If you think getting peoples’ attention is hard…then you’d be right.

No risk, no fun! Lesson 2: You can use curiosity gaps to keep your listener’s attention, once you have it. To get people to perk their ears up at your ideas, you have to risk sticking out like a sore thumb. Or a banner ad that showed nothing more than a mysterious symbol? How about a book with a bright, orange cover, that sticks out from the rest? Or a coffee brand that comes in elegant capsules, all black on black? That’s why sticky ideas are always the ones you don’t expect.įor example, imagine instead of the usual humdrum speech a flight attendant gives, she’d suddenly say: “I know there are more than 100 ways to leave your lover, but there’s just one off this plane.” Would that get your attention? The same thing holds true for advertisements, books in a book store, or products in the supermarket – if it doesn’t stand out, it’s as if it’s not there. People have long become blind to online banners too, so whatever doesn’t take us by surprise gets left out in the cold. If an article’s headline isn’t good, neither does it matter if the rest of the article is, because you’ll never even start reading it. If you want to save this summary for later, download the free PDF and read it whenever you want.ĭownload PDF Lesson 1: A sticky idea will always make us listen up, because it’s unexpected.įor something to stick, you have to notice it first.

Want some mental duct tape for your best thoughts? Sure, here you go!

The best way to get your ideas to stick is to tell great stories.

Use curiosity gaps to keep your listener’s attention.

Let’s dig deeper into 3 of these factors so you can get your friends and co-workers to listen to what you have to say: They give us a simple acronym to remember them: “SUCCES.” Your ideas should be… Often mentioned in the same breath with absolute bestsellers like The Tipping Point or Built To Last, it describes a simple way of getting others to pay attention to your ideas.Ĭhip and Dan found six simple traits all sticky ideas share. Made To Stick was their first book, which ended up being translated into 25 languages. Of course, write a book about business! They’ve done just that. If you had a brother and you both taught business at two of the most prestigious schools of the country, what would you do?

Like Chip and Dan Heath, who both turned out to thrive in an academic environment, ending up teaching at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Duke University, respectively. Some siblings just play extraordinarily well together. Listen to the audio of this summary with a free reading.fm account*:

Chip dan heath made to stick