Ayelet Fishbach

Ayelet Fishbach Profile Photo

professor and author

Ayelet Fishbach is an expert on motivation and a TED speaker. She is the Eric J. Gleacher Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Marketing at the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. Fishbach studies social psychology, management, and consumer behavior. She is the past president of the Society for the Science of Motivation and the International Social Cognition Network, and has published several books, including GET IT DONE: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation.
Fishbach is an expert on motivation and decision making. Her groundbreaking research on human motivation has won the Society of Experimental Social Psychology’s Best Dissertation Award and Career Trajectory Award, the Society of Consumer Psychology’s Distinguished Scientific Contribution award, and the Fulbright Educational Foundation Award. She further received the Provost’s Teaching Award from the University of Chicago.
Fishbach’s work shows how people can live up to their highest aspirations. She’s written about exercising, healthy eating, working, studying, and saving money — the hard-but-worth-it challenges that occupy our lives. She studies self-control, intrinsic motivation, feedback, patience, and promoting a healthy lifestyle.

328
Sept. 9, 2026

Episode 328: When Motivation Doesn't Match The Goal w/ Ayelet Fishbach

This week, Steve sits down with Ayelet Fishbach, Professor of Behavioral Science and Marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and author of Get It Done, for a conversation about motivation, goal setting, identity, self-control, and what it really means to understand what drives us forward. Ayelet challenges the idea that motivation is simply something we either have or don’t have. Instead, she explains why motivation is something we can learn through knowledge—knowledge...