Agency for Change : A Podcast from KidGlov

Changemaker Kristin Malek, Behavior Change Designer, Behavior Change Design Institute& Associate Professor, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

• KidGlov • Season 1 • Episode 270

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What if “success” wasn’t about applause, but about change that actually happens? We sit down with Dr. Kristin Malek—Behavior Change Designer, Associate Professor, and new Amazon best-selling author—to unpack how intentional design turns good intentions into real results. 

We explore how to diagnose the real problem beneath loud symptoms like “apathy,” and how to align content, environment, and systems so people move from awareness to action. Kristin shares memorable examples across domains—shaping culture in organizations, building sales funnels that convert the right customers, and shifting community sentiment for critical projects. 

Welcome to the Agency for Change podcast.

Connect with Kristin at: 

·       Website – https://www.designingbehaviorchange.com/

·       LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/drkevents/

·       Buy Kristin’s Book, The PATH to Designing Behavior Change – https://www.designingbehaviorchange.com/book

Connect with Kristin at: 

·       Website – https://www.designingbehaviorchange.com/

·       LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/drkevents/

·       Buy Kristin’s Book, The PATH to Designing Behavior Change – https://www.designingbehaviorchange.com/book

Kristin Malek: 0:01

Lasting stage starts with intentional design.

Announcer: 0:07

Welcome to Agency for Change, a podcast from KidGlov that brings you the stories of change makers who are actively working to improve our community. In every episode, we'll meet with people who are making a lasting impact in the places we call homes.

Lyn Wineman: 0:31

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Agency for Change podcast. This is Lyn Wineman, President and Chief Strategist of KidGlov. So you are in for a real treat today. Today's guest is both a brilliant colleague and a dear friend of mine. Dr. Kristin Malek is what I like to refer to as a wizard genius. She is someone who combines both deep research with practical insight to help people create real and lasting change. She is an internationally recognized behavior change designer. We'll talk about what that means. She's a speaker, she's an educator, and she's an author. Kristin has also played a really important role in my own journey. She coached me through the launch of our Amazon best-selling book, Untangling Spaghetti: A Branding Fable, and our brand impact accelerator. And now she's celebrating an exciting milestone herself with her most recent Amazon best-selling book, The Path to Designing Behavior Change. I can't wait to dive into this conversation and share more about the incredible work that she's doing. Kristin, welcome to the podcast. It's so good to talk to you. And I tell you what, if we just start laughing on hello, you know this is gonna be a lot of fun today, but I would love to have you tell us more about yourself and tell us more about the work of behavior change design, not a term we all hear every day.

Kristin Malek: 2:15

No, not at all. Most of the time when people are like, hi, I'm so and so, and I'm like, hi, I'm Kristin. I say, What do you do? I say behavior change design. They're like, What the heck is that? What is that? I don't even understand what that is. You know, I'm gonna give my brief kind of origin story here because I think it's really important to everything that we're gonna talk about today. But I started in event management and event design back in the day. I was an executive director of events in Las Vegas, planning these million-dollar events, super stressful.

Lyn Wineman: 2:45

That sounds like fun, Kristin. I you could have just stuck there.

Kristin Malek: 2:48

Super stressful. And I loved everything that I did. And I got to work with these really cool populations, and I was working with doctors and like making change. I thought, right. And I had this big event over a decade ago. There were 1,600 doctors there. We were at the Paris, Las Vegas. I can so distinctly remember this event. And at the end, we were having our kind of like our post-con. We call it a post-cloud in the industry or a debrief. And everybody was like, whoa, this event was so successful. And then, you know, like in those cartoons when something like blows up and your head explodes, and you're like, oh no. And I call that my aha moment in that moment. It's the thought that like ruined my life in some ways, but it was it was, it was, it was a really impactful moment where I said, you know, did this actually have an impact? Did these doctors go home? Did they actually learn anything or were they having fun on this trip in Las Vegas? Did they actually like incorporate any of these? Will this meeting actually change lives? And I just realized in that moment we were measuring all the wrong things. Like, yeah, they were satisfied with their food or with their headliner. They had an amazing time in Las Vegas, and they would rate the content as like highly satisfactory. But what does that actually mean? Did we make an impact? And I wanted my life and my job and my time to make an impact. And so I realized that I couldn't actually prove that. I couldn't measure that because I had no idea how to measure that. Yeah. And that's where I say it was a blessing and a curse because it's it sent me on this journey over a decade of figuring out like how the brain and the body actually worked. Like so that's psychology and that's neuroscience and that's behavioral science and all kinds of like really fun biology and physiology and down to a cellular level, right? Molecular biology, all this crazy stuff, right? That if we were offline and not recording this podcast, there'd be lots of cuss words, like throughout the same, right?

Lyn Wineman: 4:57

Like what's we usually avoid cuss words. I do not have any bleeping technology, it's a family show, so no cuss words.

Kristin Malek: 5:06

We are so good. And I went on this crazy journey and because I wanted to do something that actually had an impact. If I was gonna find an event, it was gonna be the best event that it could possibly be. And and then once you actually got into it and you realized like the event is the environment, but it's the content that really has the power, right, to change lives. And then you go into content design and hypnotic language and all these cool, fun industries that you're trained in now. And now it can apply to anything. So when we say behavior change design, it's really designing the structure or the process to help people and organizations move from that good intention to that real result, right? Whether that's an event, whether that's a brand or a class or a marketing piece or an email campaign, because it depends on the change, right? Like you have a change or organization has a change, and what that structure, that process, or that function looks like is going to be totally dependent on what that change desired is. And I design that. I design that change and that behavior change. That's the longest answer I'll give you. So important to understand. It puts everything in context.

Lyn Wineman: 6:21

I love it. I love it. First of all, when you said you were in Vegas doing an event for 1600 doctors, anybody who's ever planned an event for a very difficult audience, very high stakes, right? Because you are in real time, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been put into this, hundreds of hours, like everything is writing on it, and everything has to go well. So, first of all, that just did give me a little bit of a shiver. Like, ooh, that sounds so stressful. And then I'm gonna say I relate to what you're saying because I feel the same way about advertising, right? Like, hey, we can do things that are entertaining, we can do things that are beautiful, we can do things that win awards. But if we don't actually move the needle that needs to be moved, then then it's art. Like that's the difference between art and advertising. But here's what I really want to ask. So, what did you do next? Like, where does one go when they're like, I've got this great career, I'm doing big, successful things, I'm already like a leader in what I'm doing. But then you start to think about behavior change. Like, I don't know, do you just Google degree in behavior change? And I say that knowing that's not what happened. So tell me, how did you go about this journey?

Kristin Malek: 7:45

Yeah, it I would say I if you were to ask me what my superpower is, my superpower is curiosity if that doesn't already come across, right? But I would get exposure to one thing, and then that somebody somebody would mention something, and I'd be like, What is that? I want to know what that is, and then I would start going into that, and then I'd be like, What is that? What is that thing? So I started an event, you know, planning and then event design, and then that turned into experience design, which isn't just live events, right? It can be live, what we call activations, but it doesn't have to be. And then that got into like content design and learning design, and just constantly being curious about what does this look like? So for example, I was in like a biology, like physiology training, and they were talking about the what actually impacts you at a cellular level, which you know is sound, it's light, it's vibration, it's things you don't think about. And then that sent me on like two years of getting like a sound healing certification to figure out what frequencies do what in the body, and how can we build that into behavior change, right? So it's it's everything and me just being, you know, definitely a polymath, definitely a polymath. But like, how can we take all these siloed fields and bring them together to move you from awareness to action to actually have change and how do you design that? But if you're just looking at the outputs of what I do, people are like, what do you do? And I'm like, well, today I'm doing a LinkedIn campaign and tomorrow I'm doing an email campaign. The next day I'm helping this country in Eastern Europe design a physical structure for like physical sentiment. And then the next day I'm doing like like helping a theater cast, like actually designing their script for this, you know, in Africa, which is so cool. And then yesterday I was on a call with someone in Singapore, like talking about like trade shows and booth design, and you know, my outputs seem all over the place, but at the underlying structure, I always do the same thing. I'm designing behavior change, right? And that change, the output of it could look very different depending on that change.

Lyn Wineman: 9:59

I love it. Well, and as you talk about that schedule, I'm thinking in my mind, at some point in the next 10 days, you've got a tiny little bit of time on your calendar for me. Because, and I referred to you in the intro as a wizard genius because you've been helping me as well. You helped us launch our book, you helped us turn the book into a sales funnel, you helped us launch our brand impact accelerator, and that too is very different from the other things you're talking about. But really, your knowledge applies to so many different things. And as you and I work together, I keep thinking every time we meet, I want to have Kristin look at this, and I want to have Kristin look at this. And I I want to have Kristin like help me with my keynote speech, and I wanna, as a matter of fact, I got a whole list of questions for you next week that I won't ask you right now. But I will say you and I had a chance meeting, right? Like you and I met because I you were holding a workshop and you needed a space, and something happened, and I had a space, and I was like, okay, you can use our space. And I just went to make sure you had the key to get in and knew how to use the coffee maker. And like I was just politely sitting in the back of the room and you started to talk, and I just couldn't help but lean in, right? I couldn't help but lean in. And one of the things that fascinated me is you are not only a PhD, but you have got more certifications than any human being I know, right? Like you mentioned about the sound healing, but I mean, do you mind like giving us a little like what are some of the most unusual certifications that you have?

Kristin Malek: 11:49

Yeah. Oh my gosh, Lyn. I just feel like I need to like pick you up and take you in my pocket, like everywhere. That was like I need to send you commission. That was that was the best intro. Like everyone.

Lyn Wineman: 12:02

You you know where I live, you know where I live. You just send them on over.

Kristin Malek: 12:07

I was like, they're real. That was uh every time I do a keynote from now on, I'm gonna say Lyn, this is amazing. You know, the ones that are always really funny that people like obviously have a lot of content-based ones, right? Yeah, I have ones in like behavioral science, conflict management, design thinking, change management, neurolinguistic psychology. Those are like what I would call the SMEs, like the subject matter expert.

But then the fun ones that people love, like I'm a Lego serious play facilitator. People love that, like it's how uh and I we are recording, so I'm definitely gonna make this a lot more PC. But for groups that have a hard time like getting into the emotions and into the feels, right? If I'm doing um, say I'm designing what I would affectionately, and I'm putting air quotes up right now, like affectionately what I would call like a team building, which is really an executive, like board meeting, and you're trying so like a lot of CEOs or presidents will hire me if they're trying to get their board on the same page, say the board's divided, or they're not they're not on the same page, and they need to get on the same page. So what they do is they like build in this quote unquote team building exercise, and it's very highly designed, and they don't understand that, right? We have to get them all at the same page, and with certain groups, right, or demographics, then I will bring in Legos, right? I love it. You can use Legos because you then it's like external to yourself, and it's anyways. I mean, not trying to sell Legos here, but Legos a facilitator.

Lyn Wineman: 13:41

That is an unusual certification, right? Like a training, like who would ever need that training?

Kristin Malek: 13:46

Yes, I flew to a different city for a week of how to effectively play with Legos, but I mean I'm also people will bring me in to do organizational things, and then somehow I also end up getting into like executive coaching because right sometimes the problem is like the leader with like imposter syndrome or fear of success. So I do have certification for Stanford's like designing your life, like coaching.

Lyn Wineman: 14:14

Wow, all the way from lego play to designing your life to sound back.

Kristin Malek: 14:21

I am a master trained as like a master practitioner in hypnosis. No, I'm not hypnotizing anybody. 

Lyn Wineman: 14:28

Are you hypnotizing me right now?

Kristin Malek: 14:31

People always are like, oh no, the defenses go up, right? But it is helpful when you're talking about like hypnotic language. If you're trying to, if someone's really have has like an internal block or barrier, and you're just trying to help them get to where they want to go, right. Sometimes building in a little bit of language along the way can really help out. So like, and then of course, I have a ton in experience design and event design, digital events, and like you know, all of these thorough ones, but those are the ones that come to mind when you're like, what are the weird ones?

Lyn Wineman: 15:02

Yeah, yeah. Those are the those are good ones. Those are good ones, and you kind of shared this, but I don't want to leave anything on the table. Like, how then do you pull all this together in your approach? Like, can you give me some examples? Because it's hard to imagine a little bit.

Kristin Malek: 15:20

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that is one of the reasons. So, as you know, right? Because you wrote me a wonderful testimonial, but I just published a book.

Lyn Wineman: 15:31

Ah, we are gonna talk about that book.

Kristin Malek: 15:33

I'm sure we'll talk about it later, right? But when so many people are reaching out to me, and I do have my feet in a lot of things, right? I teach at a university, I own an event venue, I do consulting, I do these things, right? And so time, obviously, we all only have the same 24 hours. So when we talk about having impact, the ripple effect of the projects that I impact or whatever, people kept coming to me saying, I I want you to work on this project. And I was like, cool. I don't have the time that I haven't allocated in a week for external projects outside of the things I'm already doing is very slim. And so I need to make sure that I can do this with excellence. You know, I was having to turn away people because there just wasn't enough hours in the day, right? Because I don't do subpar working.

Lyn Wineman: 16:23

It's a great business problem to have, right?

Kristin Malek: 16:28

So then what happened was people kept coming to me and they were like, How can I get trained to do what you do? Okay. And at the time, I was like, Well, here's all my certifications, all the books, and here's all the things. Like, so like if you have an extra million dollars in 10 years, that's gonna do all this stuff, right? And so then people, I was very fortunate and blessed. People were like, we want to learn from you on how to do this. So then I started running workshops, right? Which is how we ended up meeting. I had my workshop when it was based in Omaha at that time, right?

And then uh the venue ended up, like it's things ended up getting messed up. I was looking for a venue last minute, and uh thankfully we got put in touch with each other, and I started running my own workshops. Like, how do you actually do these things? How do you design either live events or experiences? Yeah, and so then I created this like underlying process, which is called Path, which is an acronym, just like everything else in our world.

And so that's kind of how I was able to incorporate like the psychology of marketing, neuroscience, behavioral science, all of the things together into this one framework where you don't have to be an expert in everything, but you can get introduced at an introductory level, and then you can become a medium level, and then you can get advanced level, and you can continue to grow. It's just like an onion, you're peeling back the layers. So that's that's how I was able to do it was with the process.

Lyn Wineman: 17:52

I love it. Well, since you mentioned the book, let's dive in. And so this episode is airing in December of 2025 because I know I'm always shocked, like people will listen to episodes years and years down the road. So December of 2025, the book's been out, not very long yet. Tell us more about what's in the book, and it's called The Path to Designing Behavior Change. And for everybody who wants to check it out, and you should check it out, we will have the link. We will have the link in the show notes.

Kristin Malek: 18:23

Yeah, it's as one can tell when you would testify as someone who's like in my network, if the book was a wild ride, wasn't it? It was a wild ride. I don't say it in a in a dismissive way, but I'm just so deeply humbled by the response of the book. It was it was something that I launched. This the I had been teaching it already through workshops and trainings that people were attending, and then I launched the book and so like super humbled that it ended up on like number one on like overnight, I think. Overnight, like it's number one bestseller on like six different lists from like medical psychology and organizational change to like oh it was it was wild and I did like a Zoom book launch and like every continent was represented except for Antarctica.

It's like wild, it was wild, and it's been a wild ride since then. But the book itself is actually it just teaches the process, right? So it talks about how you can actually design behavior change, it's that practical roadmap for anyone who wants to create a change that lasts. Now that can be personally and it can also be professionally, right? So path is an acronym, the P is perceive, and the A is align and design, the T is take action and the H is hold. And it just takes you through the process of how to. Accurately identify what the actual change is. Absolutely. Sometimes the problem is people, like I'll, you know, be talking to an organizational leader, and they'll say, My problem in my team is apathy. Just nobody cares. And then you go in and you actually like what I would say diagnose the problem. And you're actually really trying to perceive what the problem actually is. And it's actually not apathy. It's something completely murdered, or where like everyone gave their all to everything, and then the leader changed and everything shifted, but then that happened like five times. So it's like actually not apathy. So then the organizational leaders trying to design measures and metrics and you know engagement for apathy, and it's not even that.

We talk about that a lot in the book, but when we talk about change, the whole point of the book and what I do, I'm very active on LinkedIn. I post all the time.

Lyn Wineman: 21:02

You do great posts. We'll have a link to your LinkedIn, Kristin, as well. Because for everybody who's looking for great information, great people to follow on LinkedIn, it it is you you do have some really great content.

Kristin Malek: 21:15

Thank you. Thank you for that external validation.

Lyn Wineman: 21:17

You got it, you got it. I'm here for you.

Kristin Malek: 21:20

Yes, and so the the reason why I do all that, right? Yeah, it's a process. Yes, I'm building what we would say building capacity. We want more people to have more impact in the world, right? But really at the end of the day, my true hope is just for people to see change not as overwhelming, yeah, but as something that can be intentionally designed and we can work with our brains. And we talk in the book about, you know, we talk about ADHD and those internal barriers. And we like we talk about all this stuff that kind of gets in our way, right? Internally, and so that's, yeah, we talk about it all. And it's from what I hear, it's a good read.

Lyn Wineman: 21:58

I mean, it's a great read. Well, it's hard. I'm gonna say from experience, it's hard to go back and read your own book. First of all, you know what it says, so it's hard to pay attention, but also by the time the words are on the paper, you're just like, I'm done. I'm over this. Somebody else read it. Tell me that it makes sense and help me find the typos. And there we go. I am gonna say the day the book launched, Kristin, I was so excited for it. The day the book launched, I woke up at two o'clock in the morning. And with all your certifications, I'm sure you've got a diagnosis for why I routinely wake up at two o'clock in the morning. I woke up at two o'clock in the morning. I looked at my phone to see what time it was, and I was like, today's book day. And I actually went to Amazon and there was the book. So I don't know if I was the first one to buy it, but I did buy the book like as soon as I could find it.

Kristin Malek: 22:54

I think you might have been, Lyn. Honestly, it was early.

Lyn Wineman: 22:58

It was early, it was early. So it's a great, it's a really great, great book. But I am really curious because one thing that strikes me after working with you and just doing a lot of other work in my field, the problem is rarely what you think it is, and the solution is rarely what you were taught in business school or marketing school, right? Like, and having the Path process is really helpful to actually get to the solution you want. Because I think too, your example of apathy. I think I think of so many leaders I know, I think of phases in my own life where you just get to a point where you just feel stuck, right? And you're like, I'm just working so hard and I'm trying so hard, and it's just not happening. And that's because you don't really understand the pathway to change, right? So, Kristin, help me give me some examples of the impact of this work because you started out by saying, I wanted to know I was making a difference. I wanted to know I was making an impact. You've got to have some great examples of how this work makes a difference.

Kristin Malek: 24:20

Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's so interesting too, because I think sometimes we always want to label things and put things in categories because it makes it easier for us to understand. So it's easy to say, oh, you're you're an executive coach, you work with executives, or you're an organizational change person, you go in and do this, or you're a community developer and you go in and do this. So with me, it's like people have no idea.

Lyn Wineman: 24:46

They don't know what to do with you.

Kristin Malek: 24:49

Which sometimes I love, but also hard to market. But marketing problem right now, right? But so when I give examples, I'm like, okay, well, I have individual examples of like obviously the biggest impact I would say at an individual level is just confidence. People know how to make change stick, they're not relying on motivation, they're not relying on chance, they they're over their feel of failure, they're over their imposter syndrome, right? All of those things. So individually, right? When we look at organizations, because I do a lot of internal change work, culture change work, the biggest impact there when you're looking at like metrics or things like that, you have stronger engagement, like you can measure it.

Lyn Wineman: 25:34

Yeah, right. You can measure engagement for sure.

Kristin Malek: 25:37

Yeah, you have less like unintentional turnover, you have less resistance, you have like more buy-in, you have higher, you know, profit depending on the industry that you're in, right? You have longer like tenure that you're getting, you have stronger teams, higher satisfaction. Like it's that one of the companies I work with, like applied for one of the happiest places to work in their like state or whatever, and then they got it. It was really sweet. So then you have teams, but then you also have when you're working with organizations for external, right? Then you can also measure that. And a lot of that I kind of classify loosely as a sales funnel. And if you don't know what a sales funnel is, right? It's that process from awareness to actual conversion into purchasing your product or downloading your product or service or whatnot.

Lyn Wineman: 26:29

Because ultimately that's usually the change most of us are looking for, right? Like eventually we want your engagement, we want your, you know, we want you as a lead, we want your impressions, we want your click-throughs, we want all those data things, but ultimately what most of us want is to convert somebody to a sale, but also I think it's not even just making the sale, it's making the sale to the right person that they understand what they're getting, you deliver what they want, the whole thing is just beautiful, then right? 

Kristin Malek: 27:08

Absolutely. And so when I'm working with organizations for that, that's super measurable, right? Like, how do you design that funnel? And what funnel do you want to be in? Do you want to have like a book funnel or a course funnel or a product funnel, a service funnel, right? So there's all these different types of funnels, they all have different things. Right now, I'm working with an organization who is like it's an educational-based organization, but it's not an actual education.

But they're like an affiliate and they're trying to do like a funnel with like LinkedIn, like they see you on LinkedIn and then they click through to the website, and then they actually enroll in the website, and then they actually like a student at one of their affiliates, right? And so that's its own funnel, right? And so I love doing that. That's super metric based, and it again, it just depends on what that funnel is. And then the last one that I would say that nobody ever thinks about is the community basis. I've actually built into quite a few grants for communities. I love that when it comes to community change efforts. Like one organization I worked with as a rural organization, they were trying to to change community sentiment about the rehab population. They they were trying to, they had successfully secured money for a rehabilitation center. Yeah, but the community wouldn't approve it right.

Lyn Wineman: 28:38

Well, not in my backyard, right?

Kristin Malek: 28:40

Like exactly, and so then um community change, right? And different activations there. And that's where it's like kind of fun because all the outputs are different, but the process is still the same.

Lyn Wineman: 28:53

Yeah, yeah. I love that. That's great, Kristin. Kristin, I'm curious because we've talked about right communities, leaders, organizations, individuals. You do a lot of student work though, too. Talk to me a little bit about your teaching at UNL. Like, what do you hope your students like take away from all of this?

Kristin Malek: 29:12

Yeah, absolutely. I most of what I used to teach was like event and experience design, right? And you do whatever people tell you to do when it comes to the things like I'm paying you to teach a course. This is a course I want to teach. And then you can say yes or no, right? I started in events and experience design. I still teach like one class a year when it comes to events and experience design, but I was just recently asked to teach finance because we needed to change mindset of like, is finance important? Do we care about finance? How do we incorporate finance? So it's it is a mindset change. And then I've taught once before, and I'm I think I'm teaching in the spring like an entrepreneurship course. And so when I'm looking at my teaching or work with students at a university setting, the things that I'm hoping that students take with them is that they're no matter what field they're in, they're designing for people, not they're designing for people that they're not managing people, right? And I think that's the different mindset where we used to be like, what's the best management technique? If this situation happens, then you do this. If this case study happens, then you do this. If your money is short, then you lay people off, right? We're doing all of these things and we're not designing for people. And then these companies are very confused of like, why don't people want to work? And it's like, well, where's the love? Where's the people, right? And then so when we're talking about like projects, we're talking about looking at things through the lens of like human behavior, right? You would never guess that when I'm teaching finance, I start with values and we elicit values because people make financial decisions based on their value structure, and you like you would never see that traditionally, right?

I put up all these examples, and I'm like, okay, raise your hand yes or no. And we have all these cases like, would you lend a thousand dollars to your sister for this? Would you like spend the last money in your bank account going on a vacation for this, or would you invest in real estate, right? What would you do? And it's always ties back to values, and we never think about the human side of these topics. So that's what it's a long answer because I teach I love it though. You know, like it's it's I'm teaching the human designing for people and for humans, and asking why do people do what they do?

Lyn Wineman: 31:49

You know, yeah. You know, when you use the word, because I know you're doing it very intentionally, the word designing. I mean, it does make me think of kind of the crossroads between art and science. It makes me think of something that's very intentional. It makes me think of something that's process-based, it makes me think of something that's going to have a strong foundation, but perhaps some flexibility in it as well. So I love words and I love the intentionality of how you use that word. But I want to ask you next my $64,000 question. And I'm not paying you $64,000, so I'm just saying just saying that.

Kristin Malek: 32:28

But I've got you on the listening to your podcast. We are planting the seed that you are gonna contact me.

Lyn Wineman: 32:36

She's hypnotizing me to do it right now, right now. All right, why Dr. Kristin Malik, wizard genius, why is change so uncomfortable?

Kristin Malek: 32:47

Yes. Oh my gosh. That that is the 64,000 question, right? I think change, oh gosh, we can go so deep into this. Change is so uncomfortable. And oftentimes, you know, it was one of my certifications that I'm trained in is epigenetics. What the heck is epigenetics?

Lyn Wineman: 33:06

What even is epigenetics?

Kristin Malek: 33:08

What is that, right? And that's the things that we carry over in our genes from like you know, your mom's trauma and your grandma's. 

Lyn Wineman: 33:17

Okay, we're gonna we're borderlining woo-woo right now, which I love, I love it.

Kristin Malek: 33:22

So that's so that's that funny, is because that part's not woo-woo at all. Right, that's genetics is like, okay, like the gene that's coming through your like wow actual genetic structure, right? And so when you talk about your genetic structure and what you were born with, it's really fascinating. But when we talk about change being uncomfortable, we have a lot of barriers uh in our brain, and some are nature, right? We carry with us, and some are nurture in the environment, and both equally play a point in that. So when we talk about change being uncomfortable, we have we have like these two parts we have our internal objections and that environment that we can design and redesign, right? And change is uncomfortable because we hold ourselves to these expectations. Oh, yeah. I hold ourselves to these expectations, right? We have unaligned motivation, the shoulds versus the wants, right? We have a lack of clarity of what we stand for in our value structure. We have this fear of failure. Those are probably the three biggest barriers, but in terms of change being so uncomfortable, I think it becomes way easier, change gets easier when we stop trying to fix people or fix ourselves, and instead we design for how like we as a human being naturally think, feel, and behave. I don't know that that actually I love it.

Lyn Wineman: 34:49

Stop fixing and start designing. I kind of love that. That might somehow be a new mantra for me. I love that so much. So I think that leads me into my next question then. And you may have kind of already answered this, but for those who are wanting to create meaningful change, but man, they are struggling to make it stick. I know one thing they could do is buy the book. That that'd be a pretty easy one. I know another thing they could do is take one of your workshops, but can you give us any like high-level advice?

Kristin Malek: 35:25

Yeah, oh, of course. I'll give you three points. 

Lyn Wineman: 35:28

Three, that's excellent.

Kristin Malek: 35:29

Yeah, super short. Okay, okay. The first one you've heard a million times before, but I'm gonna reinforce. Focus on the micro actions and not the big leaps, right? You're not gonna wake up tomorrow to be a billionaire, you're not gonna like set a new year's resolution and just wake up and all of a sudden be running marathons. So, but when you focus on those micro actions, those small wins, what they do neurologically, right, is they retrain your brain for consistency. So there is actually a lot of science in that, even though we say like focus on the little things and not the big things.

Lyn Wineman: 36:04

Yeah, I love it. Micro actions, that sounds very sophisticated. Focus on the micro actions. I love it. I love it.

Kristin Malek: 36:12

The second one might be a little controversial depending on what fields you're you're trained in or listening from, but I would say stop aiming for motivation and start designing for momentum. Because motivation, like there's a reason why people work out in the morning and not at night. It's because you have more motivation in the morning. When you say I have no spoons left, we're talking about motivation. You can't do the really, really hard things at night without exerting like a lot of energy. So if we can design our days and our structures and our processes for momentum, we're gonna get significantly further, right? I love that motivation design for momentum. And then the third one, which is why coaching has become such a huge industry, is having around surrounding ourselves with that accountability and systems that make the quote unquote right behavior, right? There is no right or wrong, but behavior you want the easiest one, right? Having that accountability and figuring out what will help to design that momentum and building that accountability in and systems that goes into the H in the hold in the path framework. Of having of holding that until it becomes your automatic, you know, process, your automatic reaction, your automatic behavior. And oftentimes that's the one that's overlooked, right?

Lyn Wineman: 37:39

I love it. I have to admit, when I saw hold as part of your process, I'm like, I don't know what that means. I don't understand. But all right, I'm gonna recap what I heard you say because I know spaced repetition is helpful, right? So you said first focus on micro action and get those small wins that they really help your brain. Design your day to aim for momentum. I love that, not motivation, and surround yourself with systems and accountability that make that behavior the easiest one. Brilliant. You should write a book. 

Kristin Malek: 38:21

I might have one out. I don't know.

Lyn Wineman: 38:23

I love it. So, Kristin, you've done so much. What's next? What's on the horizon? A nap, like rest, like or what what do you got coming up?

Kristin Malek: 38:33

What's that? I don't know. So funny that so if you're if you're Googling like Kristin Malek, you will have seen that for seven extraordinarily successful seasons, I did run a podcast called Brennary Events Initiative, which was then rebranded to the Experience University podcast.

Lyn Wineman: 38:56

And you were early, right? Like seven years ago, you would have been an early podcaster, whereas now everyone's got a podcast.

Kristin Malek: 39:03

Yes, exactly. And how I structured that podcast was kind of like an intro to the industry. So people who had no idea, but they're super curious about this industry. You start in season one, episode one, and it's like define your purpose, and then you listen all the way up, and then by the time you finish season seven, you're like, we're talking hypnotic language and like behavioral science, and we're talking sound healing, we're talking those things, right? It’s meant to kind of be like an intro to experience design, advanced experience design, if you listen to it like that. Well, then I stopped it and uh because it felt complete, like as a as a course, kind of. And a lot of universities were building it into their homework, which was a lot of fun. Cool. I will be launching a new podcast, so that is on the horizon. Wow. All about designing behavior change, and that will launch. In the spring, so this podcast comes out in December. So that one will be upcoming.

And then yeah, I'm I have digital um courses and in-person workshops. I am releasing um a new one that's coming out in the spring, which doesn't have an official name yet.

Lyn Wineman: 40:22

You've had a few things going on.

Kristin Malek: 40:25

But I did in my book launch, I did launch uh what I'm calling a VIP day. Where essentially like I come alongside you as an individual organization for a day and we work through the change of real time because no one can tell me, right? I have a meeting with you, I say, Lyn, go back, so rewrite this email, do this thing and send it to me. And then or you give it to a team member who wasn't in the meeting, they don't understand it, right?

I do this VIP day, I come alongside you, we work in the team, let's do it right now, right? Let's do it, let's do it in real time, let's send the email, let's overcome the fear of failure in imposter syndrome and just send the email. And then that's completely customized, depending on what people want. So those are kind of the things I have in addition to all the other things.

Lyn Wineman: 41:12

I love it, I love it. Well, next question is and we'll have the link to the book in the show notes. We'll have the link to your LinkedIn in the show notes. But how else do people get a hold of you? And are you still taking people for the VIP? Do you have a link for that?

Kristin Malek: 41:27

Yeah. So I people can reach out to me through designingbehaviorchange.com. Okay. Designingbehaviorchange.com. And uh contact information is on there, but you can also email me at hello at designingbehaviorchange.com. Very original, right? Excellent. I love it. And then I do spend quite a bit of time on LinkedIn. People can reach out at LinkedIn. Of course, you can grab the book. And if you grab the book and then you download the actual like free tools inside the book, you'll get a follow-up email from me and all the things, right?

Lyn Wineman: 41:59

Oh, the sale. That'll be the true example of a sales funnel. Download it, watch, and learn.

Kristin Malek: 42:06

Yeah, I've downloaded it right there. But yeah, designing behavior change is kind of my home base for all my offerings.

Lyn Wineman: 42:12

That's great. I'm so glad that you got that URL too, because it is the perfect one for you. All right, Kristin. I'm gonna ask you, I'm gonna put you back on the hot seat and ask you my favorite question because our listeners to the agency for change know that I love a good motivational quote. And I know you are full of motivation and full of great sayings. Can you give us a Dr. Kristin Malek original?

Kristin Malek: 42:39

Yeah, you know, I have one because you said this is the one thing you have to come prepared.

Lyn Wineman: 42:43

I did. I said, be prepared.

Kristin Malek: 42:46

So I wrote one down and it's beautiful. And then earlier in this podcast episode, you were like, Oh my gosh, that's such a good quote. I should write that down. And so I wrote that down and I was just so the one I said earlier that you said this this just might be the quote that I write, right? Yeah. I love that. I'm gonna put that all over my LinkedIn.

Lyn Wineman: 43:09

Yes.

Kristin Malek: 43:11

And then uh I the one I had written down, right, was lasting change starts with intentional design.

Lyn Wineman: 43:19

Lasting change starts with intentional design. That is so good, Kristin. I thank you for that. I have had so much fun in this conversation, and I'm sad that it has to come to an end. But as we wrap up, what is the most important thing you want people to remember about the work that you're doing?

Kristin Malek: 43:42

Yeah, it's it doesn't really matter if you're talking about you know, healthy eating or losing weight or a book or an event or a business or sales or whatever it is, when you're designing for behavior, you're really designing for impact. And that's like the mic drop moment that I'll leave you with.

Lyn Wineman: 44:05

Woof. I think you just gave us a third quote. When you're designing for behavior, you're designing for impact. Wow, so good. You know, I really think your next book needs to be for small children. Like, why are we not starting this young, right? Like, I wish I had learned. I'm gonna tell you a funny story. I, for some odd reason, got access to the book, uh, it was the Zig Ziggler book. Oh, what was it? Winning Friends and Influencing People when I was 16 years old. Maybe that's why I went into marketing and I read it as a 16-year-old. And I'm like, wait, he can't be telling people this. This is like secret stuff. But I just think if kids learned this, that'd be that'd be amazing. Parents would be in trouble, also. So Kristin, I gotta bring this to a close. I'm gonna end by saying I fully believe the world needs more people like you. Thank you for the impact you're making. Thank you for everything you've done to help me. And I appreciate you taking time out to share with us today.

Kristin Malek: 45:13

Thank you. Thank you for having me, and I hope to see everybody on the interweb.

Announcer: 45:19

We hope you enjoyed today's Agency for Change podcast. To hear all our interviews with those who are making a positive change in our communities, or to nominate a change maker you'd love to hear from, visit kidglov.com at kidglov.com to get in touch. As always, if you like what you've heard today, be sure to rate, review, subscribe, and share. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.