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Hacking the Human Mind: The behavioral science secrets behind 17 of the world's best brands
'A book for the ages.' —Rory Sutherland, Author, Alchemy
How did the world's best brands get so big?
They had more than great products — they hacked the human mind.
This book reveals their secrets.
Richard Shotton (The Choice Factory, The Illusion of Choice) and 9x CEO MichaelAaron Flicker take a look at the behavioural science underpinning the success of 17 leading brands, including Apple, Dyson, Red Bull, and Starbucks.
What is it about Amazon that pulls us back again and again? How does a two-minute wait make Guinness taste better? Why do we pay more for water than we know it’s worth? The answers are here.
And it’s not just theory. Hacking the Human Mind is a practical guide, filled with techniques for you to try today. So you too can make your brand the one people reach for — without them ever really knowing why.
How did the world's best brands get so big?
They had more than great products — they hacked the human mind.
This book reveals their secrets.
Richard Shotton (The Choice Factory, The Illusion of Choice) and 9x CEO MichaelAaron Flicker take a look at the behavioural science underpinning the success of 17 leading brands, including Apple, Dyson, Red Bull, and Starbucks.
What is it about Amazon that pulls us back again and again? How does a two-minute wait make Guinness taste better? Why do we pay more for water than we know it’s worth? The answers are here.
And it’s not just theory. Hacking the Human Mind is a practical guide, filled with techniques for you to try today. So you too can make your brand the one people reach for — without them ever really knowing why.
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Published September 30, 2025
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 20, 2026
This book provides some cool insights into how some of the most iconic brands in the world took advantage of many behavioral science principles to become household names and juggernauts in the field of business, whether knowingly or unknowingly.
The principles discussed are solid and useful to know.
Even more so for those in the field of marketing and business, or other related fields.
However, I do have one gripe with this book.
It constantly touts the fact that everything in the book is based on scientific evidence.
Which is absolutely fine, except for the fact that the experiments and research they base almost everything on are not convincing at all in terms of numbers.
Hear me out.
When you are trying to convince me that something applies to the human race as a species, you better base that claim on data that actually represents humanity as a whole.
Instead, these experiments and scientists did the bare minimum.
You cannot conduct your research on a group of 120 people and then go on to claim this represents EVERYONE, past, present and future.
That is absolutely ridiculous and can be called nothing more than hubris.
If you want to convince me that a concept applies to all humans, you best be basing that claim on a minimum pool size of tens of thousands of participants, if not hundreds of thousands or millions.
All the research and experiments referenced in this book are based on pitiful numbers.
100 and so here, 200 and so there. None of them even came close to 1,000 people.
You cannot then proceed to insult our intelligence by telling us that this miniscule group of people represent all of us.
Let's talk statistics.
There are currently 8.3 billions people estimated to be alive today.
If you conduct your research using a pool size of 300 participants for example, then you are basing your grandiose claims on a 300/8,300,000,000 ratio.
That's 0.0000036% of humans alive today, never minds the tens (if not hundreds) of billions of people who lived in the past.
Yet these so-called scientists have the audacity to say: THIS DATA REPRESENTS ALL OF HUMANITY.
Scientists have double standards. If I were to present something to the global science elites and my numbers were in the billionths of percent I would get laughed all the way to the grave.
Yet when they do it, its okay?
No. Simply no.
I don't usually go this deep on a rant in my reviews, but this particular point has been triggering me throughout the whole book, and I would be remiss to not include my thoughts here.
I am not refuting the data. A lot of it is convincing.
But claiming these concepts as "proven" when they are mostly based on what can only be called tiny backyard experiments done by a few people, is another matter entirely.
The principles discussed are solid and useful to know.
Even more so for those in the field of marketing and business, or other related fields.
However, I do have one gripe with this book.
It constantly touts the fact that everything in the book is based on scientific evidence.
Which is absolutely fine, except for the fact that the experiments and research they base almost everything on are not convincing at all in terms of numbers.
Hear me out.
When you are trying to convince me that something applies to the human race as a species, you better base that claim on data that actually represents humanity as a whole.
Instead, these experiments and scientists did the bare minimum.
You cannot conduct your research on a group of 120 people and then go on to claim this represents EVERYONE, past, present and future.
That is absolutely ridiculous and can be called nothing more than hubris.
If you want to convince me that a concept applies to all humans, you best be basing that claim on a minimum pool size of tens of thousands of participants, if not hundreds of thousands or millions.
All the research and experiments referenced in this book are based on pitiful numbers.
100 and so here, 200 and so there. None of them even came close to 1,000 people.
You cannot then proceed to insult our intelligence by telling us that this miniscule group of people represent all of us.
Let's talk statistics.
There are currently 8.3 billions people estimated to be alive today.
If you conduct your research using a pool size of 300 participants for example, then you are basing your grandiose claims on a 300/8,300,000,000 ratio.
That's 0.0000036% of humans alive today, never minds the tens (if not hundreds) of billions of people who lived in the past.
Yet these so-called scientists have the audacity to say: THIS DATA REPRESENTS ALL OF HUMANITY.
Scientists have double standards. If I were to present something to the global science elites and my numbers were in the billionths of percent I would get laughed all the way to the grave.
Yet when they do it, its okay?
No. Simply no.
I don't usually go this deep on a rant in my reviews, but this particular point has been triggering me throughout the whole book, and I would be remiss to not include my thoughts here.
I am not refuting the data. A lot of it is convincing.
But claiming these concepts as "proven" when they are mostly based on what can only be called tiny backyard experiments done by a few people, is another matter entirely.
Displaying 1 of 1 review