In this episode, we sit down with therapist Britt Frank to discuss the intention action gap, the psychological term for the chasm between what you very much intend to do and what you tend to do instead. It turns out, there's a well-researched psychological framework that includes a term for when you have a stated, known goal – a change you'd like to make in your life – something you wake up intending to finally do or get started doing, but then don't do while knowing full well you are actively not doing what you ought and wish you had done by now. After we discuss this phenomenon and how to deal with it, we get into procrastination and how to escape all manner of dead-end behavioral loops. 

The Getting Unstuck Workbook

The Science of Stuck

Kitted Shop

The Story of Kitted

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Show Notes

Newsletter

Patreon

Sarah Stein Lubrano tells us about her new book, Don't Talk About Politics, which urges us not to lose hope or become frozen in frustration when it comes to polarization and faulty discourse because the good news is that we don't just know, scientifically, why the marketplace of ideas is currently failing us, we know how, scientifically, we can do better. 

Sarah Stein Lubrano's Website

Don't Talk About Politics

Motivated Numeracy Paper

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Show Notes

Newsletter

Patreon

In this episode we welcome psychologist Mary C. Murphy, author of Cultures of Growth, who tells us how to create institutions, businesses, and other groups of humans that can better support collaboration, innovation, performance, and wellbeing. We also learn how, even if you know all about the growth mindset, the latest research suggests you not may not be creating a culture of growth despite what feels like your best efforts to do so. 

Mary Murphy’s Website

Cultures of Growth

Carol Dweck at Google

Paper: A Culture of Genius

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Show Notes

Newsletter

Patreon

Alex Edmans, a professor of finance at London Business School, tells us how to avoid the Ladder of Misinference by examining how narratives, statistics, and articles can mislead, especially when they align with our preconceived notions and confirm what we believe is true, assume is true, and wish were true.

Alex Edmans 

May Contain Lies

What to Test in a Post Trust World

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

David McRaney’s BlueSky

YANSS Twitter

YANSS Facebook

Newsletter

Kitted

Patreon

In this episode we sit down with Brian Klaas, author of Fluke, and get into the existential lessons and grander meaning for a life well-lived (once one finally accepts the power and influence of randomness, chaos, and chance). In addition, we learn not to fall prey to proportionality bias - the tendency for human brains to assume big, historical, or massively impactful events must have had big causes and/or complex machinations underlying their grand outcomes. It’s one of the cognitive biases that most contributes to conspiratorial thinking and grand conspiracy theories, one that leads to an assumption that there must be something more going on when big, often unlikely, events make the evening news. Yet, as Brian explains, events big and small are often the result of random inputs in complex systems interacting in ways that are difficult to predict.

Previous Episodes

Brian Klaas

Fluke

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

David McRaney’s BlueSky

YANSS Twitter

YANSS Facebook

Newsletter

Kitted

Patreon

If you want to overthrow a dictator, resist an authoritarian regime, or create a movement that can change the national status quo, you don't need half the country, you only need 3.5 percent of the population to join – but there are some caveats, and Erica Chenoweth whose research led to the discovery of the 3.5 Percent Rule, explains them to us in this episode.

Previous Episodes

Erica Chenoweth's Website

Why Civil Resistance Works (the paper)

Why Civil Resistance Works (the book)

The TED Talk

The Q&A

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

David McRaney's BlueSky

YANSS Twitter

YANSS Facebook

Newsletter

Patreon

Professor Neil Theise, the author of Notes on Complexity,  provides an introduction to the science of how complex systems behave – from cells to human beings, to ecosystems, the known universe, and beyond – and we explore if Ian Malcolm was right when he told us in Jurassic Park that "Life, um, finds a way."

Previous Episodes

Neil Theise's Website

Notes on Complexity

Conway's Game of Life

The Santa Fe Institute

Technosphere

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Newsletter

Patreon

In this episode we sit down with Greg Satell, a communication expert whose book, Cascades, details how rapid, widespread change can sweep across groups of people big and small, and how understanding the psychological mechanisms at play in such moments can help anyone looking to create change in a family, institution, or even nation, prepare for the inevitable resistance they will face.

• Special Offer From Greg Satell

• Greg Satell's Website

• Greg Satell's Blog

• Greg Satell's Twitter

• Newsletter

• How Minds Change

• David McRaney’s Twitter

• Kitted

• YANSS Twitter

• Show Notes

Therapist, teacher, speaker, and trauma specialist Britt Frank tells us all about her new book, Align Your Mind, an all-access pass to understanding, befriending, and leading the multiple voices within yourself.

Grounded in the latest research on Parts Work and Internal Family Systems, and offering proven techniques from Frank’s clinical practice and personal challenges, this engaging guide is a user manual to your own mind—and presents a road map for finding peace, confidence, and a deeper understanding of who you truly are.

Previous Episodes

Britt Frank’s Practice

Align Your Mind Website

Britt Frank’s Instagram

How Minds Change

Newsletter

David McRaney’s Twitter

David McRaney's Bluesky

YANSS Twitter

In 1974, two psychologists, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, as the New Yorker once put it, "changed the way we think about the way we think." The prevailing wisdom, before their landmark research went viral (in the way things went viral in the 1970s), was that human beings were, for the most part, rational optimizers always making the kinds of judgments and decisions that best maximized the potential of the outcomes under their control. This was especially true in economics at the time. The story of how they generated a paradigm shift so powerful that it reached far outside economics and psychology to change the way all of us see ourselves is a fascinating tale, one that required the invention of something this episode is all about: The Psychology of Single Questions.

They Thought We Were Ridiculous

Opinion Science

Behavioral Grooves

How Minds Change

Show Notes

Newsletter

Patreon