Here's my question.
Ever want to change something that really, really mattered to you, but struggle to make it happen, let alone wonder how to even get started so you're not alone?
There is so much misinformation in the world of behavior change, which is why I wanted to sit down with Katie Milkman to see if we could get a little bit closer to the truth and find out once and for all what really works and what is just a distraction.
So Katie is an award winning behavioral scientist and professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
She hosts Charles Schwab's popular Behavioral economics podcast, Choiceology, and is the co founder and co director of the Behavioral Change for Good Initiative, which is a research center with the mission of advancing the Science of lasting behavior change, whose work is being chronicled by Freakonomics radio.
She has worked with or advised dozens of organizations on how to spur positive change, from Google to the US Department of Defense, the American Red cross, 24 hours fitness, Walmart, Morningstar, and tons of others.
Her research is regularly featured in major media outlets like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and she is the best selling author of how to change the science of getting from where you are to where you want to be.
So before we dive in, a quick note, if you're in a place of thinking seriously about changing the way you work and wondering whether it's giving you a sense of purpose in meaning, joy, you are not alone.
Millions of people are stepping into that process of kind of a profound reimagining and reinvention right now, if that is you, my new book sparked, I think, can really help you.
It's the culmination of more than two decades of work getting to the heart of what makes us come alive in work and life.
And it'll really help you understand what kind of work gives you that feeling of meaning and joy and excitement and purpose, so that if you do choose to make a change, it's better informed and you're more likely to actually get what you want and need.
And right now, there are some kind of super cool immediate bonuses when you pre order.
So check out the link, it's in the show notes now, and grab your copy of Spark from your favorite bookseller today.
Okay, on to our conversation.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is good life project.
I'm really excited to dive in with you because for a whole bunch of different reasons, I have been utterly fascinated with the exploration of human potential and behavior and behavior change for a lot of years and in a lot of different contexts.
One, because I'm just fascinated by how we can live better lives.
Two, as a business person, I have done a pretty extensive deep dive into language that enables and facilitates behavior change.
As a copywriter, sort of like a long form, old school, direct response copywriter, I've always been curious about what are the linguistic pattern scenarios that you can create that will allow somebody to experience some kind of shift that says, huh, this thing that I've been thinking about doing for a long time, it's actually time to do it.
So I'm excited to dive into the psychology of behavior change in a lot of different ways.