Welcome to a new week and Happy President’s Day.
Knowledge
The Power of Suspense
Yesterday was Valentine’s Day, a lovers’ ritual of roses, chocolates, and wine. All great things. But, unlike Christmas trees or parades of red, white, and blue, these are all year-round commodities that are present on birthdays, anniversaries, and even everyday dates.
Beyond the commercialized symbols of the Valentine’s Day, what sets it apart?
Suspense.
It’s the days on the calendar, ticking away one by one, leading up to a big red heart circled around February 14th. The pressure to have that special someone lined up.
Alfred Hitchcock has a theory of suspense: bomb theory. It creates a clear distinction between surprise and suspense.
Imagine you’re watching a movie. A family is gathered around the dinner table eating. A bomb goes off under table. Surprise.
Now, imagine the scene changes. You see the bomb, know it’s there, hear the ticking, but watch in horror as the family fails to notice. Tick, tick, boom. Suspense.
Valentine’s Day is like the second scene. There, waiting, in plain sight. Arresting our focus and building it up into a day of mythical proportions. Driving consumption behavior for weeks, even months in advance.
Suspense is powerful.
Wisdom
The Best Story Wins
I think a lot about narratives. The way reality coalesces around the most powerful stories fascinates me. One of my favorite ideas about narratives is extremely simple:
I was delighted to see that the brilliant Morgan Housel took up this idea as the subject of his latest piece.
Within, Morgan demonstrates how amazing stories transcend good ideas:
wherever information is exchanged – wherever there are products, companies, careers, politics, knowledge, education, and culture – you will find that the best story wins. Great ideas explained poorly can go nowhere while old or wrong ideas told compellingly can ignite a revolution. Morgan Freeman can narrate a grocery list and bring people to tears, while an inarticulate scientist might cure disease and go unnoticed.
Novelist Richard Powers put it this way: “The best arguments in the world won’t change a single person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”
…and breaks down how the best stories are built:
When a topic is complex, stories are like leverage.
Stories get diverse people to focus attention on a single point.
Good stories create so much hidden opportunity among things you assume can’t be improved.
Stories are made, not born. Remember that.
Inspiration
On Gravity
Gravity is pulling you down 24/7. You’re not born with the ability to stand up. You need to earn the strength to resist and the endurance to keep fighting.
By the time we’re adults, many of us forget. We stop building muscle to out-hustle whatever’s holding us back.
To grow, we have to beat gravity. In a literal and figurative sense, the forces pulling us back can be beaten. Applies to mind and body.
Train until nothing feels heavy. Think until nothing is confusing. Work until nothing can compete.