Is it worth it?
Can you touch your elbow to your nose?
You most likely don’t know the answer to this question. I have presented you with something you don’t know, something you don’t have a map for.
Some of you reading this, will have tried to touch your elbow to your nose before reading on. Others, will have chosen to ignore that question. For most of you at least, that question will continue to linger in your mind, until you have closed that gap.
Curiosity can drive us to do the craziest things. Things like circumnavigate the planet, fly to the moon and back, or staple my thumb (I did that, I was 4 years old). These are all done in the pursuit of closing a gap. It’s just a question of pleasure and pain.
The opening of the gap creates pain. Our survival instinct for control is triggered as we realise there is something we don’t have a map for, no matter how significant or meaningless that gap is. Our minds are designed to not tolerate gaps.
What we do know for certain is that our minds prefer closed gaps over open ones. A closed gap brings certainty, and takes the finger off the trigger for control instinct. So regardless of the nature of the gap, basic maths says that there is always going to be at least some benefit to closing it.
The key question is will the process of closing the gap be pleasurable or painful? Maybe we don’t know yet. Maybe that’s going to be a surprise.
This key question applies to many areas of life when it comes to motivation, and also has a few other implications.
For example, if you set out to do 50 push ups, then after 5 you’ve still got 45 more to do and you are more likely to give up at that point cause that’s just too much effort. But, if you manage to keep going, then once you get to 45, even though you are in pain, you will be a lot more motivated to continue because you are only 5 away from closing the gap.
Big gaps require more effort, and therefore more pain, to close. Whereas little gaps require less effort to close. The closer we are, or the closer we get to closing the gap, the more motivated we are to close it.
Another thing to consider is the amount of pleasure the closure of the gap brings us. This is the difference between surprise and shock.
For example, if I buy a lottery ticket, hoping that I might win £10, and then I win £100,000,000, I’m going to be pleasantly surprised, to say the least. Surprise is when the result exceeds our expectations.
One time, I went to buy a lovely looking Danish pastry with apricot on the top. I took a bite, anticipating the sweet apricot and custard, and quickly discovered it was fried egg. Not what I was expecting! I was shocked. Shock is when the result falls beneath our expectations.
So, can you touch your elbow to your nose?
If you’re on your own as you read this, you may have sneakily taken a look around to make sure no one is watching, before trying to touch your elbow to your nose. But if you’re in a public place, you most likely avoided doing this, because the pain of embarrassment outweighs any potential satisfaction you’d get from closing the gap.
Some gaps, we’re quite content to keep open, because our best guess suggests it’s not worth closing them. Gaps like, what does torture feel like? What happens if we stand in front of moving traffic? How long would it take to swim across the Pacific Ocean?
During the Age of Exploration, explorers did their best to draw maps of the world they explored. But there were certain areas no one had explored, and no one dared explore. They concluded the pain of closing those gaps was not worth it. So for these uncharted areas on their maps, they simply wrote “Here be dragons”.
Show Them What They Don’t Know
In 2007, Steve Jobs used this principle to tease his audience:
“This is the day I’ve been looking forward to for two and a half years.
Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything and Apple has been – well, first of all, one’s very fortunate if you get to work on just one of these in your career. Apple has been very fortunate. It’s been able to introduce a few of these into the world.
1984 – we introduced the Macintosh. It didn’t just change Apple. It changed the whole computer industry.
In 2001, we introduced the first iPod. And it didn’t just change the way we all listen to music, it changed the entire music industry.
Well, today we’re introducing three revolutionary products of this class. The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough Internet communications device.
So, three things: a widescreen iPod with touch controls; a revolutionary mobile phone; and a breakthrough Internet communications device. An iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator. An iPod, a phone… are you getting it?”
What are these three revolutionary products? Hurry up and get to it already!
And then he reveals that they are all one product. The iPhone. The rest of his presentation proceeds to rip to pieces everyone’s maps of what smartphones were at the time. He shows the problems no one was aware of. Then he shows how iPhone solves these problems. Not only did he give a great presentation, he changed everyone’s beliefs, he literally redrew the maps of an entire industry.
When we show them what they don’t know, we open a gap for them, and this triggers their instinct for completion. The question is, is this a gap worth closing, or is it a dragon?
Clickbait exploits this principle, but is a dragon. The very nature of clickbait is the gap is made out to be bigger than it actually is. So when you click that YouTube ad for the “Grow a 7 figure business in 7 days online course”, your expectations are set high. When you discover you have to pay thousands and thousands of pounds, only to be left with debt, months of wasted time, and zero results, clickbait effectiveness starts to ware off.
So if you want to arouse curiosity, follow these instructions:
- Show JUST enough to make people realise there is something important they don’t know
- Ensure the process of closing this gap is more pleasurable than painful
- Ensure the result of closing the gap is more pleasurable than they were expecting
