A Load of BS: The Behavioural Science Podcast with Daniel Ross: Recent Episodes
Daniel Ross
A Load of BS: The Behavioural Science Podcast is the place to come for very human stories. Put simply, its raison d’être is to try to explain why we do the things we do. In conversation with thinkers, leaders and writers from all fields, we will shine light on the peculiarity, uncertainty and complexity of our existence, and give context and comfort to our associated anxieties and fears. And we'll do this in an entertaining, accessible and educational way.Come and join the community!
This is the story of a decade long campaign to make contact sport safe.
In this episode, we welcome award winning author and journalist Sam Peters alongside Rugby Union World Cup winner Lewis Moody.
Sam has just won The Sports Writing Award at the Charles Tyrwhitt Book Awards for Concussed: Sport's Uncomfortable Truth, not only a fine piece of writing, but moreover a recognition for an ongoing campaign Sam has been fighting for over a decade.
Lewis won pretty well everything in Rugby Union, domestic and European titles with Leicester Tigers, British Lions caps, and most notably the World Cup with England in 2003. He himself suffered multiple serious concussions in his career; and this is the subject of today.
Show notes:
- Sam’s 10+ year campaign to save rugby
- Lewis’s own terrible concussion history
- The tragic stories of those who’ve suffered
- Mental health + concussion
- Resistance and conflicts of interest from the inside
- Grassroots and the future of rugby
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This week, we are joined by ex All Black Rugby Union legend Sean Fitzpatrick. Sean was part of the team which won the inaugural World Cup in 1987, and then captained the team subsequently. He is now Chairman at Laureus World Sports Academy.
Sean is an all round lovely guy! It was a huge pleasure talking to him.
Show notes
- Sean’s rugby background and story
- His on and off the field style
- Imposter syndrome
- Impact of winning the World Cup
- Amateur vs professional era
- Great influences
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Two old friends reunite for an unique conversation as we kick off a new mini-series for BS on Sport today exploring partnerships and what makes them great.
Today is a pretty damn good opener as yin and yang partnerships go. We have a huge treat as we are talking to 2 icons of British sport, certainly of the cricket world; Mike Brearley and Lord Botham of Ravensworth, otherwise known as Ian Botham.
The pair have never been interviewed like this together, so this is an unique listen.
Show notes
- The captain-player relationship
- Competitiveness, confidence, and calmness in high performance
- Experiences of fame and pressures on cricket families
- Contrasts with today’s modern sports psychology emphasis
- Reflections on their careers vs. the modern era of T20 cricket & central contracts
- Lasting camaraderie and mutual respect between players of their era
- Transitioning away from cricket into new fields in later life
Please leave a review if you like the podcast; and share with friends. Your support makes us very happy!
Get the podcast in your inbox every week by subscribing here Access our exclusive speaker events by subscribing here Follow Daniel on Twitter Podcast music: Tamsin Waley-Cohen's Mendelssohn's violin concerto
This week, we are joined by Caspar Berry. Caspar started out in acting aged 16 actor in BBC show Byker Grove with “Ant and Dec”. At Cambridge he had commercial success directing award-winning short films and TV commercials, then went on to write two feature films which were produced by Film Four and Columbia Tri Star before he had graduated.
Aged 26, he decided to take a risk and move to Las Vegas with his life savings in his pocket, and for next few years, became a professional poker player.
Caspar later returned to the UK to set up 21st Century Media which he later sold to Bob Geldof's Ten Alps plc. He now gives talks and mentors around the world on all his disparate experiences.
Show Notes:
- How Caspar’s early life decisions, driven by comfort with risk, led to diverse experiences
- Poker as a metaphor for decision-making processes in life and business
- The complexity of assigning probabilities to actions and the challenges posed by unpredictability
- Differences in risk-taking between individual and team sports
- The concept of 'negative metrics': sometimes the pursuit of certain performance metrics (e.g. home runs in baseball) might lead to higher failure rates (strikeouts)
Please leave a review if you like the podcast; and share with friends. Your support makes us very happy!
Get the podcast in your inbox every week by subscribing here Access our exclusive speaker events by subscribing here Follow Daniel on Twitter Podcast music: Tamsin Waley-Cohen's Mendelssohn's violin concerto
This week, we are joined by esteemed sports psychologist Andrea Furst. With a career that spans continents and disciplines, Andrea is an extremely well respected, established figure in the realm of sports psychology, known for her work with elite athletes across a wide spectrum of sports—from golf and sailing to tennis, hockey, rugby, cricket and beyond. Indeed, among other, she is currently the sports psychologist at current county cricket champions Surrey.
She is also the founder of Mental Notes, where she leads a team of sport psychologists dedicated to elevating elite performance. Her extensive experience here includes supporting multiple Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games teams.
Show notes
- How psychological principles are applied to enhance athlete performance and mental well-being
- Techniques and strategies used by Andrea to help athletes manage downtime and focus during competitions
- Adapting sports psychology practices to different cultural contexts and individual athlete needs
- The importance of addressing mental health as an integral part of sports psychology
- Impacts of her psychological interventions: maximising walking time in golf
Please leave a review if you like the podcast; and share with friends. Your support makes us very happy!
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This week, we are joined by former England international cricketer Nick Compton. Nick is the grandson of the great Dennis, but a very fine 1st class cricketer in his own right playing for Middlesex, Somerset and 16 tests for England scoring 2 centuries in that time.
Nick wrote his memoir 'Legacy' just last year and it is a moving, poignant, searingly honest, at times harrowing story of someone who was supremely talented at his craft, but for whom it became too all consuming and challenged Nick's mental health to the edge of his survival. Nick's psychological journey is the subject of this conversation.
Show notes:
- Nick's journey of self-discovery
- The mental marathon of performance
- The realities of life as a professional athlete, beyond the glamour and accolades
- The legacy and weight of family
- The complexities of team dynamics and personal sacrifice
- Hanging out with Virat Kohli’s girlfriend
A Load of BS Events
Liam and I are hosting our inaugural business of sport and entertainment event on June 17th early evening in London.
We will be joined for discussion and drinks by Lord Ian Botham, Sir Andrew Strauss and Mo Bobat at the fabulous Patrick Mavros atelier on the Fulham Road.
If you’d like to join us…
We have a handful of seats available to podcast listeners. If you’d like to come, please email danielsjross@gmail.com with subject line: ‘A Load of BS Events RSVP’
Please leave a review if you like the podcast; and share with friends. Your support makes us very happy!
Please leave a review if you like the podcast; and share with friends. Your support makes us very happy!
Get the podcast in your inbox every week by subscribing here Access our exclusive speaker events by subscribing here Follow Daniel on Twitter Podcast music: Tamsin Waley-Cohen's Mendelssohn's violin concerto
This week, we are joined by Ben Stookesberry, legendary white water expedition kayaker whose death defying exploits on some of the most extreme rapids in the world are nothing short of awe inspiring.
“In the last 4 years alone I’ve made dozens of first descents on six continents from the tropics to the Arctic with long time kayaking partners Chris Korbulic and Pedro Oliva,” says Ben. “In total I have over 130 first descents and counting.”
SEE BEN IN ACTION!
Show notes:
- Facing fear and adversity: what it feels like close to drowning
- Preparation and mental strength to tackle extreme kayaking
- The impact of tragedy: losing a friend to a crocodile attack
- The thrill of exploring untouched environments
- A philosophy on risk and mortality
- Ben’s commitment to personal growth
Please leave a review if you like the podcast; and share with friends. Your support makes us very happy!
Get the podcast in your inbox every week by subscribing here Access our exclusive speaker events by subscribing here Follow Daniel on Twitter Podcast music: Tamsin Waley-Cohen's Mendelssohn's violin concerto
This week, we are joined by former professional footballer, now broadcaster and author Pat Nevin. Pat had a long and successful career on the pitch, but his hinterland is arguably richer.
He was a darting winger for Chelsea, Everton, Tranmere Rovers and Scotland, but also chairman of the Professional Footballers Association, player/CEO at Motherwell, an ardent anti-racism campaigner as well as lover of music and the arts. He has a deep understanding and appreciation for the psychology of sport, as you'll find out by listening!
Show notes:
- The pure joy of playing football
- Playing without nerves
- Pat's perspective on embracing individuality and challenging norms
- How to eliminate cheating
- Personal growth, reflection and writing
- The great managers who understood psychology best
Please leave a review if you like the podcast; and share with friends. Your support makes us very happy!
Get the podcast in your inbox every week by subscribing here Access our exclusive speaker events by subscribing here Follow Daniel on Twitter Podcast music: Tamsin Waley-Cohen's Mendelssohn's violin concerto
This week, we are joined by Mo Bobat, until recently Performance Director at the English Cricket Board, now fulfilling the same role with IPL team the Royal Challengers Bangalore. We discuss how elite athletes and teams harness mental strength and innovative strategies to achieve greatness. From the art of managing maverick talents to the science behind creating cohesive, high-performing teams, Mo shares his insights, experiences, and the cutting-edge techniques that make him a sought-after expert in the sports industry.
Show notes:
- The psychology behind elite performance
- Cultivating a high-performance mindset
- Managing talents and team dynamics
- Strategies for mental strength and resilience
- The impact of leadership on team performance
- Mo 's own sporting journey
Please leave a review if you like the podcast; and share with friends. Your support makes us very happy!
Get the podcast in your inbox every week by subscribing here Access our exclusive speaker events by subscribing here Follow Daniel on Twitter Podcast music: Tamsin Waley-Cohen's Mendelssohn's violin concerto
In this first in a new series, we talk to former England international, Kent and Middlesex cricketer Ed Smith. Ed is also a prolific writer and broadcaster, past England national selector and now founder of the Institute of Sports Humanities which teaches a unique degree in sports leadership.
We talk about:
- What sport and cricket mean to Ed
- What the study of history has taught Ed about sport
- The problem with team talks
- Emotionally intelligent coaches
- Team selection and risk taking
- How to make good decisions
- Sport as art
Hosted by Daniel Ross and Liam Botham
Please leave a review if you like the podcast; and share with friends. Your support makes us very happy!
Get the podcast in your inbox every week by subscribing here Access our exclusive speaker events by subscribing here Follow Daniel on Twitter Podcast music: Tamsin Waley-Cohen's Mendelssohn's violin concerto
Dr Grace Lordan is an Associate Professor at the London School of Economics in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science. She is also Founding Director there of The Inclusion Initiative which focuses on bringing together teaching, research and practice to build more inclusive work environments.
She has also written a book which I personally took huge value from, 'Think Big: Take Small Steps and Build the Career You Want', which uses behavioural science to give really practical advice about, amongst other, how to ask for pay rises, get promoted and change careers.
Show notes
- About Grace’s book ‘Think Big: Take Small Steps and Build the Career You Want’
- When is it a good time to ask for a pay rise?
- And how to get your narrative right
- Who is Me+, your future self?
- How dating experiences are different for girls and boys
- How to escape the evils of your phone
- The Inclusion Initiative at LSE: improving company leadership and culture
- Is the pipeline problem a myth or reality?
- Covid’s mass resignation; and its great regret
- Fighting for greater workplace gender equality
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I welcome this week the behavioural scientist Patrick Fagan, described by comedian David Mitchell as a "Mother Superior in nipple tassels".
He's also a former Cambridge Analytica man, if your minds can take you back to that scandal and time in history. Patrick is the author of Hooked whose by-line is 'Why cute sells and other marketing magic we just can't resist.
And by the way, he is soon to publish a new book Free Your Mind: The New World of Manipulation and How to Resist It in collaboration with Laura Dodsworth.
You’ll pick up some old references in this conversation to our former PM (which one you may reasonably ask?!) Boris Johnson here as this episode was recorded before he toppled. That aside, all the chat is super relevant.
Show notes
- Magic and creativity
- Pioneering work as lead psychologist at Cambridge Analytica
- What factors influence political preference?
- Status quo bias and fear of change
- Patrick’s book: the 10 psychological principles for crafting effective communications in 3 categories
- Grab attention
- Get people to think about your message
- Influence behaviour
- Why do we get dressed?
- Unintended consequences
- Why we need to take care with nudges
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We're back and firing with the final part in my mini-series with the wonderful Dave Blakely, Executive VP at venture builder Mach49, talking innovation, design and creativity in organisations. In this episode, we talk about risk taking, storytelling, how we live in partnership with AI and the invention of Scrabble. And plenty more.
Show notes
- Do corporations take enough risk?
- What do we mean by acceptable failure?
- How Alfred Butts invented Scrabble
- TS Elliot’s answer to the problem with process
- Why Dave admires Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk
- The wonders of good storytelling as told by Dave Trott
- AI and creativity: impacts on how we work, live and play
- How we live in partnership with AI
- Our constant state of distraction
Check out my partner Mach49
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Today is the second in my A Load of BS on Best Behaviour with Dave Blakely, Executive VP at venture builder and super growth builder Mach49, who I continue to be delighted to collaborate with on this mini-series of conversations on innovation, design and creativity in organisations; answering questions on how we move leaders and teams to change their behaviour, to lose their conservatism and scepticism and experiment wisely.
Today Dave and I talk about discipline. We argue that leaders should have the right to beat up their employees when things go wrong. No, we don't do that really. But we do consider the value of letting a little chaos into the firm to let great ideas germinate safely.
Show notes
- Discipline: a punishment for disobedience or letting some chaos in?
- The BS of imposing discipline on CEOs
- Why Google is brilliant
- Who Dave has stolen from and made it his own
- Why generalists connect the dots better and are masters at lateral innovation
- Applying SV in Paris, Bangkok and Nairobi
- Playing mind games with clients
- Google Save and turning round violent extremists in Nazi US hate groups
- Errors of conservatism, scepticism and pessimism
Check out my partner Mach49
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Today is the first in a 3-part series with Dave Blakely, an extraordinarily talented, sharp-witted and humble man whom I’m so happy to be collaborating with and indeed his company Mach49 where he is Executive Vice President. We talk innovation, creativity, design and the vagaries of the human condition.
Check out some of the amazing work Mach49 does driving growth and building new ventures with some of the greatest brands around.
Dave was a leader at design agency IDEO for many years and has advised organisations on innovation and design thinking as wide ranging as NASA, Google and Eli Lilly over a decades long career. He has sailed the Silicon Valley seas, studying engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, working in a Hewlett Packard spin off as well as teaching at Stanford's renowned d.school.
Show notes
- Loving building new things
- Designing the robot arm
- Learning and leading at IDEO
- Vets accidentally jabbing themselves with cattle needles
- What Mach49 does better than IDEO
- Translating research ideas into big ideas at Stanford’s d.school
- Rory Sutherland’s ‘Make it Pink’ boardroom strategy
- When did Dave last stand up and fart in front of clients?
- Unusual rituals, violent extremists, unique food packaging in the Philippines and getting in and out of a space suit
- Andy Grove’s innovation cliché at Intel
- Predictions for the Metaverse
- How does Dave remain sufficiently illogical?
Check out my partner Mach49
Subscribe for more here Follow me on TwitterPodcast music: Tamsin Waley-Cohen's Mendelssohn's violin concerto
Check out my partner Mach49
Subscribe for more here Follow me on TwitterPodcast music: Tamsin Waley-Cohen's Mendelssohn's violin concerto
I welcome Nate Barr and Shannon O’Malley to wrap up my series with the BEworks team. We share our highlights of the series and what the future holds for BS and BEworks.
Show notes
- Surprises and learning: what does it really mean to be a behavioural scientist practitioner?
- Issues at the centre of our zeitgeist: our money, healthcare, sustainability
- Meeting the drop in the bucket challenge
- Understanding the Anthropocene: our human epoch and disruptions to earth’s systems
- Language affects the experience and outcome
- Pandemic induced fractured nature of our health systems
- How to board a bus in Santiago, Chile; making payment easy
- What are the big human challenges before us which would benefit from behavioural solutions?
- Why don’t more businesses apply psychology to daily life?
- Challenging the predominance of nudge theory
Check out my partner Mach49
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I welcome David Thomson, VP and Head of the Sustainability Practice at BEworks. Dave is a cognitive experimental psychologist working with large multinational corporations and governments on behaviour change challenges such as electricity consumption reduction, adoption of energy efficient technology and food waste reduction; all of which we touch on in the podcast.
Show notes
- How do we bridge the values-action gap in sustainability?
- Who’s responsibility is it – companies’ or consumers’?
- The Tesla status symbol
- Giving immediate benefits to solve a long-term problem
- How prevalent is corporate greenwashing?
- How to help people reduce domestic electricity consumption
- Moving from small, isolated experiments to impact at scale
- What makes great experimental design?
- What mistakes has Dave made?
Check out my partner BEworks
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Alex is Head of Behavioural Risk at NatWest Group where she and her team develop innovative data-led ways to reduce the risk of poor outcomes for the bank, and customers, resulting from behavioural root causes.
She has also just regained her student card; as of September she started a part-time PhD at The London School of Economics!
She is also the author of the highly acclaimed ‘Poles Apart: Why People Turn Against Each Other, and How to Bring Them Together’, clearly a book for our times.
Show notes
- Alex’s interest in tribalism, partisanship and a polarised, divided society
- Pre-empting poor outcomes – prevention is better than cure
- Social identity in the bank: what is driving behaviours and mindsets?
- How are targets and goals designed?
- How information is presented to customers (e.g. payment journeys) influences how they make decisions
- Negative outcomes, fundamental attribution errors, complex systems and unintended harm
- Customer behaviour online vs bricks and mortar
- Perceptions of Alex’s team in the bank
- Promoting shared goals and identity to get buy-in
- How do we use behavioural science to create better customer experiences?
- Designing better workplaces and customer journey environments so that behavioural change happens naturally
Check out my partner BEworks
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Name one thing that we all think about or discuss every single day… money. We carry so many unconscious biases when it comes to looking after our finances. You probably think you’re the exception…
Michelle Hilscher leads the financial services practice at BEworks and, armed with a PhD in cognitive psychology from the University of Toronto, is particularly interested in applying behavioural science to bring about improvements in financial decision-making and financial well-being.
Show notes
- Connecting the dots between cognitive psychology and financial services
- Belief bias
- Why is there so much interest in the BS of our finances?
- Is the sector ahead of the game?
- Pros and cons of mental accounting biases
- Windfall spending patterns post-COVID
- ‘Save More Tomorrow’: keeping people’s savings on track for the long-term
- Resolving fraud: putting customers in control
- Enforced boundaries and self-regulation
- FAFSA: psychological barriers to filling out the US college financial aid application form; neat solutions to improving educational outcomes
Check out my partner BEworks
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Preeti KS set up and leads the BS team at Grab in Singapore. Grab is the super app which provides users with transportation, food delivery and digital payments. Think the Uber of SE Asia, approximately! It is Southeast Asia's first decacorn and the biggest technology startup in the region.
Show notes
- Grab’s motivation for getting into behavioural science
- How Preeti set up a BS practice from scratch and what were the objectives
- How Preeti built credibility and convinced colleagues to take behavioural science seriously?
- Early experiments: understanding why customers hate surge pricing. Not as obvious as you might imagine
- How Grab thinks about pricing by country, city and district – different cultures, norms and economies
- Experiments in making drivers feel respected
- Why companies are typically sceptical about behavioural science
- How cultural context influences how we think. Different driver motivations within SE Asia region
Check out my partner BEworks
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This week we’re diving into healthcare; what could be more critical? To help me understand how behavioural science is impacting this field, I’m joined by Dr. Ada Le, healthcare expert at BEworks and Dr. Mousumi Sannigrahi, newly installed as Head of Commercial for Innovative Medicines at Fosun Pharma US, having spent the last 8 years at Novartis Pharma.
Show notes
- What’s happening at the intersection of behavioural science and the pharma industry?
- How behavioural science plays out at Fosun vs. Novartis
- The next frontier for healthcare and behavioural science
- What needs to happen to move to a more human-centric approach to healthcare?
- The goal of the 1% Steps for Health Care Reform Project
- What are easy wins that the pharma industry can enact now?
- Psychological barriers for patients with autoimmune disease
- Rosy retrospection bias and failure to prescribe the right treatment
- David Robson and expectation effects: how mindset can alter our lives
- Dan Ariely’s end of life theories and research
- The scientific method of problem solving vs. more subtle placebo effects
- Hopes for healthcare in the next year
Check out my partner BEworks
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Introducing Zeina Afif, Renos Vakis and Ana Maria Muñoz Boudet
I’m privileged to welcome to A Load of BS the core team at eMBeD, the Mind, Development and Behaviour Unit at the World Bank. Zeina, Ana Maria and Renos are working on the front lines, alongside governments and policy makers, challenging standard policy design and trying to change behaviour in complex, unpredictable environments and solving the thorniest of problems in gender, inequality and poverty among other.
They have worked in over 70 countries, supporting the World Bank by diagnosing, designing, and evaluating behaviourally informed interventions.
Show notes
- How music and magic contribute to behavioural science
- eMBeD’s role and purpose
- Managing policy makers in complex environments
- Using local, cultural and political context to construct behavioural science interventions
- Can the skillsets doing BS at eMBeD take you anywhere?
- Being gritty
- Disaster risk management in Haiti identifying barriers to act on hurricane early response systems encouraging people to go to their shelters
- Focusing on solutions that work vs. the best solution
- Sustainability: projects are not a one-night stand
- Work on vaccine hesitancy
- Ensuring diversity in the World Bank
- What excites and scares the eMBeD team for the future?
Check out my partner BEworks
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Clémence is Director and co-founder at Magenta Consulting where she and her team use behavioural insights to make sustainable and scalable change in some of the poorest, war torn and least developed parts of the world, seeking to to maximise the effectiveness and efficiency of communications interventions in support of social impact; in places like Nigeria, Tunisia, Afghanistan and Lebanon.
The focus of their projects so far has been civic education, governance and stabilisation, preventing violent extremism, counter-narcotics and women’s empowerment.
Show notes
- How Clémence got into behavioural science and the founding of Magenta Consulting
- A self-proclaimed feminist - how Clémence is changing behaviours in the gender diversity debate
- How we engage men in the conversation
- Gender based violence in Mali: managing men without being patronising, confrontational, without framing them as the aggressors
- The Behaviour Driver Model (developed by UNICEF in the Middle East)
- Fear of judgement, of being a bad parent, norms around hitting women as means to protect their family
- The Role Model program to change gender norms and child behaviour management
- Getting comfortable seeking imperfect solutions
- Managing unintended consequences of implementing behavioural science interventions in unfamiliar environments
- Women empowerment programmes can increase risks for women
- Ensuring women suffering from GBH get care and attention
Podcast music: Tamsin Waley-Cohen's Mendelssohn's violin concerto
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Master Your Mindset With Coach Marc
Develop the leadership mindset, skills + confidence to make a bigger impact in less time!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
It's a cracker this week on A Load of BS as I welcome my partner BEworks' co-founder, behavioural science leading light, writer, practitioner and speaker, Dan Ariely.
Beyond his numerous entrepreneurial ventures, Dan is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioural Economics at Duke University and has written seminal books like Predictably Irrational and Irrationally Yours. He's a multi time TED speaker and recognised globally as one of behavioural science's most foremost, original thinkers.
Show notes
- The story of Dan’s half beard, how he accepts and understands himself
- Persecution by the COVID deniers (joining the Bill Gates club)
- Translating BS stories into the real world: tinkering and rethinking techniques
- What if we don’t know how to eat, exercise, sleep, have a good relationship? What would you do differently? Gaps of understanding, pools for improvement
- End of life: how do we make that chapter the best of the lives?
- When spouses have a joint checking account, they spend and fight less
- The anticipation of getting a kiss from your favourite movie star
- Insurance and misaligned incentives: a cycle of distrust and abuse
- Removing conflicts of interest
- Loss of value in truth telling in society
- ROI in cash handouts in international development: trust is the lubricant of the world
- Crypto currency concerns: takes trust out of the equation
Podcast music: Tamsin Waley-Cohen's Mendelssohn's violin concerto
Check out my partner BEworks
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In partnership with BEworks, one of the very best behavioural science consultancies globally.
Cerita Bethea is Director of behavioural science at The Coca-Cola Company, and a practitioner of over 30 years standing, having also worked at Kimberley-Clark, Toyota and Ford.
Listen in for a lovely case study about washing hands; a nostalgic trip down Covid memory lane. We also project towards the next frontier; behavioural science in the metaverse. Your guess is as good as mine.
Show notes
- Cerita’s academic path into behavioural science – from law to engineering psychology
- From Ford to Kimberly-Clark to Coca-Cola
- How the profession has changed over 30 years, and what still excites Cerita about it
- Kimberly-Clark case study: tackling personal hygiene on the factory floor
- The next frontier for behavioural science: data science, behaviour and decision making in the metaverse
- Getting out of your comfort zone: how does one become a practitioner and what are the pathways to get into the field?
- What would Cerita ask back from the industry?
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Alpha Uncut
If you are ANTI-‘WOKE’ and love freedom, entrepreneurship, success, financial literacy,...
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
I’m thrilled to be launching my partnership with BEworks today. Co-founded by Dan Ariely and Nina Mazar (previous guest on the show alongside Dilip Soman), BEworks is a multidisciplinary team of behavioural scientists and psychologists working on complex challenges across financial services to healthcare to sustainability, helping businesses reimagine a future in which individuals flourish and prosper.
And so today starts a 10-part series of short, sharp and very digestible conversations with practitioners at the heart of the action; from Coca-Cola to Novartis to Natwest Bank to the World Bank.
But today, I’m delighted to be kicking off by talking to BEwork’s new CEO Wardah Malik.
Show notes
- How does BEworks approach client challenges
- Work Wardah is most proud of
- Creating, sustainable behavioural change at scale
- BEworks’s Reimagining strategy
- Diversity of talent in behavioural science
- What skills are needed to be a successful behavioural scientist?
- The different languages of behavioural science
- The next frontier: what does better access to data and AI mean for behavioural science
- The intersection of behavioural science and cognitive technology
- Behavioural science is like the Wild West
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My guest today is sports nut, almost pro golfer but primarily Professor at the University of Chicago and Chief Economist at Walmart John List.
Just when you thought we were about to dive into the politics of diverging golf tours, instead we're going to turn our attention to ride hailing companies Uber and Lyft, where John was also Chief Economist. What was Travis Kalanick really like to work for?
John also recently published ‘The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale’ and so we're also discussing how to scale a business and we bring it to life with the story of the failed Jamie's Italian restaurant chain.
John's passion is using field experiments to explore economic questions and so our conversation is filled with great stories from John's time in the White House, to rideshare to groceries and even collaboration with DARPA.
Show notes
- When fieldwork is needed in scientific discovery to describe the real world
- John’s journey from the White House, Uber, Lyft and now Walmart Chief Economist
- Breaking out of silos to make deep cultural impact
- Working with DARPA, moonshots and hiring the right team
- How John didn’t become a trucker
- What interests John about the subject of scale?
- What is a voltage effect?
- The story of Jamie’s Italian and a failure to scale: negotiables and non-negotiables
- Thinking on the margin vs. by the average: applying it in the real world beyond the university campus
- Why Logan Green, CEO Lyft, a trained econ major, was leaving dollars on the floor
- Why quitting is for winners
- Scaling culture: Uber vs Lyft
- John’s hopes for the book: add science to scaling
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Sales Bluebird for leaders and go-to-market teams at cyber security startups
Tips, tricks, ideas and inspiration from legendary cyber security CEOs and CROs
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
TMAC Fitness. 20 Minute Home Workouts
Beginner and Advanced Workouts. No equipment. Each Workout Ends with a Meditation.
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Steve Martin is a behaviorial science practitioner and a leading member of Dr Robert Cialdini's consultancy Influence at Work, where he heads up the UK practice.
Steve is a Royal Society nominated author and a co-author with Bob Cialdini on a number of books, including their most recent tome, alongside Dr Noah Goldstein, Messengers, Who We Listen to, Who We Don’t and Why. This is a timely exploration of why some people in society are listened to and why others are ignored regardless of the truth or wisdom of their message; a subject we address today. In all, Steve's books have sold in excess of 1.5 million copies.
Show notes
- The work and influence of Bob Cialdini over nearly 50 years
- What leads us to say “Yes” to a request
- What came before Bob, codifying social psychology for everyone and making it accessible
- Immunisation of influence techniques
- How a waiter/waitress can increase their tips through reciprocity
- Small Bigs: creating big impacts with small changes
- What makes some people better communicators than others?
- Why are self-confident ignoramuses so often believed and why are thoughtful experts ignored?
- In an increasingly information overloaded world, the messenger has become the message
- Hard (perceived status and dominance) and soft (making connection with others) messengers
- How truth and trust work together. How can you trust someone who lies to you?
- How do we use influence techniques for good in a world of disinformation?
- Influence and sports management: history is important, but recency keeps the score
- What Steve has learnt from co-authorship
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Sales Bluebird for leaders and go-to-market teams at cyber security startups
Tips, tricks, ideas and inspiration from legendary cyber security CEOs and CROs
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
THE GRIT SHOW - Growth on Purpose
This is a community for the warriors and the doers. We have the grit, now we thrive.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Returning from the Summer, this week I'm talking to Sir Michael Barber, the man who Tony Blair appointed to create and then run his Delivery Unit at No. 10.
While not overt, there's lots of behavioural science going on here: creating repeatable routines, fear of and resistance to change, influencing and persuading intransigent individuals. A great part of Michael's work after all is understanding people, with all their biases and preconceptions, and then reorganising them.
Show notes
- What Scafell Pike walk teaches you about problem solving
- Why did Tony Blair ask Michael to set up his Delivery Unit?
- What was the civil service doing before the introduction of the Delivery Unit?
- Changing real people’s lives in a very visible, meaningful way
- How boring and radical government must hang together
- Why delivery is like a soap opera as well as a documentary
- The importance of a guiding coalition in government to make policy happen
- Government by routine vs. by spasm
- Buy-in is overrated, or why you don’t need it at the beginning
- Reaching irreversibility
- How intrusive press blurs the line between transparency and privacy
- Excuses that ministers throw up to resist change
- What Michael advised Boris Johnson in 2019
- The next frontier in Delivery – using real-time data
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Sales Bluebird for leaders and go-to-market teams at cyber security startups
Tips, tricks, ideas and inspiration from legendary cyber security CEOs and CROs
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
TMAC Fitness. 20 Minute Home Workouts
Beginner and Advanced Workouts. No equipment. Each Workout Ends with a Meditation.
Brand
Bri Williams is one of the foremost behavioural scientists in Australia. She’s obsessed with application rather than theory, and I buy that approach 100%. She majored in accounting and psychology (a rare but actually quite sensible combination), built a corporate career in product design and marketing, the BS switch was flicked in 2008 when she read Dan Ariely’s ‘Predictably Irrational’; a book that would change her life.
It crystallised why she had been experiencing a nagging irritation throughout her 15 year corporate career. And it started to address questions like why people get frustrated with their colleagues, why campaigns fail and why products flop.
She realised ‘we've been doing it wrong’. Our assumptions about why and how to influence behaviour had been wrong.
That book inspired Bri to start People Patterns, one of Australia's first consultancies to apply behavioural economics to everyday business and personal effectiveness, to write books on the topic and work with businesses to make their lives easier.
Show notes
- Bri’s funny hats, visual devices and other beh sci props
- How do I use beh sci in my podcast to get the most out of my guests?
- The story of my podcast theme tune and the tone it sets
- Bri’s background: precision and creativity
- Influence of Dan Ariely’s writing
- The 3 barriers to action: Bri’s BS model
- Marginal gains and the problems Bri loves solving
- What the best communicators do? Feelings rather than facts, audience vs. ego
- The simplicity paradox
- Escaping an elephant in Botswana
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End Hype with Callye Keen
Callye shares 15 years experience launching products and growing businesses.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Rags To Riches
Rags To Riches will help to develop a ‘have-everything’ mindset. Dominate in any industry.
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Content Jefe
A podcast that helps online business owners make better content and more money.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Scientist and writer David Robson has written the definitive book on expectation effects. We're going to talk about his fascinating book The Expectation Effect and how our brain plays clever games with us.
David graduated with a degree in maths from Cambridge University then worked as a features editor at New Scientist before moving to the BBC. His writing has also appeared in the Guardian, the Atlantic, Men’s Health amongst other.
Show notes
- The brain as prediction machine: how the brain uses experiences to predict our future outcomes and adapt our physiology
- Seeing Jesus in a slice of toast
- Why does the brain play games with us?
- Expectation effects vs mindfulness and positive thinking
- The consequences of the brain’s inner pharmacy
- New research on ‘open label’ placebos
- Nocebo effect: the evil twin of placebo
- How emotions and mindsets affect our health
- Ethical dilemmas of using placebos
- Hysterical strength: releasing the brakes on our physical resources
- Gender bias and entrenched expectations
- How food labelling affects eating experiences
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End Hype with Callye Keen
Callye shares 15 years experience launching products and growing businesses.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Rags To Riches
Rags To Riches will help to develop a ‘have-everything’ mindset. Dominate in any industry.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Jenny Kleeman is a broadcaster, journalist and author of the book Sex Robots & Vegan Meat: Adventures at the frontier of Birth, Sex and Death.
She is an award winning narrator of true stories across print, audio and TV and writes regularly in the Guardian, the Times, the New Statesman and Tortoise. She's reported for BBC One's Panorama, HBO's Vice News Tonight and Channel 4's Dispatches, as well as making films for Channel 4’s Unreported World. On radio, she launched Weekend Breakfast on Times Radio.
Jenny has some amazing insights and experiences to share on the human condition, how we relate to one another and what the frontier of technology means for our futures. My converstaion with her is hilarious, spooky, jaw-dropping and crazy in equal measure.
Show notes
- 4 new inventions that are about to challenge what it means to be human
- Sex robots
- Meat grown in labs
- Artificial wombs
- Death machines
- Relying on tech to solve fundamentally human problems
Sex
- Unintended consequences of sex robots – can they really solve happiness?
- Robots, lack of human contact, echo chambers and the future of human relationships
- BBC News website vs online porn consumption
- Sex dolls, male control and female disempowerment
Birth
- Manmade amniotic sacks – experiments in lamb foetuses
- Improving premature birth outcomes
- Growing a baby outside of the human body
- Fetishizing pregnancy vs reproductive equality
- Definitions of abortion – redefining the journey and viability of birth
- Who will natural pregnancy be for in future? A 2nd class endeavour
Meat
- How to grow real meat in a lab?
- Eating meat forever without caring about animal welfare: kosher bacon, ethical foie gras
- How does a manmade chicken nugget taste?
- Cowschwitz and the implications for the future of agriculture
Death
- Motivations of death capsule inventors
- Giving people the right to die, but shielding vulnerable people
- Control, dignity and insurance policies
- Baby Boomers who are used to getting what they want
- Masculine desire to dominate and control
- Women will feel the effects of these four technologies more than men
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Sparkle and Thrive: Social Media and Female Empowerment all in one place!
Would you like to return to work, change careers or start a business? We got you covered!
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Small But Mighty Agency
A podcast that uncovers how to go from solopreneur to seven figure agency with ease.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Imperfect Marketing- Tips for getting it DONE, not perfect
Hear from Kendra and guests about their marketing success and lessons learned.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Today I'm talking with Paul Dolan, Head of BS at the LSE. Paul knows what makes us feel good. It's all about what we pay attention to. He wants us to choose to spend our time doing things that bring us pleasure or give us purpose… and ideally both. He will tell us how we can redesign our lives to be happier. He will also explain why we care so much about what other people do, and how we can learn to listen more to those that disagree with us.
Show notes
- Balance between happiness and misery in a world of polarised opinion
- Does division make us happier?
- Flaws in the happiness/self-help literary genre
- The pleasure/purpose principle & the definition of happiness
- Social narratives: how you feel rather than how you think you should feel
- The relative importance of memories, the present moment and future projection in designing happiness
- How we think about holidays: the anticipation, the experience and the memories
- The opportunity cost of attention
- Why do we continue to make mistakes: self-sabotage and happiness?
- Salience and getting lost in the experience and the flow
- Trade-offs and moral licensing (credits and debts)
- The Reaching, Responsible and Related social narratives
- The dangerous social narrative about having kids
- Selfishness and greed about wanting to live forever
- Having perspective is cheap talk
- Our productivity obsession
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Follow me on TwitterAt the LSE, Paul's main research interests are human behaviour and happiness, and the relationships between them, particularly as they apply to policy. He is author of the bestselling books Happiness by Design and Happy Ever After. He is also host of the Duck / Rabbit podcast about the polarisation problem in our society.
Sparkle and Thrive: Social Media and Female Empowerment all in one place!
Would you like to return to work, change careers or start a business? We got you covered!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Small But Mighty Agency
A podcast that uncovers how to go from solopreneur to seven figure agency with ease.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Imperfect Marketing- Tips for getting it DONE, not perfect
Hear from Kendra and guests about their marketing success and lessons learned.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Today I'm talking with another titan, the inspiring Bill Browder. If all Bill had achieved was hedge fund success, he would be regarded, as the most significant foreign private investor in Russia, as standout.
But it's Bill work as a human rights activist over the last decade that marks him out as a man of great courage and conviction; for he has fought Russian corruption, and by proxy Vladimir Putin, in the name of his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was brutally tortured and murdered for standing up against the regime. Now, the international Magnitsky Act stands in Sergei's name.
Show notes
- Communists, academics and family rebellion
- The story of the Magnitsky Act & Putin’s Achilles Heal
- Putin and the Trump family
- How we behave under duress: moral valour vs. physical pain
- Standing up to Russian corruption and the consequences
- Putin the skilled psychologist and psychopath
- Under threat of Russian arrest and coping strategies
- Trump, Robert Mueller, Putin and the fateful press conference
- Time to stop dealing with countries committing human rights abuses
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I like to take the odd risk with my guests. I like to stretch beyond the realms of the beh sci academics and veer into business, sport, perhaps politics.
This pod is a little different in its genre is that it is striving to get to the heart of human motivation. Why do we do the things that we do?
Martin Sorrell is one of the titan's of global capitalism over the last 40 years and that's Sir Martin Sorrell, who made his name building the WPP advertising empire before departing acrimoniously 5 years ago, only to start his next venture S4 Capital barely having slid off the treadmill. Now 77, he shows no signs of slowing down.
We talk about what he loves about his work, power and relevance, self-doubt and ending his news day diet by going to bed with Emily Maitlis. Well, if only.
Martin is a polished, tough nut to crack but stick around and you'll get some very personal family anecdotes which go some way to explain the man.
Show notes
- What Martin loves about what he does
- Keeping physically and mentally fit
- News day concluding by going to bed with Emily Maitlis
- Choose your Chairmen carefully
- Love of power and need for relevance
- Self-doubt
- Putting money where your mouth is
- Getting people to do what you want them to do
- Managing incentives: Group vs. local level
- Art vs science in advertising
- Campaign magazine bias
- What makes Martin happy?
- Meaning of Judaism to Martin
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We're revisiting what creativity is, how to express it and find it, with a legend of the advertising industry Dave Trott. Just as John Cleese wrote brilliant sitcom and sketches, Dave created brilliant advertising over a career in which he founded five agencies including Gold Greenlees Trott, Bainsfair Sharkey Trott and Chick Smith Trott.
What I think you're going to love about this conversation is Dave's to the point, sharp witted, no BS worldview. David Ogilvy’s greatest creation is David Ogilvy he says while his real heroes are Bill Bernbach, John Webster and Edward de Bono.
We talk about the conditions for creative outcomes, serendipity and mistakes, the nonsense of ad awards, getting upstream of problems and selling tampons to lorry drivers. I think you're going to enjoy this one.
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I'm excited to welcome Dilip Soman and Nina Mažar to the podcast to talk about their new book 'Behavioural Science in the Wild' which is hitting the virtual and physical shelves on May 15th.
Dilip Soman is a Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Science and Economics, and serves as a Director of the Behavioural Economics in Action Research Centre at Rotman [BEAR]. As well as his imminent release, he is also the author of 'The Last Mile' and 'The Behaviourally Informed Organisation'. He teaches the MOOC (massive open online course) Behavioural Economics in Action and, as I was delighted to learn, Dilip is a big cricket nut.
Nina is a behaviorial scientist focusing on topics ranging from ethics to social & environmental impact with multiple strings to her bow. She sits on the board of Irrational Labs, which is dedicated to designing products that make people happier, healthier and wealthier. She's also part of a team of scientists of the Behavior Change for Good Initiative at Wharton.
She helped establish the World Bank’s Behavioral Insights Initiative (eMBeD) to use behavioral science to make development interventions more effective and, with Dilip, co-directed BEAR at Rotman.
She also co-founded BEworks, one of the first commercial consulting companies dedicated to the application of Behaviorial Economics to real-world challenges. There she remains Chief Scientific Advisor.
In my conversation with the pair, we talk about BS in the wild - translating behavioural science from the academic laboratory to messy, real world environments; and all the challenges and benefits that this work brings.
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In this episode I talk with Chris Rawlinson about his online education company 42 Courses and how behavioural science has influenced its formation and growth.
Show notes
- What is 42 Courses and the BS principles behind it
- Chris’s unusual background: vineyard owner, commercial pilot, then at Ogilvy revamping digital training programmes
- Weaknesses of most e-learning platforms
- Chris’s dyslexia & love of learning
- Matt Mullenweg and other random connections
- Influence of Sir Ken Robinson, his TED talk – need for an education revolution & the benefit of not being an academic
- Creating the feel of an internship at 42 Courses
- Support of Rory Sutherland and Dan Bennett at Ogilvy
- BS principles informing 42 Courses: storytelling, make learning more accessible (regular praise), chunking lessons, gamification, social norms, curating without overloading
- Why is traditional education behind the BS curve?
- Measuring engagement and success at 42 Courses
- Course personalisation, choice architecture around new courses
- What online learning looks like today: from Coursera to Masterclass
- Non-education inspirations for 42 Courses
- Gradeless teaching and the value of conventional certifications
- Virtual Reality in education
Chris is massively dyslexic, runs an education company and is a qualified pilot. He is also a cancer survivor, former vineyard owner and (to his wife’s chagrin) a massive LEGO enthusiast having reached the rarefied air of completing the 1m long Saturn 5 rocket, a space shuttle, a mini Yoda and the Porsche 911. He is a joy to listen to.
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Since launching this podcast, it's been my ambition to interview John Cleese, in part because he has plenty of no BS clear thinking on what it means to be creative and in part because he is my comedy hero.
But instead of just interviewing John, I thought I'd add an extra shot of brandy to the conversation and invite behavioural science's very own flame throwing alchemist Rory Sutherland, who also knows a thing or two about creativity.
Show notes
5.45 mins: understanding creativity and its conditions
6.45: money people vs. creative people
7.45: being childlike and playful
8.50: embracing confusion
9.30: why business decisions become boring
11.00: be prepared to make mistakes
11.15: how John found his own creative style
12.15: influence of Fawlty Towers on me
14.20: the power of the unconscious
17.00: how do you access the unconscious?
18.40: dilettante bees and random exploration
23.50: creativity in teams or solo
24.15: origin of the Dead Parrot sketch
26.10: Graham Chapman’s funeral
27:00: Dave Trott and the love of the obvious
28.05: John’s view on woke people
34.45: Rudolf Hess and Rory’s Mum
36.05: Iain McGilchrist & right/left brain hemisphere thinking
38.00: making fun of Hitler
39.45: commonalities between advertising and films
43.05: Life of Brian backlash
44.40: Brexit & Remainer certainty obsession
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Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide, by John Cleese
Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense, by Rory Sutherland
A personal story in which Christian Hunt, host of the excellent Human Risk podcast, interviews me about:
- My interest in and understanding of BS
- Why I started A Load of BS
- My goals and ambitions
- Where next?
I hope you enjoy it! Do check out Christian's other pods as well. Human Risk brings behavioural science to ethics and compliance and there are some fascinating conversations in the archive.
You can find all my articles and pods here, so do subscribe if you haven't done so already.
I'm talking football and psychology with Guillem Balague, someone whose work I admire and whose commentary on the game of football is eloquent, thoughtful and profound. Like me, Guillem is endlessly curious about what makes people tick, the psychology of sport, how players and coaches become successful, and also why they go wrong. Guillem has written superb biographies of some of the most iconic players in history: Pep Guardiola, Cristiano Ronaldo, Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi; and Mauricio Pochettino.
Here we focus on Pep Guardiola and Diego Maradona, two icons of sport whose characters and trajectories couldn't be more different; and all the more fascinating for that as I try to understand with Guillem what made them the men they are, or indeed were, their successes, failures and idiosyncrasies.
Show notes
- What got Guillem into football writing?
- What characters fascinate Guillem?
- What’s Guillem’s writing process to get under the skin of his protagonists?
- Who is Pep and what drives him?
- How Pep creates belonging in his teams
- Sacrifice and service to the cause
- How do Diego’s origins explain the man?
- Diego’s self-destruction
- Diego: myth vs. reality
- Love affair with Napoli
- Conflict in team environments
- Pep and Mourinho
- Pep and Ferguson
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If you’re wondering why you constantly make flawed, emotional decisions and what’s going on in that jelly in your head, please subscribe or follow A Load of BS wherever you listen to podcasts, and leave me a 5 star review. Your support is always appreciated!
Introducing Jeff Kreisler
When it comes to money, we make absurd decisions about how to spend it all the time. Whether this is buying a £3.50 latte at Starbucks while we price compare groceries to save 10 pence on apples, bolting on a ‘special’ car cleaning kit for £250 after spending £15,000 on a new vehicle, or hopelessly overbidding on eBay auctions because we already feel attached to the item in question, we are irrational, emotional and flawed creatures. How on earth are we supposed to value things?
Jeff wrote the book Small Change: Money Mishaps and How to Avoid Them with Dan Ariely. Jeff is a qualified lawyer, stand-up comedian and now Head of BS at J.P. Morgan Chase bank.
Today with Jeff, we discuss what money means to us and how we treat it.
Show notes
- Role of BS in shaping organisations (5 mins)
- What does money mean to Jeff? (8 mins)
- Jeff’s discovery of BS (9 mins)
- Relationship between comedy and BS (10.30 mins)
- Life at JP Morgan (12.30 mins)
- Financial literacy, irrational decision making & the goal of BS (13 mins)
- Mental accounting & the pain of paying (16 mins)
- Connecting to our future selves (18.25 mins)
- Sweat the big stuff, don’t obsess on the little things (19.30 mins)
- Satisficing vs. maximising: expectation, anticipation and context (23.10 mins)
- Rituals in money (26.25 mins)
- Wealth management’s sartorial rituals (28 mins)
- Mental accounting: Thaler vs. Taleb, casino money (30 mins)
- Future of money (33.30 mins)
- What Jeff learnt writing with Dan Ariely (34.50 mins)
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This is a conversation with anthropologist and cognitive scientist Dr Dimitris Xygalatas, who is an expert in rituals, whether religious, sporting, tribal, individual, collective or otherwise.
Rituals are part of all our lives, unconsciously so sometimes. Whether it's birthdays, pre-match warmup exercises or religious ceremonies, we're familiar mainly with low intensity, repetitive ones. It's the more intense, extreme rituals, in particular, which fascinate me for their arousing nature, their extravagance, their social breadth, and their emotional and physiological consequences; like that Thaipusam Kavadi body piercing festival in Mauritius or the fire walking celebrations in San Pedro Manrique, Spain. On top of these highly prosocial rituals, we also address how synchrony affects gatherings and the collective effervescence, goose steps and goose bumps of very antisocial Nazi parades.
Dimitris is going to walk us through all these ideas and more. I think you'll enjoy it!
Next time with Jeff Kreisler
Next time, I'll be talking money with Jeff Kreisler. Jeff wrote the book Small Change: Money Mishaps and How to Avoid Them with Dan Ariely. Jeff is a qualified lawyer, stand-up comedian and now Head of BS at J.P. Morgan Chase bank.
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Welcome to A Load of BS for the 2nd instalment of my conversation with Melissa Hogenboom, BBC science journalist and author of The Motherhood Complex.
Today's show
Today, we're talking about the good mother stereotype, the lean in movement, the prohibitive cost of child care, maternal gatekeeping, the motherhood penalty, the lean in movement, the secrecy of miscarriage, women's cognitive labour load, pre and post natal depression, the positive and negative effects of technology on family life and the impact of writing the book on Melissa's life.
You can find my own personal account on fatherhood here so I'd love you to read it in accompaniment to these conversations. And of course share with me your own experiences.
Last week
For those of you who didn't catch Part 1 last week, I highly recommend that you tune in. Melissa's book is the inspiration for this interview and it is a raw and personal exposé of motherhood, womanhood and all its associated challenges, biases and prejudices.
In these conversations, I want to give these issues oxygen and lay a small platform for change. So there is both historical context here, but also we're raising questions and proposing solutions towards a more equal future in which women are better supported by society at large; which is a diplomatic way of saying men.
Last week we addressed motherhood and sacrifice, gender biases, matrescence, the mum brain and expectations of perfection.
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If you haven't done so already, please leave me a 5 star review here. And if you want to read my articles, and those of my guest partners, do go to aloadofbs.substack.com and subscribe there. Your support is always appreciated!
This week, I'm talking to Melissa Hogenboom, BBC science journalist and writer of The Motherhood Complex, an exposé of motherhood warts and all. It's a very personal and thoroughly researched discussion examining behaviours related to pregnancy and motherhood and presents the deep and unresolved challenges as far as how society views the different roles parents play in raising children. It exposes the stigma and biases that women still experience, suffer from when pregnant, as carers and as mothers, for example, trying to reintegrate into the workplace and re-establish identity.
In this show, we cover:
Motherhood and sacrifice, matrescence, the mum brain, cultural differences in child rearing, expectations of perfection and gender biases.
You can find my own personal account on fatherhood here so I'd love you to read it in accompaniment to this podcast. And of course share with me your own experiences.
If you enjoy these shows, please go to Apple or Spotify and leave me a 5 star review. Come on, what's stopping you! Your support means so much to me!Finally, you can subscribe to all my articles, and the pod archive, here.
This week I'm sharing the second part of my conversation with experimental psychologist Dr Jesse Bering, an American but Director of the Centre for Science Communication at the University of Otago in New Zealand.
Last week, we discussed the science of the afterlife, out of body experiences and Jesse's experience of his own mother's death.
This time we venture into the no less complicated and controversial subjects of suicide, sexuality and fetishes; not your normal weekly grocery bag, but all topics which demand significant airtime in their own rights, as I repeat in the podcast itself.
But by presenting the big questions and challenges, I hope at a minimum this pricks your interest.
My fetish is A Load of BS so do me a small favour andleave me a 5 star review on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen. Share this with a friend, share it on Twitter and make my day.
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Ask Guillem Balague anything about Pep or Maradona
Remember that you can put your questions forward for upcoming shows and if I include it I shall credit you in the show.
Next in line is football writer and broadcaster Guillem Balague with whom I'll be talking about two footballing icons who Guillem knows intimately, Pep Guardiola and Diego Maradona. And the characteristics and traits that made them both great and terribly fragile. If you have a question for Guillem, email me at danielsjross@gmail.com or DM me on Twitter.
For those of you overwhelmed by the load of BS consuming British politics at the moment, turn the news off, crack open some supermarket rosé, unpeel the sausage rolls and get stuck in and enjoy this half hour event. Please stay to the end and I make no apology for that invitation.
By the way, if you want to put questions forward to any of my guests, you're very welcome. Email me at danielsjross@gmail.com or send me a tweet @danielsjross and I'll credit you on the show.
Upcoming guests are advertising legend Dave Trott, football writer Guillem Balague, mindfulness writer Ruby Wax and Head of BS and former comedian at JP Morgan Jeff Kreisler.
Last week you may remember we addressed conspiracy theories with David Aaronovitch. Today's subject is no less spicy and polarising. We're talking the afterlife with Dr Jesse Bering - experimental psychologist and a leading scholar in the cognitive science of religion. Jesse is also an essayist and science writer specializing in evolution and human behaviour. To which end, he has become an expert in evolutionary taboos and that is the subject of our conversations of which today is part 1 of 2.
Jesse is a prolific writer. His first book, The Belief Instinct, was included in the American Library Association’s Top 25 Books of the Year and voted one of the “11 Best Psychology Books of 2011” by The Atlantic. This was followed by a collection of his Webby-award nominated essays, Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?, and Perv, a taboo-breaking work that received widespread critical acclaim and was named as a New York Times Editor’s Choice. His most recent book was A Very Human Ending, all about suicide and his current work in progress is Dead Minds about the science of the afterlife which is the subject of today's conversation.
As I hope is the case with many of my BS chinwags, this one is personal, poignant and dazzlingly mind opening (if that's the right turn of phrase, I ask you all afterlife aficionados out there).
Please go to Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts, subscribe, follow me and leave me a 5 star review. It does me the world of good in this cold Winter weather.
And if you haven’t signed up yet for all my writings on Monday BS and the pod archives, now is the time to do that right here, right now.
Enjoy the show!
Friends,
There is no dry January on A Load of BS. It’s time for much needed refreshment.
Vodkast & Soda
In my 2021: My Year of Total BS essay, I shared with you some personal ruminations on BS and this publication’s motivation.
Put simply, the raison d’être of A Load of BS is to try to explain why we do the things we do. Furthermore, I’d like to include your questions in my podcasts. My next two conversations are with Melissa Hogenboom and Dave Trott.
Melissa is a BBC science journalist who wrote ‘The Motherhood Complex’, an exposé of the challenges women endure in motherhood - from fighting a system which, despite progress, is still skewed in favour of men’s needs, to the creation of a new identity in the face of physical & psychological change.
Dave is an advertising legend having founded 3 extraordinarily successful agencies, written 5 books on creative thinking and been voted Most Creative Agency In the World by Advertising Age.
If you have a question you’d like me to share with Dave or Melissa, please email me at danielsjross@gmail.com and I’ll credit you in the show.
The Cosmopolitan David Aaronovitch
Talking of explaining why we do the things we do, this week’s podcast is with journalist, author & broadcaster David Aaronovitch. While David’s frames of reference are broad, here we focus on conspiracy theories, the subject of David’s book Voodoo Histories.
Talking of conspiracy theories, mine’s a Virgin Mary.Today we explore:
- Why we choose to believe what we believe
- What's so attractive about conspiracy theories
- Jews in conspiracy theories
- The elitist, moral high ground that believers typically take
- Combatting conspiracy theories
- QAnon and departures from reality
- The importance of truth
- The real agency we have over social media algorithms
- And what David is truly optimistic about for the future
One for the road
Can I ask you a small favour before I close up? Go to Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts, and leave me a 5 star review. It does me the world of good in this cold Winter weather ❤️.
And if you haven’t signed up here yet for all my writings and pod archives, now is the time to do so at aloadofbs.substack.com
Next week, I’m talking to experimental psychologist and leading scholar in evolution and human behaviour Dr Jesse Bering about fetishes, afterlife and other taboos.
Daniel 🍾
This is an episode on my reflections and motivations on 2021 talking A Load of BS, where I want to take it in 2022, and, importantly, why I want to hear more from you!
In this end of year episode, I'm also sharing how I got started, what I've learned and what are the core messages at the heart of A Load of BS.
In essence, my goal is to shine light on the peculiarity, uncertainty and complexity of our existence, and give context and comfort to our associated anxieties and fears. We tend to view confusion as a bad thing, but confusion is often at the heart of learning.
And finally a thank you to my 2021 guests and a big shout out to some of the amazing people joining me in 2022 (e.g. Ruby Wax, David Aaronovitch, Dr Jess Bering, Guillem Balague, Patrick Fagan, Jeff Kreisler, Ted Slingerland, Melissa Hogenboom, Dr Dimitris Xygalatas and Chris Rawlinson).
Subscribe and follow A Load of BS
Please subscribe and follow me on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to and download your podcasts and leave me a review. You can also find me @danielsjross on Twitter, where your feedback and ideas are very encouraged.
Final thanks go to my editor Nathan Meirinho who I highly recommend for post-production work, and my sponsor CrankWheel for their belief in A Load of BS.
Happy New Year!
Daniel
Fellow BSers,
Welcome to the Christmas holiday episode of 'A Load of BS: The Behavioural Science Podcast'. This will be the last of 2021 and we are going out with a bang by welcoming back Rory Sutherland and co-author Pete Dyson to discuss their new book 'Transport for Humans: Are we nearly there yet?'
CrankWheel sponsors A Load of BS
Firstly, I am excited to introduce you to my new sponsor, and that is CrankWheel.
Some people have the ability to paint a picture in a few words. CrankWheel is for the rest of us. CrankWheel gives you zero friction screen sharing during voice calls. You send a link to the other person and they enter that seamlessly on any browser, any device. No log ins, no registering, no what's my bloody password! CrankWheel is particularly great for those first sales calls or for onboarding new customers. It's really for any business looking to engage with customers more efficiently.
A Load of BS subscribers can use CrankWheel unlimited for 2 months by signing up at get.crankwheel.com/loadofbs.
And we’re off
Comfort break over, we're back on the road. Now you may have read my Monday BS piece a few weeks ago previewing today's conversation with a little riff on the wonders of the London Underground. Well today you get the full fat version and I can assure you that the cream has risen to the top; in fact it's spilling over and clogging the arteries like the M25 on Boxing Day. What fun!
This anniversary appetizer is bursting with flavour, celebratory abandon and indulgence; and since so many of us will be battling the motorways and trains to reach loved ones in the coming days, what more appropriate treat for today than transport design to keep you toasty.
I should introduce my guests. Rory is well-known to many of you as Global Vice-Chairman of Ogilvy, behavioural scientist, founder of Nudgestock festival, writer and the man responsible for making the Sevenoaks to London Blackfriars line fashionable again.
Pete Dyson is the Principal Behavioural Scientist at the Department for Transport. Pete established a new BS Team at DfT in 2020 to tackle the COVID response and recovery, and the impact of future transport technologies on behaviour.
Today is about the potential of behavioural science to design our transport systems for human, rather than engineers', consumption.
Today Rory and Pete tell us about:
- The fetishization of speed and punctuality
- Solving the conundrum (waste?) of HS2
- Who Homo Transporticus is
- How we actually understand what customers want
- Getting to Exeter when you're not in a rush
- Seat backed train tables
- Products which nobody wants until they own them
- The Brummie obsession with driving and roads
- Intelligent rationing of trips into London and other BS experiments
See you in 2022 with some amazing guests
And do subscribe on your favourite platform (Apple, Spotify), share with friends for Christmas, leave a review and we'll be back together in the New Year. Happy holidays and be well to all of you. 🧑🎄
Daniel
Fellow BSers,
Welcome to another episode of 'A Load of BS: The Behavioural Science Podcast'. This week, I welcome back psychologist, technologist and businessman Nir Eyal to talk more about habits and distractions; what forms them and how we overcome the worst of them.
This episode is no different from part 1 for its tempo, energy and richness of content. Today however, we're zooming in on distractions rather than the subject of habits.
These 25 minutes are packed with practical and simple tips on how to value and manage your time better. Get rid of those to do lists, cancel all pointless meetings immediately and drop into the mind of Nir Eyal.
Today, we're talking about:
- Why we get distracted
- The internal and external triggers of distraction
- The 4 steps to becoming Indistractable
- The terror of to-do lists
- Why we love meetings, and how to run them better
And of course Nir's quick fire round including his favourite book recommendation:
‘Alchemy: The Magic of Original Thinking in a World of Mind-Numbing Conformity’ by Rory Sutherland
These podcasts are my greatest project and they are only worthwhile with your support!
You can find my podcasts on all the usual platforms, Apple, Spotify or wherever you might listen. Do subscribe and follow A Load of BS there, and give me a 5 star review if you enjoy it! And you can let me know what you think of it all on Twitter @danielsjross.
You can also find all my podcasts and articles here, where I encourage you to sign up.
Now prepare to be distracted, again.
Daniel
Fellow BSers,
Welcome to another episode of 'A Load of BS: The Behavioural Science Podcast' with me Daniel Ross. This week, I welcome Henry Winter, Chief Football Writer at The Times newspaper. Henry is without doubt one of the very best practitioners of his art and I hope you sense his thoughtfulness and erudition in this conversation.
Before The Times, Henry was a football correspondent at The Telegraph for 21 years and prior to that he wrote at The Independent in its very earliest days.
Henry was named Specialist Correspondent of the Year at the British Sports Journalism Awards in 2004, 2009, 2010 and 2013, and Football Writer of the Year in 2016. In 2010, he was named among the top 10 most influential sportswriters in Britain by the trade publication Press Gazette.
He also makes regular appearances as a pundit on Sky Sports' Sunday Supplement and BBC Radio 5 Live.
Outside of journalism, he has ghost written books with former FA Chief Executive David Davies and with ex-Liverpool players John Barnes, Sir Kenny Dalglish and Steven Gerrard. He also wrote his own tome in 2017 'Fifty Years of Hurt: The Story of England Football' which I suspect would have sold even more copies had it been released a year later after England's ride at the 2018 World Cup in Russia!
Today, I talk with Henry about:
- His love for his craft
- What he wants his readership to feel
- Turgenev, Tolstoy and the Russian World Cup
- An enlightened England generation
- Groupthink in football narratives
- Football ritual
- Why Gareth is good, Bobby was brilliant and Fabio a flop
- Why football is the only sport with hooligans and
- English entitlement
Do share 'A Load of BS' with others. These podcasts are my greatest project and they are only worthwhile with your support! You can find my podcasts on all the usual platforms, Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen. Do give me a 5 star review! And let me know what you think of it all on Twitter @danielsjross.
Share
Next week, I'm going to bring you Part 2 of my interview with psychologist, writer and tech provocateur Nir Eyal where we'll discuss how to overcome the urge to check your mobile every 2 minutes!
Now game on!
Daniel ⚽
You can find my podcasts on all the usual platforms, Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen. Do give me a 5 star review! And let me know what you think of it all on Twitter @danielsjross.
These podcasts are my greatest project and they are only worthwhile with your support!
If you’re new to A Load of BS, do subscribe or follow me so new pods land automatically in your favourites!
Fellow BSers,
Welcome to another episode of 'A Load of BS: The Behavioural Science Podcast'. This week, I welcome psychologist, technologist and businessman Nir Eyal. Nir is the Habits and Distractions man having written two best selling books on the subjects - Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life.
Accolades
Indistractable received critical acclaim, winning the Outstanding Works of Literature Award as well as being named one of the Best Business and Leadership Books of the Year by Amazon and one of the Best Personal Development Books of the Year by Audible. The Globe and Mail called Indistractable, “the best business book of 2019.”
In addition to blogging at NirAndFar.com, Nir’s writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Harvard Business Review, Time Magazine and Psychology Today.
Nir previously taught as a Lecturer in Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. Today, he writes, consults and teaches the methodologies that he espouses in his books.
Investments
You might not be surprised to hear that Nir also invests in habit forming products. His portfolio includes Eventbrite, Kahoot!, Product Hunt and Canva.
Nir's style
Despite recording this in Nir's evening time in Singapore, what will stand out to you in this conversation is Nir's insatiable enthusiasm for and clarity on his subject. He is a superlative wordsmith whose messages are conveyed with punch but are always backed by thought and research. He is not afraid to challenge much of today's conventional wisdom in how we consume technology.
In Part 1 of our conversation, I talk to Nir about:
- How to build healthy habits in people's lives
- Habits vs. addictions
- Whether technology is hijacking our brains
- Nir's unfair investing advantage
- How products influence our decisions
- The purpose of brand advertising
- Breaking customers' habits
- Negativity bias: why we remember the bad stuff first and
- The wonder of TikTok, the lunacy of Clubhouse and, of course, the magic of podcasts
Now prepare to be distracted.
Daniel 😀
Fellow BSers,
Welcome to another episode of 'A Load of BS: The Behavioural Science Podcast' with me Daniel Ross.
From Lineker last week down the middle to Finkelstein centre right, I'm ringing the changes for this midweek game to welcome writer, Times newspaper commentator and Conservative Party moderniser, moderate, maven and former advisor to William Hague, George Osborne and David Cameron - the Baron of Pinner, Danny Finkelstein.
Prior to his work helping to transition the Conservatives between Major key, very minor key and then David Cameron, Danny was Director of the think tank the Social Market Foundation. He was also the Chairman of the Policy Exchange, an independent charity seeking free market and ‘localist’ solutions to public policy questions.
And to give you a titbit away from the LinkedIn theocracy, Danny is an obsessive Beatles fan. Indeed, his study desk and bookshelf are split between Holocaust tomes, reflecting, in part, research for a book on his family which he's currently in the process of writing, and Paul McCartney lyric sheets.
Danny was named political commentator of the year at the Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards in 2010, 2011 and 2013. Last year, he published 'Everything in Moderation', a compilation of his Times essays over the last 20 years which reflect, indeed, his sense for moderation, proportion and social psychology.
You can find all my podcasts on all the usual platforms: do subscribe on Apple, Spotify and others, and give me a 5 star review! And let me know what you think of it all on Twitter @danielsjross.
If you’re new to A Load of BS, subscribe here to get the pods and newsletter straight into your inbox.
Today, Danny and I discuss:
- Perspective and empathy
- Why a sense of proportion matters
- Why politics matters
- Bourgeois stability and big ideas
- Robert Cialdini's 'click, click, run'
- COVID, Brexit and self-interest
- Economic growth as the driver of polarisation vs. congeniality
- Journalism's role in policing our systems
Books referenced by Danny:
- 'Everything in Moderation: The must-read collection of Daniel Finkelstein’s greatest columns in The Times'
- 'The Best and the Brightest', by David Halberstam
- 'Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion', by Robert Cialdini
- 'How to be an Alien', by George Mikes
- 'Mindwise: How We Understan
Welcome to A Load of BS: The Behavioural Science Podcast. Today, as we take a turn in the road towards other areas of BS, I am thrilled to welcome none other than Gary Lineker to the show to discuss the psychology of sport with me.
For many, Gary needs little introduction, but I'm going to give you one anyway because that's how these things work. We need a little build up, some anticipation.
Gary was one of the great footballers of his generation, joining his boyhood club Leicester City in 1978 where he played for 7 years before a move to the great Everton side of the mid-1980s where he dazzled sufficiently to attract the attention of Barcelona where he played under Terry Venables. Then came the big move (I say with definite bias) to Tottenham Hotspur in 1989 where he won the FA Cup in 1991 (I game I attended I may add) before finishing his career with a brief stint in Japan.
Gary also played 80 times for England scoring 48 times. Since his glittering athletic career, he has moved seamlessly into media in which his mainstay has been hosting Match of the Day for over 20 years. And so much more, including his famous Walkers Crisps TV commercials and his just launched TV gameshow 'Sitting on a Fortune', or as Gary remarked on Twitter, not 'Shitting on a Fortune.'
In this episode, we talk about:
- What self-confidence means to Gary
- What Gazza was doing before the 1990 World Cup semi-final
- What it feels like taking a World Cup penalty
- The characteristics that make up a successful dressing room
- Generalisation vs. specialisation and
- Gary's superstitions
Gary’s book recommendation and desert island tunes
- Rod: The Autobiography, by Rod Stewart
- Soul Limbo, by Booker T. & The MG’s
- Gary’s Desert Island Discs, 1990 (which he’s not very proud of)
More big names are talking BS
It's a testament to the interest, breadth and appeal of behavioural science, and this podcast, that people like Gary Lineker are keen to join me and share stories and insights so openly and warmly. Talking of which, in my next episode I'm switching back to politics and social psychology in conversation with writer, Times commentator and Conservative Party moderniser, moderate, maven and former advisor to William Hague, George Osborne and David Cameron - Danny Finkelstein. It's a brilliant conversation which I'm excited to share with you all.
Give Gary and me a Twitter review
If you like this episode, please go to Twitter right now and give Gary (@garylineker) and me (@danielsjross) a nice review. We'd both love that. And if you haven't subscribed to all my pods and articles on Substack yet, please join us.
Subscribe now
And do follow the pods on Apple, Spotify or wherever you like to listen.
No more fuss, it's time for kick-off! (Sorry)
Daniel
Fellow BSers,
Welcome to A Load of BS: The Behavioural Science Podcast and to Part 2 of my conversation with Washington based political strategist Marc A. Ross.
For those of you who tuned in to Part 1, you'll remember Marc's exuberant, ebullient and entertaining style; his infectious enthusiasm for his subject. And you'll also remember that we covered a lot of ground. Marc shared his great anecdote about Clinton's candy shop in regard to exerting power and influence, we discussed the delusions required to make it as a politician and we talked a lot about the reality of the Hill (and indeed political affairs in general) beyond the media hysteria.
Today, we pick up the baton to discuss a wild array of topics which will enlighten you:
- Sanders, Corbyn and political self-sabotage
- The illusion of similarity
- Floundering Kamala Harris
- Rory Sutherland's 'make it pink' boardroom strategy
- Problems with the polling industry
- Campaign school: the mathematics behind the US election
- Diversity in politics
- Trump disinfectant and the pirate ship of rejects
- Will Trump run again? Hopefully off the treadmill
Books we reference:
- The Clustering of America, by Michael J. Weiss
- American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, by Colin Woodard
- Alchemy: The Magic of Original Thinking in a World of Mind-Numbing Conformity, by Rory Sutherland
- The Win Without Pitching Manifesto, by Blair Enns
- Confessions of an Advertising Man, by David Ogilvy
Fellow BSers,
If you liked House of Cards (UK version wins every time) or The West Wing, you’re in for a treat. This week, I welcome political strategist, namesake and keeper of our eponymous tartan and ice shelf, Marc A. Ross to A Load of BS. Marc’s storytelling, his exuberance and his experience at the forefront of global politics glitters through both Part 1 and Part 2 of our conversation.
Marc is a political nut; he fell in love with Reagan’s campaign in 1984 as a young teenager and has been immersed ever since. You’ll hear in the pod that Marc’s knowledge and interests fly way beyond home affairs; he is no partisan, his outlook is utterly global and he is a keen student of our British system amongst other, believing firmly that a broad lens gives perspective.
He is the founder of Caracal, a communications and political intelligence firm specializing in international trade, commercial relations, economic diplomacy and global business. He is also the founder of Brigadoon, a global membership network helping leaders make better connections and helping them better understand the emerging issues shaping commerce and culture.
This only scratches the surface of Marc’s affiliations. Best is to see here for the fullest picture.
If that quality of build up hasn’t attracted you to subscribe to A Load of BS (if indeed you aren’t already!), then here is your moment. I won’t reveal names just now, but trust me, we have some quite phenomenal individuals joining me over the coming weeks.
Subscribe now
Today, we're talking about:
- Power and influence, vs. control
- Clinton’s Candy Shop & reciprocity
- Political attractiveness & M&M’s ad strategy
- Delusions of grandeur: what it takes to be a successful politician
- Confirmation bias & The West Wing
- How politics really works beyond the sport of media reporting
Notable figures referenced by Marc
- Thomas Sowell: American economist, social theorist, and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution
- Tom “The Hammer” DeLay: Texan, former Republican Party Majority Leader who Marc worked for as his first job in Washington
- Roger Ailes: former chairman and CEO of Fox News, media consultant for various American Presidents
- Henry Kissinger: American politician, diplomat and geopolitical consultant
Share and win absolutely nothing
If you like my shows and weekly writings, do share on Twitter and with friends. There’s no giveaway apart from my eternal appreciation and love; and the enormous dopamine hit you’ll get buy doing it. Trust me, it works.
Share
Listen on your favourite platform
You can also find all my podcasts on your favourite platform: do subscribe on Apple, Spotify and others, and give me a 5 star review! And let me know what you think of it all, here or on Twitter @danielsjross.
Now enjoy the show!
Daniel
Fellow BSers,
Welcome to A Load of BS: The Behavioural Science Podcast with me Daniel Ross. Today, my guest once again is Gerald Ashley, a re-formed financial markets man and now BS expert with strong interests in change, risk and decision making.
Indeed, Gerald has written books on the subject, is a regular media contributor and happily is hitting the live speaking circuit again after too long a gap. That story we know.
Today, we're talking about:
- Our over connected world and the pressures this brings
- Pandemic costs
- The BS replication crisis and its party tricks
- Unsettling science
- And, of course, we end with Gerald's quick fire round
If you haven't already, please subscribe to my writings and pods on Substack and hit the subscribe button on Apple, Spotify or wherever you like to listen.
We pick up today's conversation with another though on the subject of connectivity.
Book recommendations:
- Little Book of Banana Skins, by Donough O'Brien
- Reckoning with Risk: Learning to Live with Uncertainty, by Gerd Gigerenzer
- The Diaries of Samuel Pepys, by Samuel Pepys
Gerald's own books:
- Two Speed World: The impact of explosive and gradual change - its effect on you and everything else
- The Tangled World: Understanding human connections, networks and complexity
And finally…
If you like A Load of BS, do leave me a 5 star review on Apple, Spotify or whichever platform you listen on. Share it on Twitter and tell a friend you love me.
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Enjoy the show!
Fellow BSers,
If you're in the mood for listening to the sharpest minds talking absolute BS, you're in the right place.
Which naturally brings me to my guest Gerald Ashley, and as we've done in the past, today is part 1 of 2. I think bitesize is more digestible and there's no harm in a gentle pause between this week's very savoury smack in the face of beef wellington before indulging next time in the palette cleansing ice cream finale.
Gerald has years of experience in financial markets, from Baring Brothers to Dow Jones to the Bank for International Settlements. So he's been exposed to a fair share of BS in his time. He is now a speaker, advisor, broadcaster and writer on change, risk and decision making. Indeed, Gerald is one of the doyens on these subjects.
He is insightful, warm and entertaining with a keen ear and eye for our delusions and dogma; both of which he is quick to quash in this conversation.
Why not take a second and share the interview on social media. This is the best decision you’ll make all week; and there’s no risk, only upside.
Share
Today, we're talking about:
- Birds foraging for food and what that teaches us about dramatic change and decision making cycles
- We talk about our model mania - we want to model everything and assign it a risk probability. Quick spoiler folks, you can't do it
- We discuss the difference between risk and uncertainty and Gerald explains Knightian uncertainty and how credit card data is so very different from terrorist attack data
- And as always, there's a book recommendation or two
Books referenced in the conversation:
- The Origin Of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics, by Eric D. Beinhocker
Share and win absolutely nothing
If you like my shows and weekly writings, do share on Twitter and with friends. There’s no giveaway apart from my eternal appreciation and love; and the enormous dopamine hit you’ll get buy doing it. Trust me, it works.
Share A Load of BS: The Behavioural Science Podcast
Listen on your favourite app
You can also find all my podcasts on your favourite platform: do subscribe on Apple, Spotify and others, and give me a 5 star review! And let me know what you think of it all, here or on Twitter @danielsjross.
Now enjoy the show!
Daniel
Fellow BSers,
Part 1 of my interview with Joe was so well received that I’m sharing Part 2 already with a tinge of melancholy; for now at least, there is no more. So like the gourmands that you are, savour this and chew well. Then get on Twitter and start the campaign for an urgent Part 3.
Enough drama!
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why we drink so much Champagne
- Innovation in wine production
- Environmental challenges
- Joe’s new venture Pix.com and
- Lots of novel wine ideas
Referenced (and mainly recommended!) wines
- Nerello Cappuccio (Sicilian red)
- Frappato (Sicilian red)
- Western Australian Grenache (a future star)
- Beaujolais by Vicky Monrozier
- Romanee-Conti La Tache (please invite me)
- Dark Horse Wine
- Barefoot Merlot
- Saint-Aubin wines
- The Bib Wine Company
- When In Rome: Phillip Schofield Collection
Joe’s book references
- The 24-Hour Wine Expert, by Jancis Robinson
- Outnumbered: From Facebook and Google to Fake News and Filter-bubbles – The Algorithms That Control Our Lives, by David Sumpter
- Mimesis and Theory: Essays on Literature and Criticism, 1953-2005, by René Girard
- Situationist International Anthology, by Ken Knabb
Share and win absolutely nothing
If you like my shows and weekly writings, do share on Twitter and with friends. There’s no giveaway apart from my eternal appreciation and love; and the enormous dopamine hit you’ll get buy doing it. Trust me, it works.
Fellow BSers,
Welcome to Part 1 of my interview with Joe Fattorini. These next episodes combine two of my loves; wine and BS, and there’s plenty of each in the other!
Joe is a brilliant guest - warm, insightful and hugely knowledgeable. If you like wine, if you like BS, you'll love this show.
If you think about it for a moment, we can all reflect on wine moments in our lives when deciding what to choose was riddled with anxiety; be it a romantic occasion, gifting to one’s in-laws or lubricating clients at a business dinner.
Am I sending the right signals? I don’t want to appear cheap, but certainly not extravagant. I want to be original but not pick a stinker. This is a world full of symbolism and ritual.
Now there may be more critical adjudications in life than sifting between your Grüner Veltliner and Gewurztraminer; but few are as much fun! See, I’m BSing already, referencing the lesser known sommelier’s favourite, Grüner Veltliner. I couldn’t help myself.
Not your regular Joe
Known around the world as Obi Wine Kenobi, Joe Fattorini is co-host of the wildly successful The Wine Show which has 250m viewers across 107 countries.
Joe actually started his career as an academic. Between researching his MPhil on Food & Religion and teaching Structuralist Food Theory and Hotel Valuation Models, Joe wrote the world’s first textbook on selling and marketing wine in restaurants, Managing Wine and Wine Sales, a book still used in universities over 20 years later.
Joe has written extensively and broadly on wine. He wrote for The Herald newspaper for 14 years, he's written for all the UK’s wine magazines and a range of American lifestyle publications. Never shy of controversy, he once wrote the 'most complained about article' ever published in Decanter Magazine.
Joe was the wine consultant to the US PGA golf tour and has won numerous accolades, including IWSC Wine Communicator of the Year Award and IWC Personality of the Year. In 2018 Joe was named 22nd in the 100 Most Influential People in Wine by Drinks Retailing News, the highest placed media figure on the list.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How Joe got into wine (sparked by school expulsion!)
- Veblen’s concept of conspicuous consumption
- Wine as God
- Celebrity endorsement and what makes a successful wine
- Symbols and rituals and
- Why cleaning ladies make great whiskey tasters
Sharing is caring
If you like my shows and Sunday writing, do share with friends. Your support makes it all worthwhile!
Share A Load of BS: The Behavioural Science Podcast
Listening on your favourite app
You can find all my podcasts on your favourite platform: do subscribe on Apple, Spotify and others. And let me know what you think of it all, here or on Twitter @danielsjross.
Now enjoy the show!
Daniel
Fellow BSers,
Many of you have listened to Parts 1 and 2 of my interview with Rory Sutherland; ad man, author and BS aficionado. Links above for those of you careless enough to miss them.
This bonus is a perfect digestif cum coda, the Thursday eau de vie that you’ve been looking for, a 15 minute morsel to electrify your 574th consecutive tracksuit bottomed home lunch.
This is a final treat from Rory, the BONUS episode in which Rory shares his story of airport arrest and a spine tingling 24 hours in jail in Qatar.
The Last Supper
Hanging on rather desperately to gastronomic descriptors (and since Rory was behind bars overnight, I’ll let the fateful metaphor extend), this podcast is a final treat from Rory, in which he shares his story of airport arrest and a spine tingling 24 hours in jail in Qatar.
I think Rory should take his story on tour. If thesps like Sir Ian McKellen and David Baddiel can do it, why on earth not SuperTED Rory?
In this episode, find out why Rory was arrested, why his cravat was confiscated, alongside riffs on solving defects in Amazon Prime delivery and Rory's self-invented and Beatles inspired SI unit for regret.
Win a signed copy of Rory’s book
As a final treat, we are giving away a limited number of signed copies of Rory's book Alchemy: The Magic of Original Thinking in a World of Mind Numbing Conformity.
To win one, simply go to Twitter, post a review of this show, include the show link from aloadofbs.substack.com and tag me @danielsjross so I know who you are!
Enjoy the show!
Daniel
Welcome to Part 2 of my interview with behavioural economics expert Paul Craven. After almost 30 years in asset management working for the city’s biggest names, Paul’s passion is understanding “how real people make real decisions in the real world.” Paul gives over 50 talks a year around the world to audiences from investors to doctors to lawyers to entrepreneurs explaining the tricks our minds play. Check out Paul’s website logo for one of them.
If you missed Part 1 of this interview, you can find it here. There, we left off on the question of generalisation vs. specialization; and that’s where we pick up Part 2.
If you’re not already a subscriber to A Load of BS, get involved! Next week, I’m sharing the outlandish story of Rory Sutherland’s capture and incarceration in a Qatari jail.
I want A Load of BS in my life
In this episode, we discuss:
- The benefits of a polymathic approach to life
- Transactions vs. relationships
- Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle
- Skill vs. luck and
- Minimising errors vs. maximising winners
Books referenced in the podcast
- Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion (new and expanded), by Robert Cialdini
- Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, by David Epstein
- Alchemy: The Magic of Original Thinking in a World of Mind-Numbing Conformity, by Rory Sutherland
- Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
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For those here who aren’t already subscribed to Sunday BS: Behavioural Science Curious, here I share 3 ideas, thoughts or provocations from my readings of the last week. Some will be expansions from my podcasts, others will reflect my wider BS reading and thinking.
It’s short, sharp and fun. And will make you sound clever in meetings on Mondays! Give it a go. 😀
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Please give me a 5 star review if you like the podcasts and let me know what you think of it all on Twitter @danielsjross.
Enjoy the show!
Daniel
Welcome to Part 2 of my interview with the inimitable Rory Sutherland. Rory is the Global Vice-Chairman of renowned ad agency Ogilvy, has a brain the size of a football and talks BS like the best of them.
For those of you who listened to Part 1 of my interview with Rory, you'll remember that we paused with my question about Rory's own susceptibility to decision making biases. We pick up immediately with his answer to that question.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Kahneman and susceptibility to decision making biases
- Solving cryptic puzzles
- The difference between music that's listenable to and endlessly re-listenable to and
- Deciding how to move house
Books referenced in the podcast
- Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, by James C. Scott
- The Choice Factory, by Richard Shotton
- The Silo Effect: The Peril of Expertise and the Promise of Breaking Down Barriers, by Gillian Tett
- The Social Instinct: How Cooperation Shaped the World, by Nicola Raihani
Coming next week
Part 2 of my interview with Rory’s great friend, my new friend, the charming and eloquent Paul Craven. If you missed the teachings of Paul last week, pick it up here.
Subscribe to my Sunday newsletter
For those here who aren’t already subscribed to Sunday BS: Behavioural Science Curios, here I share 3 ideas, thoughts or provocations from my readings of the last week. Some will be expansions from my podcasts, others will reflect my wider BS reading and thinking.
It’s short, sharp and fun. And will make you sound clever in meetings on Mondays! Give it a go. 😀
Sign up for Sunday BS
And let me know what you think, here or on Twitter @danielsjross.
Enjoy the show!
Daniel
'How real people make real decisions in the real world'
My guest today is Paul Craven. Paul is a BS expert with close to 30 years experience in financial markets where he worked for Schroders, PIMCO and little known boutique Goldman Sachs. Under the umbrella now of Craven Partners, he is a keynote conference and after dinner speaker, covering topics such as decision making, investment and sales, all from a behavioural and psychological perspective.
Paul is also a magician, a member of the Magic Circle and a hickory golf enthusiast.
Paul’s favourite definition of Behavioural Economics is “how real people make real decisions in the real world.” And this is at the heart of what Paul and I try to disentangle in our conversation.
Today’s podcast is in two parts. In Part 1 here, we discuss:
- Magic in business relationships
- The bandwagon effect and confirmation biases in investing
- The evolutionary value of decision making biases
- Hindsight bias & why Paul is too cool to do drugs
- Challenging pension fund investors
- The media's bias for bad news
- And superforecasting
Books referenced in the podcast
- Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, by David Epstein
- Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner
- Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think, by Hans Rosling and Ola Rosling
Please subscribe and leave a review; your feedback and support is much appreciated!
Enjoy the show,
Daniel
I'm delighted that my guest in this episode of Paths Less Trodden is the inimitable Rory Sutherland. Rory is vice chairman of advertising agency Ogilvy Group and is an expert on consumer behaviour, trends and the influence of the internet. He analyses what branding means, what creativity is, and the value of persuasion over compulsion.
He is a speaker around the world from TED to his own behavioural science festival Nudgestock. He is also an accomplished author (he published 'Alchemy: The Magic of Original Thinking in a World of Mind Numbing Conformity' in 2018 and he writes regularly for The Spectator magazine).
Rory is one of the most respected creative thinkers in the ad industry. He once suggested to Microsoft that they enable people to share office documents on the internet. Hmmm. The idea was dismissed but Rory has nevertheless gone on to build a career out of the counter-intuitive and the original. With a razor sharp wit and intellect, he examines what influences our choices and why irrational thinking tends to win out.
This podcast is in two parts. In Part 1 here, we discuss:
- The wonder of Red Bull
- Whether our human biases are too deeply embedded for humans to change their decision making
- Why the advertising industry is insufficiently creative
- Why traditional economic theory still holds sway
- And we conclude by dangling the question whether Rory himself is as susceptible as the next person to decision making biases
P.s. apologies in advance for a little background noise in the early part of the show. Home working disruptions! The storyline is nevertheless absolutely clear.
Beyond Part 2, there will also be a short bonus edition for subscribers in which Rory shares his story of an unusual and unexpected 24 hours in a Qatari jail. Be sure to subscribe here on Paths Less Trodden to get these upcoming episodes.
You can also sign up to my newsletter with all my writings and podcasts right here.
Enjoy the show, it's a cracker...
The quality of my guests is amazing. I am thrilled to share my conversation with Jack Butcher with you in this episode. Jack is at the forefront of the online creator economy with his business Visualize Value, a design and consulting company based in New York. He is a graphic designer by trade, having spent a decade working in Fortune 100 advertising in NYC as a creative director for multi-billion dollar brands like Mercedes-Benz, McDonald's and Unilever. In his words, ‘fun, but the opposite of freedom.'
In search of freedom, he started his own advertising agency. No fun, and even less freedom. So Jack transitioned his traditional agency model into a product business that scales infinitely. That is Visualize Value, a business which now turns over $100K a month with 99% profit margin. Not too bad.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How far the creator economy can go and its impact on traditional business models
- Jack's journey from Swindon to buzzing Manhattan
- His design principles
- Scaling a business in 2 years
- His love of racing cars
- The crypto opportunity, and lots besides
I really hope you enjoy it! If you do, please subscribe on Apple or follow on Spotify for more thought provoking interviews. There is so much to learn.
I originally published my written story about Tshepo the Jean Maker in June. It had one of the best responses of all my pieces so far. And no wonder, because Tshepo Mohlala is inspiring and he speaks from the heart.
Tshepo Mohlala’s story, values and life philosophy are a perfect match for everything that I am striving to show in this podcast series. From the most humble beginnings, Tshepo (meaning hope), the self-taught stylist and designer, has built his business from the ground up, and is now recognised as one of South Africa’s hippest denim brands.
In this recording, I talk about:
- The unexpected visit from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2019
- Growing up in downtrodden Tsakane under the influence of his aunt and grandparents
- Becoming Tshepo the Jean Maker
- The celebrity following
- Hope for the future
I always encourage my readers and listeners to share these stories. In this case, I really urge you to take a moment to share and tweet - the more we do this, the sooner Tshepo’s beautiful Presidential Slim Fit jeans will make it to the UK!
Please subscribe to this series so I can share even more amazing stories with you. You can also subscribe to my newsletter where you can find these recordings, the written transcripts and other pieces.
Enjoy!
In this episode, I talked with James O’Malley who spent 15 years in the Royal Navy:
· Leading counter-piracy operations in Somalia on behalf of the European Union
· Leading a major project dealing with the Ebola crisis
· Working as EU medical operations planner in volatile situations in Iraq, the Far East and Afghanistan
“So we helicoptered in and within 10 minutes there were rounds flying, we got shelled, we had to move our positions. I remember thinking, you know what, this is probably the most exciting thing I've ever done in my life. I was with the guys that I trained with. I knew that our training was really good. I knew my medical skills were really good. I knew that if any of my friends got hit, I was there and I could save their lives or do everything I could.”
And he recently led an expedition to Everest where he suffered a collapsed lung and nearly lost his life. This is an inspiring story filled with excitement, tragedy and recovery.
I really hope you enjoy! If you do, please press the subscribe button on Apple or follow in Spotify. You can also subscribe to my newsletter where you can find these recordings, the written transcripts and other pieces. That's at danielsjross.substack.com
Today my guest is George Calhoun. George is the Executive Director of the Hanlon Financial Systems Research Centre at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey where he focuses on Quantitative Finance programs. He is now also the co-Principal for a recently awarded planning grant from the National Science Foundation to create an Industry/University Research Centre focused on FinTech.
George is also the author of several books, and writes frequently for Forbes magazine on finance, with a particular interest in China.
That's where today's conversation takes us. George gives us the inside track on the strange and curious disappearance of Alibaba founder and CEO Jack Ma since he made THAT speech last October 27th.
In this episode, we cover:
- What has happened to Jack Ma and why has the world's largest ever IPO (The Ant Group) been cancelled?
- The various sightings of Jack from rural China to the golf course to Alibaba HQ
- The paradox of the Chinese government's behaviour
- What the future holds for Jack: prison, retirement, a comeback?
- The strange global media silence
We conclude with exciting FinTech news from George's university, the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, which has just been awarded a major grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation to create a new national research centre on Fintech.
I really hope you enjoy! If you do, please press the subscribe button.
You can also subscribe to my newsletter where you can find these recordings, the written transcripts and other pieces. That's at danielsjross.substack.com
In this episode, I talked to ex-England rugby Sevens captain Ollie Phillips’s about elite sport, great adventures and battles with mental health.
To understand how Ollie rose to the pinnacles of his sport, played for the biggest rugby club side in the world, captained his country but then veered off into addiction and depression, listen now...
Click here to read the article and to subscribe to my newsletter so you will receive more inspiring stories into your inbox automatically.