This is the Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedantanthan.

In this episode, we're going to talk about near misses, almost and not quite.

First we're going to talk about research that shows that coming close to winning something

can really affect your drive and motivation.

You want to build that thing in that hey you're almost there.

My friend Daniel Pink will join us for a round of stop-what science.

He's going to explain how the psychology of getting close to a goal can help charities

raise more money.

Why do people give?

People give not because they want to be altruistic, but because they want to be effective.

Finally, we'll ask singer-songwriter Casey Musgraves to put on an imaginary lab coat and

join us for a game of mad scientist.

This is my lab coat have rhinestones on it.

We'll ask her to explain a song from her album pageant material and we learn what

world peace has to do with swimsuits.

Okay, near misses Monica Wadwa is a professor at the NCAD Business School in Singapore.

She studies marketing and recently in her research she hit upon a strange but promising

way to change how consumers behave.

It's funny because this came from one of my childhood experiences actually.

To understand this idea, let's travel back in time to Monica's childhood.

I was born in Brought-up in India in Delhi.

Like many 13-year-olds Monica had a craze.

...