Category Archives: Horror Movie

Angels In The Hallway

The Either Or Pattern

We humans like choice, but not too much.

Choosing between 3 or maybe 4 things is pretty easy.

Which makes sense.

They say we can hold between 5 and 9 (7 +/- 2) things in mind at once.

So looking at three kinds and choosing one means we’re really thinking of six things at once.

The pros and cons of each choice (pro and con times 3).

When we get up to four, it’s kind of stretching our brains.

Looking at five things, it starts to get difficult.

This is what marketers have found when experimenting with different choices on supermarket shelves.

Three variations seems to be the sweet spot.

But there’s another way to look at choice.

How we compare things to one another.

Students were asked to put their hands in a bucket of water, and guess the temperature.

The “test bucket” was always the same temperature.

But their “guess temperature” was dependent on what their OTHER HAND was doing.

If their other hand was in warm water, they under-estimated the test bucket.

If their other hand was in cold water, they over-estimated the test bucket.

So when offering a choice to somebody, how you present that choice will have a HUGE impact on how they choose.

Example:

A marketer was trying to sell a kitchen gadget. It had a few features and was $150.

People would look at it on the shelf, all by it’s lonesome, and only a few people would buy it.

All he did was take a much more expensive gadget ($400 or so) and put it next to the $150 gadget.

The $400 gadget had only a few more features.

So the $150 looked CHEAP by comparison.

Simply by rearranging his shelves, he sold WAY more stuff.

There are tons of ways to leverage this.

Especially if you already have two choices, and there is ONE that you prefer.

Just present the costs of the other choice (the one you don’t want them to choose) as being disproportionately higher than the associated benefits.

Then when they choose, it will be THEIR choice.

Even though you “helped” them make it.

Luckily, this is pretty easy to do conversationally.

Just take a little bit of thought before presenting your ideas, and present them accordingly.

Learn How:

Seven Laws

Beware of Shortcuts

Are You Caught In A Horror Movie?

There’s a lot of horror movies based on short cuts.

Young couple is driving to some cabin, and the guy knows a short cut.

Then they end up surrounded by zombies or ghosts or little kids that live in the corn.

Funny thing about popular movies, is even the craziest ones have to reflect reality.

Sure, there are some weird movies that make absolutely zero sense on any level.

But most movies that most people watch have to match reality on a few levels.

It’s only the part that “goes wrong” that makes it interesting.

Psychologists tell us the very reason that stories came to be was to teach us things.

Sure, they were bored around the caveman campfire every night. And telling stories did pass the time.

But eventually, the BEST stories were the ones that also taught a lesson.

Not in a preachy way, or even in an Aesop’s Fable way, where they have to SAY the moral at the end.

Stories that teach us on many levels, so we can all individually, on our own, kind of see how the meaning speaks to US on a deep, personal level.

So what’s the deep meaning of taking shortcuts and ending up in some cannibals dinner?

Maybe that shortcuts are dangerous.

Maybe that thinking we can shortcut ANY process is generally not a good idea.

Sure, we may think we can skate by, and look like a hero, but often times, we just end up wasting more time.

Like the old saying goes, “If you don’t have time to do it right, how are you going to find time to do it over?”

Yet, go into any bookstore, or shop on Amazon for any product, and MANY of them are based on “shortcut thinking.”

Lost fifty pounds in one weekend.

The “weird trick” that will make any girl fall in love with you in seconds.

The secret ninja method to hijack the options market to make a kijillion dollars on auto pilot.

How to grow fifty pound tomatoes with only a spoonful of dirt.

You get the idea!

Maybe the QUICKEST WAY to do anything is to AVOID shortcuts altogether!

I know, sounds counterintuitive.

But MANY things work because they are counterintuitive.

As I’m sure you’ve experienced MANY times, some of the BEST FEELINGS in life come when you are in the process of BUILDING something.

Not in finding a way to GET something without doing any of the work.

What do you want to build?

You really can choose anything. So long as you take your time, go slow and BE CONSISTENT.

Get started, NEVER STOP, and you’ll be AMAZED.

These mental tools and exercises can help:

Emotional Freedom