Somehow it’s already mid-January, but this year’s brisk pace strikes me as a good sign. After all, the last couple of years have been…different, and decidedly not brisk. That said, there were any number of highlights, some even right here on this blog!
So, with that in mind, here are your highlights—the posts you all found the most interesting and valuable in 2022.
First up, the unusual and (hopefully) useful!!
The Best of the Swipefiles
Every other(ish) newsletter, I highlight one of the “swipefile” articles I’ve shared in the previous two weeks. Here were your three favorites:
How could you use it? The real reason fans hate the last season of Game of Thrones
Funny story: I started watching Game of Thrones because I was tired of not knowing GOT-related clues in the New York Times Crossword (which I aim to do every day). Even though I didn’t watch during the show’s first run, I couldn’t miss the fact that people hated—and I mean HATED—the last season, and much of the one before that.
As someone interested in storytelling, I was curious to see for myself why that was. It’s not hard to see—I mean, it was the season where editors accidentally left a Starbucks coffee cup visible in a scene (a previous #swipefile, by the way!).
And then I stumbled across this article. It not only explained a lot about why those last seasons were so different, it introduced an idea that has quickly become a major influence on the new book (! – click here to be the first to hear updates on that!) I’m writing: the difference between psychological and sociological storytelling.
This is definitely one of the most important articles I read in 2022, so I was delighted it was one of your favorites, too. (Even if it’s just because you were curious about that sucky last season, too!)
How could you use it? What gets in the way of new ideas
I loved this concept of the “four frictions”: inertia, effort, emotion, and reactance. For anyone who needs to get ideas across (so, you know, all of us), it’s critical to make sure not only that your idea is strong, but that it’s presented in such a way that it’s more likely to be heard. Don’t miss the “What makes a bullet fly?” question—it’s a superb prompt and analogy.
But it was also fun to see how the Red Thread method has built-in antidotes to these frictions: validation, utility, cognitive empathy, and agency (which I explain more in my original post).
How could you use it? A Messy Table, a Map of the World
Last but not least of the swipefiles, this was such a great example of how to keep people engaged with your content, using all the tools at your disposal. Yes, the words of your content matter, but so does the form. Your ideas deserve the best of both.
Best of the Videos
While I wasn’t as consistent with my “Message in a Minute” videos this year as I’d have liked, they still proved to be some of your most clicked-on and read posts. So, once I get the tech issues fixed (one of the main things that kept me from filming regularly last year), I hope to get these—or something similar—back into regular rotation, especially since they’re a great way to test and present concepts from my new book!
Message in a Minute: The Logic of Emotion
This was 2022’s second most popular post overall. The concepts in this video were also one of my main themes of last year: how much of marketing and sales messages present only a problem and solution, or only a before and after, and why that’s such a problem. And why is it problem? Because that’s not how our brains work, because it’s not how stories work, and that’s because it’s not how logic works. Not to mention that, as counterintuitive as it may be, how we feel about something comes down to whether or not all the pieces of a logical puzzle are in place, and what those pieces consist of. Skip one of those pieces, and you miss out on both the emotional and intellectual validation your idea needs.
Message in a Minute: How to overcome objections to your message
This turned out to be another sneak peek into my new idea mid-development, particularly the concept that, to get people invested in an idea, it’s not enough to explain the “why” behind your “what” (why you make or do the thing you do), you also have to explain the why behind your “how” (why do you do what you do that particular way). And why is that so important? Because it’s the baseline beliefs behind your why and how that determine whether or not people can and will align with you, your idea, and/or your brand long term.
Message in a Minute: Paint the picture of what’s possible
This video and post prompted more comments and email replies than almost any other—you all seemed to really like the idea of not just telling people how your idea delivers on what people want and need, but also how it opens the door to possibilities they haven’t even thought of yet. It also features one of my favorite lines (and one I say often to my consulting clients about their audiences): You have to solve the problem they think they have before you solve the problem you know they have.
The Best of the Rest
In between the swipefiles and the videos, sometimes I…just write. Here were your favorites of those musing this past year:
How to get (and tell!) the stories your company needs
Here it is: 2022’s #1, most-read, most-clicked-on post! It’s all about why asking people to “give me some good stories” may be the worst way to ask for them (it works against how our brains store and categorize information), and what to do instead, Red Thread-style!
What you really find when you find a Red Thread
This was one of my favorite posts of the year, so of course I’m delighted that it was one of yours, too. Why was it one of my favorites? Because it served as a “Red Thread Thesaurus” for all the things finding your Red Thread helps you build, from your Core Message, through your Elevator Pitch, all the way to the elements required for positioning and other message building: the core problem you solve, the core outcome you help achieve, your core audience, and more.
The minds you can’t change
Some articles and ideas just stay with you and with you and with you. In this post, I revisit one of my favorite swipefiles from 2020 (!!), and how it continues to help me understand why and how messages do—or don’t—have the effect we desire.
Thank You
The thing I notice the most after looking at all of these? How much each contributed to shaping the new idea I’m working on right now.
So, thank you, thank you, thank you for your readership and responsiveness this year. You’ve shown me what big question still needs a good answer (“How can we get the right people invested in an idea?”), and which of my answers resonates with you the most (make the idea part of a story people already believe). You’ll see me continue to work through both parts—plus what building a story people already believes actually looks like—in the coming months. How you respond will materially shape my thinking and book (coming in 2024).
That’s why, while I know I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: one of the best things you can do for your ideas, no matter what they are, is to do whatever you can to keep adding knowledge onto your beautiful patchwork quilt of a brain and then sharing what you discover—and what it inspires in you—with others.
One of the best things you can do for your ideas is to do whatever you can to keep adding knowledge onto your beautiful patchwork quilt of a brain and then sharing what you discover—and what inspires you—with others. Click To TweetPlease note that many of the links are affiliate links, which means if you buy a thing I link to, I get a percentage of the cost, and then donate it to charity.
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