actually see lasting change, it's normally only at about 33% of the level you see during a period of intense reward where you're trying to build that habit. So everything decays if you take away what's working. And I think the key lesson is we need to keep using the tactics rather than thinking about them as a. Okay, I'm going to work on this for a short burst of time and then expected to carry me forward. We need to say no, I'm going to temptation bundle forever. This is how I'll always go to the gym. The gym will always be fun for me. I'm just gonna, this is gonna be my tactic, not just until date X. So I really think that's the key lesson of behavior change. It's not. I mean, I wish I could. I know it would be nice if I could say it's a quickie, but it's not. It's a persistent. But if you. If you find the tactics and tools that work for you, hopefully it's not onerous to keep using them. Right. Would it be so bad if you had to watch, binge watch TV at the gym for the rest of your life? I don't think that would be so bad. So if you could find ways that it's actually delightful to do these things by making it social, making it fun, then I don't think it's such a bad thing to keep using the same tools.

Persistently. How. How about psychedelic mushrooms? I heard you take psychedelic mushrooms once and it changes your.

Behavior. Just have fun or.

Forever. I mean, I've not done.

It. I don't know. Do you have a site? Can you. Now you have to give me.

This. No, no, seriously. There are some studies that show psychedelic mushrooms. I. There. I'm sure there's a particular dose and a particular type, and I'm sure someone on LinkedIn is it makes you.

Go to the gym forever or is it.

Like. No, no, no. But it, you know, I think, I don't. I don't think it makes you skinny forever, but I think it changes, shall I say, negative behavior. I don't know. Forever is a long time, but.

It'S supposed to be, I don't know, long time. There are certainly different things when it comes to. I'm talking about sort of goal, pursuit and the kinds of daily behaviors that most of us are trying to achieve, like being more productive, being more fit. I don't think there are psychedelic mushrooms that can fix those.

Things. If there was a psychedelic mushroom that would enable me to walk to the nose consistently for the rest of my life, I would be ingesting that right.

Now. I think I would take it too, even though I don't know if that even means. Nor do I want to walk to the nose, but I would assume if it helps with that, it would help me with something.

Good. That's true. That's true, that's true. Okay, we're gonna let you go because this is probably one of the second busiest day of your life after giving.

Birth.

So off you go. And everybody. Her book is how to change Milkman. Like dairy farmer. That's her last name. And I want you to buy this book.

Please. Not the farmer, the delivery. The milkman delivers the.

Milk. Right? You're.

Right. I just want to clarify the rules. My great grandfather would be upset.

Otherwise. And a. You're.

Absolutely. And my newsletter is called Milkman.

Delivers. So really, that's.

Your. That's very for.

It. Did you. Do you have that domain?

Milkmandelivers.com? i don't have dot com, but it's my tagline for my newsletter. Maybe I should get the dot com. I don't know if that's already.

Purchased. Too late. I just said it live and people have already bought it. You can now send me one of.

Those. Like, would you like to pay me.

$10,000? Send that person some psychedelic.

Mushrooms. Thank you for having.

Me. Congratulations on your book. I really enjoyed it. I hope you do extremely well with it. And I look forward to being asked by the MacArthur foundation for reference for you for your MacArthur Fellows Award. And you'll be the fourth one on my podcast. I have. I bet you I have more MacArthur fellows than Joe Rogan that that's.

A good thing to be able to brag about. I like it, I.

Guess. All right, Katie Milkman, take care. Have a great, great day. And book launch. All right, so everybody, you're all on Amazon right now buying her book. Alrighty, so I think I'm gonna wrap up too. Remember, this was powered by Restream, so, you know, you saw it in action. Katie Milkman clicks on a link, she's in the green room. Next thing you know, she's on live. Up to 30 sites at once. You can have up to 10 guests at once. And that is a beautiful thing. Couple of reminders if you want to join my tech space. Ohana 831-609-0628 US and Canada only. Sorry. And. Oh, I, you know, I never finished what I was saying about the serious request. Okay. This is a really serious request. It will really help me. I mean, it's so serious. I prefer that you send the answer to Guy Kawasaki at Gmail rather than just in a comment, because there's typically hundreds if not thousands of comments, and it's hard to get through all of them. But this is a really dead serious question. So a few weeks ago, I interviewed a woman named Haben Girma. Haben Girma is the first person who's deafblind who graduated from Harvard Law School. So wrap your mind around that. Deafblind, Harvard Law School. Okay? And so I got a much greater appreciation for the Americans with Disabilities act and disability in general. And apparently there are 30 million deaf people in the United States. And so I have made A new commitment to produce very high quality transcripts. So for a while I didn't provide any transcript and I'm going to work back through the backlog. And then I've been providing machine generated transcripts, which shall I say, even the smartest machine just gets a lot of things wrong. Especially when you have a guest like Katie who cites a lot of stuff and you really got to pick up the last name and, you know, figure out what she's referring to and all that. So that takes a real human. No machine can do that. So the question I have for you is now when you look at the Remarkable People podcast, if you scroll down@remarkable people.com, there will be a very high quality transcript. Now this high quality transcript, let me tell you about the mechanics of that. It probably takes five or six hours, so it costs hundreds of dollars or five or six hours of my time to do it. So it, it is a lot of effort and expense. And the question is, does it matter if I do this transcript? So write me that. Yes, you want a written high quality transcript as opposed to either no transcript or a low quality machine generated transcript. So, you know, two questions there, transcript or not, and then how high quality must it be? Which is to say that, you know, is, is everything checked? And if she, if someone like Katie mentioned, I don't know, Angela Duckworth, and the transcript says, you know, Angela, I don't know how a machine would botch Duckworth, but there would be ways, you know. So you look at the transcript and it's not saying Angela Duckworth, it's saying something that the machine thought Katie said so the human could fix that. So does that kind of thing really matter or just the gist of the transcript is good enough? So send me an email, Guy kawasakimail. I want to know how important you think a transcript is. Because if only two of you say yes, it's important. May have to revisit this discussion. On the other hand, if hundreds of you say it, because I think it's not good just for deaf people. Obviously deaf people can read this, but it may be also useful that some people simply don't like to listen to audio and want to read a transcript. Some people want to learn by reading as opposed to listening. Some people would probably want to do both. So the question is, how important is a transcript? Okay, so remember remarkable people.com, that's the website. This feed is sponsored by Restream, where you want to reach up to 30 social media platforms at once. This week's guest is Katie Milkman. How to change. Get the book. Next week is Bob Cialdini. This is Influence Fortnite. And that's it. So another live Wednesday Morning with Guy has come to an end. Thank you for attending, and all the best to you. Get vaccinated if you can. Bye.