principle 1: simplicity

• if you argue 10 points, even if they are all good points, most likely people won't remember any.
• saying something short is not the mission, proverbs and sound bites are the ideal.
• one sentence statement so that an individual can spend a lifetime learning to follow it.

principle 2: unexpectedness

• you need to violate their expectations and be counter-intuitive
• a surprise, alertness, cause focus, grab people's attention
• generate interest and curiosity
• open gaps in their knowledge and fill those gaps

principle 3: concreteness

• speak in terms of human action, in terms of sensory information
• concrete images: icy bathtub, apples with razors
• proverbs, abstract truths, something concrete they can remember

principle 4: credibility

• build a case, instead of citing statistics, ask a question "before you vote ask yourself if you're better off today than you were 4 years ago."
• try before you buy philosophy, let people think about it for themselves

principle 5: emotions

• you make people care about your ideas, by making them feel them
• more likely to give to an individual than a group of people
• For instance, it’s difficult to get teenagers to quit smoking by instilling in them a fear of the consequences, but it’s easier to get them to quit by tapping into their resentment of the duplicity of Big Tobacco.

principle 6: stories

• curse of knowledge- you have to explain it like they don't know what you already know

simple

• not dumbing down, but finding the core, the essence
• can't just be just any core, has to reflect intent
• proverbs, simple yet profound
• schema- start with something they already know, add onto it (to explain pomelo, use grapefruit)
• use analogies: A pomelo is like a grapefruit. A good news story is structured like an inverted pyramid. Skin damage is like aging. Analogies make it possible to understand a compact message because they invoke concepts that you already know.

unexpected

• use surprise, surprise makes people want an answer (why do the young and attractive die)
• avoid gimmickry
• He would introduce the mystery at the start of class, return to it during the lecture, and reveal the answer at the end. In one lecture, though, the end-of-class bell

rang before he had time to reveal the solution. He says, "Normally five to ten minutes before the scheduled end time, some students start preparing to leave. You know the signals—pencils are put away, notebooks folded, backpacks zipped up." This time, though, the class was silent. "After the bell rang, no one moved. In fact, when I tried to end the lecture without revealing the mystery, I was pelted with protests." He said he felt as if he'd discovered dynamite.

• mystery is not an unexpected moment, but an unexpected journey
• Robert McKee, the screenwriting guru, makes every scene a turning point because it hooks curiosity
• curiosity happens when we feel a gap in knowledge
  • sensationalist examples, invisible chemical in your home, it could be killing you right now!
• voting publicly makes you more committed
  • those who reached a consensus didnt stay to watch a film, the others who disagreed did
• concrete
  • make king's death tangible to a bunch of kids. separated kids into blue eyes and brown eyes and said some are better.
  • specific things to remember
• credible
  • what makes people believe ideas?
  • research institutes, authorities, celebrities
  • anti-authority, someone who experienced it, personal
  • vivid details boost credibility
  • Statistics aren't inherently helpful; it's the scale and context that make them so.
  • sinatra test- if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere
  • wendy's in 1984- where's the beef- let them see for themself
  • best. A few vivid details might be more persuasive than a barrage of statistics. An antiauthority might

work better than an authority. A single story that passes the Sinatra. Test might overcome- a mountain of skepticism. It's inspirational to know that a medical genius like Marshall had to climb over the same hurdles with his idea as we'll have to climb with ours—and to see that he eventually prevailed, to the benefit of us all.

• emotional
  • More than 11 million people in Ethiopia need immediate food assistance. vs.
  • Any money that you donate will go to Rokia, a seven-year-old girl from Mali, Africa. Rokia is desperately poor and faces the threat of severe hunger or even starvation. Her life will be changed for the better as a result of your financial gift. With your support, and the support of other caring sponsors, Save the Children will work with Rokia's family and other members of the community to help feed and educate her and provide basic medical care and hygiene education.
  • As an example, most teenagers believe that cigarette smoking is dangerous. There's no credibility problem with that message. Yet teenagers still take up smoking. So how do you transform their belief into action? You have to make them care. And, in 1998, someone finally figured out how to do that.
  • "They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano . .. But When I Started to Play!"
  • "Don't say, 'People will enjoy a sense of security when they use Goodyear Tires.' Say, 'You enjoy a sense of security when you use Goodyear Tires.'"
  • * Transcendence: help others realize their potential
• Self-actualization: realize our own potential, self-fulfillment,

peak experiences

• Aesthetic: symmetry, order, beauty, balance
• Learning: know, understand, mentally connect
• Esteem: achieve, be competent, gain approval, indepen-

dence, status

• Belonging: love, family, friends, affection
• Security: protection, safety, stability
• Physical: hunger, thirst, bodily comfort

stories

• What's amazing about these stories is that the authors didn't write them—they merely spotted and collected them. We wanted to understand what made these inspirational stories tick.
• Aristotle believed there were four primary dramatic plots
• Simple
• Tragic
• Simple Fortunate
• Complex Tragic
  • Complex Fortunate.
• Robert McKee, the screenwriting guru, lists twenty-five types of stories in his book: the modern epic, the disillusionment plot, and so on. When we finished sorting through a big pile of inspirational stories—a much narrower domain—we came to the conclusion that there are three basic
• plots: the Challenge plot, the Connection plot, and the Creativity plot.
• challenge- david and goliath- overcomes challenges, loses 300 pounds, truly inspiring
• connection- relationships, romeo and juliet, connection that bridges a gap
• creativity plot- mental breakthrough, solving a puzzle

If you're a great spotter, you'll always trump a great creator. Why? Because the world will always produce more great ideas than any single individ- ual, even the most creative one.

• 1. Pay attention
• Understand and remember it
• Agree/Believe
• Care
• Be able to act on it