BJ Fogg is a shining light in the often murky field of behavioral science. His Stanford Lab was Ground Zero in the Facebook Platform explosion of 2007. He’s now pioneering the influential “Tiny Habits” training program that’s finding it’s way into popular culture. BJ has the soul of a scientist – an explorer seeking the truth, rather than selling a vision. Join us to learn about BJ’s fascinating backstory – plus find out how a near-miss plane crash led to BJ’s current creative obsession.
Check out the video here: https://youtu.be/Emd7CnEeIss
BJ Fogg is a shining light in the often murky field of behavioral science. His Stanford Lab was Ground Zero in the Facebook Platform explosion of 2007. He’s now pioneering the influential “Tiny Habits” training program that’s finding it’s way into popular culture. BJ has the soul of a scientist – an explorer seeking the truth, rather than selling a vision. Join us to learn about BJ’s fascinating backstory – plus find out how a near-miss plane crash led to BJ’s current creative obsession.
Check out the video here: https://youtu.be/Emd7CnEeIss
Intro: [00:00:01.6] From Silicon Valley, the heart of startup land, it's Getting2Alpha. The show about creating innovative, compelling experiences that people love. And now, here's your host, game designer, entrepreneur, and startup coach, Amy Jo Kim.
Amy: BJ Fogg is a shining light in the often-murky field of behavioral science.
His Stanford lab was ground zero in the Facebook platform explosion of 2007. And he's now pioneering the Influential Tiny Habits training program, which is finding its way into popular culture once again. BJ has the soul of a scientist, an explorer seeking the truth rather than selling a vision.
BJ: And so I'm inspired by Dr. Ted Etan at Kaiser Permanente, who has a strong, clear point of view. about the science of nutrition, what matters and what doesn't. [00:01:00] And he's out and, you know, fighting the fight against sugar. He shows up at the big sugar convention and sits in the audience and takes pictures and tweets about how they're talking about this essentially a poison.
And so somebody like that, that's just clearing, that's taking this really fuzzy domain that matters, nutrition, and just, you know, telling the truth about it or discovering the truth about it. That is really important.
Amy: Join us to learn about BJ's fascinating backstory. Plus find out how a near miss plane crash led to BJ's current creative obsession.
Welcome BJ to the Getting2Alpha podcast.
BJ: Hey, Amy Jo, thank you for inviting me.
Amy: I'm so glad to get a chance to hang out with you for a bit and catch up. It's been a while. So to just put us right into the present, can you give me a sense about what [00:02:00] your everyday typical day looks like? I know there's no typical day, right?
But like, who do you interact with and what kind of decisions do you make? Where do you hang out? What is your work life like these days?
BJ: Well, I almost always work from home, and so I live in Northern California and about half the time I'm in Maui, so one place or the other, I work from home, uh, because, because lots of reasons, because stress and commuting and just more productive here.
So I get up and start my day in Maui. I go surfing and then come home and work. People think I'm on constant vacation there, which is not true. I am working with the exception of getting in the water and some other things. And then here in Northern California, you know, I get up, I have this routine that I go through that includes breakfast and so on.
And then at some point I just come into my home office and I prioritize what I'm going to do for the day and I dive in. [00:03:00] I do a lot of phone meetings and a lot of teaching on Zoom and a lot of meetings on Zoom. And I just actually, I run my, my Stanford lab. Uh, we meet once a week on zoom and that actually works out better for my students and lab members.
And let's see what else the, you know, the prioritization happens throughout the day. That's, um, maybe we'll talk about that later. But, you know, how do you prioritize and just. And it's really painful sometimes. And how do you make, how are you working on the right things and not the wrong things? And so that is, and I just try to work on the right things and crank it out.
And at some point I end my day and I work out if I didn't serve in the morning. So here in Northern California, I'll go to my home gym and work out. So that's fairly typical day.
Amy: Wow. Your work life is a lot like mine these days. I do a lot of zoom meetings and it really is. Once you get how to work effectively, and I think we should [00:04:00] dive into that a little later. It can actually be more effective than being in person at times, I find. You know, because there's no commuting for anybody and you can record it and relook at it and you can easily share your screens and really see what's going on. And there's just can really get a lot done.
BJ: I have no vested interest in Zoom and we've tried them all mostly and it just emerged as the one that's just so easy to use and so on. But anyway, we can get into details of that later if you want. But yeah. Um, the takeaway message, I think, at least if you and I are, a trend is, man, if you can work from home and avoid that soul sucking commute, you should do it.
Absolutely.
Amy: Cool. So let's wind it back all the way back. Give us a whirlwind tour of your background. Maybe not from tiny childhood, but you are a world renowned behavior design leader at this point in your career. Doing, doing some [00:05:00] really innovative and impactful things. How did you first get started in this world and what were some of the key pivot points that really shaped your career along the way?
BJ: Good. I'll make this fast, but I will rewind to when I was an English major, getting my bachelor's in English. And I got really interested in linguistics. Um, way more than the literary, literary analysis and stuff like that. So linguistics and a technical approach to linguistics and which then merged into studying rhetoric.
And then I decided to do a master's degree in rhetoric. I was fascinated with that. And then one summer, I think it was right after that master's degree, I was taking a break. I was, I went to France just on my own to learn French. Didn't know anybody. I didn't really speak French, but I was just gonna immerse myself and learn.
And along the way I was reading these little books that are like Cliff Note books in French. They're not called Cliff Notes. And I was reading them on La [00:06:00] Comunicación, that's my Spanish accent . My French accent is now gone. Communication, Persuasion, Rhetoric. And I read those in French. I was like, oh my gosh. Technology is going to do this someday.
Someday technology is going to use these principles of rhetoric, and this could be a really good thing. Imagine if, you know, computers and technology helped us be happier and healthier and prioritize our lives. So I decided that's what I wanted to do my doctorate in at the time, there were no programs that looked at this at all, and so I was really looking at rhetoric programs and then on a whim applied to Stanford, uh, not in a rhetoric program.
And once I got accepted, I decided to go to Stanford and it ended up being a really, really good fit. So there, my work since day one, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to study the overlap of persuasion or rhetoric or behavior change or whatever you call it, and technology. And I [00:07:00] naively thought, Amy Jo, that, oh yeah, people have already done work on this and I'll just, you know, plug into what people are doing and go forward.
And as it turned out, there had been no systematic work in there. There'd been bits and pieces, but nothing systematic. So we went down that path, gave it a name, did a series of experiments back in the nineties, early to mid nineties, that people thought were kind of crazy because they didn't think of computers in these ways.
And then I named. I named it various things. First, persuasive computing, persuasive technology, I thought was a better name. Then I also called it captology, which was computers as persuasive technologies, that acronym, which I soon stopped using, although it persists.
So, so that led to the formation of the systematic study of how computers could be designed to influence our thoughts and behaviors, you know, published a book on it. Then there's a new phase, but I'll stop there for a minute.
Amy: So what role did all the work that's already [00:08:00] been done in operant conditioning come into play as you were doing this study of rhetoric and computers and behavior?
BJ: Really nothing. I was ignorant of it actually.
Amy: How is it that you didn't like go look at that when you were tackling this?
BJ: That's such a good question. You know, as a graduate student, you're expected to know the literature and you study everything and you have a qualifying set of qualifying exams.
Operant conditioning was not part of the curriculum. The body of literature that we looked at. In fact, even today, I think there's very few universities that talk about it or, you know, bring it into the courses. So it was ignored a lot. And then later I found out there were some approaches around motivation and behavior in Europe that were completely unrepresented.
And how I was trained and
Amy: Really, what were those?
BJ: Oh, like theories of motivation. And it just today, you get exposed to these things. But back in the day, you, you know, you didn't have the [00:09:00] internet, you didn't have that much contact with people in other countries. And you were hoping that your program and your faculty members were giving you the best stuff.
So we did a lot of Bandura, of course, because he's from Stanford and he's a professor. It's terrific work and so on. And then there was just a lot of stuff in communication theory. So to answer your question, things like operant conditioning, uh, well that one in particularly, I had read, like when I was 19, I read Beyond Freedom and Dignity. And I, which is a way too immature and naive to really understand what Skinner was saying in that book.
And it's not an, it's not an introduction to, uh, behaviorism at all. So I had read one of his books years before. Didn't really understand it, but read it. Uh, but yeah, there was no systematic training or me even looking at, in fact, in the experiments I did, I replicated Cialdini's work. So that really was my, in some ways, my source.
Amy: [00:10:00] Right. That stuff is great.
BJ: And so I took his principles and I was like, Oh my gosh, can computers use these principles to influence us? So that really was. My playbook, Cialdini, and not other approaches.
Amy: That's really interesting. So then what happened?
BJ: You know, I decided not to go pure academic route. I wanted to keep one foot in the university and then one foot in industry.
For a variety of reasons. And so that's what I did. And so I was able to keep teaching at Stanford create a lab there. Some people open doors for me like Terry Winograd, which I'm very grateful for. I was able to get traction there. And so I and fast forward to today where, you know, I run the lab year round now called the behavior design lab.
And I teach as often as I want to. And so right now it's once a year and I love it. And then I have a foot in industry and I've done that for 20 years now. So that's the balance. Uh, so [00:11:00] super fun to research stuff, super fun to teach. And I love working in industry and understanding the current issues and problems that innovators are facing because that informs my research at Stanford.
Amy: It's such a rich ecosystem that you've plugged into.
BJ: I feel very lucky.
Amy: Yeah. So you've been working at the forefront of innovation with your clients, dealing with students. With that whole, whole Facebook Hoo Haha that happened, which we should definitely touch on for those who aren't familiar, but what I'm really interested in is some of the pattern matching that you've done.
Cause you're in this interesting, unique position between industry and, you know, working with young students. What, now, do you know about how to innovate successfully that you really wish you'd known 10 or 15 years ago?
BJ: Yeah. Two things. Two things. And so when people come work with me, either in my class at Stanford or train with me [00:12:00] in an industry setting, I now have two maxims, actually I have three, but I'm going to talk about two right now.
One maxim is innovation. Help people do what they already want to do. If you don't do that, your product or your service will fail. I did not know that, uh, 20 years ago and 10 years ago, I think I sensed it, but I was resisting it. Um, so it's really not about persuading people to do things they don't want to do.
It's helping people do what they already want to do. So that's maxim number one. Maxim number two is to help people feel successful. And that's really important for people for creating habits for ongoing use of your product or service and also expanding connection with your brand or your product or service.
And so, I mean, there's just a, everything that's gone big does those 2 things. And so now those are kind of, uh, if you're taking my work in behavior design and say, what are the 2 guiding principles? Those are the two guiding [00:13:00] principles and I was completely unaware of those, uh, 20 years ago. And like I said, even 10 years ago was, you know, in denial a little bit about that.
Amy: What do you think drove your denial about it? Do you think it was just ignorance or do you think that you had an assumption or a deeply held belief that you didn't want to let go of?
BJ: Hard to say. I mean, I don't have that good of a narrative memory, so to rewind and say what I did know, and this is my third maxim.
I only have three. The third one is simplicity changes behavior. So I knew that. It's the simple things that work. Simplicity wins. Why was I so hesitant? I think in part, maybe it was because I was fascinated with the idea of persuasion. And notice helping people do what they already want to do is not persuasion.
It's facilitating something they already want to do. And so I think thinking, wow, I mean, like a lot of people call me or work with me to get my help. They think, man, if we could only make [00:14:00] people care about their health, if we could persuade them to care about their health, then they'll be healthy. And I think just looking at real world examples of that, that had, that, that struggled so much that just didn't pan out.
I don't know when it clicked, but finally it was like, ah, the only thing that works in the long term is something that helps you do what you already want to do. Okay, there it is. And it's a little underwhelming in some ways because you think, ah, we could transform people. Well, you transform in helping them be the best version of themselves.
Amy: Right. That's really interesting. So was there any particular story where you saw something crash and burn that didn't do this that just flits through your mind when you talk about this?
BJ: Well, a lot of things. So in my work in persuasive technology, I did not anticipate social networks. Uh, you'll probably remember at the time there was a really [00:15:00] sharp distinction between HCI, human computer interaction, and CMC, which is computer mediated communication.
And I was not in the CMC world. I was in the HCI world. You're interacting with computers, not through computers. So once the social networking thing started becoming a thing and I thought it through, I was like, Oh my gosh, there's a huge opportunity here to connect people in rich, valuable ways. And so you can maintain your relationships.
I'd already been convinced this was like, I don't know what, 2001, 2002, that email was ruining our most valuable relationships for various reasons. And so I thought, well, there's going to be a better way to, you know, nurture and hang on to our important relationships. Did a lot of research on people and their closest relationships, how they visualize them, how they stayed connected and so on.
Researched primarily with women. And I thought I had some big insights, and I still think now I have big insights. [00:16:00] But then I went into tada tada, startup mode raised. So we created this thing called yak pack. I raised money, angel, a big, big round of angel money and so on, and just really worked hard to get it done and make it work.
And just, you know, it was years of just in some ways futility. I mean, we had a good, very simple product, but we were targeting older adults. Mistake. We didn't even partner with AARP. You know, it's like, Oh, we have 39 million members. There were no microphones on computers at the time. And this system was about audio connections.
It was like a push to talk, like a very, very simple audio messaging with this really great interface. So you could create these really great little audio messages by clicking and talking and you're done a three year old could do it, but we picked number one. The timing was off. Big lesson learned. You know, the technology wasn't there for it, and we had to develop a whole [00:17:00] system of how to install a microphone on your computer.
So we, that became a big part of the business. How do you install a mic? And then the other piece, uh, was people were very uncomfortable talking to computers. And then we went, I don't know now, you always start with the most adoptive audience, which, um, back in the day was certainly not older adults. So a series of mistakes led to a lot of lessons that I learned.
It was frustrating and I probably lost some years off my life. So then Facebook came along and then I was really tuned in to, oh my gosh, this is a big deal. You know, very early I called and I said, Facebook has won the game. I mean, really early, they've won. Uh, cause they, I saw they put all the pieces together and that led to that infamous Facebook class and so on.
Amy: Okay. Let's go there. Short version.
BJ: Yeah. Short version in our gasping struggles to keep the backpack alive. I got in touch with someone at Facebook and said, Hey, let's partner. And they said, sure, come on in. [00:18:00] So I did. And they had me sign a non disclosure and they said, we are launching this thing called platform and we want you to be a platform partner.
This was 2007. I was like, what? They explained it to me. And it's where you could create an app. And at the time, everybody's calling these things widgets, but they insisted, no, it's called an app and you can put it in the facebook social network. And I was like, wow, this is great. So the sole remaining engineer on my team and I put it together.
We're at the launch and so on. I saw how impactful this was. Ours was you know, successful enough, but some people got like a million users in the first week. And then I was like, and that was June or something, and I was like, man, I want to do a class on this at Stanford. I want to explore. Here's this new thing that you never could do before.
You could create an experience, put it into an existing social network and get metrics. On it and then iterate. Now the cycle is closed. It had never been closed [00:19:00] before. So I was like, I want to teach this. So I reached out, uh, at the time I was teaching for computer science and after some discussion, they said, well, we don't get it.
But okay, do it. And so did this Facebook class. It just blew my mind. Tons of people joined and a lot of people were very successful just beyond anyone's expectations.
Amy: And that was when the graph wasn't locked down at all. You could do all kinds of crap with the graph.
BJ: Yeah. My students, I think, found and exploited a lot of things and that helped Facebook lock those things down.
So my students ended up engaging 24 million people as a result of class projects, and at that point I stopped counting. I, I, I didn't track on the dashboard anymore. I just moved up and it's like a time to move on. I don't want to do a class on Facebook again. I don't want to teach this again. It was one exhausting because the students, you know, as something grows and succeeds, they have other needs and there's other help they needed to got a lot of media attention and [00:20:00] some of the media attention was exactly wrong.
You know, they got it wrong. Uh, they thought it was a class about adventure capitalists who started or whatnot. And, once my lab team and I saw the power of individuals can create an experience that reach millions, we didn't care about pillow fights or throwing snowballs or the kinds of trivial apps that tended to succeed.
We then shifted gears and the next project in my lab was about, we called it peace technology. He said, now that individuals can do this, individuals and small teams can help create peace in a way that was never before possible.
So, you know, once we saw the impact of delivering stuff through social networks and that power, then it really became what was the most important problem we can apply this to. And we very ambitiously said, world peace. With this new kind of thing, if we do it right and figure this out, not just we at Stanford, but just in [00:21:00] general, let's help show that we can achieve substantial world peace in 30 years.
And that's what we proclaimed. And that's what we set out to do.
Amy: And then what happened?
BJ: Well, uh, so I taught a class on that, uh, probably a couple of classes. Ran it in the lab. We did this thing at a private school in Palo Alto. So we focused on one project that was called Peace dot. So you would have peace.stanford.edu, peace.facebook.edu, peace.ibm.edu.
So one of the thoughts was, everybody who has a website, you know, part of being a corporate citizen is to set up your peace.page and show the world how you are either creating empathy or overcoming prejudice or doing something to increase harmony in the world. And we pulled together about 20 partners, including Facebook, and including a pretty unknown system called Khan Academy.
So there's peace.khanacademy.org or whatever it was, [00:22:00] and we pulled them together for a big presentation at Casa Deja private school in Palo Alto. And that led to other things fast forward. A few years later, we spun out the peace and we started calling it peace innovation and not peace technology.
We spun that out. And now that is a separate lab at Stanford and a separate team of people. And kind of affiliate labs around the world. And so that that's going on its own now. And I'm really proud of the people who have done that work and the people that they travel all over the world talking about this and, you know, pointing to, and hopefully encouraging people to use technology and innovation to promote world peace.
Amy: It's so ironic that that was your reaction to teaching the Facebook class. And now the way in which Facebook has impacted world peace is something quite different.
BJ: Yeah, it is. It is ironic. I don't think my reaction is ironic because that would be the natural reaction for me. It's like, Oh, [00:23:00] how do we put this power to good use?
But the fact that at least today, snapshot 2018, the way Facebook is perceived, the effects it's had in the world and the potentials we were seeing. Over 10 years ago, and hopefully channeling the innovation that direction. Yeah, yeah, I mean, we did not anticipate well, actually, I take it back in 2006. I recorded a video for an FTC hearing where it was about tech and what should we be worried about in the future.
And I couldn't go to the hearing in DC, so I recorded a video. And in, and I highlighted three things, like three things that could be really, really, really dangerous with technology. And in one case, I talked about persuasion profiles where people would understand each of us and what influences us so specifically that they could target us individually to get us to do the things they wanted us to do.
This was [00:24:00] 2006. And when I listened to it again, about eight months ago, I talked about political campaigns and governments doing this just as an aside. So I was like, Oh, my gosh. So I did have a sense that this could happen. And I did share this with policymakers. But of course, at that time, nobody really cared and certainly there was no action taken.
Amy: Yeah. Sometimes it's really hard to see the unintended consequences of complex systems.
BJ: Yeah. You know, I, I think that you're, you're right. And I think the way I had to think about this. So studying. and getting, you know, scientific evidence that computers could indeed influence humans. Even if people knew the computers were just machines, you know, they knew that full well.
The way I thought about it, to some extent still today, I had to believe and I did believe that people are fundamentally good. At least most people are good. And if you give them a power potential, they're going to put it to good use. And so the way [00:25:00] I thought about it, yeah, persuasive technology is coming.
There's going to be some bad characters using it, but most people are good. And most people will use it for good.
Amy: You have clearly never run an online game.
BJ: I have not run an online game.
Amy: I think most people were good. And I now realize that…
BJ: She’s the coach to me.
Amy: I don't know, but I get what you're saying though.
I mean, part of it's a self fulfilling prophecy. What you choose to focus on.
BJ: You kind of think everyone's like you, right? And I still think most people are fundamentally good, uh, and maybe the online games filter or create situations where the worst comes out, but I guess I or nobody anticipated there would be an essential monopoly here controlled by a handful of individuals.
And it wouldn't be that there would be millions of things and they would have equal weight, that there would, and that was what I said early on, it's like now we can take the power of persuasion out of the hands of a few governments and a few media companies and we can distribute it [00:26:00] across populations.
It got collected back again, and even in more, I guess, uh, frightening ways to some extent.
Amy: Yeah. And, you know, I think the thing that happened is that none of us really anticipated how much the algorithms of pretty much all social media platforms incentivized for outrage.
BJ: Oh, you're right. I knew it was coming where they would know exactly how to position a message, but not the outrage thing.
Amy: It's a side effect of the incentive systems that are built into it. That's just really hard to predict. You look at it now and you're like, well, yeah, I can see that, but I don't know. It's hard to predict. Anyway, we're, we're not going to go down the Facebook ranting rabbit hole today, perhaps another day, but you know, you've worked with so many students and this crazy Facebook class and then a lot of corporate clients as well.
What are some of the most [00:27:00] common mistakes you see people make and, you know, perhaps you made yourself at times, but what are the mistakes you really do see people make again and again in the early stages of when they're bringing their idea to life?
BJ: Where do I start in on this? There's, there's a bunch of things, but there is a system.
There are systematic mistakes. One is, I'll just go back to my maximum if it's doing something you think people should be doing, but they don't want to do it. So it's not helping people do what they already want to do. So there's a way that people can book 15 minutes with me. And I do 12 to 15 of these calls a week, just free calls.
People call me, I help them. I hang up the phone, I go to the next call. And what I'm listening for is are you creating a product or service that will help people do what they already want to do? And if not, I just stop them and I tell them and I just say, this isn't going to work unless you find a different market or you reposition it or whatever.
So that's a very common mistake. [00:28:00] Um, another mistake has to do with just not understanding how just drop dead simple things need to be. So again, that's another maxim. Um, just, it's just gotta be radically simple and innovators tend. To think sometimes they think, Oh, people will put in all this work or they'll enter all this information or they'll do all of this.
So just helping people understand that simplicity wins. And when people pitch something or share something to me, that's complicated, what I do now is this. I say in the last five, eight years, if you can show me one, one product or service that launched with this level of complexity that has succeeded.
Then we'll continue to talk about your plan. Just tell me one. And then I rattle off the people that did simple, Oh, Google, Instagram, Facebook, to some degree, Slack, and, and then Amazon. Pattern is you always start really simple and you only grow after you get traction. That is something people don't want to hear.
Uh, [00:29:00] that either, you know, there's not really a big market for what you're proposing or it's way too complicated, but in these calls, you know, they're free. I have no reason. I think, you know, I should just tell people the truth. It might be the only true feedback they get. And then I try to help them. Do it the right way all within 15 minutes, but those would be some of the big mistakes, and it's too bad.
There's a lot of talent and a lot of effort that has created these complicated systems like when it was Google Plus. I was preaching this back in the day. And something happened, you know, Google plus was just launching and I said, yeah, only the simple things went and somebody yelled out from the audience.
What about Google plus? Which was this emerging social network, which was complicated. And I just, and the audience kind of laughed like, okay, now you're going to be wrong because it's Google doing this thing. And it's like, nope. I said, we shall see what happens and the complexity of it. Among other things, but it didn't fit the pattern of something that was drop dead simple.
Amy: That's so interesting. It's [00:30:00] actually much, much harder to do something simple than something complicated.
BJ: Yeah, for a number of reasons, but it absolutely is.
Amy: I feel like this segues right into your tiny habits program, this insight and this conversation. So here's what I'm interested in when we get into tiny habits. I think there's this weird thing.
You've seen it. I've seen it. You know, we've experienced it. There's this weird paradoxical balance you have to have to innovate successfully and actually get something innovative in the world, which is you have to have some kind of vision. Yeah. You can't just be like shooting in the dark, throwing mud at a wall.
But at the same time, you need to be ruthless about shaping your vision with market feedback. And that's a rare combination. And your tiny habits to me looks like it's that thing. I want to know, like, where did the spark for that, like the idea, the vision, and then how did you shape it?
BJ: Yeah, well, I was teaching a class at Stanford on health habits.
So this [00:31:00] would be like 2009, probably. So went from peace innovation to, oh, let's help people create, be healthy, at least in terms of the class sequence 2009 or 10. And I was having my students, I said, come up with a way to help people create healthy habits. And I like doing the projects with the students, so I'm more alongside with them, coaching them, and I like having outsiders evaluate the projects, so that's generally how I set things up.
And so one of the things I did for my project was to get people to put on sunscreen every day, and I think what happened, I'd have to go back and look at my notes, was I was like, okay, if I just, I want people to do this, let's make it really, really, let's just do one drop of sunscreen. So I pulled together like 10 or 20 people.
And I actually moderated, guided it through Facebook and had people put on one drop of sunscreen. And then I came up with the other pieces of a super easy way to create habits, which basically has three hacks. And one of them is to make it really, really tiny. So one drop of [00:32:00] sunscreen floss, one tooth, just do two pushups.
Don't do 20. And the results were really good. And then I just kept going, hacking my own life that way. So the class ended and then I just started saying, Oh my gosh. And I looked at my own behavior model as well. And I looked at a portion of the model that said, if something's really easy to do, your motivation can be high, medium or low.
If it's hard to do, the motivation has to be high. So I was like, Oh my gosh, there's this thing about it. Something's really, really easy to do. It's not reliant on motivation. I goofed around with that for a few months, probably six or eight months. Created a whole bunch of new habits very, very easily. And then I started teaching it in December.
I remember saying, Oh, I'm going to teach, you know, school's done, I'm done grading. It was like December 4th or something. I'm going to teach this to a few friends. And one thing led to another. In a few weeks I was teaching hundreds, two to 300 people a week through email, uh, five day sessions. And then in that, you know, as I've had hundreds of people a week, I would [00:33:00] iterate and test and iterate and test and, and optimize the program for really one thing.
The five day program is optimize to increase your confidence that you can change for the better. I don't care about what habits you work on. I don't even care if you keep the habits. What I cared about, and I think this is right, is if I can help somebody within a week become more confident that they can change their life for the better, all these good things will happen.
You know, that's the premise. And so I really, uh, designed and redesigned and iterated the program for that and, you know, measured that and so on. We still measure it every week.
Amy: That's fascinating. Why did you zoom in on confidence?
BJ: Well, in part, probably because of my exposure to Albert Bandura and his concept of self efficacy and he's, um, you know, confidence is kind of the same, uh, though Bandura would object and, uh, strict Bandurians would object.
But if you have a sense that you [00:34:00] can do something, you're more likely to attempt things, like more confidence that you can change. One, that's a reflection of learning the skills of change. You're more likely to attempt something. You're more likely to persist when you have setbacks. For most of the important behavior changes in our life, people have tried and they get discouraged.
And so they do need, I think, a little more confidence saying, I'm going to try this again. And certainly the ability to persevere when they're not perfect, because Nobody's perfect and eating better, reducing stress or prioritizing or whatever you're trying to do. It's it's a journey. And so I just felt like if I could help people that way, then I know stories of where it's had big impact on the household.
It's had big impact on how they approach work, big impact on their career. So that opens the door for a lot of things.
Amy: So how has that, um, model evolved?
BJ: Tiny habits?
Amy: Yeah. How long do you work with people? Are there different levels of the program? [00:35:00] I see. You're also enabling people to become trainers. Like walk us through that, that evolution.
BJ: Right now there are two offerings, uh, two things. One is a five day program that's free. You can do it over and over and over. And some people do, we have a set of videos as well that we share in certain ways to, to train. So that's all a tinyhabits.com and you sign up. And right now, if you sign up, sometimes you'll work with me and sometimes you'll work with one of our certified coaches.
And then the other thing we offer is a certification program, which some enthusiasts take just for their own knowledge and because they get excited about it, which is great. But it's mostly for people who are in the business of helping other people change, whether it's a dietitian, some sort of coach, what have you.
And so then in that course, which we do on Zoom. And it's a live course and I teach part of every course. Then we go into the tiny habits method in depth and really help them [00:36:00] understand why it works and how to help people learn the method and how to have all these tiny changes in habits lead to a much much bigger impact on people's life.
So we only have those two things now. We're talking even this week, we've talked for a long time about having some mid level course that people just do to learn a lot more but they're not necessarily going to be coaches or trainers.
Amy: Right. Like a masterclass or something like that. I would love to see you do that.
That would be really cool. This goes back to where we opened when you talked about the lifestyle you set up for yourself. And this fits right in.
BJ: Well, it does. I mean, it does. It's, it's weird though. I mean, so here as an academic, as a scientist, I have this thing that's going direct to consumers, you know, direct to everyday people.
That was not the plan. I mean, yak pack, that was the plan. That was not the plan for tiny habits. But it just kept going on its own and it just, you know, I didn't advertise it. I didn't promote it. Other people just did. And so now I'm working on a [00:37:00] book called Tiny Habits that will come out. People have asked for that for years.
So that is going well. And you know, I guess if I could rewind to year one or two of Tiny Habits, I would have said, this isn't going to stop going. This is going to keep going. So BJ, get serious. Put in the infrastructure you need, develop the materials you need, don't just half ass it, don't just get by.
But I didn't really see that years later it would just keep going and going and people would keep signing up and at the end of the five day session they're like, what's next? And I'm like, there's not anything that's next, just redo the program if you want. And so it's kind of lame. I felt guilty for years.
We don't have a what's next. And so Amy, the kind of the master class. It's definitely something that I would like to figure out how to do. I, I, I haven't designed a self serve online course, but I love teaching people in person, so I'm like, how can I do this on zoom? So I'm getting the fun of teaching people in real time and that's probably not [00:38:00] the point.
Amy: Yeah. Well, you can apply the flip classroom to it, but that's a whole nother conversation. I mean, I've been experimenting and iterating on that for seven years now.
BJ: Talking to the right person.
Amy: Well, yeah, it's, you know, you can turn your real time classroom into a project review and put all the lectures into short, five-minute videos is the short answer. And you know, and restructure your materials around the activities, I guess, but that's a whole nother conversation back to you.
And perhaps we will have a part two when you're a little further along with this.
BJ: I would love to.
Amy: Cool. So you, I think are somebody who has inspired a lot of other people and you're helping people with tiny habits. You know, you're actually putting it out there. It's growing on its own. That's a sign that the world needs it, you know, and likes it.
So that's awesome. What is inspiring you? What are you [00:39:00] seeing around you that's new and exciting? You know, what trends or Tech is just intriguing to you.
BJ: I mean, I'm just fundamentally about behavior and human being other than nature. Nature inspires me. There's a reason I live close to nature and water.
So that's a whole different thing, but I just see the world through behavior and. How you can change your own behavior, help others change their behavior. One of my frustrations is how much bad information there's been out there around nutrition and what to eat. Because there's a lot of people out there that want to lose weight or sleep better, have more energy.
And even if they try, they may get, they will get bad information. And so I'm inspired by, Dr. Ted Eaton at Kaiser Permanente, who has a strong, clear point of view about the science of nutrition and what matters and what doesn't. And he's out and, you know, fighting the fight against sugar. He [00:40:00] shows up at the big sugar convention and sits in the audience and takes pictures and tweets about how they're talking about this essentially a poison.
And so somebody like that, that's just clearing, that's taking this really fuzzy domain that matters, nutrition, and just. Telling the truth about it or discovering the truth about it. That is really important. My colleagues who are doing the peace innovation work, they get on coach class planes and fly to Europe from California and they arrive there and they give a lecture and a workshop and they meet with, you know, academic labs, industries, and they get on the plane and fly home.
In fact, Margarita, is flying home for two days and flying back. Oh my, the devotion, uh, that she and Mark and her teammates have that inspires me and people that are really putting it out there, either their reputation or physically or whatever, to make the world a better place. That's really, that's, that's inspires [00:41:00] me and that, that encourages me and pushes me to just keep going, even if it looks hard or even if I'm getting unfairly characterized in the media or whatnot, just keep going, go offense, don't go on defense, go on, keep playing offense, keep moving your stuff into the world for the better.
Amy: I love it. When you look back at. You know, what you've learned and what you've accomplished and what you're excited about now. What do you feel like is your superpower as a creative person, your sweet spot? What really lights you up?
BJ: I've known this since I was really young, but this is a superpower. This is a two-edged sword.
So superpower that I've had to learn to control and struggle with all the time. And that's the ability to come up with lots of ideas. Just. It's just like a faucet. If I want ideas on something, I just turn a faucet and they just come out just like crazy and then I have to turn it off or they just keep going and going.
And that some people might [00:42:00] go, Oh, that's great. That's awesome. Well, it's awesome sometimes. Uh, it's bad if you just want to turn your brain off and relax, it's bad if you need to focus on one thing and not have a bunch of other ideas or opportunities distracting you. So I've really had to bring in systems of prioritization into my life.
You just, you know, so the superpower is just to be able to come up with ideas, just bam, bam, bam, bam, or seeing different facets of a problem or whatever. But that comes with time. It's own problems. That's what I'm saying.
Amy: Yeah. Well, I think everyone's great strength is their Achilles heel to kind of seems like human nature in a way, but that's really interesting that that's, you know, I think that really helps complete the picture of you living in nature and really setting up all these systems and finding ways to get the best out of yourself.
BJ: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, I feel very, very [00:43:00] fortunate, but I say, yeah, with kind of a sigh there's things that should have been priority years, years ago that you didn't look at very well. And you know, you do the best you can day by day, I guess. And nobody's perfect. And even though people pretend like they are, nobody's figured it all out.
And so you just do the best you can and just trust that you're doing good enough.
Amy: And just keep learning.
BJ: Yeah, I mean, you're probably a lot like I am, you know, you do something, whether it's a keynote or a workshop or something, and then you'll go back and evaluate yourself like, how did I do? And yeah, they might have loved it, but I knew their weak points and I knew there's places that I could do better and so on.
And I'm okay with that. It's like, uh, that could have been better. And like, but then there's times when it's like, man, like the last bootcamp I taught, I think was bootcamp is my two-day training.
Amy: Mm hmm.
BJ: At the end of it in behavior design, I've been about like, yep, that was probably the best of the year. It wasn't perfect, but it was the best of the year.
Yay. [00:44:00] Good. Why? Okay, fine. Let's try to keep making it better. But then you look at people whose jobs end at 5:30 or whatever, and they go home and they don't think about stuff constantly. And you're like, Hmm. Maybe they got it right after all.
Amy: Well, different strokes for different folks. Mm hmm. What's on the horizon for you that's interesting? What's coming up?
BJ: Well, I'm writing my book on Tiny Habits. So it's Tiny Habits is the title, but it's going to be broader and talk about the broader umbrella of behavior design, but that is very exciting to me. I haven't done a book in this way and it's been contracted to be translated in 12 or 15 languages already and so on.
So that to me, super exciting because I don't have this kind of book out and people have been waiting for it and. I don't try to travel now, but with the book, I will travel. So being able to, you know, when it comes out and do that thing, travel and share, and then have [00:45:00] people have resources and have online resources that go with the book.
You know, tiny habits is off and running and I was busy with other things, teaching and research. And then one day. I had a dream that I was on a plane and I was probably going to give a talk somewhere. I forgot what, but something happened in the plane and it was going to crash and I was going to die.
And I was like, Oh no, you know, so I was alone on the plane. My partner wasn't with me and in the dream, my reaction, and I truly thought I was going to die. I was like, Oh no, I haven't shared my work yet. Not just tiny habits, but a bunch of stuff. It's like, Oh no. And it was this deep kind of regret and shame that I hadn't shared my work and then I woke up and I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm not dying. Yay. But isn't that weird that that's my reaction was I haven't shared my work yet in a big way that I need to. So when you say what's exciting me, it's [00:46:00] exciting me to get my stuff into the world in a better way.
And it's not just the book. So I've done all these free phone calls. Now I'm going to probably open up to a weekly office hours. We'll be joining me on zoom and, and so. Anybody in the world that wants to get some input from me or hear about behavior design can, and it's free. That to me is really exciting and satisfying.
Just getting better at sharing my stuff and helping innovators create good products and services that help people be happier and healthier. That's what it's about for me.
Amy: That's awesome. That's really deep.
BJ: The dream was very clarifying.
Amy: Yeah.
BJ: It wasn't about the pain of crashing. It wasn't about my little dog or my partner.
It was. I mean, I have boxes of notes and on just stuff that I've never shared. Nobody's ever seen it. And it's like, none of that. Well, not, I know a small fraction of that's out there and Oh no. You know, so that clarifying dream was really helpful, I guess.
Amy: [00:47:00] Well, we look forward to the book and maybe the masterclass and more of your work to make the world a better place.
Thank you so much for joining us today. It's just been delightful.
BJ: Amy Jo, thank you so much. And thanks for the great questions. And thank you.
Amy: Hope to talk to you again soon.
BJ: Aloha.
Outro: Thanks for listening to Getting2Alpha with Amy Jo Kim, the shows that help you innovate faster and smarter. Be sure to check out our website, getting2alpha.com that's getting(number)2alpha.com for more great resources and podcast episodes.