Quotes from Chip Heath

In 1925, John Caples was assigned to write a headline for an advertisement promoting the correspondence music course offered by the U.S. School of Music. Caples had no advertising experience, but he was a natural. He sat at his typewriter and pecked out the most famous headline in print-advertising history: "They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano. . .But When I Started to Play!

relatively small changes—cooking with sweet-potato greens, greeting Bobby at the door—had a big impact on a big problem. There is a clear asymmetry between the scale of the problem and the scale of the solution. Big problem, small solution.

In purchasing a piggy, you're basically paying $10 in hopes of protecting $22 in spare change from your own hands. Life is full of these piggy-bank situations

The last defense of the charlatan is always that something is 'strategic.

Big problems are rarely solved with commensurately big solutions. Instead, they are most often solved by a sequence of small solutions, sometimes over weeks, sometimes over decades.

human-scale principle allows us to bring our intuition to bear in assessing whether the content of a message is credible.

tangibility, rather than the magnitude, of the benefits that makes people care.

Also, cognitive dissonance works in your favor. People don't like to act in one way and think in another. So once a small step has been taken, and people have begun to act in a new way, it will be increasingly difficult for them to dislike the way they're acting. Similarly, as people begin to act differently, they'll start to think of themselves differently, and as their identity evolves, it will reinforce the new way of doing things.

WHAT WE SHOULD learn from urban legends and the Mrs. Johnson trial is that vivid details boost credibility. But what should also be added is that we need to make use of truthful, core details. We need to identify details that are as compelling and human as the "Darth Vader toothbrush" but more meaningful—details that symbolize and support our core idea.

We should make an effort to praise ingenious solutions to customers' problems.

But in many circumstances this is a false choice for one compelling reason: If a message can't be used to make predictions or decisions, it is without value, no matter how accurate or comprehensive it is.

a Simple Unexpected Concrete Credentialed Emotional Story. A clever observer will note that this sentence can be compacted into the acronym SUCCESs. This

When change works, it tends to follow a pattern. The people who change have clear direction, ample motivation, and a supportive environment.

Our relationships are stronger when we perceive that our partners are responsive to us. (The term used frequently is "perceived partner responsiveness.") Responsiveness encompasses three things: Understanding: My partner knows how I see myself and what is important to me. Validation: My partner respects who I am and what I want. Caring: My partner takes active and supportive steps in helping me meet my needs.

A single M&M has 4 calories. In order to burn off the calories in a single M&M, you'd have to walk 2 flights of stairs.

LET'S SUM UP WHERE we are. If you think about a normal decision process, it usually proceeds in four steps: • You encounter a choice. • You analyze your options. • You make a choice. • Then you live with it. And what we've seen is that there is a villain that afflicts each of these stages: • You encounter a choice. But narrow framing makes you miss options.

In a survey of 10,000 employees from the 1,000 largest companies, 40% of workers cited "lack of recognition" as a key reason for leaving a job.

Even in failure there is success.

There are, in fact, only two ways to beat the Curse of Knowledge reliably. The first is not to learn anything. The second is to take your ideas and transform them.

That's a moment of shared meaning. It instills not the pride of individual accomplishment, but the profound sense of connection that comes from subordinating ourselves to a greater mission. After the All-Staff Assembly

Deadlines focus our mental spotlight on a choice. They grab us by the collar and say, If you're gonna do this, you have to do it now. In

When you want someone to behave in a new way, explain the "new way" clearly. Don't assume the new moves are obvious.

In most change situations, the parameters aren't well understood, and the future is fuzzy. Because of the uncertainty that change brings, the Elephant is reluctant to move, and analytical arguments will not overcome that reluctance. (If

tap more profound motivations.