Consultants Collective Profiles introduces you to our member consultants, advisors, executive coaches, clients and other extraordinary people. These profiles go beyond the professional bio to provide a more personal glimpse and offer an opportunity for us to get to know each other better as people as we strive to create connections and build community. This month we’re pleased to feature Betsy Burroughs, a marketing and brand executive turned neuroscience researcher. She has executive experience in marketing, advertising, sales and publishing. Betsy has held executive roles at InfoWorld and Satmetrix and senior account management roles at several leading advertising agencies, including Foote, Cone & Belding; D’Arcy-McManus Benton & Bowles and TFB/BBDO and senior sales management positions at International Data Group (IDG) and CMP.
Why do you do what you do?
Many years ago, when I first learned how the brain really works (which isn’t really conventional wisdom), it inspired me to create powerful new business techniques, which I love to share with others.
It also freed my thinking about behavior change and habit design in my personal life. So much so that I developed radical new (but very fun!) techniques to change one long-standing bad habit after another — up to and including easily losing 90 lbs. And I love to share those techniques too.
What is your favorite quote?
“Floss one tooth”— BJ Fogg, Stanford University Behavioral Psychologist
which is all about how to generate and use the feel-good brain chemical dopamine to form lasting habits—both good and bad. It’s a point I’ve been making in my books, talks and work for 20 years, and BJ’s “floss one tooth” story is a great explanation that I include in every talk I give.
What’s the latest book you read?
How Emotions Are Made. The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett.
From Chapter 4, “The Origin of Feeling:” “Your experience right now was predicted by your brain a moment ago. Prediction is such a fundamental activity of the human brain that some scientists consider it the brain’s primary mode of operation.”
Who is your favorite artist?
The art of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller: Their work juxtaposes sound and sight, and the sensory information received from your ears and eyes to build a new structure, montage and layered perception.
Videos are available on YouTube. But they don’t come near the experience IRL. This is closest: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rZXBia5kuqY
What is your latest accomplishment?
Working with a fintech AI start-up founder to help him generate dopamine hits in his brain—ones that led him to his powerful company branding.
What would you say is your chief characteristic?
Atlantic Magazine called me a “Silicon Valley branding executive turned neuroscience researcher.” Yep, that just about sums it up.
What makes you happy?
The brain always sees what it looks for. It makes me happy to come up with fast, easy techniques to get my brain (and those of my clients) to make difficult things “Easy. Effortless. Fun.” — from branding to habit change and more.
Who is your hero?
Artist Beatrice Wood who actively created her life and art until she was 105. She inspires my plan to do the same.
