It was an offer I never thought I’d pass up. My local supermarket let me know they’d already given me a $25 credit. I could see the money sitting right there in my account. All I had to do was try online grocery delivery within the next week. But when I missed the deadline, they took the money BACK!
They’re back, the misguided souls who delight in shoving poisonous things down their gullet. It’s a familiar little passion play: Tide Pods, cinnamon, and now “sleepy chicken.” Think of it as mutant KFC – narcotic chicken in a delightfully disgusting NyQuil marinade.
Nazism, war, cyberbullying. Why do normally decent people enthusiastically line up to be the next to inflict brutal punishments on innocent victims? Dehumanizing out-groups is a powerful survival tool that was carefully crafted during our distant evolutionary past.
Want to change a stubborn habit? Then you’ve got to treat your misbehaving brain like it’s a puppy. Most of us formulate a behavioral change strategy by mustering all the power of our RATIONAL brain.
Want to spend less and save more? Start carrying big currency in your wallet.
Let’s say you’re making a $20 purchase. Here are two typical ways you could pay:
Top-of-their-game corporate designers understand that they must answer this one question:
“How do I want people to feel about THEMSELVES when they experience my design.”
The HALO EFFECT is our brain’s little shortcut for efficiently remembering the zillions of people who parade through our lives. Unfortunately, all our brains are inherently lazy.
So when our overtaxed cranium evaluates new people, it isn’t really looking for a nuanced profile of that person. Our brain prefers a mere top-line analysis so that it can get back to binge watching cat videos.
Most of us believe our conscious brain carefully guides our path. We reassure ourselves that subconscious desires are subservient to our all powerful reason. But brain research shows it’s the exact OPPOSITE. At least 85% of our choices are completely subconscious and therefore hidden from us.
We just can’t help it. When we see a video like this our brain instantly tends to concoct a very human story: the duck and the fish are friends, and look out for each other. We effortlessly project elaborate human motivations onto an animal that has no neocortex, and a brain that’s the size of a walnut.
Want to seriously up your close rate? Then stop being so darned positive. We love talking to prospects about the BENEFITS of our products, simply because it’s a more pleasant conversation. It’s just more fun to endlessly blather on about the rosy future our product empowers.