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
00:21:35 Extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation — What actually works
00:26:26 Does confetti actually work?
00:27:30 Work harder — The contrarian take on workplace culture
00:29:04 Difficulty as fuel — The hero's journey at work
00:31:18 Social desirability — Why we're all a little vain
00:32:56 You've never arrived — The learning mindset
00:34:02 Living in a commune — Behavioral science in the wild
00:35:02 Behavioral contagion and seeing your partner perform
00:36:57 Relationships drive happiness — Make them easier
00:37:55 Low willpower, high design — How Kristen lives
00:39:40 The billboard — Compliment someone