Duke Behavioral Economist: Why You’ll Regret the Risks You Don’t Take | Dan Ariely - EP 811

**John R. Miles** (0:00)
What if the things you regret today aren't the things you'll regret most when you look back at your life?
When I sat down with behavioral scientist, Dan Ariely, we talked about why we tend to regret the risks we take in the moment, but often regret the risks we didn't take when we look back years later. And then he shared what his research is finding about where we're playing at safest. Take a listen to this.

**Dan Ariely** (0:25)
In the short term, we regret the things that we did, but when you look at it from the perspective of time, you're upset with the risks you didn't take. The biggest gap I find, the area of life that they don't take enough risk, romantic love. And people basically say, not willing to be vulnerable.

**John R. Miles** (0:45)
It's your friend John, and welcome to Passion Struck. I'm so glad you're here. Whether you're a long time listener or someone who just discovered the show, thank you for pressing play today.
Maybe you've built the life you were supposed to want, but you've quietly wondered why it still doesn't feel like enough.
If that's you, you're in the right place. Every week, I sit down with the world's top scientists, researchers, and thinkers to uncover what it actually takes to build an intentional life that matters.
Thanks for joining me. Let's get into it.
Welcome back to Passion Struck episode 811 Today, we're continuing our series, The Adaptive Brain, How Your Mind Learns, Changes, and Heals. Last week, we looked at change from three very different perspectives. Mark Manson challenged us to move beyond insight and actually change our behavior. Dr. David Perlmutter showed us how the biological environment we create can influence the health of our brains. And actor Josh Duhamel gave us a very personal look at how the environments we choose can shape the person we become. And today, we're turning to something that sits beneath all of those conversations. How do we make better choices? Because we can know what matters.
We can know what we should do. We can even know what kind of person we want to become. And still, our brains have a remarkable ability to steer us in another direction. That's what makes today's conversation with Dr. Dan Ariely so fascinating. Dan is a behavioral economist, professor, and bestselling author of Predictably Irrational. For decades, he's studied the strange gap between what we intend to do and what we actually do, and why we're often far less rational than we think. But one part of our conversation really stayed with me. Dan has been studying how we think about risk, and his research suggests something counterintuitive. In the moment, we tend to regret the risks we take. But when we look back at our lives, we often regret the risks we didn't take. And that raises a much bigger question. Where in your life are you playing it safer than you really want to? We also talk about risk, relationships, work. Education, bureaucracy, technology, and even what happens when we become so focused on efficiency that we lose sight of what makes life meaningful itself. So let's dive in. Here's my conversation with Dan Ariely. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your hosting guide on your journey to creating an intentional life that matters. Now, let that journey begin.
I am absolutely thrilled today to have Dan Ariely on Passion Struck. Dan, how are you today?

**Dan Ariely** (3:38)
I am lovely. I am lovely. First of all, it's a very nice name for a podcast, but I should say that I was thinking about passion since you wrote me and why, what element of motivation you chose to capture. There's lots of motivations.
And I think it's one of the most interesting one. It's the top of all motivations, right? It's something that is driven by passion. You can imagine, I want to be professional. You can imagine I want to do things well. I want to improve. I want to accomplish. There's lots of motivations, lots of words to describe lots of elements of motivation.
Passion is the highest order. I think when we get to that one, we've achieved a lot.

**John R. Miles** (4:26)
Thank you for saying that. When I started this journey years ago, the term passion struck wasn't in my vocabulary at all. I happened to be having a conversation with a mentor, and he made this statement to me that he goes, John, it seems like what you're describing is people go from being stuck to becoming passion struck.
I did what anyone would do after he said it, it clicked, and I went to Google to see if anyone owned the domain, and there it was on GoDaddy, and the rest is history.