Made to stick — Why some ideas survive and others die
Review of Chip and Dan Heath’s book
Hello, my climate darling ❤
If you follow me on social media, you know I am a climate activist committed to bringing climate justice to my community. I act at the local level, in Brasilândia, at the national level, working with the Ministry of Environment, and at the international level, attending the United Nations Climate Meetings (COPs).
I share a lot of content with my network related to climate, youth, and vulnerable communities. But today, I would like to show you my behind-the-scenes world…
Two months ago, I was in Dubai, to attend COP 28. I met a lot of people and heard thousands of stories, but I will never forget what Adam, my friend from Italy, told me about his last trip. Take a look at his words:
“Amanda, I don’t even know how to start, I think the best option is to just tell the truth… Last summer, I took a flight to South Africa to enjoy my vacation. I decided to make this trip by myself, I wanted to appreciate my own company! So, as soon as I arrived, I left my hotel and went to a club to have some fun. I took two tequila shots to loosen up, took a deep breath, and started to look around. After a while, I saw the most beautiful girl that I have seen in my whole life, she was gorgeous! I smiled and she came in my direction, saying hi and asking if she could pay me a drink.
Of course, I said yes, I was completely in love with those shining eyes. We talked about life, laughed a lot and I don’t know what happened after I started to feel a little bit sleepy. We sat on a couch and then, I fell asleep. I woke up the next day, feeling a lot of pain in my stomach. I was inside a bathtub with ice covering all my body. I looked into the toilet bowl and I saw a cell phone with a simple message: “Don’t move. Stay calm and call the hospital.”
I was nervous! I called the hospital and spoke with the attendant. She sent an ambulance, and they took me to the hospital. Quickly they told me the beginning of my nightmare: my kidneys were stolen!”
Dear rider, this story is one of the most famous urban myths, it was my way to get your attention. I hope you don’t get mad at me, but just keep reading this article and you will get my point: my goal is to share with you what I’ve been learning about communication.
The question is:
How do we make people care about our messages?
As a climate activist, I’ve struggled to amplify the environmental message and mobilize more people to care for the planet. However, I feel that people have a lot of challenges in their life, and don’t want to have anything else to add to their list of worries. I talked to a friend, Renard Aron, and he recommended the book MADE TO STICK — Why some ideas survive and others die. Now I want to explain to you what I’ve been learning about storytelling and communications.
Stories have the amazing dual power to simulate reality and inspire. Have you ever asked yourself how you get people interested in a topic? or how to nurture ideas so they spread? If you are a normal human, just like me, you may have already struggled to communicate your ideas effectively and influence your bubble.
A journalist friend once told me that if I want to get the facts and report them, I need to use the 5W Methodology, that is: who, what, where, when, and why.
This method is great, but I learned something more powerful in Chip and Dan’s book: The SUCCESs checklist.
- SIMPLICITY: We must create ideas that are both simple and profound.
- UNEXPECTEDNESS: We must generate interest and curiosity.
- CONCRETENESS: We must explain our ideas in terms of human actions, in terms of sensory information.
- CREDIBILITY: We need ways to help people test our ideas for themselves
- EMOTIONS: We need to make people feel something.
- STORIES: We need to tell stories to inspire people to act.
To summarize, this is the checklist for creating a successful idea: we just need to make a Simple Unexpected Concrete Credentialed Emotional Story. Sounds simple, but it requires some work. The steps below outlined by Chip will help:
1. Identify the central message you need to communicate — find the core;
2. Figure out what is counterintuitive about the message — i.e., what are the unexpected implications of your core message? why isn’t it already happening naturally?
3. Communicate your message in a way that breaks your audience’s “guessing machines along the critical, counterintuitive dimension.”
In times of gossip pages on Instagram, Netflix series, and TikTok videos, getting people’s attention is one of the most challenging missions in our century! I hope the SUCCESs checklist will be an effective tool for you to deal with your communication challenges.
And last but not least, remember that sometimes, “we don’t have to create sticky ideas. Spotting them is often easier and more useful.”
Did you like the article? Leave your palms by clicking up to 50 times. Feel free to follow me on Instagram, Tiktok, and LinkedIn :)
Amanda Costa is a climate activist, young adviser to the UN Global Compact, founder of the Sustainable Perifa Institute, and presenter of #TemClimaParaisso?, a program about the climate crisis. Graduated in International Relations, Amanda was recognized as #Under30 in Forbes magazine, TEDx Speaker, LinkedIn Top Voices and Creator and in 2021 she was deputy curator of Global Shapers, the youth community of the World Economic Forum.
