← The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
519. Asking the Right Questions
00:44:25
In this episode of The Brainy Business podcast, Melina Palmer sits down with Vicki Tan, author of the innovative book, Ask this Book a Question. Vicki, a digital product designer with a rich background in behavioral science, shares her unique approach...
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- [00:00]
Melina Palmer
Welcome to episode 519 of the Brainy Business, Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Vicki Tan, author of Ask this Book a Question. 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. Okay, now I'm hoping that the title of the book from today's guest got you thinking. I mean, how do you ask a book a question, right? Well, I suppose you can ask all you want, but should you expect an answer in the case of this book? Yeah, kinda. It is an interactive journey to find wisdom for for life's big and little decisions, whether yours are about life, health, relationships, work, quality, time, or heading into the existential. This book has got you covered. So who is the author of this book and my guest today? Her name is Vicki Tan. Vicki is a digital product designer based in San Francisco with over a decade of experience crafting widely used and beloved experiences as a design leader at Pinterest, Spotify, Headspace, Lyft and Google. She blends behavioral science with design to create meaningful products that help people find inspiration and build healthy habits. When not designing or writing, Vicki can usually be found walking her great Pyrenees Charlie, reading sci fi or exploring the best noodle spots in the city. And I'm sure as asking lots of questions really quickly. Before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know that there are links in the show, notes for my top related past episodes and books, ways to get in touch with Vicki and myself and more. It's all within the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 519. Now let's jump right in. Vicki Tan, welcome to the Brainy Business podcast.
- [02:25]
Vicki Tan
Hi Melina. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to chat.
- [02:30]
Melina Palmer
Yes, I am delighted the audience will know. Anyone who's been around for more than five minutes knows that questions are my favorite. This is like my buddy the elf of like, you know, like smiling's my favorite or whatever. Like questions are my favorite. I love it. And so seeing your book come through into my inbox as something to be able to bring onto the show, there's like no question that this was a great fit. So before we get into that though, can you share a little bit, for everyone who doesn't yet know you, a little bit about yourself and the work that you do.
- [03:06]
Vicki Tan
Yes, I would be happy to. My name is Vicki and I am a product designer. Mostly by day. That just means I design digital products that you may have used. I currently work at Pinterest and I worked at Spotify, Headspace, Lyft. So apps that are kind of your everyday things that you're trying to do. And I have a background in behavioral science. So a long, long time ago when I was in college, that was what I studied. And I've managed to find a way through research and to bring that into design. And now this book.
- [03:48]
Melina Palmer
Yeah, and while it's, you know, not necessarily the focus, as we're getting into the discussion of asking books questions, which is very fun, but I'm sure with the corporate roles that you've had, there's a lot of question asking that goes into that and knowing that people are listening from those business backgrounds. And while, you know, if you can't, we, we totally understand when you can't say exactly what happened or a specific project or anything like that. Um, but like, how have you found the art of asking questions impact the work that you do, you know, across behavioral design and different aspects in your corporate life?
- [04:29]
Vicki Tan
Yeah, well, I mean, at least at work, the question ends up being the hypothesis that you're testing and that ends up being, you know, either very expansive or limiting, depending on it's kind of the scope, scope that you set. So super important to get the question right in those work contexts because everything you do after that is kind of, you know, in the context of. Or you could say, anchored by that initial question.
- [04:57]
Melina Palmer
Right, yes. And so I know that's one of the things I say all the time. You know, it's way too easy to find the right answer to the wrong question. And that's a big waste of time and money and resources and all of that. And people just don't spend enough time thinking about the question before jumping into that problem solving mode, you know, especially at work. So any advice? Knowing we're going to jump into, you know, some of your specific questions and things into the book. But as far as, you know, how long do you spend thinking about a problem and asking questions before you start solving, you know, whatever you're working on?
- [05:37]
Vicki Tan
Yeah, you know, in the context of work, it's nice because you're, you have built in collaborators at least if you work for a bigger company, maybe if you work for a smaller company and it really depends on the organization. But I like to use like the moments in which we are, you know, planning for the following quarter or the following half or any sort of like resourcing any of the longer term. I like to think of like the two trains as the long, the one that's running kind of over quarters and years and then the one that's kind of going week by week or month by month. When you're doing that planning, I feel like it's a good time to really go broad with the questions because it's easy then to go narrow, but using all of your teammates, especially the cross functional ones. As a designer, I love bringing in engineers, product people, researchers, because they all have such a different expertise. It's kind of like what we'll talk about later, what you want to do in life. Like not just ask people who are just like you what they think about your question, about your decision, but bring in a bunch of different viewpoints because everyone's vantage point or their biases, you know, are going to be a little bit different. So the more you can kind of cross, cross check or whatever, the Swiss cheese method, the more you can do that, I think the better.
- [07:11]
Melina Palmer
Oh, awesome. I love that. And as you look at those different layers of a project, right, where you're saying the two trains of, you know, the one that's longer and the, you know, the short one there, do you have different types of or like go to questions that you would ask? So it's like maybe there's a what if, what if questions versus how might we questions versus why questions or how, you know, things like that, as far as when they tend to be a better fit for any of those.
- [07:42]
Vicki Tan
Yeah, and you know, designers, we are naturally going to ask how might we do something? And the do something is usually meets some user needs. So the how might we's are favorites of mine. But then I also really like to understand like what's the impact? What are the expected sort of impacts? And then more importantly, what are some of the ripple effects? So how can we spend like that extra little bit of time doing the due diligence to kind of see, okay, this is what we're building, but what might happen as a result of this. And then maybe ask that a few more times because, you know, especially with technology and how we feel about technology, the apps that are stealing our focus and our attention, I would be curious if people had asked that and maybe you could say it would be hard to predict. But I think if we look at technology of the present or even of the past. Like we can make a good case for how we should be asking a few more like, and then what's after the initial question?
- [08:54]
Melina Palmer
Right. Well, and it's an interesting, we'll say like conundrum on this, but it's probably not the perfect word. But the like duality of the, like the user experience and what is going to be best for them and what is best for the organization. And knowing that a company's goal, goal is for you to be in their app or program or whatever it is as much as possible. Right. And you do talk about this a little bit in the book at one point where there's the, you know, the mindfulness type of app that is having to be helping you to be free from things, but the actual goal is for you to be in there all the time.
- [09:38]
Vicki Tan
Yeah, yeah. Like if the goal is to be mindful and you might say to learn mindfulness meditation, you have to let go of distraction and devices. But the app that's helping you is on your device and keep those notifications.
- [09:57]
Melina Palmer
Turned on so that we can be pinging you all the time.
- [10:01]
Vicki Tan
Yeah. I had written a design talk that suggested an alternative vision for them where they could mimic the monastery and, and have people play a support role, like to be a mentor. Like a lot of community based programs, when you graduate, you become, you play a different role. You don't just keep going up on your own path, like you help others learn to meditate or you sit with others or maybe you bring people together in a sangha. I think I would love to see more of these apps do that where you can graduate. You're meditating on your own, no app, but then you come back to the app for a different purpose that helps you, it helps the company still in a different way. And then it helps you on your journey in a different way. So let's not be so one dimensional. And I think back to your original question that goes back to something similar I'm doing in this book for our life questions, which is there's the obvious question. How do we get, you know, weekly active, daily active, subs, whatever you want to call it, retention up. And then if we expand like our understanding of what it means to have a subscriber or what it means to be active weekly. That's what I want us to do in work and in our life.
- [11:23]
Melina Palmer
Absolutely. And it's just such a refreshing opportunity to be able to, you know, talk to our book. We can ask it a question. So how does someone ask this book A question. And what led you, I guess, to create the book in the way that you did?
- [11:44]
Vicki Tan
Yes. So I love telling people this because I'm not a writer. I have authored nothing. And in fact, when you go to school for behavioral science, you don't really need to take a writing class, like a literature class. So the book actually started off when I left that job at the meditation company, because I did feel the tension of the values and the actual work, like on paper. And I wanted to make something to help people, like, help people outside of the way that it feels to help people at tech companies. And the initial idea was to make a movable book, like, very much like a kid's book, where you would rotate the page or pull or slide something open and it would show a scene and reveal the bias in front of your eyes. So imagine the classic. I had prototyped this with paper, but the first spread I made was a person sitting in their living room watching tv. And it was like breaking news. And it was like a terrorist attack or something. Classic bizarreness. A effect example. And when you pulled it, the tv, like, looked like it shut off, mirroring you or the person in the living room, you know, stressed out, eating their KFC or whatever, to go food. And the. The line that would switch with that pool was like, we tend to, you know, pay a lot of attention to things that are bizarre or stick out into our memory or like a shocking breaking news. But the thing that actually tends to hurt us or impact lives is. It sounds like quite dry, but, like, cardiovascular disease is the number one. I'm trying to find a way to say this nice. It's just the number one cause of death, much more than terrorist attacks or plane crashes. Although I feel like there's been a lot more plane crashes. So I started from these paper movable spreads, and I met folks in the literary industry. I got connected with people who know the business a little more, and they said, we love the concept, but we think that just a paper book, a regular book with illustrations or a different sort of interactivity might sell. Might be more accessible if we wanted to, like, print a bunch of them. So that is why the book is now an illustrated and interactive book. But it's interactive in a slightly different way, where you're asked to come to the book with a question and then you move through, like, the first part of the book, which are like visual prompts to see, like, what stands out to you, what speaks, speaking to you, or resonating with you emotionally. And that points you to a page that you should go to somewhere else in the book and on and on.
- [14:46]
Melina Palmer
I love that. And you made me think a little bit of. I think it's in Seinfeld, where he makes the coffee table book that has that it actually stands up and has legs like a coffee table, that it sits on the coffee table and it's like a book of coffee tables.
- [14:59]
Vicki Tan
Yes.
- [15:02]
Melina Palmer
And so I feel like that there can be. When this book is as wildly successful as we know it will be, and there'll be a special edition that can be the original vision of it, like, in a small run, quantity feels like a Kickstarter or something. Right? Like, that's a.
- [15:20]
Vicki Tan
After my own heart. Yeah. All my designers in my life are like, you can still make it. And I'm like, I will. I will.
- [15:28]
Melina Palmer
Yeah. And maybe it's just not as big. Right. It's like a shorter piece or something that you get some of those out. I love it. And so, so with that interactive design. And I know I was telling you a little bit about this before we started recording. And just for anyone listening who hasn't yet checked out my book, what your Customer Wants and Can't Tell youl, it is a similar. What I describe as a choose your own adventure experience for those who had those books, you know, as a kid and being able to, you know, you get to the end. I used to love those, right? And like, do you want A or B? And you can go check it and then be like, that ending sucks. I want to go back and go to this other page. You know, kind of unwind and move forward and back and things like that. And so, you know, in my book, you know, the end of a chapter about a particular concept then says, and you'll hear about this. You can read about it more in these parts where we have some stories and things in part three and so going through. And then once you read those stories in part three, it says, hey, you probably heard about these different concepts and you can go back and check their chapters if you want to remember, refresh what it was about. And so I thought it was very interesting that your book just have flipped that. So you have, you know, intro information with amazing questions which I would love for you to tell about. And then you talk about the stories and then break it into the biases. So we just. Yeah. Love to hear kind of decision making and that yours, of course, too, is also referencing back and forth with page numbers and stuff, which. So one, I totally get it. I've been there of like, making sure it's the right number and like editing process for that whole thing. So like bowing down to nightmare. Worth it?
- [17:13]
Vicki Tan
Yeah, it was worth it. But you should have seen like, I don't know if you had pre mapped them out or filled them in, like, did you go from. You know. But yeah, it's not. Not recommended. It's fun, but yeah, it's kind of chaotic. You know, I started with this insight that kind of two of them, two things happened at once where I had started making probably more of what part of your book looks like a pocket guide to bias. It's illustrated. You get these sort of canonical examples of each bias and then they're told in a way that's engaging and sort of hopefully easy to remember or at least you could certainly flip it open to a page when you needed it. And I found that it wasn't that it was, you know, it was too academic for a lay person. So imagine somebody in your life who makes decisions by talking to friends or sometimes they get their chart read or sometimes they pull cards or they just don't like the idea of like, say it was should I marry this person or should I something a little more like life changing. The idea of getting down and dirty with like pros and cons and then like tabulating waiting options. Like, I think that certain decisions are romanticized or certain people don't like the idea of sort of going through decisions like that. And then on the inverse, there's people who are very structured and logical and they, they don't really lean on the intuitive and whatever else these other people are using. It just felt like there was no rhyme or reason. And so I really wanted to bring those two ends of a imagine spectrum that I had of structured and intuitive decision making together. But I wanted to lead with the stories because I had an experience like trying to help my friend quit her job. And I was explaining sunk cost fallacy. I was explaining whatever the biases I thought were at play. And. And she was nodding and she got it and she understood. But like, emotionally she could not bring herself to leave this like, very. It was her. She'd been there, you know, six years. It was her family at that point. It was her livelihood, her insurance, her everything. And it wasn't until I sat down and I cooked dinner for her and told her the story of how like this, you know, Taiwanese meal is what I cook when I quit my job. And not only did it, like, help me reduce decision fatigue by like, kind of it's batch cooking, but the fact that it was Like a comfort meal from growing up when times were simpler or, you know, you kind of just had to eat whatever your mom was cooking that day that is, was. Is making use of like, the denomination effect and, you know, other other things. And that really resonated for her. So it gave me that little sort of insight nugget that I wanted to make the stories much more human and just call out where the biases showed up, like sort of fall as they may versus over orienting life to the science. And I know it's a pretty subtle sort of shift, but I. I think that it's really hard to remember a list of things you should and should not do. But I think it's pretty easy to remember like mapo tofu and then this idea or a feeling. And I don't really care if you can name any of the biases.
- [20:54]
Melina Palmer
Right. But it's in. I'm very much an advocate of a similar aspect. Right. And that's. So for me, you know, I don't typically talk about something system one and system two with those words, because I think that in and of itself, it's a very System 2 process to remember which is which for people, especially when they're not used to it. And so I just say conscious and subconscious, or in the right order, they're subconscious conscious because people just intuitively get it. And for the. And instead of wasting the like, cognitive capacity you have on trying to think about which one it is, like, we just say that's a given. And for what you need to know is like, that you're gonna be anchored on the first piece of information that you get. And so that can really impact a decision that you're gonna make. Or that sunk cost fallacy exists.
- [21:46]
Vicki Tan
Exactly. I mean, the behavioral scientists did not use the behavioral science on the behavioral science. I sometimes think.
- [21:55]
Melina Palmer
Yes, we. Yes, we all, we all know that that's true. And that's okay, right?
- [22:01]
Vicki Tan
That's okay.
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Melina Palmer
You know, the cobbler's children without shoes, as they say.
- [22:05]
Vicki Tan
Yes, exactly.
- [22:06]
Melina Palmer
We have some of that sometimes. Let's talk about some of the questions that are in there. So you say you should come to the book with a question, and if I'm not really sure, like, I have either all the questions or none of the questions. I think in this point there's a mix for people of feeling both. Like, I could ask any and everything, and so I can't think of anything in this moment. So you have a really great list broken out into different categories for people to help them to choose Some questions. Do you have any, you know, favorites in there or maybe share a little bit about the categories that. That's broken into for people?
- [22:45]
Vicki Tan
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the list comes at the end of maybe 15 or 20 so pages that I. It's not that I'm forcing you to flip through them, but I'm hoping that you will peruse. So the prompt is to think of a question, something that's been stuck. Maybe you're ruminating on it or it's been difficult to answer. It's kind of trying to set the stage for. It's not like, think of a Google query or think of a factual question. What's the weather? And so I want you to come with something that, like, you might ask a Magic 8 ball or. Or an oracle, something that's kind of like you're not sure. And I ask you to look at it through these different lenses. And I don't have like a map of the full. Like, these are all the things I'm going to ask you because purposefully, I don't want you to, like, jump exactly to the end. I want you to look through, like. Okay, is my question. If it's about relationships, you know, I've drawn this visual that juxtaposes or sort of asks you to consider the subcategories of kids and parents and your sort of personal relationships, your romantic relationships, as well as your community or chosen family. I think it is. And I'm asking you to subtly think about. You thought your question was about this. So a very narrow lens. What would happen if you widen your lens or shifted your lens and each sort of little prompt in that flow goes through and tries to. It's like you have a loose tooth and it tries to wiggle it out. Like timing. Is it that the decision feels urgent. If you had a year to answer, or let's say a month to answer it, would it feel as stuck? Or if it was a reversible decision, you know, would it feel differently? So the hope is that one of those pages catches you spiritually, emotionally, and you're like, oh, that was it. And if not, as you say, there's a list of questions at the end. Those were the questions that I gathered during the research phase that then informed the category. So it was a bit of like, I might as well put these in here. They're fun to look through. In generally the same categories of life, health, relationships, family, I split out, and money and work I split out. And then quality time and existential questions. I really like the quality Time and existential ones. Maybe that's just because, I don't know, that's me. Let me find one here. There's one under quality time. Where has all my time gone? How can I become inspired? Or how can I make more time for family and friends? I think we all want to, but where does the time go? Under existential? There's, how can I be more courageous? How can I. How do I find joy? Or why am I feeling sad? There's a couple of them around. Emotions, maybe. Last one. How do I become lucky?
- [26:05]
Melina Palmer
I love it. Well, and those, those are such. I think everybody can resonate with each of those questions. And this is part of kind of the point. I was saying there too, as you. Even if you came in with one question and then we can see very quickly, it's like, well, this one question could be related to all these other questions. And then ideally you start to kind of ask more questions, but then it can be a little bit overwhelming in all the questions that exist. So what's nice, though, if someone is feeling a little bit stuck and can see they can take a journey and, like, try on a question for a little bit and see how that journey would go through the book. So let's say someone picks one of those questions that you, you know, read off there. So if, if we were. Whether it's, you know, how can I find? Or where does all my time go? Right.
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Vicki Tan
Yeah.
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Melina Palmer
Or if you want to pick a different one. But like, so whatever a question is there that we know is something that people tend to really resonate with, then where does that guide them as far as what to. To do next? If they say, oh, yes, this is the question I want to see what happens, where would they go in the book?
- [27:15]
Vicki Tan
So most of the questions, I won't say all this is where, like, the signs of matching them up went, but most of them will lead you to a story. And we were kind of talking about these when I talked about Mapo tofu, like, the lunch I was cooking. But most of them will lead you to a story where I've sort of illustrated them, but also listed all the other questions that might have led you there. So you have a little bit of a sense of like, oh, maybe these ones as well. And it just should. The story should feel like it's like a fable, a life lesson, something that a friend might tell you on a long walk. If you ask, like, hey, can you. Can you come talk and walk and talk? And like we were saying, they are not centered around the bias but they're centered around feeling like ah, like that older, wiser, kind friend is trying to impart something to me. And then at the end there's a couple of biases listed. Not all of them have dedicated spreads because as you know, page count. And then I hope that you will go to one of those biases or perhaps check out another one of those questions and. And then like continue your journey and like, I guess you could say double click or maybe long press onto that bias and, and think about like oh, I read that story. I really liked how she framed the illusory truth effect. But like I only got a vague sense for it in the story because the story was about the lesson. Let me now go dig in to the bias and what I've done with the bias. It might make some behavioral scientists uneasy, but I have really tried to frame them not as negative things. I think they're usually considered, I don't know, you're the expert here. But I think they're considered like mental pitfalls, like traps to avoid. You even hear the language is like oh, how do I get rid of bias? Or how do I minimize bias? And I really wanted to take like a, you know, bordering on sort of enneagram or tarot a little bit. Woo. Like how can I make these two side or both sided like light and shadow? Because I was kind of drawing on this like shadow work internal family system thing where like if you're exiling parts of you, I mean one, you can't. But two, like same with bias. Like if we can understand what role they play for us in information overload, in like paralysis in the need to act, then like maybe we can't catch ourselves in some moment where we're, you know, the classic example, yelling in traffic. But maybe in a different instance we can use that fundamental attribution error in a different way to really empathize with someone else or something like that. And I think that is the slightly different part of what I've tried to do here.
- [30:28]
Melina Palmer
Yeah, and I really like how you do show the light and shadow for each and then having some question prompts. So essentially each bias, once you get to that part for people to know here. So knowing. And again for the word page, the page counts and things like knowing that you get like each one gets three pages and that is it and you make it fit. It has to happen. But you can, that's like reliably that you can get into kind of a rhythm of it. And so it's essentially like page one is the General description of what the thing is, the bias itself, then the second and where it came from and different, like sort sorting information, different stories and the things. Concepts and things that went from that way.
- [31:17]
Vicki Tan
Finding.
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Melina Palmer
Yeah. And then where to find it. Yeah, great. And then you have the kind of light and shadow. You have the question prompts and then you get into this, that third page that has like how you might apply. So there's like a life section or something else, like kind of how you can see this a little bit more. And I think that, you know, that's really helpful for people to start to see how it can come together. And I agree. I think that there are, I think an older view in behavioral economics, behavioral science being in that irrational thinking. And I think that being said, most of us these days don't take that same view and are kindred with the. You know, our lives are built on. Built on habits and predictability and these biases and you aren't going to get rid of them. But there are ways to work with them. And some things where we want to know, we want to at least have an awareness that they exist so we can be more thoughtful as needed in. In those sort of different aspects on things. So as you think about. So what I'll say is if you were going to pick one more bias, maybe something to talk about, actually one that is. I was like looking through the list and like I told you, I've done episodes on a lot of concepts, but definitely not all of them. One that I haven't done is the cathedral effect. And I think that's a fun one because I don't hear people talk about it all that often. Can you share a little bit about that?
- [32:54]
Vicki Tan
Yes. I love this one and I made sure to include it. Even though. Does it link. It's one of the odd ones out where there wasn't a good story for it. I mean, it's just a fun one.
- [33:07]
Melina Palmer
Yeah.
- [33:07]
Vicki Tan
So it's a lonely. It links to some questions, but yeah, that was maybe a design addition, but it's just this idea that I think it's known for. It's named for the idea that working in places with high ceilings like a cathedral or something makes you more creative or has a positive effect on creativity. And what I think is even more interesting that sometimes gets overlooked is the vice versa, which. Which is working in places with lower ceilings. You think of like a. I don't wanna say a basement room, but just the lower ceiling, maybe like closed room can help you be more like definitive or make more Sort of decisions that you need to kind of like the opposite of abstract thinking, sort of what concrete thinking? Like, if you needed to, like, sit down and make some calls on some budgeting or something, you might go into a smaller room, not a cathedral. And I like this idea that, like, just in general, our environment, our containers, our perceived spaces are what just have this outsized influence that we sometimes forget about. And I always remember this from my behavioral science. I think it was like an operant conditioning class where we did have a pigeon for lab. But, you know, the professor had always said, as you're studying, you're. You're. You're taking the cues from your environment. And those are sort of memory devices. And so he's like, if you really want to help yourself out, you should study in the lecture hall where we're going to take the test. And I was like, oh, amazing. High, high ceilings in there as well.
- [34:56]
Melina Palmer
Yeah, love that. And so as we consider the next steps and things for people as they go to think about using the book where you said it's not for you, that the goal isn't that they, you know, memorize and know each bias and how it works exactly. And the name and. And whatnot. But if you were going to say the goal for someone who's going to pick up the book, you know, what would it mean to them? What would it do for them in the ideal state of. Of having this in their life?
- [35:32]
Vicki Tan
Yes. Oh. I mean, the preface opens with a magic eight ball metaphor. And I think I use it a little bit to help people know what kind of questions to ask, but also because it is a gift. I don't know if it's a game, but it's playful. It's the idea that you can shake it and it'll kind of loosen things up. I want people reading the book to feel like this book, it's not going to, you know, you'll. I think I don't use the word answers anywhere in it because I'm not presuming to give you an answer. I want you to feel like, okay, if you're feeling dread, if you're feeling pressure, this should help you feel like you can now sort of explore all the possibilities. And it should feel exciting because I've given you a little map to do it. Like, it should feel like, ooh, like curious. Like, if someone gave you a map of, like a fun, I don't know, place to go, you wouldn't feel lost, but rather, hopefully you would be looking forward to all the places you could Visit. So kind of shifting from that feeling of, like, I don't. I'm stuck, I'm ruminating to a feeling of now that I've sort of taken a moment and I've created space to look at my question or decision in a slightly different way. Feeling, like, excitement for what could happen with that intentionality.
- [36:59]
Melina Palmer
Definitely. I think the picture you painted for us of the idea of if you have one of these questions, often it's. You just want to be able to talk it out. Right. You like to be able to hear from someone who's been there, and it's comforting to have that discussion with someone. And sometimes it's just like hearing what they say will unlock something for you. But you don't always want to, you know, call up a friend and say, why do I feel sad? Right. Like, that might not feel good. Something that you want to have the conversation. And so if the book can kind of do that for you, then that's, you know, an opportunity to start to open that up and see, you know, one. I'm not the first person to ask this question, so maybe you would feel more safe having a discussion later on. But then you get the benefit of some of the story and can dig in and see related questions and kind of, by using curiosity, either get unstuck or. Or find something you want to try, but just kind of shift in perspective and do something.
- [38:03]
Vicki Tan
Yeah, you know, it's getting people excited about or sort of refreshed about making decisions or even just paying more attention to, like, you know, some people don't think about how they make decisions. Maybe not audiences of this podcast, but a lot of people are in automatic mode and so to just, like, peak this, like, pique their curiosity. Peak, like, the approachability of behavioral science. This is for, like, the. The everyman, the every woman, the every person. I really wanted to, like, lower. You know, in tech, we sometimes say lower the barrier to entry, but I wanted it to feel so approachable that, like, on its face, you might not even know. This is a. You might not even know. You accentuate. Accidentally read behavioral science.
- [38:51]
Melina Palmer
Definitely. And then you'll realize that you did and be so excited and go find more and more content, right?
- [38:57]
Vicki Tan
Yes. Yes.
- [38:58]
Melina Palmer
Well, for everyone who is now so excited to get their copy of Ask this Book a Question and to follow you and learn more, you know, what is their best path to do so.
- [39:09]
Vicki Tan
Yes, thank you for asking. Today, as we're recording, recording it is the day before it comes out, so everyone should be able to get it the best way, I think is to go into your local bookstore and ask for it because then we support our local businesses and they start to carry it, which is lovely but understandable. If not everyone can do that, you can just go to like bookshop.org which does support those local bookstores or Amazon. We Jeffrey's Books is always a good option. And more importantly, you can go to vickytan.com which is my name spelled with an I if you want to see like I've made some animations that kind of show the spreads and some explainer videos for how to use it. You could just type it into Google. I think you'd find it perfect.
- [40:07]
Melina Palmer
And we will of course have links in the show notes to make it easy for everyone so they can go check it out and find you and start on their question asking journey. Hopefully they're already on it. But you know, start on this new chapter more deeply. Yeah. On that question journey.
- [40:26]
Vicki Tan
Yes, I hope so.
- [40:28]
Melina Palmer
Perfect. Well, thank you again for joining me. I know that you and I could talk forever and ever and ever about questions, but we'll save it for another day and just say, you know, thank you for joining me today and congrats again on the new book and the launch. Very excited for it to be out in the world.
- [40:45]
Vicki Tan
Thank you so much, Melina, and thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.
- [40:50]
Melina Palmer
Thank you again to Vicky Tan for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, I really love the choose your own adventure approach of this book and how, as we discussed in the conversation, it's very similar and yet completely different than my first book. What your Customer Wants and Can't Tell youl. It's always so fascinating to me to see how different people approach books and frameworks and application. Amazing insights into our minds and how they work the same and yet different. Super cool. I also really love that Vicki was able to bring her design background into the book, even though it wasn't as she had originally dreamed up. It's really cool that she was able to still have so much of her personality in the execution of the final product with pictures and the way it's all laid out. It's also really interesting to see how she was able to balance this playfulness and jumping all over the place and not knowing how you're going to get around the book with predictability and very strict formatting. As I said, the bias sections are each exactly three pages long, no more, no less, and they follow specific layouts. So I'm sure she had to be very strict with word counts and things like that. It takes a lot of work and dedication to have the right page numbers and specifics like that in the book as you flip around from here to there and everywhere. So we know how much love and effort and energy she put into creating this book to be that perfect experience for for her readers. Perhaps my favorite aspect of the book is that you can treat it like a conversation with a trusted friend or mentor. You can ask your question, get a story to help build some comfort, spur ideas and help you make a decision with some next steps to dig deeper if you want to, all without having to wait to get time on someone's calendar or worry about asking them too many questions while it's still important to have that time with real humans, and it is nice to be able to have a source that can help you ruminate your big and small decisions without having to doom scroll online and find yourself stuck in the depths of an unhelpful Reddit thread. This trusted companion can help you shape ideas and learn and hopefully move forward even when it doesn't give you any answers. So what question would you like to ask this book first? Come share it with me on social media. You'll find me as the brainy bizarre pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. There are links in the show notes to make it easy as well as for my top related past episodes and books, including Ask this Book, a Question, ways to get in touch with Vicki and myself, and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and atthebrainybusiness.com 519 and thank you again to Vicky Tan for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me Tuesday for another Brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. 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. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.