Dr. Michael Cohen · Behavioral Scientist

You think you know yourself.

Your behavior tells a different story.

For thirty years, I studied markets, decisions, and people. The same pattern appeared everywhere: what we believe is not always what we do, and what we do reveals who we are.

Start Here
Dr. Michael Cohen

The Person Behind the Books

I write about life as we actually live it.

My work begins with a simple question: what does our behavior reveal that our words often conceal?

After decades of studying people, decisions, organizations, and financial markets, I write books that help readers look honestly at their choices, relationships, and use of time.

Explore the Books

Five questions worth asking yourself.

Each book begins where the honest answer becomes uncomfortable.

Investing

Why Pick Stocks?

Stop guessing the winner. Own the market.

See the Book
Behavior

Am I Really a Positive Person?

I think I am. My behavior has the answer.

See the Book
Behavior

Am I Really a Nice Person?

I am polite. That is not the same thing.

See the Book
Relationships

Are They Really My Friends?

Words are easy. Actions reveal the truth.

See the Book
Life & Time

Where Did the Years Go?

Time is the one asset I can never recover. Every Moment Counts

See the Book

The Author

Why should I listen to him?

Fair question.

I cannot predict what the market will do tomorrow. I cannot tell you who your real friends are. And I cannot tell you whether you are truly kind, positive, or making the most of your time.

But I can show you where to look for the answers: in behavior.

Everyone is a human being.
How many of us are being human? The answer is not in what we say. It is in what we do.

Since the 1980s, I have studied human behavior, decision-making, and organizational performance in classrooms, in organizations, and in financial markets.

Across very different parts of life, the same pattern kept appearing. We know more than we practice. We intend more than we do. And we believe what we want to believe instead of examining the evidence in front of us.

An investor can understand markets deeply and still panic when prices fall.

A person can have many friends and learn what that word meant only when friendship finally costs something.

We can think of ourselves as kind while our ordinary behavior says otherwise.

We can value time deeply and still let the years go.

Different problems, all living in the same place: the gap between what we believe and how we behave. That gap is where my work begins.

My books will not tell you what to think. They ask better questions, point you toward the evidence of your own behavior, and offer the structure to act on what you find.

Knowing was never the hard part.
More About Me

Doctorate in General Administrative Leadership, George Peabody College at Vanderbilt University · M.A. Organizational Behavior · B.A. Behavioral Sciences · More than three decades in financial markets

Workshops & Lectures

Books are where I write the ideas. Conversations are where they come alive.

I have always loved learning. I have loved watching people learn even more.

For decades I taught university courses, led workshops, worked with organizations, and mentored executives and CEOs in classrooms and meeting rooms, with people from very different countries and cultures. It taught me something no textbook could.

People rarely change because they received more information. They change when an idea makes them see something differently.

These days most of my time goes to writing, capturing what those decades taught me. Those experiences live inside my books.

But some ideas deserve a room.

A question from the audience. A disagreement. A story someone has never told before. The moment a person recognizes his own behavior in what we are discussing and goes quiet.

So I still accept selected workshops and lectures, built around the questions at the heart of my books: investing and decision-making, human behavior, friendship, kindness, positivity, and the way we spend the time we are given.

Nobody needs another lecture that leaves them knowing more. You already know more than you practice.
The question is what you will do differently.

Invite Dr. Cohen to Speak

Get in Touch

A book can start a conversation. It doesn’t have to end there.

Questions about a book, invitations to speak, workshops, interviews, collaborations, all are welcome.

Every message reaches me directly, and I answer.