Whether it's rising out of bankruptcy, handling a divorce, being a parent, leading a work team, or building a business from scratch, the science of applied behavior analysis has five scientific laws of life and leadership that are proven by the authors will lead you to success.

Life has provided us with many challenges. Victims of bullying as children, we both struggled with our own sense of self. Fortunately, we each found combat sports and used them as a springboard to develop confidence or grit that would see us through a number of dark times, including depression, anxiety, death, and bankruptcy.

As former combat athletes and coaches, we will use some combat sports analogies throughout this book, as we see many aspects of life and leadership as a struggle. A fight. And like the famous fictional character Rocky Balboa said, “You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward.”

Life is not a fight in the literal sense, of course, but in the sense that we must each learn to navigate obstacles and overcome adversity if we are going to move toward who and what we value. There is a science for navigating these obstacles that will allow you to improve behavior, performance, and achieve desired outcomes. This science, the science of human behavior, is frequently misunderstood or misrepresented. But it is real, and it is highly effective, and the practical application of the technologies can make an immediate and lasting difference in your life and the lives of others.

Since that time, we have been fortunate enough to use science to help thousands of children with disabilities, parents, students, teachers, principals, and organizational managers and leaders achieve various valued outcomes. From turning around failing schools and developing champion athletes to building and leading an organization from zero to eight figures, we have always been passionate about helping people achieve valued outcomes.

Given that we are armed with what we believe to be the most powerful toolbox in the world for improving performance and helping people reach desired outcomes, we feel we cannot go wrong in sharing the five powerful laws and supportive behavior hacks outlined in this book for improving life and leadership.

Incidentally, a hack, for those of you don’t know, can be characterized as “an appropriate application of ingenuity”. Perhaps, one might even consider a behavior hack “a clever approach”. A behavior hack, therefore, might be considered “a clever approach to applying scientific and lawful principles of behavior to achieving positive outcomes”. And our book is chock-full of Behavioral Karma™ of the practical application of behavior science for making a positive difference in your life and the lives of others.