Since UBM went public (preprint 7/8/2025), the same critiques keep returning. Most aren't objections — they're misconceptions of what a foundational framework is and what it's for. Fair questions. Straight answers.

👋 Hey, it’s Martin GrunbUrg (“U”, not the FDIC chair. Ha! 😄). Author of the Habit Factor® trilogy, creator of the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM), and host of the Habits 2 Goals podcast.

Read time: 4-ish minutes

Dear UBM

Dear UBM isn’t your grandma’s advice column. It’s time to experience what the first elemental, unified framework of behavior can do for you — and your goals.

UBM has been out in open science for 414+ days. Unrefuted. Unfalsified.

Good for behavioral science — even better for you.

Advancing the mission of basic behavioral literacy.

ZERO guru magic. Pure, testable science.

Submit your question: [DearUBM_AT_thehabitfactor.com]

Dear UBM,

“I’ve tried for years to build an exercise habit. I’ve succeeded at times, briefly, when I forced and shamed myself into it. I do enjoy it once it’s happening. But I have some sort of block about deserving to feel good. So I’ll drive to the class, sit in the parking lot, and not be able to get out of the car.”

— Stuck in the Parking Lot

Dear Stuck,

First — congratulations!

You’re wayyyyy closer than you think.

You’ve been driving to the gym! Check.

You feel good after you work out! Check.

These are all very significant markers and points of data. They matter more than you may think.

Most people never get in the car.

We’re going to say this a lot in this column:

Please view everything — behaviorally speaking — as though you are your own behavior scientist. We’re losing the academic “al.” ; )

Thus, depending on your goals, your behavior experiments are always running.

With the first elemental, unified, four-part system for ALLLLLL BEHAVIOR, troubleshooting problems like this becomes nearly instant and, dare I say, FUN!

Or at least that’s how one star student put it — and yes, that’s her actual name: Star.

“I ‘Sherlock’ my goals and problems, and I have fun doing it.”

The beauty is, YOU already have some great data.

You shared this specifically:

“… I have some sort of block about deserving to feel good. So I will go to the building for the exercise class, and not be able to get myself to get out of the car.”

So, without any further explanation from me of UBM, which domain — which behavior ELEMENT — do you think you ought to explore first?

See below.

Do you think it’s:

Element #1: Behaviors / Habits / Skills?

Element #2: Environment — (includes your body)?

Element #3: Cognition / Stories?

Element #4: Emotions / Feelings?

Share

You will quickly see how each element interrelates within each person’s Behavior Echo-System™ (BES) — a personal, perpetual, and dynamic behavioral system.

Meaning, when you analyze your “story”:

“… I have some sort of block about deserving to feel good. So I will go to the building for the exercise class, and not be able to get myself to get out of the car.”

You’ll notice nearly immediately how your feelings and the cognition/stories influence each other — and ultimately, your desired behavior/habit.

Since your BES is a dynamic, interrelated system — even though you may suspect the root cause — a faulty STORY — we want even MORE DATA.

That means we need to start TRACKING our desired behavior

You might consider tracking something simple, such as:

Workout: 15 minutes minimum

Or, if that still feels like too much, make it even easier:

Walk into the gym and complete the first machine, exercise, or set.

That’s it.

Then identify your weekly frequency. Keep this low as well.

Maybe it’s just two days a week. These are your “Target Days.”

Make these days as easy as possible. If you know Mondays are chaotic, don’t choose Monday. Aim for Tuesday. The point is to identify a weekly rhythm that is easy - low target frequency - could even be one day a week to begin!

Then keep notes using the P.A.R.R. One Week Tracking Trainer Sheet.

After just one week of following the P.A.R.R. habit-tracking protocol and adding comments/notes, you’ll quickly notice which other element may be influencing your desired habit — consistently working out.

For example:

“Felt great — it was easy.”

“Missed it today — baby was sick.”

“Flat tire.”

“Tired, but still went.”

Notice that you are gathering DATA — FACTS — not judgment.

No stories. No conclusions.

New and better data will lead to better experiments and to better outcomes.

The answer hides in the data. The data hides in the experiment. 🙌

The beauty is — there are ONLY FOUR PLACES TO LOOK! 🤫

Begin your experiment today!

— UBM 🙏

EMAIL YOUR TOUGHEST BEHAVIOR QUESTIONS: [DearUBM_AT_thehabitfactor.com]

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BASIC BEHAVIOR LITERACY — UPSTREAM EDUCATION. NOT THERAPY.

Be among the first to learn UBM and the Behavior Echo-System — the first complete MAP of human behavior designed to help you align behavior with goals and create meaningful, lasting change.

THE Habits & Goals Master Class - 9/15/26 We get after it again!
Twenty years in the making. Yours in one morning. Apply it for LIFE!

👉 Claim your spot →

🌐 UnifiedBehaviorModel.com
📚 The Habit Factor® · The Pressure Paradox™ · EVERYTHING
🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast
📄 Free habit tracking template

👋 Hey, Martin Grunburg — U at the end. Not the FDIC chair. Ha! 😄 Author of the Habit Factor® trilogy, creator of the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM), and host of the Habits 2 Goals podcast.

Start here

Behavioral science has spent nearly 150 years producing complications, distinctions, and competing frameworks.

That’s all important work. It just isn’t upstream education. It’s downstream therapy.

Basic Behavior Literacy — not behavioral, not academic — is something different. It’s the elemental foundation that has eluded the field since day one.

BBL is something anyone can learn, apply, and teach. No need to wait until something feels off, broken, or wrong.

Simple enough for any adolescent. Rigorous enough to withstand 400+ days — and counting — without a single scientific refutation.

Four elements. Just four pieces that explain the entire behavioral spectrum.

Let’s go.

Lesson 1 — Two Nouns. Distinct. Observable.

A human being is a noun. A person. Biology. DNA.

Behavior is also a noun. An observable event. Distinct and separate from the person performing it.

The surprising thing is this distinction has appeared to elude most of the field for nearly 150 years.

Conflating the two is a category error that creates enormous fog — and real damage.

“You are NOT your behavior. You are RESPONSIBLE for it. But you are not the act.”

You are the vehicle behavior is delivered from. Behavior is the route. Your body is the car you can never exit.

Biology behaves — but biology isn’t the behavior.

This matters because behavior is separate, selectable, and steerable.

I can go for a run or sit on the couch. Either way — behavior is observable, distinct, and mine. That separateness is what makes behavior modelable. And changeable.

Lesson 2 — Four Elements. Not Five. Not Eleven.

Once behavior is recognized as distinct — separate — the next question is simple: what influences it in the moment and shapes it over time?

To model behavior — not the person — we begin with, you guessed it:

Element 1 — BEHAVIORS / Habits / Skills: Actions in the moment, including inaction, and those shaped over time.

Element 2 — Environment: The place you behave in — and your body. The body is the most proximate behavioral stimulus. A toothache, poor sleep, hunger — all may change how you think, feel, and act. Behaviorally speaking, a toothache and a construction site outside your window belong in the same category. Both are stimuli.

Element 3 — Cognition / Stories: How you think. When it comes to behavior, thinking happens predominantly in the form of narratives — stories — to plan, predict, and explain events and circumstances. Einstein smoked. Not logical. Pure story: “it helps me think.” Stories drive behavior constantly — it’s precisely why marketing works.

Element 4 — Emotions and Feelings: We are sentient beings. Feelings are variable conduits — relays of information and energy throughout the system.

Key idea: think of feelings and emotions as SIGNALS. Not commands.

What’s worth understanding: concepts like motivation, willpower, discipline, and the “mind” are not elemental. Each arises from — or can be subsumed into — some combination of the four elements.

Motivation? Could be a story (”I don’t want to do this”), a feeling (low energy), or an environmental trigger (blood sugar crash). It’s a compound — not a primitive.

This is precisely why these are the four elements. It’s why the model is elementally sufficient. And it’s why — despite a year-long open global challenge, despite the world’s top frontier AI systems attempting — no fifth element has been produced.

Four. Nothing outside them. Nothing left out.

Lesson 3 — The Behavior Echo-System

The four elements don’t operate in a straight line.

No flowchart. No staged sequence. No unidirectional arrows. No steps, no preset order.

The key insight: the four elements interrelate within what’s called the Behavior Echo-System — not ecosystem. Echo, as in reverberation. You and I can share a room, a classroom, even a culture. We cannot share a Behavior Echo-System. Even identical twins cannot — same genome, same household, entirely different systems.

Every BES has three properties:

Personal — only you will ever experience yours.
Perpetual — your behaviors operate within it until you die.
Dynamic — sometimes you feel, then think, then act. Sometimes you act without thinking at all. No preset sequence. No guaranteed order.

A story may influence a feeling. A feeling may drive a behavior. A behavior may alter your environment. Your environment may shift your cognition entirely. Omnidirectional. Always moving. Always yours.

This is the closed, causal system behavioral science has sought since its inception.

There she be. ☝️

Lesson 4 — P.A.R.R.

The short version: P.A.R.R. — Plan, Act, Record, Reassess — is how you intentionally move your Behavior Echo-System from where you currently ARE to where you want to BE/GO.

It’s how you create alignment across all four elements in service of a goal.

It mirrors the scientific method. It makes you the behavioral scientist of your own life.

For the full tutorial — including five onboarding emails and a walkthrough from the lovely Jen G — download the free template:

👉 thehabitfactor.com/templates

The Bottom Line

In roughly 30 minutes you’ve covered four foundational concepts that constitute Basic Behavior Literacy.

We say this with genuine respect for the experts — they’ve done important, often brilliant work. Their specialty has been complications, distinctions, and depth within specific domains. That work matters.

However — without a shared paradigm, framework, or ontology — without coherence — the field has remained fragmented. That fragmentation is precisely the self-described “crisis of incoherence” that has plagued behavioral science since its inception.

How and Why UBM Changes the Game

What’s been missing is upstream education. Simple, elemental, accessible — available long before anything feels broken.

This is not therapy. UBM is upstream education for the roughly 95% of people with a sound mind, body, and goals — who deserve a reliable map and have never had one.

George Miller called for it in 1969: “Give psychology away to the people.”

Fifty-seven years later — here it is.

Why should anyone wait until something feels broken to learn how their own behavior works?

Do this today

Think about a habit you’ve been struggling with.

Instead of asking: “What’s wrong with me?” — that’s the person, the noun, the biology —

Ask: which element is out of alignment?

Environment? Stories? Emotions? Behavior itself? Which lever can you adjust to move toward the habit or behavior that serves your most important goal?

Test it. You are the behavior scientist of your life.

That single reframe is the beginning of Basic Behavior Literacy.

Download the free template and run your first P.A.R.R. cycle:

👉 thehabitfactor.com/templates

Is this fun or what?

You’re learning — genuinely learning — how your own behavior works. That’s not nothing. That’s everything.

Now imagine mapping your own Behavior Echo-System in real time — running a live audit and walking away with a framework you’ll use for the rest of your life. 🤫

The Habits & Goals Master Class is the answer.

Twenty years of research, coaching, and iteration — delivered in a single morning.

Workshop 2 begins Tuesday, 9/15

👉 Claim your spot →

🌐 UnifiedBehaviorModel.com — free white paper
📚 The Habit Factor® · The Pressure Paradox™ · EVERYTHING
🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast
📄 Free habit tracking template

Since UBM went public (preprint 7/8/2025), the same critiques keep returning. Most aren't objections — they're misconceptions of what a foundational framework is and what it's for. Fair questions. Straight answers.

👋 Hey, it’s Martin GrunbUrg (“U”, not the FDIC chair. Ha! 😄). Author of the Habit Factor® trilogy, creator of the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM), and host of the Habits 2 Goals podcast.

Read time: 4-ish minutes

“I Don't Feel Like It.“

#TRUESTORY

The other morning I overheard this:

“I thought you were going for a run?”

The woman’s response was immediate:

“I don’t feel like it!”

The man paused, then asked:

“Did you feel like going to work?”

Silence…

The Trap

The Behavior Echo-System (BES) illustrates just how proximate feelings and emotions are to our behaviors. The first complete, elemental MAP of all human behavior reveals how feelings and emotions “bookend” behavior itself.

Notice the black borders. 👇

Feelings and emotions are the conduits — the relays between the “major” elements in one’s Behavior Echo-System, not ecosystem.

Without awareness, feelings and emotions may effectively dictate the majority of behavior.

Consider a four-year-old: a bundle of behaviors driven almost entirely by feelings and emotions.

Now, consider a Stoic — even a Stoic who is raging mad, who may want to hurt someone, yet does absolutely nothing.

Perfect INACTION.

The difference?

One’s behaviors are driven almost entirely by feelings and emotions.

For the Stoic, feelings and emotions have variable influence — mitigated by awareness and response, rather than programmed, unaware reaction.

After all, it is the mitigation of behavior that we often call “emotional maturity.”

You might even suggest that the Stoic is the architect of their behaviors — intentionally shaping their response, while the tenant is reactive, unaware, and largely clueless about how the system influences behavior.

Quick whiteboard demo here. ☝️

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The Pivot: Feelings and emotions are signals guiding one’s attention and focus.

They are not behavioral commands. They have variable influence upon behavior.

Signals, not commands.

They shouldn’t be ignored. They should be appreciated, listened to, interpreted, and then — IF they make sense — acted upon.

Worth pointing out the obvious: if the situation is a bear chasing you in the woods, that frightened feeling doesn’t require much deliberation.

Yet, when the “I don’t feel like it” feeling shows up in response to a run you planned, a gym workout you scheduled, a salad you intended to eat, or a non-alcohol day you committed to — feel free to IGNORE it and FILE UNDER:

“NOT aligned with the PLAN.”

This is, of course, where TRACKING and P.A.R.R. come into PLAY!

One is Architect mode.

P.A.R.R.: Plan, Act, Record, and Reassess.

The other is Tenant mode.

One designs. The other REACTS.

The Architect recognizes the feeling as an ephemeral state — a passing note in the system — and may even laugh it off, seeing clearly that it is NOT aligned with the meaningful PLAN.

The Tenant is beholden to the feeling — trapped inside an unaware system, mistaking the signal for a command.

The Architect receives the signal, measures it against the plan, and then conducts oneself accordingly.

After all, this is the definition of BEHAVIOR:

How one conducts oneself.

The Tenant reacts.

The Delta — the Elemental Mathematics of Feelings & Emotions

ENVIRONMENT − STORY = FEELING / EMOTION

Feelings and emotions nearly always emerge from the GAP.

Environment: The concert sucked.
Story: I expected the concert to be epic. I paid a lot of money for my wife and me.
Feeling: Disappointment. Frustration. Regret.

Environment: I wasn’t laid off.
Story: I expected to be laid off.
Feeling: Relief. Gratitude. Maybe even surprise.

Your turn…

The next time you hear yourself say, “I don’t feel like it,” press PAUSE ⏸️

Ask: Is the signal offering value? Is it aligned with my PLAN, intentions, and values?

Or is this just Tenant Mode filing a noise complaint?

BASIC BEHAVIOR LITERACY — UPSTREAM EDUCATION. NOT THERAPY.

Be among the first to learn UBM and the Behavior Echo-System — the first complete MAP of human behavior designed to help you align behavior with goals and create meaningful, lasting change.

THE Habits & Goals Master Class
Twenty years in the making. Yours in one morning. Apply it for LIFE!

Workshop #2: Tuesday, 9/15, 9 am, PDT.
Enroll by 8/17. Get 50% OFF!

Use PROMO CODE: H2GME 😄

👉 Claim your spot →

🌐 UnifiedBehaviorModel.com
📚 The Habit Factor® · The Pressure Paradox™ · EVERYTHING
🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast
📄 Free habit tracking template

👋 Hey, Martin Grunburg — U at the end. Not the FDIC chair. Ha! 😄 Author of the Habit Factor® trilogy, creator of the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM), and host of the Habits 2 Goals podcast.

"Narrative imagining — story — is the fundamental instrument of thought. Rational capacities depend upon it. It is our chief means of looking into the future, of predicting, of planning, and of explaining."
— Mark Turner, The Literary Mind

Start here

Humans are NOT logic machines.

We are primarily STORY machines that happen to have the capacity for logic.

Mark Turner’s work makes this undeniable — and it’s precisely why the third book in The Habit Factor® trilogy was titled EVERYTHING is a Fcking Story.* (Pardon the French.)

Story dominates our behavior.

Logic rides shotgun — and sometimes it doesn’t even make it into the car.

Which raises an uncomfortable question: if stories are running the show, where is the logic hiding?

Welcome to the Behavior Echo-System audit.

Case 1 — The Greatest Mind of the 20th Century

Albert Einstein smoked. Heavily. Consistently. For decades.

Here was arguably the most logical human being alive — a man who rewrote the laws of physics — doing something every shred of available evidence condemned as lethal. Even by the standards of his era, the data pointed clearly toward early death and a compromised cardiovascular system.

His story? “It helps me relax. It helps me think.”

Not logic. Nothing logical about it.

Einstein: Story 1. Logic 0.

Case 2 — The Man Who Outsmarted the Seatbelt

I know an old man. Graduated high school at 16. Chemical engineering degree. Harvard MBA. Decades as a senior executive — entertainment, finance, international consulting. He even helped establish government infrastructure in Kazakhstan.

Far from stupid.

Eighty-six years old. Still drives — just to the store, maybe three miles. And he categorically refuses to wear his seatbelt.

In fact, so annoyed by the automated ding, ding, ding — he keeps the seatbelt permanently plugged in and simply sits on top of it.

The joke is, he’s the man who outsmarted the seatbelt. 😄

Never mind physics. Never mind statistics. Never mind that at 86, a fender-bender is a very different proposition than it was at 46.

His story? We can only guess — but it probably sounds something like: “It’s a nuisance. Takes longer to buckle and unbuckle than to drive. It’s just three miles.”

To him, the story is airtight. Internally consistent. Completely comfortable.

Where’s the logic — for one of the smartest men I’ve ever known?

Harvard MBA: Story 1. Logic 0.

Case 3 — Me: A Cat, a Golf Tee Time, and an Idiotic Move

My wife leaves town to help our daughter move into her first apartment on the East Coast. Exciting stuff.

Before leaving, she reminded me — as she has approximately one thousand times — do not close the patio door without making sure Hobie is inside.

Hobie is our cat. Nearly 18 years old.

Friday afternoon tee time. Rushed, I close every door. Patio secure. Didn’t consider Hobie once.

I played golf. Came home. Went to bed.

Saturday morning…

Wait.

Where’s the freakin’ cat?

The next 48 hours were not my finest.

One story kept running on a loop: “My wife is going to kill me.”

All day and into the night — walking circles around the block, checking everywhere, talking to neighbors. Barely slept. Left the patio door open all night. Posted flyers. Posted on Craigslist. Began constructing elaborate theories about catnapping — because surely an 18-year-old cat wouldn’t just wander off on her own.

That was my story. And I was sticking to it.

Sunday evening, mid-writing, I noticed a tail heading toward the front door.

I knew immediately.

I opened it.

She had a few choice words for me — then strolled in as if nothing happened.

There may have been tears of joy. 😄

Me: Story 1. Logic 0.

The Behavior Echo-System Audit

I genuinely wanted to understand how I could be so dumb.

So I ran a BES audit.

What was the story? (Element 3 — the innermost concentric circle of the BES)

“Even if she gets locked out, she’ll be fine. She’s been out before, and it always works out. She’s old and wise. Nothing to worry about.”

Technically — she did come back.

But there was a genuine cost: 48 hours of worry, an enormous amount of expended energy, posting flyers, creating ads, lost sleep, and essentially zero productivity — all for what would have been a 30-second awareness check.

The “it’s all gonna be fine, nothing to worry about” story proved to be idiotic.

The Pattern

Einstein smoking. An old man and a seatbelt. Me and a cat.

Three people. Three stories producing illogical decisions and behaviors.

EVERYTHING is a Fcking Story.*

This is why a BES audit matters — and even better if you have the foresight to run one beforehand.

It’s a beautiful demonstration of the BES and its dynamism — the relationship connecting stories, emotions and feelings, decisions and actions, and their consequences, real or imagined — all exposed by auditing your BES.

That’s where the logic was hiding. The whole time.

The Takeaway

In executive coaching sessions, we leave participants with a “Rear-view Mirror” exercise:

“When things went sideways — not as planned — what was the story behind the behaviors, decisions, and results that were undesirable?”

If you want to go deeper — actually map your own Behavior Echo-System, run a live audit, and walk away with a framework you’ll use for the rest of your life for every habit, goal, and behavior change — THE Habits & Goals Master Class is the answer.

Twenty years of research, coaching, and iteration — powerfully delivered in a single morning.

Workshop 2 begins Tuesday, 9/15. Enroll by 8/15 and save $200 instantly.

Enroll by 8/15 and save $200 instantly. Yes. $200 savings ends 8/15!

Use PROMO CODE: LOGIC

👉 Claim your spot →

🌐 UnifiedBehaviorModel.com — free white paper
📚 The Habit Factor® · The Pressure Paradox™ · EVERYTHING
🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast
📄 Free habit tracking template

Since UBM went public (preprint 7/8/2025), the same critiques keep returning. Most aren’t objections to the model — they’re misconceptions about what a foundational framework is and what it’s for. Fair questions. Straight answers.

👋 Hey, Martin Grunburg — U at the end. Not the FDIC chair. Ha! 😄 Author of the Habit Factor® trilogy, creator of the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM), and host of the Habits 2 Goals podcast.

That prolonged, concentrated effort yielded the world’s first elemental, unified, goal-directed behavioral model. Ten months post pre-print — “appears to be” can now be retired.

Importantly, the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM) is falsifiable — which means testable.

The best part — and the ONLY reason YOU ought to care — is that UBM provides the highest goal-probabilistic outcome of ANY behavioral framework. Ever. That statement is independently verifiable, so please do NOT take my word for it. Keep reading, keep listening, and test it for yourself.

🎓 Next cohort: Behavior Architecture on Maven → | 9/24 – 10/1
🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast
📄 Free habit tracking template

Read time: 2.5 minutes

Start here

Psychology defines itself as the scientific study of mind and behavior. Yet there is no scientific consensus on what the “mind” actually is.

Not even close.

Think about how “crazy” that is. No pun intended.

Physicalists say it’s brain chemistry. Functionalists say it’s software. Phenomenologists say it’s subjective experience. Pick your camp — that’s just the beginning of the confusion.

The field has been arguing for nearly 150 years. And counting.

The surprising thing is this isn’t a minor footnote. It’s a structural flaw at the foundation of an entire field of science.

How do you build a science upon an undefined concept?

This is just one reason behavioral science has openly described itself as “pre-paradigmatic” and an “incoherent mess.”

Instead of harmony and agreement, you get what Arthur Staats described directly in 1999 — a “would-be science” plagued by “mutual discreditation, inconsistency, redundancy, and controversy.”

Sounds fun. 😄

To compound matters, the field didn’t stop there. It labeled itself a science with a nonsense definition — then proceeded to conflate biology (a noun, the person) with behavior (also a noun, distinctly not the person).

This is where the fun really begins.

And why, more than a century earlier in 1892, William James — a founder of American psychology — could see the whole mess unfolding.

He put it bluntly: “This is no science; it is only the hope of a science.”

UBM resolves both — with ONE ELEMENTAL STONE.

The fix is straightforward: remove the undefined variable entirely. Goodbye, “mind.” You’re very important — just not elemental.

Focus strictly on what is objective, empirical, and scientifically discernible — BEHAVIOR.

What influences human action in the moment and shapes it over time.

Four elements. No fifth. One year. Zero point zero refutations.

Mind — removed.
Conflation — removed.
Coherence — emerges.

D. O. N. E. 🙌

Simple. Elegant. Truth.

“Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.” — Isaac Newton

Curious what you think. Comment below — or better yet, try to find the fifth element. 😄

🌐 UnifiedBehaviorModel.com — free white paper
📚 The Habit Factor® · The Pressure Paradox™ · EVERYTHING
🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast
📄 Free habit tracking template

Since UBM went public (preprint 7/8/2025), the same critiques keep returning. Most aren't objections to the model — they're misconceptions of what a foundational framework is and what it's for. Fair questions. Straight answers.

👋 Hey, it’s Martin GrunbUrg (“U”. Not the FDIC chair. Ha! 😄). Author of the Habit Factor® trilogy, creator of the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM), and host of the Habits 2 Goals podcast.

Read time: 3-ish minutes

🎓 Behavior Architecture on Maven →
🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast
📄 Free habit tracking template

Sounding correct and being correct are not necessarily the same thing.

Here’s a quick test.

If someone says:

“Achievement is a science.”

Do you say — sounds good to me?

Or do you think: let’s run that through a quick test.

To test ideas, hypothesize the opposite.

The statement: “Achievement is a science.”

Its opposite: “Achievement is an art.”

Science is clear, clean, and predictable. Math — the science of numbers — reveals: 2+2=4. Always.

Art is messier — far less predictable.

If achievement were truly a science, one may posit that the greatest achievers in history operated from the same playbook.

Same inputs. Same outputs.

So let’s test the hypothesis: Achievement is a science.

Notable achievers (random): Gandhi. Lincoln. Michael Phelps. Mick Jagger. Mike Tyson. Elon Musk.

Their achievements: peace, arguably the greatest presidency in history, 23 Olympic gold medals, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Heavyweight Champion of the World, the world’s first trillionaire (on paper), reusable rockets… yadda yadda.

Now — did they share the same playbook?

Phelps up at 4am. Jagger sleeping until noon. Lincoln governing through the nation’s greatest crisis on almost no sleep. Gandhi fasting for weeks. Young Tyson — a trained assassin. Musk — ALLLLL over the place and still focused.

Not just different. In some cases — diametrically opposed playbooks.

So is achievement a science?

Maybe not…

Could it be part science?

Ding. Ding. And DING!!

And, you guessed it, this is precisely where behavior enters the picture.

Behavior, it turns out, is a hard, testable science.

UBM has demonstrated — cleanly and testably — that behavior is a science.

The system that influences your behavior in the moment and shapes it over time: TESTABLE.

What’s UBM’s prediction?

Great question. Thanks for asking. 😄

UBM and its Behavior Echo-System are explicit about this: predicting general behavior within a generalized pool (audience) is fool’s gold.

Here’s why.

Everyone operates within their own personal Behavior Echo-System — BES.

Not ecosystem. Echo — as in reverberation.

Each BES is personal, perpetual, and dynamic.

Personal — you are the only one who will ever experience your BES. Your stories, experiences, emotions and feelings, embodied environment, habits and skills. Yours alone.

Perpetual — your behaviors operate from within your BES until you die. Hopefully not anytime soon.

Dynamic — sometimes you feel something, then think, then act. Sometimes you act, then think. Sometimes you act and never think at all. Guilty as charged.

There is no office diagram or flowchart for your behavior. No stepwise sequence. No unidirectional arrows pointing the way. This has been a major structural problem within behavioral science for a very long time.

Notice the BES diagram above — bidirectional arrows <—>. Very few models include bidirectionality - fewer still were all-inclusive, UNIFIED.

Information and energy flow constantly, bouncing back and forth between the four elements, with the potential to influence behavior.

Unpredictable. Dynamic.

A story may influence a feeling. A feeling may drive a behavior. A behavior may alter your environment. Your environment may shift your cognition. Your embodied environment — a poor night’s sleep, a toothache — may change your thinking entirely. An action may even trigger another action. You could be raging mad and — in the case of a trained Stoic — do nothing.

Perfect inaction. An observable behavior.

No preset sequence. No guaranteed order. No generalized predictable behavior.

All four elements — perpetually present, each with the potential to influence and change your behavior.

Dynamic. Personal. Perpetual. That is your BES.

THIS is your closed, causal behavioral system; where ALLLLL of your actions, forever, are influenced and shaped.

There she be. ☝️

Please, test it. 🎯

Send me your thoughts, questions, and challenges.

Read the 12 Misconceptions →

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Since UBM went public (preprint 7/8/2025), the same critiques keep returning. Most aren't objections to the model — they're misunderstandings of what a foundational framework is and what it's for. Fair questions. Straight answers.

The Celebration has begun!! Basic Behavioral Literacy is officially here. (below)
🙌 🇺🇸 🎯 💪 🎊 🎉

👋 Hey, it’s Martin Grunburg (BURG — U at the end, otherwise you’ll end up with the FDIC chair 😄). Author of the Habit Factor® trilogy, creator of the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM), and host of the Habits 2 Goals podcast — likely the longest-running habits, goals, and performance podcast around.

Read time: 8-ish minutes

🎓 Behavior Architecture on Maven →
🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast
📄 Free habit tracking template

1. “You defined the boundaries and created the buckets — that’s why nobody can break it!”

That’s what frameworks do. They frame the solution to a defined problem.

Every framework does this. Maslow offered a pyramid. Beck a triangle. Fogg offered three variables. TTM presents six stages. Bandura a triad. Each one defined boundaries and created buckets. Framing is the job.

The Founding Fathers are literally called Framers — they framed what democracy, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ought to look like.

The surprising thing is what UBM did after framing.

Nearly every framework is expected to be true — defended by its creator, championed by their camp, then cited into preeminence. Few demand to be broken.

This is precisely why behavioral science is self-described as a chaos of competing models. In 1999,

Arthur Staats called psychology a “would-be science” plagued by “mutual discreditation, inconsistency, redundancy, and controversy.” A century earlier, William James — a founder of American psychology — was blunter: “This is no science; it is only the hope of a science.”

Theories don’t get disproven in this field. They just drift.

UBM did the opposite. It set rigid, testable boundaries — then handed them to the world’s best scientists with one instruction: BREAK THIS, please. Fifty-plus personal invitations. Upwards of 10,000 scientists reached globally. 365 days. Zero disproof.

If there’s one thing scientists love to do, it’s critique frameworks — especially ones claiming unification.

Yes, UBM is framed, this is what allows for disproof.

In the end, it’s not about the model, the author or anything else… it’s ALL about the model’s utility to the END USER. 5.0/5.0. That’s you!

Like all good hard, testable science, UBM remains open to disproof — forever.

Importantly, that’s a position no unified behavioral framework has ever taken.

2. “The four elements are too broad.”

Broad is not the same as vague. Elemental is not the same as sloppy.

Karl Popper — who gave us the very concept of falsifiability — described science as the art of systematic oversimplification —not random simplification.

Four elements that hold everything is exactly what unification requires. As one AI evaluator put it: “A large bucket is not necessarily a leaky one.”

Here’s what’s worth understanding: for roughly 100 years, the field has confused the vehicle with the route. Human biology with human behavior.

UBM draws a hard line between the two — and that single distinction cuts through nearly all of the fog.

Behavior is a noun. A human is a noun. Both are “things.”

They are distinct. Biology behaves — but biology isn’t the behavior, any more than the car is the route it takes.

The reason this matters goes beyond semantics.

Behavior is steerable. Selectable. Your biology is the vehicle you can never exit. Your behavior is the route you choose every single day.

Conflate the two — as the field has done for a very long time — and you don’t just create confusion. You create “incoherence”— their word.

Unfortunately, incoherence produces damage. It’s where shame and guilt breed. It’s how a person moves from “I did a bad thing” to “I am a bad thing.”

That’s not a subtle error. That’s a category error.

Note too: behavior is observable — including inaction. If I’m furious and do nothing, the nothing is the behavior. Visible. Recordable. Testable.

The same line explains character.

Habits forge character — and yet character is never fixed in stone. Name a hero, a great “character,” who wasn’t flawed. Good luck.

Broad is simply the nature of first principles and elements. It’s what characterizes foundational frameworks .

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3. “UBM is a tautology — it just states the obvious.”

Here’s the AI response to that: “Gravity seems obvious too. Things fall. Everybody understands that. It still had to be mapped — the mapping changed a few things.”

The key distinction: obvious after is not the same as obvious before.

Once it exists, it looks like it was always sitting there. “That’s the tell of a foundational framework.”

Distilling ALL human behavior into four — and only four — elements is deceptively sophisticated.

Instantly accessible to an adolescent, and rigorous enough that a global, year-long falsifiability challenge closed without a single refutation.

And why, over nearly 150 years, did no one present the four-element structure if it were obvious?

What exactly was the 1991 NIMH consortium created for? Why were the top behavioral theorists convened for a full week?

It’s worth sitting with that.

That answer: to produce a unified, elemental model of human behavior. They concluded with eleven elements — and “no consensus reached.”

The bottom line: a tautology says nothing and resolves nothing.

UBM immediately resolves two of the field’s own self-described, perpetual crises — incoherence and inaccessibility — with one elemental stone.

A unified map.

Note: If this sounds like self-promotion, that’s the very unfortunate, undesirable and peculiar position UBM forces. How might one advocate for a novel, useful framework, without looking like self promotion?

Short answer: DO NOT TAKE MY WORD FOR IT.

Be skeptical. Do your own research. Download the Primer. Read the whitepaper.

Revisit the NIMH story. Look into William James, Arthur Staats and George Miller. These are UBM’s cheerleaders — long before UBM ever existed.

They’re the field’s own thoughtful voices describing a century-long gap.

4. “It lacks Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs).”

UBM is NOT a therapy or medical intervention.

Clinical trials are not run on foundational, organizing frameworks.

Maps aren’t validated by clinical trials. They’re validated by one question: can you break it?

UBM has one hard scientific test. Find a fifth behavioral element.

Simple. Clean. No one has.

5. “There’s nothing genuinely novel here.”

Novelty is actually UBM’s highest-rated dimension. Here’s why.

Revisit the last great consensus effort to address this exact problem: the 1991 NIMH consortium. The discipline’s best minds. One full week. One goal — produce an elemental, unified framework. The result? “No consensus reached.”

… but there’s more.

UBM doesn’t merely present four falsifiable elements. It reveals precisely how they interrelate — and that’s just another part of UBM’s presentation that has no precedent, its “Behavior Echo-System.”

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Nearly every established model presents itself as a business-process diagram — linear staging. TTM’s staged progression. CBT’s thought-led triangle. UTB’s determinants → intention → behavior. One arrow. One direction. One assumed order. Props to Bandura for bidirectional arrows — albeit incomplete. Not closed. Not unified.

Real behavior is dynamic. Sometimes we think, then act. Sometimes we act, then think. Sometimes we feel, then think, then act. Sometimes we act, then feel, then think. Various unique sequences — all within the same personal behavioral system.

What UBM demonstrates is that each person’s Behavior Echo-System is personal, perpetual, and dynamic. Echo-System — not ecosystem. We can share a classroom, a home, even a culture — but never a Behavior Echo-System. Even identical twins cannot share one. Same genome, same house, same dinner table. Two entirely different systems.

The novelty isn’t just the four elements — it’s how they’re assembled, and how that assembly is then applied for goal-directed behavior.

The four interrelated elements — the irreducible primitives. What behavior is made of. The Behavior Echo-System — dynamic, bidirectional, personal and perpetual. The map. P.A.R.R. — Plan, Act, Record, Reassess. The GPS, Goal Positioning System.

6. “It’s a threat to existing psychotherapies.”

UBM doesn’t compete with therapy.

UBM IS UPSTREAM EDUCATION: basic behavior (dropping the ‘al’) literacy.

Therapy repairs. UBM teaches — ideally long before anything needs repairing.

UBM is an educational framework for the roughly 95% of people with a sound mind and body. It presents strict boundary conditions: basic needs met — food, water, shelter. Goal-directed and aspirational by design. Not a therapy. Not a crisis tool. Not a clinical treatment. UBM states this plainly and repeatedly.

Upstream education. Accessible to all. For the people.

7. “UBM is trying to be the trunk of psychology.”

UBM was presented to a field carrying a forever mandate for an elemental, unified model of behavior.

UBM never set out to be the trunk.

It could care less if you call it a trunk or a skunk. A toaster or a golf ball.

A basic model of human behavior that is unified.

Not of the person. Not the mind. Not social norms. Not salience…

Behavior: A scientific map to represent unified, elemental behavior.

UBM presents precisely what the field has clamored for over a century.

Call it whatever you like. At the end of the proverbial day, hard, testable science suggests there is only one map — as demonstrated by the No Fifth Element challenge. This is precisely why a breakable, elemental, unified model is so empowering to all.

The framework is here.

Psychology has dozens of branches and no trunk. Good luck finding that in nature.

If UBM is recognized as grounding it’s disconnected branches — that’s a byproduct of its utility.

8. “UBM claims to be everything to everyone.”

The opposite is true. A framework that attempts to be everything to everyone doesn’t draw boundaries.

UBM draws hard, well-defined lines. Its utility is bound by clear qualifiers — “sound mind and body.” Basic needs must be met: food, water, shelter. Think Maslow’s foundational tier. It’s designed for the estimated 95% of the first and second world population aspiring to be, do, and have a little more on their journey of personal development.

UBM is goal-directed and aspirational framework. It’s not a crisis tool. It may aid clinical education but it’s not a clinical substitute.

It understands where it’s useful and remains there.

Boundaries are a feature, not a limitation.

Upstream education!

9. “Foundational frameworks must make bold behavioral predictions.”

It does. Can you find the fifth behavioral element?

UBM doesn’t attempt to predict human action and that intentional.

The “Behavior Echo-System” (BES) demonstrates that behavior in general is dynamic, personal, and perpetual.

You’re in your BES right now — this post (environment) may be shifting your cognition or your feelings. it may alter behavior. You may say, wow, i get hti! or, this is stupid!”

Either way, you may feel inspired or annoyed. Your BES is entirely unique as is your sister’s, mother’s and aunt Martha’s as well as JimBob down the street.

This explains why two people experience the same event with wildly different responses and behaviors! differently. World Cup, anyone?

UBM suggests, that generalized behavioral predictions are fool’s gold.

Predictions live downstream — in localized, categorized BES profiles, tested within specific sample sets. That’s tractable and scientifically testable

UBM’s boldest prediction is simple and structural: there is no fifth element.

One claim. Testable by anyone.

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10. “UBM only accounts for intentional habits — ignoring automated ones.”

Untrue. UBM accounts for ALL behavior. That’s precisely the point.

Habits operate at every level of the Behavior Echo-System. Nobody escapes “Tenant Mode.” Nobody. It’s the default, automated system running most of the time. Unconscious scripts are running right now. By design of the system itself. Not even His Holiness the Dalai Lama evades Tenant Mode.

And yet — this is what makes humans remarkable.

We also possess Architect Mode — the capacity to figuratively step “outside” our personal BES, observe it, and ask: are these four elements aligned with my goals and ideals?

No other creature, as far as we know, has this capacity to intentionally cultivate habits and skills in service of aspirational goals and ideals?

11. “It doesn’t resolve psychology’s deeper theoretical mysteries.”

That’s yet to be determined.

Once the conflation of biology and behavior ceases, that alone will be a major step in the right direction.

Further, “mind” — while uniquely human — has no shared definition or agreed boundary. The mind isn’t elemental. It’s a compound that emerges from the four elements. Which suggests those “deeper mysteries” may simply be structural.

A category error. TBD.

As psychology’s own thoughtful theorists have noted throughout time, the field is bogged down by its own muddy definition: the study of mind and behavior. Mixing an ethereal “mind” with hard, observable behavior is exactly where the fog rolls in.

UBM steps out of the fog. It focuses on BEHAVIOR — what influences action in the moment and shapes it over time.

12. “Behavioral literacy is too complex to teach kids.”

Learning the mechanics of behavior is a lot like learning a new language.

Music is a language. Math is a language. Behavior is a language.

So far, the trend suggests: the younger the student, the faster the assimilation.

Students with fresh eyes tend to grasp it faster. Adults often arrive with decades of assumptions — cups already full.

And the experts?

In a few cases, they’ve struggled with UBM the most.

UBM is upstream education.

It clearly and cleanly identifies the elements — the basic mechanics of behavior — ideally long before anyone ever feels broken.

Not therapy. A simple, clean, clear map.

Maps never guarantee success. But millions use them every day — because they save time, energy, and provide clarity.

The Pattern

Each misconception expects UBM to be something it never claimed to be — a therapy, a predictive model, or everything to everyone.

It is none of those.

UBM is an elemental, unified, goal-directed, falsifiable map of ALL human behavior. Upstream education. Basic behavioral literacy — for the people.

Note: Mind, awareness, and consciousness — however defined — appear to be emergent relative to a model of human behavior. What the four elements produce, not what they’re made of. Upon examination, each of these vaguely defined concepts dissolve into some combination of cognition/stories, emotions/feelings, behaviors/habits/skills, and environment (including one’s body).

To qualify as a fifth element, a candidate must be both IRREDUCIBLE and REQUIRED for human behavior.

Like all good hard, testable science, the invitation stands forever: find a fifth element.

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Last call for Behavior Architecture!

🌐 UnifiedBehaviorModel.com — free white paper

📚 The trilogy: The Habit Factor® · The Pressure Paradox™ · EVERYTHING

🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast

📄 Free habit tracking template

👋 Hey, it’s Martin Grunburg (BURG — U at the end, otherwise you’ll end up with the FDIC chair 😄). Author of the Habit Factor® trilogy, creator of the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM), and host of the Habits 2 Goals podcast — likely the longest-running habits, goals, and performance podcast around.

Read time: 3 minutes

🎓 Behavior Architecture on Maven →
🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast
📄 Free habit tracking template

Read time: 3 minutes

Subscribe now

Start here

If you’ve been a subscriber to H2G for any length of time (some of you have been here for YEARS) — you’ve witnessed something unfold that probably appeared a bit or a lot unhinged.

Over two decades, one book led to three. The three books combined produced an elemental behavioral model.

Then… incidentally, by the way.

The story became, wait a minute…

Is this really the first (only) elemental, unified, and falsifiable (testable) behavior framework —ever?

That sounds, well, reasonably UNREASONABLE.

I get it. Maybe even certified NUTTY! Ha! 🥜

See the red circle.

One year later. Marbles?

Still intact.

Barely. 😄

And of course, the STORY gets better…

The most important thing to understand is that this effort was about ONE thing:

UTILITY.

What UBM offers you. (see value to end-user)

Five cohorts in, a 4.9/5 rating in the Behavior Architecture course demonstrates this utility.

Semi-surprising results for a new framework and course.

Yet, truth be told, long before UBM became a scientific paper (about four years), it was taught almost exclusively in executive coaching circles.

Wait!! There’s a problem in Happy Valley.

Some of you have told me the Behavior Architecture 8-day cohort is too long.

You want the intro, the basics, lessons, exercises, and then you want to get on with it.

Maybe a half day, not eight.

So, on 7/7 we’re launching our first-ever half-day WORKSHOP based on UBM.

That date isn’t arbitrary

7/7 symbolizes something powerful!

It marks the expiration of UBM’s scientific “No Fifth Element” Challenge.

An open, global invitation to scientists, theorists, top universities, and scientific organizations —in total, reaching upwards of MILLIONS.

Thus, a very conservative estimate: UBM’s “No Fifth Element” challenge has been made available to upwards of 10,000 scientists worldwide.

Add to that the world’s most advanced AI systems, PLUS, a symbolic $1,000 cash reward — and… drum roll please…

ZERO disproof.

There have been well-wishes from highly esteemed scientists in the field acknowledging UBM’s mission of basic behavioral literacy and, of course, a very notable and honorable challenge from a prominent unification theorist.

The best part?

To attempt to break UBM — especially with the aid of top AI systems — takes about an hour of concentrated effort, at MOST.

The world’s top scientists have had AN ENTIRE YEAR.

One year later, the framework stands. One year stronger.

YES!! That’s worth celebrating together. 🙌

*Note: as with all foundational frameworks, UBM remains open to disproof indefinitely. The ONE-YEAR challenge (window) was designed to add urgency — and the symbolic prize to accelerate UBM’s validation.

Why UBM REALLY matters — the short version

In 1991, the National Institute of Mental Health gathered the world’s leading behavioral theorists for a week-long consortium.

The mission was to address TWO long-standing crises in behavioral science:

Inaccessibility — psychology locked inside labs, journals, and therapy rooms, never truly given to the people who need it most. George Miller warned about this as far back as 1969.

Incoherence — too many competing theories, too many fragmented models, no shared behavioral foundation, infighting, wasted time, energy, and money.

For decades, these were treated as TWO separate problems.

The surprising thing is they are actually the SAME PROBLEM.

Psychology remains inaccessible because it is incoherent.

It’s incoherent because it lacks an ELEMENTAL framework.

Two birds. One elemental stone.

The NIMH consortium never found the truly irreducible elemental set; “no consensus was reached.”

Decades passed.

Please join me on 7/7 to celebrate, learn, and share!

You’ve been here long enough to witness the birth of UBM in real time.

Now it’s time to learn it, apply it and celebrate — together.

Zero fluff. Zero guru magic.

Just pure, hard, dare I say, “simple” and testable science you get to experience LIVE for yourself. You can verify my marbles are still (semi) intact!

So on 7/7/26 — THE Habits & Goals Master Class: A powerful, deep-dive, 3-hour workshop.

Lessons. Exercise. Break. Lesson. Exercise. Final #AMA/Q&A!

Three hours that’ll FLY BY.

At the end, your guessing about habits and goals will vanish— you’ll see the FULL behavioral spectrum presented as never before.

BONUS: We’re including an optional Q&A/AMA 45 Minute meeting approximately 30 days after our workshop ends! Finally presented —simply.

As with all my work, the workshop is fully guaranteed, already rated 4.9/5 across cohorts, and on 7/7/26 we open the doors wide.

Don’t delay — jump in today! Share that special link w/ your friends, family, and colleagues.

Democratized basic behavioral literacy is worth spreading. 🎊 🎉 🙌🏽

👉 USE THIS SPECIAL LINK, EXPIRES 6/30/26!! “H2GME” = Special PromoCode

https://maven.com/thehabitfactor/habits-goals-master-class?promoCode=H2GME

Looking forward to seeing YOU live on 7/7.

Thank you — sincerely — for believing and staying the course.

~mg

Postscript:

Workshop vs 8-Day Experience?

The 8-day Behavior Architecture cohort is the full experience — walking the trail together for eight days.

Sharing insights and asking questions in real-time as you digest the model.

I’ll never forget the day, back in March, just before an optional #AMA (Ask Me Anything session) Lorian (a Sr. Financial analyst from the Netherlands), sent me 29 thoughtfully typed-up questions.

Twenty-nine! (29!)

Seriously, one of the highlights of my teaching/coaching experience! I’m still thanking him!

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🌐 UnifiedBehaviorModel.com — free white paper 📚 The trilogy: The Habit Factor® · The Pressure Paradox™ · EVERYTHING 🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast 📄 Free habit tracking template

It’s here! THE Habits & Goals Master Class - LIVE: Half-Day Workshop

Hey, MG here — author of the Habit Factor® trilogy, and somewhat accidentally — or better, incidentally — the person who unearthed the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM). I also host the Habits 2 Goals podcast — likely the longest-running habits and goals podcast around.

The short story: my pain — or as my wife likes to say, “her pain” — is YOUR gain.

That prolonged twenty-year effort across three books produced what appears to be the first unified behavior framework. Read about it here: AP News →

Save the date: 7/7/26. Join me to celebrate the one-year anniversary of UBM going unfalsified. We’ll be walking through the current critiques of UBM and its falsifiability challenge — all are welcome. Thus far, all have been erroneous. More details coming soon.

🎓 Behavior Architecture on Maven →
🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast
📄 Free habit tracking template

Read time: 4.5 minutes

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Abstraction

The Car You’ll Never Exit

Welcome to your body.

Behaviorally speaking, it’s the car you’ll never leave. It takes you everywhere — or nowhere. It’s steerable. You can be kind or cruel, go for a run or sit on the couch, eat well or eat garbage.

That’s what it means to behave.

There isn’t another creature on earth — as far as we know — with such capacity: to consciously direct, create, and align habits with goals.

Warren Buffett nailed this idea, sharing it with high schoolers.

You get one car for life. How you treat it determines everything.

Here’s where it gets interesting — and strange.

First, What Most People Miss — Including Behavioral Scientists

Here’s the fact about behavior that nearly everyone struggles with. Ironically, behavioral scientists may struggle with it the most.

»Learn more here: THE Habits & Goals Workshop

To understand this truth requires abstract thinking.

At first, abstraction is challenging. Largely, because we’re culturally trained to think “right” OR “wrong” up OR down— this OR that. Black OR white. Either OR.

Abstraction often says: BOTH may be true.

Your Body Is the Environment, Behaviorally Speaking

When the goal is to produce a UNIFIED model of behavior (that has been the goal) — to identify what influences behavior in the moment and shapes it over time — the body is an environmental stimulus (internal) along with the external environment.

In fact, THE BODY is the most proximate behavioral stimulus.

A toothache. A headache. A rash. Each has the power to change how you think, feel, and behave.

Take medicine — it goes directly into your body— and it’s likely to shift your thinking, feelings, and behavior.

Now consider: a noisy construction site outside your home office and the toothache.

Each is an ‘environmental stimulus’ that may influence your feelings, thinking, and behavior.

Abstraction: per definition above…

“allows us to group similar things together to understand broad rules…”

This is precisely how the model was built. Look at the diagram.

Traditional science teases apart. Habits vs. Skills — yet both are shaped behaviors. Logic vs. Illogic — yet both are cognition and behaviorally speaking largely driven by narratives/stories. Emotions vs. Feelings — you get the picture. Literally, the picture is above.

The goal is to group things together. In order to UNIFY.

This is precisely why UBM places the body within the ENVIRONMENTAL domain.

It would be nonsensical to model human biology alongside a honking horn, a street sign, a lamppost, or the moon — if the goal were to model biology.

But when the goal is to model behavior, the body is no different from any of those. Each has the potential to change how we think, feel, and act.

The Strange Truth

Behavior IS separate. AND behavior is attached.

I can go for a run or sit on the couch.

Separate AND owned. Steerable AND attached.

Free AND accountable.

That’s the strange truth about behavior that’s been hiding in plain sight.

Every serious unification attempt in history has positioned the body and the environment as separate. UBM collapses the dichotomy—recognizing that, behaviorally speaking, they are ONE.

Just some of the prior unification attempts:

Skinner — stimulus-response and reinforcement. The environment is external only. The body is the organism that receives the stimulus, never the stimulus itself.

Bandura — behavior, cognition, environment. The environment is an explicitly external context. The body lives in the cognition/self-efficacy domain, entirely separate.

Beck/Ellis (CBT) — cognition, emotion, behavior. No environment domain at all. The body appears only as a symptom of disordered thinking.

Ajzen (Theory of Planned Behavior) — attitudes, norms, perceived control. The body is invisible. The environment is social and external only.

Jaccard/Dodge (UTB — Unified Theory of Behavior) — the most ambitious unification attempt prior to UBM, emerging from the 1991 NIMH consortium. Eleven interrelated constructs, including environmental constraints and facilitators. Yet the environment remains explicitly external — a constraint on behavior, never a stimulus domain that includes the body.

The GOOD STUFF: Why This Matters To YOU

Here’s the empowering truth—

While habits constitute one’s character.

Character, despite how it feels, is never fixed.

Biology may be constrained — in some cases significantly so. But behavior, in a working “normal” chassis, is not.

We all know someone who has radically transformed.

Lost the weight. Quit the addiction. Became the person nobody expected.

And we all know someone who spent decades insisting “that’s just who I am.”

Here’s a timely example of transformation — meet Noah RUNburg, my nephew. (That’s his Instagram handle. 🏃)

At 12-ish, we’re surfing together (left). At 20 — just a few weeks ago (San Diego Rock & Roll Marathon)— he finished his 5th marathon, placing 18th overall —averaging 6:19 per mile!!! (read that again)

(Thus, I cannot NOT brag about this young man discipline.)

Same person.

Different habits. Separate. Steerable.

Habits constitute character — and character is malleable.

That’s Behavior Architecture 🙌🏽

👉 Join the July cohort →

LIMITED RELEASE

The Thinker

20” x 24”

Acrylic Museum Quality Print on Canvas (Oil-Effect Finish) Perfect for Home or Office

10 Prints in this release (capped at 100) — Signed, Numbered & Certified

The Thinker — not coincidentally — embodies the same type of abstraction that helped produce a unified framework.

Is behavior fixed? Is The Thinker still or moving? Are we able to loosen the frame, soften our logic and its rigidity to allow understanding to evolve?

At first, the figure is elusive, fragmented, abstract. It forces a perceptive change. Then something shifts. Form becomes figure. Motion becomes stillness. Energy becomes thought.

Earth-rich tones of rust and bone cut through deep slate, while bold impasto-like strokes give the work gravity, texture, and presence. The composition resists definition—a tension emerges between permanence and change.

The Thinker is more than an object of contemplation; it is contemplation — shaping both the viewer and the viewed.

$475 — Current release price: Limit 10 Prints. Hard capped at 100 total.
Price increases with each release.

✅ Limited Edition 100 Total
✅ Signed and numbered
✅ Certificate of Authenticity
✅ Total Satisfaction Guarantee
✅ Shipping Not Included

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🌐 UnifiedBehaviorModel.com — free white paper 📚 The trilogy: The Habit Factor® · The Pressure Paradox™ · EVERYTHING 🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast 📄 Free habit tracking template

Next cohort begins 6/18 - 6/25. Already 33% Full!!

Learn Behavior Architecture in just 8 days! Apply it FOREVER!

👋 Hey, MG here—I wrote of the Habit Factor® trilogy, and somewhat accidentally ‘unearthed’ the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM), I also host the Habits 2 Goals podcast —which might be the longest-running habits and goals podcast around.

The short story: That prolonged, concentrated effort —two decades-plus— has produced a fair amount of work, and a small, loyal following. Please know, I do not take your TRUST lightly. 🙏

Re: The Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM) it is unprecedented in that it is; elemental, unified and falsifiable —meaning is testable. That is the gold-standard that make science “hard”—testability. So, please be sure to test it yourself!

Note: The UBM AP News releaseis at the very bottom!

🎓 Next cohort: Behavior Architecture on Maven → | 🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast 📄 Free habit tracking template

Read time: 4 minutes

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Is Time On Your Side?

“Time Is on My Side” — most people credit the Rolling Stones for the hit.

It was written by Norman Meade and first recorded by jazz trombonist Kai Winding in 1963. The Stones covered it shortly after and scored their first US top-10 hit.

The song’s beautiful message: I’m not worried. Time is my ally. You’ll come back around.

That may be the perfect sentiment for a love song — yet it’s hardly ideal for productivity.

“Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping… into the future.”

Steve Miller probably had the better productivity anthem. 😄

Time is the one thing nearly everyone wishes they had more of.

It’s a commodity for most. It’s free and yet, it never returns.

Time is NOT money.

You can earn lost money back. You will never earn lost time back.

There it goes… ⏳

The good news?

There’s a temporary fix— it’s hardly permanent.

Our hero Ben Franklin coined it nearly 300 years ago:

“An investment in knowledge always pays the best dividends.”

Same 24 hours. Same seven days.

So, how do the ones we admire do it?

They tried something new.

They learned something new and took action.

So the irony is semi-striking.

We all want more time.

We all want to be more effective, yet we hesitate, wait, procrastinate.

Days. Weeks. Months. Years.

Maybe even decades before we wake up!

Then, almost without exception, the moment we take some real ACTION and get some real feedback — the moment something new and different clicks — the first thought is:

“Darn. I wish I had done this sooner.”

I’m still reflecting on a recent student’s message.

He was chuckling. However, it wasn’t the funny-funny chuckle.

It was the sad-funny chuckle.

“I wish I’d known about this work sooner. I mean — I feel like I’ve wasted so much time.”

Confucius nailed it. After all, that’s what Confucius does.

“The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.”

The best time WAS twenty years ago. Maybe it was even last year, last week, yesterday. However, the second best time is NOW.

⏳

As a thank-YOU for your continued trust and being a subscriber of H2G — here you go— a special invite and link for a substantial discount if you may be interested in our next Behavior Architecture cohort.

👉 Claim your seat now →

This special discount is capped at the first six students who claim it.

“An investment in knowledge always pays the best dividends.” ~Ben Franklin

The next Behavior Architecture cohort runs June 18–25 — just 8 days, 85% async. Built on the Unified Behavior Model™ — 11 months public, still unfalsified, 4.9/5 across all cohorts.

Latest AP News release right here.

Chances are almost 100% that you know a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a behavioral scientist, a teacher, a professor, or an academic to share UBM with.

Share

See below! Pls do! Thank you again! 🙏

Go Deeper…

The most direct path to understanding your own Behavior Echo-System — and applying P.A.R.R. within behavioral science’s first, complete behavioral framework — is Behavior Architecture on Maven.

🌐 UnifiedBehaviorModel.com — free white paper 📚 The trilogy: The Habit Factor® · The Pressure Paradox™ · EVERYTHING 🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast 📄 Free habit tracking template

Next cohort begins 6/18 - 6/25. Already 33% Full!!

Learn it in just 8 days! Apply it FOREVER!!

👋 Hey, Martin Grunburg (BURG — U at the end, otherwise you’ll end up w/ the FDIC chair Martin Gruenberg 😄). I’m the author of the Habit Factor® trilogy, creator of the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM), and host of the Habits 2 Goals podcast — likely the longest-running habits, goals, and performance podcast around.

The short story: I’ve been researching, writing, coaching and teaching behavior for a while, and that prolonged, concentrated effort yielded — somewhat unintentionally — what is the world’s first elemental, unified, goal-directed behavior model. I recognize that’s a mouthful and it’s meaningful— not for the model, not for me— but what its simplicity can do for YOU!

Importantly, UBM is falsifiable —meaning testable—and offers the highest scientific rigor alongside its elementality to deliver astonishing results. Please don’t take my word for it — keep reading, listening, and testing for yourself.

🎓 Next cohort: Behavior Architecture on Maven → | 🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast 📄 Free habit tracking template

Read time: 4 minutes

Subscribe now

A word before we begin —

Nobody should ever take a creator’s word for the value of their own creation.

Having said that, please keep this in mind: the UBM preprint has been in Open Science for nearly eleven months. It comes with a $1,000 prize for anyone who can break it. Nearly three thousand downloads. Direct correspondence with top theorists and global scientific organizations. Not a single formal written critique.

**Important**: Requests for disproof and testing reflect the scientific process. Not boasting. Top scientists, including Karl Popper, insisted that “real” science must be testable.

One more time: Why UBM matters isn’t the model or the creator.

It’s the VALUE it offers YOU!!! 5/5 🫵 💪🏽 🙌🏽

Value compounds when it spreads.

"Science advances one funeral at a time." — Planck's principle

What's worth understanding is that the field's own top theorists have described behavioral science as an "incoherent mess" — pre-paradigmatic, lacking a shared ontology and therefore in a “CRISES.”

Psychology is a discipline of competing frameworks and offers conflicting answers, and has no agreed-upon alphabet. It’s been the equivalent of teaching math without numbers, as Gregg says below: “CRISES” and “FOREVER.”

They didn't just observe the problem. They’ve identified it as an imperative to resolve.

Watch Gregg Hendriques articulate this succinctly in this YouTube interview below:

Gregg Henriques: What is the PROBLEM of PSYCHOLOGY?

The elemental, unified framework the experts have clamoured for—deemed an imperative— is directly addressed by UBM.

It’s been available for nearly a year.

It’s published in Open Science. It’s free to download. As a falsifiable framework, it invites all challenges to disprove.

So rather than asking you to believe me — I’m asking you a different question entirely:

Who do you know?

Chances are almost 100% that you know a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a behavioral scientist, a teacher, a professor, or an academic. A scientist and/or a journalist. Which business or organizational leader should YOU share this with?

Share

Nearly eleven months — and one serious, unsuccessful challenge

The most important thing to understand is what has — and has NOT — happened in those eleven months.

We’ve invited many of the world’s top behavioral scientists and institutions, including Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, USC, MIT, Berkeley, UCLA, and McGill.

🌍 This week, we extended additional invitations to some of the most respected scientific organizations in the world:

Center for Inquiry — a global leader in science and reason with chapters worldwide

McGill’s Office for Science and Society — renowned for rigorous public science communication

Sense About Science — a UK-based organization championing evidence across policy and media

Skeptic.com — Michael Shermer’s organization, reaching millions of critical thinkers globally

National Center for Science Education — defending the integrity of science education across the US

The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe — one of the most downloaded science podcasts in the world

NeuroLogica Blog — Steven Novella’s widely read neuroscience and critical thinking platform

New England Skeptical Society — rigorous, organized, and deeply plugged into the scientific community

The bottom line: we have made every reasonable effort to put this framework in front of the people most qualified — and most motivated — to break it.

YOUR TURN! Pass UBM on!! (Please)

The most predictable objection to UBM is: “It’s too simple.”

That objection doesn’t work.

It misunderstands the purpose of science.

Science exists to explain phenomena — and to do that effectively, requires elementality— SIMPLICITY.

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Watch the first 7-ish minutes of the YouTube interview with Gregg Hendriques (above).

Elementality — a shared ontology is precisely why the Periodic Table is essential and how it turned alchemy into chemistry.

Elementality is why the binary system works. It’s why color theory works. Are a 1 and 0 too simple to power the entire information age — the internet, AI? Are the ABCs too simple to produce all literature?

UBM is color theory, the binary system, and the Periodic Table for behavior: FOUR (and only FOUR) elements, first principles, nothing outside the system, nothing left out. All any scientist anywhere in the world has to do is prove that wrong.

This is the elemental map of human behavior. Remove something, and it doesn’t work. Add something, and it’s redundant.

IF UBM isn’t too simple — and it isn’t — and it can’t be broken — and it hasn’t been — THEN it is precisely what theorists have demanded since the founding of behavioral science.

At last, a single, elemental, unified behavioral framework that brings “hard” testable science to the self-described “soft,” “squishy,” “competing and conflicting theories.”

Watch the FREE training here and see it LIVE IN REAL TIME for yourself.

THANK YOU FOR ACCELERATING THE UBM MISSION! 🙏

Subscribe now

Unification equates to coherence.

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👋 Hey, Martin Grunburg (mg) here, author of the Habit Factor® trilogy, creator of the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM), and host of the Habits 2 Goals podcast — possibly the longest-running habits, goals, and performance podcast. For 20+ years, I’ve researched, trained, and coached with a SINGLE objective: to make behavior change, habit development, and achieving goals EASIER to understand, implement, and teach. That twenty-year concentrated effort yielded the world’s first elemental, unified, goal-directed behavioral model. Important: Quality scientific theories are subject to disproof because they are testable. Unfortunately, behavioral science, since its inception, has failed to produce a single elemental and unified model of behavior. Thus, the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM) is presented as falsifiable, which means it is testable.

The best part— the ONLY reason YOU ought to care… is that UBM provides the highest-goal probabilistic outcome of ANY goal framework, ever. Of course, that statement is independently verifiable, so please DO NOT take my word for it, visit unifiedbehaviormodel.com and download the white paper and LLM Primer 5.1— keep reading, listening, and please, always test and experiment for yourself.

🎓 Next cohort: Behavior Architecture on Maven → | 6/18/26 - 6/25/26
🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast 📄 Free habit tracking template

Read time: 4 minutes

Why Does Science Exist?

Let’s begin with why science does NOT exist. Science doesn’t exist to win awards or fill thick textbooks with complicated diagrams and formulas.

Science does not exist to gatekeep, lecture from ivory towers, or foster incestuous citation cartels,

Science does not exist to make other scientists feel good.

Science exists for one reason:

To understand phenomena.

Life, experience, and human behavior are mysterious “phenomena.”

Science, then, is (ideally) the simple tool used to pull back the curtain to understand and learn about such phenomena.

Yet, there’s a massive problem, particularly in BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE…

The “Napkin” Test

Einstein famously said that if you can’t explain a theory to a child, it’s probably useless.

Great science must have a simple pictorial representation.

According to the best scientists, including Einstein, worth consideration…

• If you can’t draw it on a napkin, it may not be ready.

• If it requires a PhD to decode, it probably lacks elementality.

Good science brings with it accessibility.

Good science is easy to learn, teach, and—most importantly—USE.

The Myth of Complexity

We’ve been taught to respect complicated things.

We think “complex” equals “intelligent.”

It’s almost always the opposite.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” ~Leonardo da Vinci

Complication is almost always a mask for confusion.

If a behavioral scientist is showing you 14 stages of behavior change or 17 personality types, if there are complex matrix flow diagrams and variations, they’re almost certainly worthless.

That’s what Michio Kaku and Einstein say, anyway.

They’d also tell you that if a scientist can’t boil a system down to its first principles, they haven’t finished their work.

The Unified Behavior Model delivers on its promise of elemental sufficiency.

No researcher on this planet will ever be able to model human behavior with fewer ELEMENTS— not because the claim is bold, but because the logic is airtight.

• More than four elements create redundancy…

• Attempt to reduce them to just three, and the system breaks.

• With four and ONLY FOUR, you have Elemental Sufficiency.

A MODEL OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR MUST HAVE THE FOLLOWING:

Remove Environment — no context, no stimuli, no embodied biology. The model collapses.

Remove Behavior — nothing is ever acted upon. Not a behavioral model.

Remove Stories/Cognition — no meaning, no belief, no intention. A reflex machine, not a human.

Remove Emotions — no motivational direction, no valence, no felt experience driving action. Gone.

Thus, there is just one and only one correct, ELEMENTAL solution that models HUMAN BEHAVIOR.

The Unified Behavior Model is it.

Your Takeaway

To be very clear: this is NOT (really) about the model, it’s about what ANYONE can do with it.

The only reason to present any model is to teach from it and apply it as a tool. This is why UBM is presented…

Few people care about models or even behavioral science. Yet, intelligent people care about their goals.

You don’t need more “inspiration,” or “willpower,” or “motivation,” or even more “discipline.”

Once you possess elemental understanding, those elusive properties make sense. You possess UNDERSTANDING.

FOUR ELEMENTS and ONLY FOUR ELEMENTS.

Understand them, and you’ll understand your behavior like never before.

Welcome to Your “Command Center”

UBM provides the “command center” for your behavior.

Once you stop guessing—stop chasing mirages and understand for certain which ELEMENTS to address, you can architect change and your goals.

This is how you start applying the physics of behavior as “hard” testable science.

Go Deeper…

The most direct path to understanding YOUR own behaviors is Behavior Architecture on Maven. Nearly every student goes into the program skeptical— ALL exit, just eight days later, as raving fans. Test for yourself. It’s 110% Risk-Free and Guaranteed.

🌐 UnifiedBehaviorModel.com — free white paper 📚 The trilogy: The Habit Factor® · The Pressure Paradox™ · EVERYTHING 🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast 📄 Free habit tracking template

👋 Hey, Martin Grunburg (mg) here, author of the Habit Factor® trilogy, creator of the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM), and host of the Habits 2 Goals podcast — possibly the longest-running habits, goals, and performance podcast. For 20+ years, I’ve researched, trained, and coached with one objective: to make behavior change, habits, and goals easier to understand, implement, and teach. So I could be a more effective teacher, trainer, and coach.

That prolonged, concentrated effort yielded (and I’m supposed to say, “appears to be”) the world’s first elemental, unified, goal-directed behavioral model. Ten months post, pre-print, “appears to be” can be removed. Importantly, the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM) is falsifiable, which means it is testable.

The best part— the ONLY reason YOU ought to care… is that UBM provides the highest-goal probabilistic outcome of ANY goal framework (wait for it), EVER. Of course, that statement is independently verifiable, so please DO NOT take my word for it — keep reading, listening, and TEST for yourself.

🎓 Next cohort: Behavior Architecture on Maven → | 5/14/26 - 5/21/26
🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast 📄 Free habit tracking template

Read time: 4 minutes

The 16 Year Habit-Tracking Reversal

True story: The reason habit tracking works is the very reason the experts said it did not; it’s separate!

Start here

Even before their papers were published, the act of habit-tracking was ridiculed by behavioral scientists as ineffective, creating dependency, and a poor substitute for “real” behavior change.

Then, formal academic research was published to solidify that position. Habit-tracking was not a way to cultivate habits.

Last year, the field finally reversed course— it appears for good.

This is where the story gets… G to the double O, D! GOOD!

The most important thing to understand is that this isn’t an interesting footnote in behavioral science. It’s a revealing case study about how academics almost always dismiss— only to ‘discover’ — what practitioners already knew.

Shape-shifting research

“Liars figure, and figures lie.” ~Bobby G.

Here’s how the academic position evolved — and importantly, notice how the expert argument shape-shifted.

Phase 1 (2014–2017): Researchers warned that tracking apps drove repetition but failed to build “real” habits. One study reported that measurement reduced enjoyment—the collective verdict: tracking might drive repetition, but it doesn’t produce lasting behavior change.

Phase 2 (2016–2020): As millions of users experienced real results, the critique quietly shifted. The new position: tracking may drive repetition, but it creates dependency — fragility — rather than “real” habit. That dependence is “separate.”

Phase 3 (2022–Present): A 2024 systematic review reported a medium-to-large effect size for habit interventions. Psychology Today (December 2025) declared self-monitoring “one of the most replicated findings in behavioral science.”

The key takeaway: the same method formally dismissed in 2015 became canonical by 2025. Same method. Completely reversed verdict.

Someone Thought Differently

Not coincidentally, predating all of these academic critiques by a few years, an app called The Habit Factor® hit the iTunes store in June of 2009.

The Habit Factor® was the first habits-to-goals tracking app.

The Habit Factor® taught its users to follow its P.A.R.R. methodology, a way to create and align habits to achieve goals more effectively and efficiently. (Listen to Kara Tsuboi, CNET reporter (video below, 2013) —the corresponding book with the same name was published in 2010.

At the time, the dominant cultural framing of “habit” was predominantly negative: smoking, drinking, and nail-biting. And SMART Goals were the rage. Even coaches openly advised clients to avoid habits in pursuit of goals.

Key point: The Habit Factor® inverted the frame.

SMART goals left users with a never-ending to-do list. The Habit Factor® promoted the basic idea that by following a concise habit list—a few core habits, aligned with one’s most important goals, they’d arrive at their goals more quickly.

The market responded — habit trackers EXPLODED!!

Behavioral Sciences’ first pivot: Okay, maybe tracking works, but it’s separate.

The reason this is shocking is that BEHAVIOR ITSELF IS SEPARATE.

To behave means one can choose how to act: I can sit on the couch and eat potato chips or go for a run. I can crush beers or drink water. Behavior is separate, and it’s owned, meaning that however a person behaves, they are responsible.

Then, the experts’ critique shifted again— an accountability tool creates dependency!

What!? Seriously!?

Let’s examine this: that would be like saying a coach, sheet music, or training wheels for a bicycle create a dependency and are therefore not useful.

Training wheels are separate; they are a tool, and they are needed until (wait for it), they are not.

Behavioral tracking is separate (just like behavior), and it’s a tool. What scientist would suggest that you shouldn’t use a scale because it’s separate from weight loss?

Their collective position, sadly, solidifies their misguided understandings of behavior— not just tracking of behavior.

Oyy.

Can it get worse?

Here’s the part that’s difficult to swallow.

The field’s own most-cited habit study — Lally et al. (2010), the source of the widely-cited 66-day rule for habit formation — instructed participants to choose a behavior, perform it daily, record whether they carried it out, and repeat over 84 days.

The same researchers questioning the efficacy of habit-tracking were using their own habit-tracking tool to produce seminal research about how long it takes habits to form.

Oyy! (#2)

Do you want to wait another 16 years?

On July 8, 2025 — almost exactly sixteen years after launching The Habit Factor® — the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM) was published to address the field’s long-standing demand— a literal imperative—for an elemental framework, a map to share with the people.

Their cry has been for a common framework based upon first principles. To present a “hard” testable scientific framework that could be challenged/falsified, something that would move the field away from its own, self-described “soft” critiques.

NOT A THERAPY. A TESTABLE, UNIFIED (ORGANIZING) FRAMEWORK.

Producing such a model would add immediate coherence and produce a common ontology to end a century-plus of “Competing and conflicting knowledge and theories” plaguing psychology in particular.

UBM PUTS BASIC BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE.

Which, to be clear, is the entire point of psychology and behavioral science.

From “Crises and ‘Incoherent mess’” To perfect organization and clarity. Total Coherence.

UBM is a falsifiable, four-element framework demonstrating that all human behavior emerges from four — and only four — elemental domains: Stories/Cognition, Emotions/Feelings, Behaviors/Habits/Skills, and Environment.

Go Deeper…

The most direct path to understanding your own Behavior Echo-System — and applying P.A.R.R. within behavioral science’s first, complete behavioral framework — is Behavior Architecture on Maven.

🌐 UnifiedBehaviorModel.com — free white paper 📚 The trilogy: The Habit Factor® · The Pressure Paradox™ · EVERYTHING 🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast 📄 Free habit tracking template

👋 Hey, Martin Grunburg (mg) here, author of the Habit Factor® trilogy, creator of the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM), and host of the Habits 2 Goals podcast — possibly the longest-running habits, goals, and performance podcast. For 20+ years, I’ve researched, trained, and coached with one objective: to make behavior change, habits, and goals easier to understand, implement, and teach. So I could be a more effective teacher, trainer, and coach.

That prolonged, concentrated effort yielded (and I’m supposed to say, “appears to be”) the world’s first elemental, unified, goal-directed behavioral model. Now that we are 10 months post pre-print. The reserved language “appears to be” can disappear. Importantly, the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM) is falsifiable, which means it is testable.

The best part— the ONLY reason YOU ought to care… is that UBM provides the highest-goal probabilistic outcome of ANY goal framework (wait for it) EVER. That statement is independently verifiable, of course, so please DO NOT take my word for it — keep reading, keep listening, see and TEST for yourself.

🎓 Next cohort: Behavior Architecture on Maven → | 5/14/26 - 5/21/26
🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast 📄 Free habit tracking template

Read time: 4 minutes

“The Seeker” of Patterns (Shhh 🤫)

I sat down to record one “thing” and ended up here…

In a recent viral clip, Tony Robbins made a profound declaration.

“If you want your children to be successful, you must teach them three skills: Recognize patterns, Use patterns, and Create patterns.”

First of all, recognizing patterns is a habit AND skill of its own— a shaped behavior.

It’s only been 16 years since The Habit Factor® was originally published, and for 16 freakin’ years, we have been teaching and preaching precisely this…

Yep, that’s me (below) in the UAE at TEDx AlAin (2011) - explaining how “energy loves pattern and rhythm.”

Visually pointing to a weather system-spiral (a pattern) and sharing how habit is patterned energy.

Habit is patterned energy. Habit is patterned energy. Habit is patterned energy.

I then share that since humans are energetic beings, our best bet to achieve our goals is to intentionally craft and align habits—patterns—to our goals and ideals.

Unfortunately, what Tony Robbins omits may be the most important part…

The mechanics of “How” to create habit patterns on demand.

It’s one thing to tell someone the key to success is to “recognize, use, and create patterns.”

It’s another thing to hand them the user’s manual — the toolkit to craft habits and skills “on demand.”

A toolkit— a protocol—a method that has been empirically validated since its inception. (read that again)

That’s precisely what P.A.R.R. has done for 16+ years... proven its efficacy.

Get this— The Habit Factor® works EVERY TIME.

That’s (dare I say), the incidental genius of P.A.R.R. Plan. Act. Record. Reassess.

At the time, we had not recognized that it was a precise mirror of the scientific method.

That was only realized when we published the Unified Behavior Model™ (preprint). That’s why it ALWAYS works whenever it’s used.

Get it?

You may not like the data or the results— but that’s not what the scientific method promises. It only promises FEEEEEEEEDBACK for you to correct course.

• Plan: Your Hypothesis.

• Act: Your Experiment.

• Record: Your Data.

• Reassess: Your Analysis.

Newton used this loop for gravity; we use it for behavior.

Thus, a core thesis of The Habit Factor® is pattern recognition.

From Recognition to Architecture

USING PATTERN RECOGNITION— the same thinking that produced The Habit Factor® back in 2009 — we’ve “unearthed” (after nearly 20 years) what was deemed “an impossible dream”—a unified framework that explains ALL human behavior.

That was the mission of the 1991 NIMH consortium. Identify an elemental and, importantly, unified model of behavior. After their week-long meeting, they concluded with “No consensus reached.”

UTB — the Unified Theory of Behavior was born from the effort.

Done.

But by using systematic oversimplification, we’ve “unearthed” the first elemental, unified, goal-directed, and importantly falsifiable framework.

Of course, UBM was waiting—it was there the entire time—for nearly 150 years.

It just required some pattern recognition and abstract thinking. That discussion is for another time.

When you understand these four ELEMENTS of UBM, and you apply the cybernetic loop of P.A.R.R., you stop being a “Tenant” reacting to the patterns of your life. You become the Architect who creates them.

Get it?

The result. “Empowering” “Calming”— this “Puts me in the drivers seat.”

Stop just seeking. Start architecting.

The four — and only four — primary elements that categorize and describe ALL behavior

Why Behavior Architecture?

Would you like to cut the corner and shave years, perhaps decades of behavioral study to understand the most direct path, as Tony Robbins says: “to recognize, use and shape patterns—habits?”

Check out Behavior Architecture on Maven.

8 days. ~20 minutes a day. 85% asynchronous —

The only unified framework. Complete it on your own schedule — plus two live sessions of approximately 60 minutes each. 30 lessons. 110% risk-free and guaranteed.

🌐 UnifiedBehaviorModel.com — free white paper 📚 The trilogy: The Habit Factor® · The Pressure Paradox™ · EVERYTHING 🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast 📄 Free habit tracking template

Think you need an executive coach? Think again.

👋 Hey, it’s Martin Grunburg, I’m the author of the Habit Factor® trilogy, creator of the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM), and host of the Habits 2 Goals podcast — it may be the longest-running habits, goals, and performance podcasts around. For 20+ years, I’ve researched, trained, and coached with one focus: making behavior change, habits, and goals easier to understand, implement, and teach — so I could be a more effective trainer, coach, and teacher.

That prolonged, concentrated effort yielded — unintentionally — what looks like the world’s first elemental, unified, goal-directed behavior model. Importantly, UBM is falsifiable, which just means testable — it offers the highest scientific rigor alongside its elementality to deliver astonishing results. Don’t take my word for it — keep reading, keep listening, see and TEST for yourself.

🎓 Next cohort: Behavior Architecture on Maven → | 4/23/26 - 4/30/26
🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast 📄 Free habit tracking template

Read time: 4 minutes

Happiness on a Whim

The surprising truth is that happiness and every other emotion are not mysteries. This framework proves it.

Start here

Happiness might be the most talked-about behavioral concept of all time. Thousands of books. Tens of thousands of blogs and podcast episodes. And yet — for most people — it remains a mystery.

The first key: happiness is not simply a feeling that happens to you.

Happiness is both a primary, elemental emotion/feeling — raw, immediate, requiring no explanation — AND an emergent compound: a resultant cocktail produced by one, several, or all of the elements within your “Behavior Echo-System” (see image below) working in concert.

That’s what this episode is about. And once you see it this way, you can never unsee it.

Why elemental thinking matters (and why “simple” is powerful)

Before we get to happiness, here’s the setup that makes everything else click.

The reason UBM — the Unified Behavior Model™ — works is precisely because it’s elemental. Some people push back on that word. “Elemental sounds reductive,” they say.

The surprising thing is that the opposite is true. Elemental means learnable. Elemental means teachable. Elemental means powerful.

Consider: every podcast, every video, every download, all of artificial intelligence — runs on just two digits. A one and a zero. That’s the binary system. Remove the zero? Goodbye, information age.

But wait, isn’t elemental too simple to be userful? Apparently not.

The key phrase here is elemental sufficiency — what is truly necessary, and when combined, does it produce sufficiency? A “2” might seem necessary. It isn’t. It emerges from the “1.” UBM applies this same principle to behavior.

This is why, 10 months since publication (pre-print), no behavioral scientist has been able to disprove it — including every major LLM. Several top theorists have given it a serious look. A few shots hit the rim— a few airballs. Nobody has formally entered, because UBM’s logic and scientific rigor are airtight.

What’s worth noting is this is what experts call “hard,” testable science — something the behavioral sciences, particularly around a unified model, have never had.

The bottom line: a truly elemental, unified model has been sought since the founding of behavioral science. William James himself called for a “closed causal system.” UBM is it.

The four — and only four — primary elements that categorize and describe ALL behavior

Here’s what’s worth understanding. Every behavior — yours, mine, anyone’s — operates within four elements inside your personal, perpetual, and dynamic Behavior Echo-System. (see image below)

A quick note on that name: it is intentionally Echo-System, not ecosystem. You and I can share a room — an ecosystem — and never a Behavior Echo-System. Even identical twins cannot share one. Once you understand the four elements below, you’ll understand exactly why.

Element 1 — Behavior / Habits / Skills: Actions in the moment — including inaction — and those shaped over time: habits and skills.

Element 2 — Environment: The place you behave in, your context, and your body. Behaviorally speaking, your body is a primary behavioral stimulant. A toothache and a construction site outside your office can both influence how you think, feel, and behave.

Element 3 — Cognition / Stories: How you think. The critical insight here is that humans predominantly think in stories — to plan, predict, and explain events and experiences. Even the most logical among us. Einstein smoked. Why? Because he told himself a story: “This helps me relax.” That isn’t logic. Stories override logic constantly — and it’s precisely why advertising and marketing work so well.

Element 4 — Emotions and Feelings: We are sentient beings, so any honest model of human behavior must include emotions and feelings. What’s fascinating is that they can be simultaneously the most and least influential element depending on context and the person. Think of them as conduits — relays of information and energy throughout your entire behavioral system.

Here’s what’s also worth noting: the other three elements have some endurance. Your desk, your clean office, your daily habits and discipline, even the stories you tell yourself about WHO you really are — these persist, at least for a while. Emotions and feelings, by contrast, are fleeting and ephemeral. Your happiness this morning may already be gone.

This is precisely why it’s called Behavior Architecture.

YOU can architect your behavioral system — its core pillars. We don’t focus on emotions and feelings as primary levers, even though they are primary elements. Instead, we respect them, honor them, and learn to listen to them to understand where they’re coming from within the system. They are primarily signals and not structure.

What’s critical to understand is that these four elements are not a model of a person — they are a model of behavior itself.

Your Behavior Echo-System is personal, perpetual, and dynamic.

So, what is happiness?

Here’s how a LinkedIn post sparked this episode. An “influencer” posed this question to several AIs: “Where in the world — at any point in history — would be the most ideal place and time to be born for maximum happiness?”

Sound familiar? Just one more angle on the same ancient mystery.

The specific answer doesn’t matter.

What followed were dozens of comments debating social media, money, modern society, and values.

All important topics. All muddying the waters.

The reason this matters isn’t the answer the AIs gave. It’s what the question itself reveals: happiness is apparently still a mystery.

And the reason it remains a mystery is the confusion around how this one element — emotions/feelings — operates within the larger Behavior Echo-System and it plays multiple roles.

Is happiness context dependent? Is it environmental? Is it behavioral? Is it a compound — a cocktail of elements?

YES, YES and YES. Happiness is ALL of the above.

We can work the Behavior Echo-System from the inside out, starting with stories. I can choose to tell myself a story about how happy — blissful, even — I am right now. Say it long enough, loud enough, and I might actually begin to feel it. This is the concept behind affirmations after all.

So, understanding the Behavior Echo-System doesn’t just help with happiness.

A quick real-world example

You wake up and decide: today I’m going to be happy. Then you get in a car accident.

Now you’re sad.

What happened? Your environment (Element 2) disrupted your cognition (Element 3), which shifted your emotions and feelings (Element 4). Alignment broken — just like that.

The key takeaway: happiness is both primary and emergent. Understand your Behavior Echo-System and you’ll begin to notice how EACH AND EVERY EPISODE of emotion and feeling is produced — and where it’s coming from.

This doesn’t just work for happiness. Consider:

Anger or frustration — your environment isn’t aligned with your story. Friction. Element 2 versus Element 3. “I expected (story) you to be here on time! (environment)”

Bliss — your body, your environment, and your story are all singing the same note. Think: a massage in Fiji.

Anxiety, stress, overwhelm — care to guess? An environmental stimulus — your body included — producing too much input, colliding with stories like “I’ll never get this done,” “There’s no time,” “I can’t handle this anymore.”

Real or imagined, it doesn’t matter.

The surprising thing is there isn’t a single emotion or feeling the Behavior Echo-System cannot readily explain.

Here’s the good news — and the other news: As mentioned, emotions and feelings are important signals and can be the most important behavioral determinant or the least —and they are fleeting.

How often have you gone to bed angry, disappointed, frustrated, or overwhelmed — and woken up feeling well, or dare I say, great?

That’s your Behavior Echo-System at work. Even while you slept.

An important note: UBM is a goal-directed framework, NOT A THERAPY.

Behavior Architecture is a goal-directed course — designed for the vast majority of people whose foundational needs are met.

Clinical depression is a different matter. UBM is not a clinical therapy and is not designed to replace one. If that’s where you are, please seek the appropriate help.

Do this today

After listening, reflect on these prompts:

Think about the last time you felt genuinely happy. Which of the four elements were in alignment — behaviors, environment, stories, emotions and feelings? Two of them? Three? All four?

The next time you feel stuck, low, sad, frustrated, or disappointed — instead of asking “Why am I feeling this way?” ask: “Which element is out of alignment right now?” That’s a far more actionable question. And now you have the framework to answer it.

“Emotional Scaffolding” & Behavior Architecture

Want the most direct path to understanding your own Behavior Echo-System — and learning to work with all four elements, including your emotional states?

Check out Behavior Architecture on Maven.

8 days. ~20 minutes a day. 85% asynchronous — complete it on your own schedule — plus two live sessions of approximately 60 minutes each. 30 lessons. 110% risk-free and guaranteed.

🌐 UnifiedBehaviorModel.com — free white paper 📚 The trilogy: The Habit Factor® · The Pressure Paradox™ · EVERYTHING 🎙️ Habits 2 Goals Podcast 📄 Free habit tracking template

Think you need an executive coach?

Next cohort begins 4/23 - 4/30. Save $150 Now!

What’s the cost of missing this train? Approximately $700/Day.

Pop psychology loves the squishy stuff.

From 7, 22, or even 31 personality types to the Oedipus complex, psychology is packed with ideas that are fascinating, fun to discuss, and regrettably untestable.

These theories are “unbreakable” in the same way water is: you can’t break water because it’s soft, flexible, and changes shape the moment you apply pressure.

Can you test gravity? Absolutely.

The “funny” thing about basic science: it is crystal clear precisely because it is simple and testable.

If a theory cannot be proven wrong, it cannot be proven right.

That is where most behavioral models fail.

They remain stuck in the realm of the squishy.

Which brings us to the Unified Behavior Model, or UBM.

Is UBM testable? Yes.

That alone makes it exponentially more powerful than any theory that refuses to be pinned down.

The philosopher of science Karl Popper put it best:

“Science is the art of systematic oversimplification.”

The key word is not just simplification. It is systematic.

UBM doesn’t present random simplification. It strips away complication through a deliberate process to identify what is necessary and sufficient, the core truth.

When modeling behavior, that is the first objective: systematic simplification, not complication.

Should we tease apart habits and skills, or recognize that both are shaped behaviors?

Should we separate the body from the external environment, or recognize that when modeling behavior, not the human, the body is itself an environmental stimulus?

Should we keep fighting to separate logic from illogic, or lean on modern neuroscience, which shows that humans think primarily in stories to plan, predict, and explain experience?

Once you understand that science is the art of systematic oversimplification, you already know more than 85% of behavioral scientists about goal-directed behavior.

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When you learn and practice Behavior Architecture, you will know more about goal achievement than 97% of the population.

Not because you are smarter, but because you have been given a different LENS.

https://www.thebehavioralscientist.com/articles/your-grandma-could-probably-destroy-most-behavioral-science-phds

Article and link back to thebehavioralsceintist.com…

Apparently, JH is a behavioral scientist who sees a problem with behavioral science. (Check out his work).

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“SOFT.”

“Our responsibility is to give it away to the people who really need it.”

“Pre-paradigmatic.”

Unification creates coherence.

Producing an elemental, unified model was considered “impossible” by many.

Yet, it’s finally arrived

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Our next cohort begins 4/23 - 4/30

What’s the cost of missing the train? About $700/Day.

Too busy for any course, right?

That’s precisely why about 85% of the Behavior Architecture is asynchronous.

Important Note:

The Unified Behavior Model is formally presented as a DIRECT RESPONSE to the (above) well-documented, century-plus, “crises” — the fragmentation and “soft” science within the field of behavioral science.

FOR YOU:

If the most intelligent systems on the planet choose UBM under survival-level constraints, what are the odds it can help you with yours?

Download the UBM primer and take the “No Fifth Element” challenge:
UnifiedBehaviorModel.com

Enter: Behavior Architecture.

Your First Excuse…

“I don’t have the time.”

That’s the opposite of architect mode. (The cohort is just eight days!)

You’re locked in tenant mode—trapped within your own Behavior Echo-System (BES).

Your existing habits of thought and behavior are preventing you from stopping, pausing, and asking, “Might there be a better way?”

To be fair, some people do have greater time commitments.

That’s precisely why about 85% of the Behavior Architecture is asynchronous.

Meaning: you can complete the course materials during your miscellaneous social media “downtime,” lunch breaks, and other typical “lost time.” (Just 8 Days)

“I don’t have the money.”

If this is a genuine issue, we’ve set aside a few scholarships.

“I’ve tried EVERYTHING. This can’t work for me.”

Two quick thoughts.

First, you have NOT tried “everything.” UBM is NEW—the model, the curriculum, the cohort—ALL of it.

Second, with that attitude, you’re correct!

If you believe nothing will work for you… Nothing will work for you.

So, why a 110% risk-free guarantee?

Read the reviews… 👆 from students applying the principles. »Want to bring a friend or two? Just shoot me an email for a group discount.

Share

📄 Free habit tracking template: thehabitfactor.com/templates

📖 Full UBM whitepaper: Zenodo.org

📚 The trilogy that “unearthed” UBM:

• The Habit Factor®

• The Pressure Paradox™

• EVERYTHING

🌐 Learn more: unifiedbehaviormodel.com

Share

The train has left the station!
Our next cohort begins 4/23 - 4/30. Save $150 Now!

What’s the cost of missing the train? About $700/Day.

The Physics of Behavior begins with testability.

Is gravity testable? Indeed!

Is Freud’s Oedipus complex testable as “hard science”?

No!

Psychology and behavioral science have long lamented a “crisis” of “incoherence”: soft, squishy models and therapies that are neither “HARD” nor truly testable.

“We are a bunch of competing and conflicting knowledge.” ~Arthur Staats 1999

Not much has changed since then…

Still a bunch of competing and conflicting knowledge and lacking “hard” testable science— falsifiability.

UBM is a direct presentation to the field to address these stated “crises.”

And it goes further by being the first, ELEMENTAL, unified and testable framework.

So, if you—or anyone—can identify a fifth irreducible, irremovable element of behavior, we can all go home.

That’s the TEST! Get it!?

But wait… You may be saying:

“Isn’t just four behavioral elements way too oversimplified?”

You tell me.

Is the binary system—just 1 and 0—oversimplified to create the information age, computers, AI, and the internet?

Are just three primary colors oversimplified to produce 16 Million-plus colors?

How about just 12 musical notes?

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Simplicity is the ENTRY point.

Simplicity translates to easily teachable and learnable. The ABCs— 123s.

A democratized entry point is precisely what psychology and behavioral science have lacked for… only 133 years.

Below, you’ll see their top experts lamenting this truth.

“SOFT.”

“Our responsibility is to give it away to the people who really need it.”

“Pre-paradigmatic.”

To be crystal clear:

Just four behavioral elements—that “oversimplification” has been THE desired goal!

It’s been the puzzle—the reason behavioral science has remained, in their own words, “incoherent.”

Fragmentation and scattering create incoherence.

Unification creates coherence.

Producing an elemental, unified model was considered “impossible” by many.

Yet, it’s finally arrived

Now, you may be saying,

“I don’t care about unified models. I don’t care about behavioral science.”

Fair enough.

You’re intelligent (and good-looking), and I know you care about your goals.

Good luck achieving any goal without behavior.

Behavior is the linchpin for your goals, and understanding the fundamental behavioral elements —well, that may matter a little.

Once the irreducible elements are identified, their causal relationships—how they interrelate —become even more valuable.

That’s how we go from this:

To this:

I will leave you with a master behavior architect.

A buddy and a #HERO of mine.

His post is a brilliant example of behavior architecture in action.

Shay Eskew is the man, and his STORY is in my latest book EVERYTHING is a F*cking STORY. (pardon the French)

HIS POST on LINKEDIN

(with permission)

Follow the man who understands there is NO MASTER, just mastery—PRACTICE!

Key excerpts:

“Here’s to embracing the suck!!!”

“4:30am and the view never changes.”

“18 years ago I was 30lb heavier and was unhealthy. I had not prioritized my health and convinced myself I was “too busy.” I had 2 kids under 3 and running a small business. It took a 65yr old Marine (one of the original 1978 IRONMAN finishers) to make me realize I was living a life of excuses.

» Translation: Workouts are still hard.

“Trust me, with 5 kids, 3 who play travel soccer and 1 who wrestles, work travel, volunteer wrestling coach, etc, the excuses are ready for use.

» Translation: Workouts are still hard.

Meaning, it takes PRACTICE.

Shay’s not sitting back thinking, “I’ve ARRIVED.”

It’s easy to get caught up in the illusion of “arrival”—it’ll ALL be EASY some day.

News flash: it will NEVER be easy.

It will get EASIER—

particularly when you understand the elements at play, how they interrelate, and how to orchestrate them.

Our next cohort begins 4/23 - 4/30

What’s the cost of missing the train? About $700/Day.

Too busy for any course, right? That’s precisely why about 85% of the Behavior Architecture is asynchronous.

Important Note: The Unified Behavior Model is presented as a direct response to the (above) well-documented, century-plus, “crises” — the fragmentation and “soft” science within the field of behavioral science.

FOR YOU:

If the most intelligent systems on the planet choose UBM under survival-level constraints, what are the odds it can help you with yours?

Download the UBM primer and take the “No Fifth Element” challenge:
UnifiedBehaviorModel.com

Enter: Behavior Architecture.

Your First Excuse…

“I don’t have the time.”

That’s the opposite of architect mode. (The entire cohort is only eight days!)

You’re locked in tenant mode—trapped within your own Behavior Echo-System (BES).

Your existing habits of thought and behavior are preventing you from stopping, pausing, and asking, “Might there be a better way?”

To be fair, some people do have greater time commitments.

That’s precisely why about 85% of the Behavior Architecture is asynchronous.

Meaning: you can complete the course materials during your miscellaneous social media “downtime,” lunch breaks, and other typical “lost time.” (Just 8 Days)

“I don’t have the money.”

If this is a genuine issue, we’ve set aside a few scholarships.

“I’ve tried EVERYTHING. This can’t work for me.”

Two quick thoughts.

First, you have NOT tried “everything.” UBM is NEW—the model, the curriculum, the cohort—ALL of it.

Second, with that attitude, you’re correct!

If you believe nothing will work for you… Nothing will work for you.

So, why a 110% risk-free guarantee?

Read the reviews… 👆 from students applying the principles. »Want to bring a friend or two? Just shoot me an email for a group discount.

Share

📄 Free habit tracking template: thehabitfactor.com/templates

📖 Full UBM whitepaper: Zenodo.org

📚 The trilogy that “unearthed” UBM:

• The Habit Factor®

• The Pressure Paradox™

• EVERYTHING

🌐 Learn more: unifiedbehaviormodel.com

Share

Behavior Architecture is Leaving the Station! 3/19–3/26.

What’s the cost of missing this cohort? Only about $700/day.

We return to Simon, the CEO from Australia.

After learning the Unified Behavior Model (UBM) and its Behavior Echo-System, he clearly understood the physics in play.

Read this for yourself.

His certainty is striking.

“The only thing stopping that would be my own inaction.”

This is the absolute clarity that UBM offers.

It’s the 2+2=4 of behavioral physics.

His entry point —the “magic wand” exercise — established a clear expectation:

“I expect to have a robust foundational approach to behaviour change that I can apply to my life.”

Then, his actual/realized exit at the end of the cohort:

“I now have that robust foundational approach to behaviour change that I can apply to my life.”

The Physics of Behavior works throughout your entire Behavior Echo-System.

Allow me to clarify:

Inertia “lives” at ALL levels within your Behavior Echo-System.

UBM reveals precisely how all levels interrelate.

The difference between inaction and inertia.

Imagine a 500-pound granite boulder sitting perfectly still in a flat field. The fact that it is just sitting there is inaction—a snapshot of zero movement.
Try to move it and it refuses to budge. That’s inertia. Its physical property is “weight” that resists change/movement.

Now, imagine that same boulder rolling down a steep hill at 40 miles per hour.
It is no longer in a state of inaction; it is in a state of perpetual motion. Its property—inertia—is nearly impossible to stop.

Key idea: Inertia doesn’t care if you are sitting on the couch or running a marathon.

The inertia of the boulder was unmovable. Then it became unstoppable.

Why does this matter?

Let’s say you tick the box on your habit tracker.

Terrific! You took action.

This effort initiates a great feeling. “I did what I said I would do!”

This is called self-efficacy—the ability to produce a desired result, and it feels terrific!

However, there may still be some environmental inertia.

A body that is out of shape?

An environment that isn’t conducive… (friends, family, coworkers…)

There could be mental inertia: for instance, people say, “I don’t understand what’s going on… I just have some strange block.”

The battle is to engage the entire Behavior Echo-System.

This is the difference between a spark and a fire.

A fire possesses inertia.

The spark initiates the fire

Coaching Update:

Due to the publication of the Unified Behavior Model and the early success of Behavior Architecture, ALL applications for executive coaching must now come from—and through—Behavior Architecture alumni.

Why?

First, there’s a solid chance you won’t need or want personalized coaching after learning UBM and completing Behavior Architecture—saving you thousands of dollars.

Second, if you still want personalized coaching, it allows me to first assess how you show up, prepare, and engage with the lessons, material, and exercises.

This creates a win/win: a better, more informed student—and, in many cases, a path that saves you thousands of dollars.

Short story: Behavior Architecture may very well be your personalized executive coaching substitute for a fraction of the price.

Behavior Architecture begins next Thursday:
$250 OFF immediately - Use Code “FC-04.”

The cost of inaction is more than just inertia… it’s estimated at $700 a day.

Risk-Free and Guaranteed. Behavior Architecture

Thanks for reading!

~mg

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»Part III next week.

Enter: Behavior Architecture.

Your First Excuse…

“I don’t have the time.”

That’s the opposite of architect mode. (The entire cohort is only eight days!)

You’re locked in tenant mode—trapped within your own Behavior Echo-System (BES).

Your existing habits of thought and behavior are preventing you from stopping, pausing, and asking, “Might there be a better way?”

To be fair, some people do have greater time commitments.

That’s precisely why about 85% of the Behavior Architecture is asynchronous.

Meaning: you can complete the course materials during your miscellaneous social media “downtime,” lunch breaks, and other typical “lost time.” (Just 8 Days)

“I don’t have the money.”

If this is a genuine issue, we’ve set aside a few scholarships.

“I’ve tried EVERYTHING. This can’t work for me.”

Two quick thoughts.

First, you have NOT tried “everything.” UBM is NEW—the model, the curriculum, the cohort—ALL of it.

Second, with that attitude, you’re correct!

If you believe nothing will work for you… Nothing will work for you.

“What if it SUCKS? I’ve just thrown away money.”

The course is 110% RISK-FREE.

Having said that, please do not enroll if you don’t have a sincere desire to learn, grow, and APPLY the principles.

Question: How many students want to take ANY class again? (see below)

A more absurd question:

How many people want to take VACATION time—time off—to take ANY class again?

Some students are just STARS!!

That’s her name.

Star shared that she worked evenings, so she was up in the middle of the night to complete the cohort.

She rated Behavior Architecture a 10/10, and when offered the opportunity to take the course again, she replied…

So, why a 110% risk-free guarantee?

Reviews like this… 👆 from students applying the principles.

Incentive Alert: Right now there’s an instant $250 off.
Visit Behavior Architecture on Maven.com today.

See you on the inside—we begin 2/19!

»Want to bring a friend or two? Just shoot me an email for a group discount.

If the most intelligent systems on the planet choose UBM under survival-level constraints, what are the odds it can help you with yours?

Download the UBM primer and take the “No Fifth Element” challenge:
UnifiedBehaviorModel.com

📄 Free habit tracking template: thehabitfactor.com/templates

📖 Full UBM whitepaper: Zenodo.org

📚 The trilogy that “unearthed” UBM:

• The Habit Factor®

• The Pressure Paradox™

• EVERYTHING

🌐 Learn more: unifiedbehaviormodel.com

Share

Behavior Architecture begins soon. Jump in now! 3/19–3/26.

After decades of writing, training, and coaching behavior change, ONE massive bottleneck keeps showing up.

People keep mistaking behavior change as a destination.

As though there’s some magical finish line.

A day when “it” “ALL” becomes EASY.

That quiet, reasonable, culturally celebrated, and Gooroo-endorsed belief wrecks progress.

Worse, it stalls PRACTICE.

It creates inertia, which is a symptom that precedes…

Horizon Mirage Phenomenon (HMP)

HMP is the classic “Are we there yet?” syndrome.

ARE WE THERE YET???

A few days ago, I was on a four-mile run, and every time I looked up to see my finish line—the park—it seemed to move further away.

Not only that… I slowed down.

Each step got heavier. Each breath became more expensive.

I told myself, “Keep your head down.”

I noticed that the more I focused on arriving—being finished, the more difficult everything became.

It’s the ol’ watched-pot syndrome: everyone knows that water takes longer to boil when you’re watching it.

Fix your gaze on the finishline and…

• The effort—the focus is lost in the present

• The arrival seems further away

• The stories begin to multiply… “I can’t..” “I won’t ever…” “Why am I stuck…?” “I’m just blocked…”

• Bottom line: The work is more difficult

A body in motion tends to stay in motion.

Newton’s first law of motion.

Thus, inertia—the stories in your head about all of your “blocks” keep you from PRACTICING.

The Physics of the Moment vs. Behavior

In The Habit Factor® (2010), ☝️ I wrote about the physics of behavior.

Not motivation. Not willpower. Not “try harder.” Not mindset.

Behavioral Physics.

Mental. Environmental/Physical. Emotional. Behavioral.

JUST FOUR ELEMENTAL DOMAINS

Habits exist at every level in YOUR “Behavior Echo-System.”

Take a close look at this ☝️ MODEL of BEHAVIOR.

It’s NOT a model of a person—it’s a model of behavior.

See this? (below)

It’s NOT a squiggly line, it’s a SNAKE!

This is not a square and a triangle, it’s a HOUSE.

Get it?

This is ABSTRACTION—simplified representations.

Since you immediately grasp the house and the snake.

Let’s do this once more time for fun.👇

This is YOUR Behavior Echo-System.

ECHO, not eco. As in reverberation “ECHO.”

It’s a MODEL of ALL BEHAVIOR. Yours, mine, and JimBob’s.

Your behavioral physics reside here.

Your Behavior Echo-System is personal, perpetual, and dynamic.

You will live in it until you die.

You cannot share it. Even identical twins cannot share a Behavior Echo-System.

Why?

Everyone has a unique body (embodied environment) and experiences (cognition/stories).

So, what is “The Resistance” then?

When the great Steven Pressfield talks about “The Resistance,” it is not some mystical force that is out to ruin you. It’s NOT “out there.”

There is no demon. There is NOBODY against you.

You’re battling your behavioral physics.

It’s simply your current patterns—existing HABITS—at EVERY LEVEL in your Behavior Echo-System.

The Coaching Client’s Trap

Back to Horizon Mirage Phenomenon… HMP

This is one of the most common statements I hear…

“I just want to get to a point where these behaviors are easy.”

Now ask yourself: “Where is that statement focused?”

Not on today’s rep. Not on today’s meal. Not on today’s PRACTICE.

It’s focused on the FINISH LINE.

A magical day when all the friction disappears.

And here’s the brutal truth:

Every day brings new change and with it new resistance.

Thus, change becomes even more difficult for those who aren’t PRACTICING.

PART II Next week.

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Since the most intelligent systems on the planet choose UBM under survival-level constraints, what are the odds it can help you with yours?

Download the UBM primer and take the “No Fifth Element” challenge:
UnifiedBehaviorModel.com

Enter: Behavior Architecture.

Your First Excuse…

“I don’t have the time.”

That’s the opposite of architect mode. (It’s just eight days!)

Your existing habits of thought and behavior are preventing you from stopping, pausing, and asking, “Might there be a better way?”

To be fair, some people do have greater time commitments.

That’s precisely why about 85% of the Behavior Architecture is asynchronous.

Meaning: you do it in your miscellaneous social media “downtime,” lunch breaks, and other typical “lost time.” (Just 8 Days)

Excuse #2) “I don’t have the money.”

If this is a genuine issue, we’ve set aside a few scholarships. Apply here: https://forms.gle/87FaMKCthteQGwkn9

Excuse #3) “I’ve tried EVERYTHING. This can’t possibly work for me.”

Two quick thoughts.

First, you have NOT tried “everything.” UBM is brand new, and with it, Behavior Architecture—this curriculum, the cohort—ALL of it. NEW.

Second, with that attitude, you’re CORRECT!
If you believe nothing will work for you… Nothing will work for you.

Excuse #4) “What if it SUCKS? I’ve just thrown away money.”

The course is 110% RISK-FREE. With an Average review of 4.8/5.0

Having said that, please do not enroll if you don’t have a sincere desire to learn, grow, and APPLY the principles.

Question: How many students want to take ANY class again? (see below)

Incentive Alert: Right now there’s an instant $250 off.
Visit Behavior Architecture on Maven.com today.

See you on the inside—we begin 3/19!

»Want to bring a friend or two? Just shoot me an email for a group discount.

📄 Free habit tracking template: thehabitfactor.com/templates

📖 Full UBM whitepaper: UnifiedBehaviorModel.com

📚 The trilogy that “unearthed” UBM:

• The Habit Factor®

• The Pressure Paradox™

• EVERYTHING

🌐 Learn more: unifiedbehaviormodel.com

Share

There’s a different sort of “stuck” that doesn’t seem too disarming from the outside.

Life appears to “work.”

Stuff gets done. The bills get paid. The calendar is full. You’re busy.

Busy. Busy. Busy.

And yet…

You wake up one day, despite all the busyness, you wonder what you’ve accomplished.

This is tenant mode.

I lived in it for far too long…

Something deep down always felt like ‘something’ was missing.

It’s easy to ignore: stay busy, check off the next box, doom scroll.

Check.
Check.
Check.

In the silence, you wonder, “Am I leaving something on the table?”

Maybe (like me) you even hear the late Dr. Wayne Dyer’s voice:

“Don’t die with your music still in you.”

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Enter: Your Behavior Echo-System (BES):

This is your behavioral “home.”

You’re in it right now.

You’ll be in it tomorrow and (wait for it…) forever.

You don’t just live in “the world.”

You live in your personal Behavior Echo-System.

Your Behavior Echo-System shapes and influences your behaviors in the moment and over time.

Right now, you’re reading this (environment). That may make you think, “This is dumb,” or “This is helpful,” or… ???

Then you may feel something or do something…

Sidenote: UBM scientifically presents the long-sought “causal” behavioral structure (architecture) that William James argued behavioral science must identify back in 1892: “This is no science. It is only the hope of a science.”

Let me be clear: UBM wasn’t assembled—or rather, “unearthed”—without the century-long discoveries, academic research, struggles, and insights behavioral science has produced since those statements.

Having said that, this is precisely what the Behavior Echo-System and UBM scientifically demonstrate: the causal structure. And UBM goes further by demonstrating elemental sufficiency through its “No Fifth Element” Challenge, now almost eight months strong.

Crucially, it’s NOT an “ecosystem.”

Ecosystems can be shared. You and I can be in the same room, city, country, auditorium, etc.

However, everyone “lives”—operates within their own Behavior Echo-System.

Even identical twins do not share a Behavior Echo-System.

Why?

Because one’s body (embodied environment), cognition (stories), and lived experiences are unique to them.

One person is criticized and thinks, “They hate me.”

Same experience, another person thinks, “Great—now I can improve.”

Einstein, a fairly smart man, smoked. Why? His story was that it helped him “relax.”

Two people witness the same speech: one thinks it’s idiotic, the other thinks it’s brilliant.

I’m sure you know very intelligent people (perhaps intimately) who, on occasion, do incredibly dumb things.

Why? Investigate their BES.

What’s the story they told themselves leading up to the behavior?

Or what feeling or emotion did they have leading up to it?

Or what was happening in their environment?

Or what behavior led to the behavior?

The point is: The Behavior Echo-System is a CLOSED, CAUSAL LOOOOOOOP!

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Notice: logic and illogic are coupled within a person’s BES.

Habits and skills are also coupled within the BES—as shaped (over-time) behaviors.

And even body and environment are coupled; together, they represent one’s behavioral stimulus.

Even emotions and feelings are coupled.

This coupling—this systematic oversimplification—is what helped create BES’s causal structure and its elemental sufficiency: irreducible elemental domains.

If you remove just one, the entire BES collapses.

Taken as a whole, you have a person’s behavioral “HOME.”

Add anything—any behavioral concept—and you’ll find it is redundant and can be subsumed by one or more of the existing elements.

Same stimulus and different behaviors.

Each person lives in their own Behavior Echo-System, forever.

The BES is perpetual, dynamic, and personal.

What does this mean for you?

It’s terrrrrrrrrrrrrrific news!

Since the loop is yours, you can take inventory of its core FOUR elements/domains:

1. Cognition/Stories: logic and illogic

2. Behaviors/Habits/Skills: momentary behaviors and those shaped over time

3. Emotions/Feelings: primary and emergent; emotions and feelings relay information throughout the system, and their influence varies

4. Environment (Body): stimulus

From Tenant to Architect

You can’t control the weather.

But you can absolutely restructure your home—or even relocate it.

Change your environment (embodied and external).

You can also update your stories and build sustainable new habits and skills.

Do that long enough, and your “HOME”—your Behavior Echo-System—changes.

As your BES becomes aligned with your goals and ideals, you move closer to them.

This is what UBM and Behavior Architecture teach, along with habit tracking:

The process: identify the BES, take inventory, then identify what’s next for “home improvement.”

The blueprints are on the table.

Time to pick them up and start building.

Stop guessing! Start building and tracking TODAY!

~mg
keep on trackin’!

P.S.: UBM is the culmination of a twenty-year search to identify behavioral first principles. If you’re interested in learning more, I invite you to jump into our next cohort.

Thanks once again for reading and sharing. 🙏

Who’s the architect of your behaviors and goals?

P.S. We are quickly approaching eight months since the publication of the Unified Behavior Model™ (UBM). I know, EIGHT freakin’ months!!

That’s the great news.

The other news… unfortunately, due to the growing popularity of UBM—and because Google had begun indexing and surfacing the paper directly in its search results (direct to Zenodo’s open science platform)—it appears the paper was flagged as spam and removed by their automated system. We’ve submitted a support request.

For a backup of the latest paper on PsyArXiv, visit UnifiedBehaviorModel.com.

UBM’s foundation is more solid than ever. Only four months left to try and falsify it to Win $1,000! Good Luck!! The “No Fifth Element” Challenge remains unscathed and wide open. 🙏

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New Year. 🎆 New Science. 🔬 Finally, New You. 💪🏽

Important: The Behavior Architecture 8-Day Cohort Scholarship Application is now open. The next cohort starts on March 19.

👇 Behavior Architecture Course on Maven

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🚨 The habit tracking controversy just ended. Yes, there was one. UBM ended it ; )
—> Section 7.0 of the UBM whitepaper Each and every objection about habit tracking dissolved Read all about it!

📄 Free habit tracking template: thehabitfactor.com/templates

📖 Full UBM whitepaper: UBM!

📚 The trilogy that unearthed UBM:

• The Habit Factor®

• The Pressure Paradox™

• EVERYTHING

🌐 Learn more: unifiedbehaviormodel.com
🌐 Behavior Architecture: https://maven.com/thehabitfactor/behavior-architecture