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Are You Ready for a Fresh Start? (Update)

December 30, 2025·43 min·2 clips

Why MLB players hitting under 250 do better when traded across leagues — and stars do worse.

The calendar does some psychological work. Dubner starts with the almost automatic pull of New Year's resolutions: how often they work, and why the successful ones stick. Katie Milkman arrives with her background in view. She is a Wharton professor, author of How to Change, and co-director of the Behavior Change for Good initiative with Angela Duckworth. January 1 becomes the hinge. Milkman talks about the strong relief around 2021, when people seemed especially hungry for the date. Dubner keeps the tone plain. Roughly half of Americans make resolutions each year, usually around eating better, drinking less, and exercising more. Then the excerpt swerves. Another passage follows Andy Byford, whose Train Daddy popularity became politically awkward. The nickname is funny until it isn't. Dubner notes, dryly, that politicians do not tend to love subordinates who get too popular, especially in New York, including Governor Cuomo. Byford's authority was narrowed after an MTA reorganization. He says his job was cut in half, and subway modernization was taken out of his portfolio. The situation stopped working. He says major operational decisions were being made around him, though he still loved New York and the job. So he resigned. His departure came in January 2020, just as COVID was starting to move around the globe. The ending carries guilt. Byford says he felt desperately sad for the 50,000 New York City Transit employees who paid a terrible price during the pandemic. The credits return to the network, and a final dry Lent aside about giving up booze, cheese, and bread keeps things human.

As heard by us

A smart, slightly wide-ranging look at fresh starts, from New Year's resolutions to a leadership exit shaped by politics and timing.

Freakonomics Radio turns New Year's resolutions into a practical question about behavior change, with Stephen Dubner using January 1 as more than a calendar reset.

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Why you'd press play

You have made this resolution before. Freakonomics asks how often New Year's resolutions work, why they do, and what turns a wish list into a plan.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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