Since the Unified Behavior Model 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.
👋 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.
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