The Nudge That Changes Everything

This article is adapted from Ted's Smart Thinking podcast episode 384: Go To Your Storm - The Book.

Eight years ago, a young teacher walked up to me after a keynote I delivered at Elkhorn High School in Wisconsin. She said four words: you should start a podcast. I am sitting in my closet studio right now on episode 384, which is actually closer to 390 because I had to delete a couple. All of that because of one nudge from one person.

A few years after that, a sophomore named Allison Dish told me I should write a children’s book so she could illustrate it. I listened, and we wrote Duke Storm together and sold it all over the country. Nudge accepted.

And then there was Sophie. Sophie Bauer-Schimmick was a high school senior at a Boys and Girls Club leadership training I was running in Mosinee, Wisconsin. At the end of the day she walked up and said, I wish you had a book about this. That seed sat in my head for years. It came back every time I ran a student leadership training. It came back every time I watched a young person struggle because nobody had ever given them the tools to lead themselves, let alone anyone else.

I am telling you all of this because today I want to talk about nudges, what they are, why they matter, and why I finally listened to the biggest one of my life.

What is a nudge, exactly?

I first came across the formal concept after reading Nudge by Nobel Prize winning economist Richard Thaler. The book introduces nudge theory, a behavioral economics concept suggesting that organizations and individuals can subtly guide people toward better choices for their health, finances, and happiness without removing their freedom to choose. Basically: listen to the world around you.

After reading it, I started paying closer attention to how media, other people, and everyday comments were quietly shifting the way I thought and what I did. Comments in public. A text from a friend. A question from a colleague that starts with don’t you think, or what if, or do you know about? Those are nudges. And when I started treating them as invitations to get curious instead of noise to filter out, things started to change.

The nudges that stick with me most are the ones that plant seeds. Someone says something and two days later I am still thinking about it. Two months later, it surfaces again. Sometimes it takes a year. But once a nudge gets in your head, it keeps coming back until you do something with it. The ones we act on become the turning points we talk about for the rest of our lives.

The dinner table conversation that started everything

About eight years ago, my son Charlie came home from his first soccer practice of the season and told me he had been named team captain. I was proud. Any dad would be.

An hour later at dinner, I asked him: Charlie, what’s your job as a captain?

If you know Charlie, you know he is one of the most relationship-driven, empathetic, people-centered people I have ever met. His top CliftonStrengths are Developer, Belief, Relator, Harmony, Consistency, and Positivity. Six of his top ten are all about relationships. He is energized by the people around him, he cares deeply about not disappointing others, and he works hard to make everyone feel included. Those are extraordinary leadership qualities. What they can also do, when they are not paired with clarity of role and permission to act, is create paralysis.

The next day at dinner I asked what he had learned from his coach about his responsibilities. He could not look at me. He had not asked.

I pushed. He got upset. He left the table without finishing his dinner. Later that night on one of our walks, he told me what was really going on. He was afraid to ask the coach because he did not want to disappoint him. He was afraid to come home and tell me he had not asked because he knew I would be upset. He was caught between two people he loved, both of whom he was trying not to let down, frozen in place.

I had put him there. Not on purpose, and not out of anything other than an assumption. I assumed his coach had laid out clear expectations. I assumed Charlie knew what was expected. I assumed that asking the question was simple. None of those assumptions were correct.

Here is what I realized after spending a week feeling terrible about it. We do this to young people constantly. We make them captains, presidents, chairs, team leads. We put them in positions of leadership and then we stand back and wait for them to perform, without ever handing them the tools, the language, or the permission to lead. And then we stand on the sidelines judging them for not figuring it out on their own.

Nobody had ever formally taught me a mindset or a lifestyle for leading others when I was young either. No one showed me how to handle the moments when emotions, fear, or self-doubt threatened to derail everything. I just figured it out slowly, the hard way, over decades. Charlie deserved better than that. So did every other young person I had ever worked with.

I talked to my executive coach about it. He said: well, why don’t you do something about it?

So I did. I launched a student leadership certification training program and have been running it for hundreds of young people every year across schools, middle schools, high schools, and colleges ever since.

The book that was always coming

Sophie’s nudge never fully left me. I would run a training and think, I should write this down for them. I would watch a young person struggle through something they had no framework for and think, there should be a book for this. Then I ran into Sophie in a bookstore at Loyola University of Chicago, where she was starting her freshman year at the same time my daughter Grace was starting hers. Standing in that bookstore, I knew. It was time.

I wrote a goal on a sheet of paper in my office: no matter what happens this year, you will write a book for leaders that teaches the Buffalo lifestyle, helps others recognize their impact, and gives them the tools to move themselves forward with the energy needed to get through their storms.

I wrote that book. It is called Go To Your Storm, and you can pre-order it right now.

What the book is about

Here is a summary, and I will be honest with you: I dropped the manuscript into AI and asked it to summarize it because I felt weird describing my own work. Here is what came back, and I thought it was pretty good.

Go To Your Storm is an inspirational personal growth and leadership development book dedicated to equipping young people, new leaders, and experienced individuals with a resilient approach to life. The core philosophy centers on a buffalo lifestyle, encouraging individuals to charge toward their problems rather than away from them. Through a zero-zero mindset, readers learn that they have full authority over their own happiness, choices, and reactions to the external stresses of their life. The book challenges leaders to move beyond merely assigning roles to others and instead focus on teaching the emotional tools necessary for success. It ultimately inspires readers to take responsibility for their own legacy by actively fixing what is within their control.

The book has six chapters. Chapter one is about lifestyle and what it means to live like a buffalo. Chapter two introduces the zero-zero mindset, never winning and never losing, just always living, and the story of the seventh grade boy who first taught it to me. Chapter three is about fixing it, facing your problem, believing you can get through it, and learning to advocate for yourself along the way. Chapter four is about gratitude and the three pieces of wisdom from three important people in my life. Chapter five is about belief, the tools to manage the anxious narratives in your head and reflect your way through the grind of daily life. Chapter six is about the only person you ever really need to impress: the fourth grade version of you. And it closes with a challenge to live true to yourself and be a storm chaser.

I wrote it to be readable for everyone. The average American reads at an eighth grade level. General tabloids and mass market content come in around sixth and seventh grade. I aimed for eighth to ninth grade, which means the book is for a high schooler navigating their first real storm and for a 45-year-old administrator navigating their twentieth one.

The part of the book I am most proud of

Allison, who illustrated Duke Storm, came back and made this book a hybrid graphic novel with illustrations that help you visualize the stories. My team at CESA 6 helped me pull it all together. I wrote chapters in coffee shops in Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. In airports. Poolside in Florida. In the backseat of an Uber in Little Rock, Arkansas.

But the part I am most proud of is the introduction, which I did not write. I asked Charlie and Grace to write it. I wanted readers to understand the context of who Ted is before they read a single word from Ted, and I could not think of two better people to do that.

Grace answered the question of what it is like to go on a hike with her dad this way: going on a hike really shows how he is incapable of being silent or ordinary. The second we step onto a trail, we are either playing a game, discussing ethical dilemmas, or receiving the best life advice you would ever hear on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere.

Charlie wrote: those moments feel unhurried and meaningful. Hiking gives me the space to open up about both my successes and struggles, and he is always there to listen without judgment.

I do not think I could have asked for a better introduction. Or a better reason to keep going.

Who should read this book

I wrote it for what I call the freshmen of life. Not ninth graders specifically, though yes, absolutely ninth graders. Anyone in the first year of anything, because we are all always freshmen in new experiences. Young people navigating middle school, high school, their first job, their first year out of college. Anyone supporting someone in those seasons: coaches, teachers, counselors, parents, mentors. Anyone leading others who needs a shared language for resilience, mindset, and growth. Anyone who just needs a lift.

Books for young leaders ship the first week of August. There is a pre-order link available now where smart thinkers can get an autographed copy with a Buffalo sticker inside. Classroom discounts and reflection guides for book studies will be available once the book is out.

One last thing before I go

The first sentence of chapter one reads: believe it or not, as you get older, your brain does not stop wondering about all the possibly weird things that could happen to you. It actually gets worse if you do not learn how to deal with the creeping effect pessimism and negativity can have on your well-being.

And the last sentence of the book: never ever forget that you have already overcome the hardest day of your life.

Ready to pre-order your copy? Head to the CESA 6 store at store.cesa6.org to grab an autographed copy with a Buffalo sticker inside. Books ship the first week of August.

So let’s do some smart thinking. List the people who have nudged you. Describe how you support others with a well-timed bump of your own. And list who you could help grow by sharing the principles in Go To Your Storm.

The nudges are everywhere. The question is whether we are paying attention.