Episode
How to Actually Change Your Behavior (No, It's Not Willpower) — Behavioral Scientist Kristen Berman
- Podcast
- Is This Working?!
- Published
- Jun 24, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2496
- Processing state
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- https://episode.flightcast.com/01KVR6TP0JAQPG9N3C2DGHF3Y8.mp3
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Summary
Kristen Berman is one of the world's foremost experts on getting people to do what they say they want to do. She also routinely has a hard time following her own advice, which is precisely why she got into the field. Berman was on the founding team for behavioral economics at Google — a practice that now spans 26 teams across the company — and she founded Irrational Labs, a behavioral product design company that helps companies like LinkedIn, Airbnb, and PayPal increase the health, wealth, and happiness of their users. Her work keeps landing on the same uncomfortable truth: the things that actually run your behavior are your environment and your incentives, and you barely notice either one. She learned the incentive half the hard way, when a project quietly turned her into what she calls a predatory lender. In this episode, she and Connor get practical: Why buying a dog beats relying on willpower. How a “Ulysses contract” binds your future self. Why she built her life around a 20-person Oakland commune called Radish, where everyone eats dinner together at 7:30. If you've ever known better and done it anyway, or wanted to know how to design an environment that brings out the best in your team, this one’s for you. CHAPTERS Chapters 00:00:00 The chocolate croissant you didn't mean to eat 00:00:55 Why behavioral science lights her up 00:02:16 How choice architecture works 00:05:31 You're always being manipulated by your environment 00:07:08 When good intentions meet bad incentives 00:08:39 The stand-up challenge — Closing the intention-action gap 00:09:53 Buy a dog — The power of one-time decisions 00:15:33 Commitment contracts that actually work 00:17:13 Taking away the joy of work — What leaders get wrong 00:19:51 Small teams, big autonomy — The Irrational Labs approach…