Supercharge Your Message: Contrast & Happy Endings

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Read time: 3 min

At a glance:

  • Quote: We love logical thinking, but humans are innately not that

    Lesson: Make any message more powerful

    TikTok: An example from Alex Hormozi

Quote

"The human mind does not run on logic any more than a horse runs on petrol"

Alchemy - by Rory Sutherland

Lesson

Learn how to use psychological concepts to strengthen any message you deliver. Something you can apply right away to any communication. A presentation? A social media video? Or breaking news to your team? This works.

Messages delivered correctly can influence the behavior you want, messages delivered spectacularly can inspire a movement.

“I have a dream... that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

Most people deliver their messages the way they think others want to hear it, not the way they actually want to hear it. This results in the message falling flat, failing to garner attention, or influence an intended behavior.

Effective strategies don't have to be complicated

Here are two strategies you can apply simultaneously

1. Contrast

When two contrasting ideas are presented, the impact of the second is elevated. Just like when your hand is dipped in cold water before dipping into room temperature water, your hand feels warmer than a hand that's just in room temperature water. The same is true for visual contrasts. Looking at the image below, the grey square in B seems darker than the grey square in A, because of the contrasting background.

 
 

Image credit:  Research Gate 

Also, contrasts deliver surprises and is crucial to grabbing the attention of the audience. We are hardwired to spend more cognitive energy to contrasting information.

2. Happy Endings

In a  2013 study  published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, it was shown that most people preferred to share good news first, then the bad news because they are trying to "sweeten the palette", however in the same study, most recipients of good and bad news preferred to hear the bad news first. When you get the bad news out of the way, you can shift the focus permanently to the good news.

So what does this mean?

When delivering a message, first understand what you want to emphasize, then craft a contrasting anchor at the beginning of the message.

Examples:

  1. Product ad

    1. Pain, nightmare, and problem

    2. Gain, dream, and solution

  2. Sharing a serious idea

    1. Funny story

    2. The consequential and serious big idea

  3. Good new and bad news

    1. Share the bad news first

    2. Share the good news and solution for the bad

  4. Selling a coaching service

    1. The time and effort required to be successful

    2. The benefits of coaching and the new you

  5. Convincing spouse to splurge on a vacation

    1. The monotony and fragility of life

    2. The experience to cherish forever

Conclusion

Just a tiny bit of adjustment to your message delivery can deeply impact the outcomes of that delivery. Simon Sinek once said - there are only two ways to influence human behavior, manipulation or inspiration... so please use these strategies for good!

TikTok

Here is a  video  of Alex Hormozi talking about an application of these strategies.

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