BROADCASTS.com

Have you ever had a period in your athletic or professional career where you kind of felt like you were on fire? Maybe you made a whole streak of consecutive\xa0shots in a game, or executed one good idea after another at work.\n\nIn his book,\xa0The Hot Hand: The Mystery and Science of Streaks, my\xa0guest today explores why success sometimes seems to arrive in clusters like this. His name is Ben Cohen and he's a sports\xa0writer\xa0for\xa0The Wall Street Journal.\xa0Ben and I begin our conversation with an explanation of what it means to have a hot hand, and how this phenomenon has often been studied\xa0in basketball, but can be seen in a wide range of areas, including the film career of Rob Reiner. We then discuss what may cause winning streaks, whether\xa0or not they can be induced, and what Stephen Curry does when he starts feeling hot in a game. We also talk about what the video game\xa0NBA Jam\xa0can tell us about the psychology of the hot hand. We then dig into what the academic research has found on whether the hot hand truly exists or is really just a cognitive illusion. We end our conversation with what you can start doing today to take advantage\xa0of having a hot hand.\n\nGet the show notes at aom.is/hothand.