Summary

Most of the "problems" you're exposed to every day aren't important at all. If you learn the formula advertisers use to program your psyche, you'll be better at identifying bullshit and cutting it out of your life.


Body

The average person is exposed to 5,000 advertisements a day. Whether you like it or not, you’re surrounded by companies desperately trying to fuck with your psyche. These days, with all the hype of “content marketing,” more and more of what you consume will attempt to convince you that something is wrong with your life.

In advertising, there’s a formula used in virtually everything called Problem-Agitate-Solve. It’s used in everything because it fucking works. Our caveman brains are hardwired to seek out solutions to perceived problems. The keyword there is perceived. Most “problems” are invented by marketers, and the Agitate stage of Problem-Agitate-Solve is used to make them feel very real. They’re not real problems.

But once you acknowledge a potential problem, your brain instantly releases dopamine. You’ll be more alert, more focused, and curious to find a solution. Companies don’t want you to find a solution right away, especially information-based products. They want to keep you on the dopamine-ride for as long as possible, so they can milk your attention for all the revenue it’s worth (and it’s worth a lot).

To the untrained eye it can be easy to internalize a perceived lack in certain areas of your life. However, letting someone else define the problems in your life is blue pill behavior. Humans are very simple creatures, we don’t need a lot of things. You need to eat well, lift, socialize, and fuck things. Beyond that, you have total freedom, so take control of your life and ignore the bullshit.

How? Well, it’s been called names like “monk mode,” but it really boils down to a few steps:

  1. Eliminating distractions.
  2. Improving SMV.
  3. Figuring out what’s important to you (and only you).
  4. Pursuing that until you die.

So, open your eyes and evaluate your life regularly. Start noticing where marketers drop “problem” seeds in your psyche to grow, and cut them out where possible.


Conclusion

Once you get really good at noticing the various forms Problem-Agitate-Solve can take, you can cut the bullshit out of your life and start using the formula to influence others. (Just like I did in this post.)