I was wandering through a Barnes & Noble in Los Angeles a while back, just observing, when something hit me: a surprising number of self-help books are now covered in curse words.

This whole trend really took off around 2016 with Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fck, a book that has since sold over 15 million copies. It's a clear signal that in crowded spaces, creators are trying to jolt our brains out of autopilot. They’re finding clever ways to grab our attention, and it speaks to a fundamental principle of *effective communication & storytelling. By 2018, Amazon’s bestseller list was full of them. Ten years prior, you wouldn't have found a single profanity on the charts.

Michael Szczerban, an editor who published several of these bestsellers, put it simply: "Publishers and authors are trying to find ways to cut through all the noise... The upside more than wins out." That "upside" he’s talking about is one of the oldest rules in marketing: you have to make people feel something. Indifference is the enemy.

You Have to Be Willing to Piss People Off

The one thing you can't afford is for your audience to feel nothing. Indifference is the quickest way to become invisible.

Jane Wurwand, the founder of Dermalogica, built her entire brand on this idea. Her secret? She’s willing to alienate people. "We have to be prepared to piss off 80 percent or we’ll never turn on 20 percent," she explained. According to Wurwand, trying to be palatable to everyone makes you mediocre. A brand that triggers a strong emotional response—even a negative one for some—is the one that people will truly connect with. If some people hate you, it means others will probably love you.

But here’s the catch: all emotional tactics have a shelf life. The brain eventually gets used to them, and what was once shocking becomes wallpaper. The swear-word trend, for example, is already starting to lose its punch. This constant need to adapt is why a deep understanding of strategic thinking & philosophy is so crucial for long-term success.

It’s Cheaper to Invest in Perception Than Reality

My hairdresser was manipulating me for three years, and I had no idea.

Every week, he’d give me the same haircut. I always felt he was a perfectionist with incredible attention to detail. Then one day, he finished up and just said, "You're done." It felt... wrong. Rushed. I checked the mirror, and the haircut was perfect. I checked the time, and it took the same amount of time as always.

Confused, I told him how I felt. He burst out laughing. "My bad," he said. "I forgot to do my 'end-of-trim routine'!" He explained that for years, at the end of every haircut, he’d turn off the clippers, walk around my head inspecting his work, and then pretend to make one final, tiny snip. That ten-second charade did nothing to improve the haircut, but it did everything to improve my perception of it.

This is what Rory Sutherland calls a "psychological moonshot"—a small, often superficial investment that drastically improves how something is perceived. And brands are using these on you all the time.

The Uber Experience Is a Psychological Moonshot

Remember waiting for a cab, having no idea if or when it would show up? That anxiety is exactly what Uber solved, not by making taxis faster, but by changing our perception of the wait. Their in-house team of psychologists and data scientists, Uber Labs, figured out how to make waiting feel better.

1. They keep you busy. Uber learned that people are happier when they’re occupied. The little car moving on the map isn’t just for information; it’s an animation to keep you from feeling idle and unhappy. Research shows we’d often rather have a longer wait where we can do something than a shorter one where we’re bored.
2. They show you the work. Back in the day, taxis were a black box. You didn't know the route, the driver, or the final price. Uber made everything transparent, from the fare calculation to the driver’s profile. This operational transparency builds trust. It’s why Domino’s created their Pizza Tracker—people didn’t just want faster pizza; they wanted less uncertainty about their delivery.
3. They make you feel close to the goal. The closer we get to a goal, the faster we work to achieve it. It's called the goal-gradient effect. The Uber map is designed to constantly emphasize how close your car is, keeping you engaged and less likely to cancel.

These small psychological shifts, not massive technological leaps, are what made Uber a $120 billion business. It all comes back to a core element of strategic thinking & philosophy: it’s almost always easier to shape perception than to change reality.

Creating Value by Adding Friction

Sometimes, making things harder for the customer is the best move. It sounds counterintuitive, but it works.

When Red Bull launched, it was an outlier in a declining sugary drink market. Why did it succeed? Part of its strategy was its medicinal taste. It tasted like it should work, convincing people it was packed with powerful ingredients.

In the 1950s, General Mills launched a Betty Crocker cake mix that was almost too easy—just add water. Sales were flat. Psychologists found that homemakers felt guilty for taking such a big shortcut. The solution? General Mills removed the powdered egg and added "Add an egg" to the instructions. That tiny bit of extra effort made bakers feel more involved, and sales soared. This kind of thinking is what separates good leaders from great ones and is a vital part of personal growth & self-mastery.

Winning the First Five Seconds

All these psychological insights are useless if you can’t get anyone’s attention in the first place. You have to fight for the first five seconds.

I used to start every public speech the same way, with the emotional words my mom said to me when I told her I was dropping out of school. No introduction, no "hello." I knew I had a tiny window to either hook the audience or become wallpaper.

MrBeast, the world's most famous YouTuber, built his empire on this principle. The first five seconds of every video is a clear, compelling promise that makes you think, "What the heck?" He tells you exactly why you should keep watching, and he does it before your brain has a chance to tune out. The human attention span has shrunk to just eight seconds—less than a goldfish. If you don't grab people immediately, you've already lost them. This is the heart of effective communication & storytelling in the modern age.

The Philosophy of Small Gains

Big breakthroughs rarely come from a single eureka moment. More often, success is the result of obsessing over tiny, incremental improvements—a philosophy the Japanese call "kaizen."

Toyota built its global dominance on this idea of continuous improvement. At Toyota, innovation is everyone’s job, from the CEO to the factory-floor worker. They reportedly implement over one million new ideas each year, most of them tiny suggestions like making a shelf easier to reach or a warning sign font slightly bigger.

To prove this philosophy could work anywhere, Toyota partnered with General Motors in the 1980s to reopen GM's worst-performing plant in Fremont, California. They rehired the same disgruntled workforce but implemented the kaizen system. They empowered employees, simplified management, and created a culture of proactive problem-solving. Within a year, the plant went from being GM's worst to its best in the world. This is a powerful lesson in building high-performance teams: culture and philosophy matter more than anything else.

Applying this to your own life—whether in your career or relationships—can be transformative. A small 1-degree deviation on a flight path results in missing your destination by a mile for every 60 miles flown. The same is true for us. Making small, consistent course corrections through regular check-ins prevents a small miss now from becoming a big miss later. This discipline is a cornerstone of personal growth & self-mastery.

Ultimately, success is born from a series of interconnected principles. It’s about understanding human psychology to stand out from the crowd. It’s about shaping perception, telling compelling stories that grab attention instantly, and fostering a culture of constant, tiny improvements. It's not about one big thing; it's about sweating the small stuff and building a system that allows your team—and yourself—to evolve every single day.