Yesterday I wrote about “Hot Spots & Strange Attractors” – how a little mess multiplies into a big one; how little successes multiply into big ones. I said it’s all “chaos theory.” Roundtable member Susan Kruger got a chuckle and said:
I am *laughing out loud* that the thing that prompted you to pick up the magazine was Chaos Theory! Not, “keeping things clean” or “avoid the ‘nagging wife.'” No, it’s Chaos Theory. That’s awesome! (Have I mentioned how much you remind me of my brother?
I replied:
Well…. to be completely honest, it was the thought “If I leave that magazine on the floor, it will turn into 3 by noon.”
She shot back:
I would still argue that your awareness of chaos theory is what inspired you to pick up the magazine. And, really, I genuinely enjoy your perspective. When my brother turned 16, he drove out to Kalamazoo to visit me in college. On the return trip, he went the wrong way on i94; almost made it to Indiana before noticing his mistake.
What tripped his awareness was not the signs to “Chicago” instead of “Detroit.” It wasn’t the fact that none of the scenery looked familiar or that he was driving into the sun. It was the fact that the mile markers were going in the wrong direction. (!)
That was a defining moment for me; recognizing how very differently we see the world! Helped me understand why we never got along.
Once I recognized how our personalities are different, we’ve gotten along beautifully. He calls me for relationship advice and I call him for math and engineering questions. (I’m “making” him read your 80/20 book right now, actually.) That’s why I enjoyed the magazine/chaos theory episode so much.
She’s right: People experience the world VERY differently. I, and obviously Susan’s brother, both have a mathematical grid that shades pretty much everything we see – including peoples’ emotions.
What I wouldn’t give to spend ONE hour in some other human being’s skin, perceiving the world exactly as they do. What a revelation that would be.
What I believe is that all of us experience the EXACT same feelings of sadness, joy, loneliness, anger, frustration, rage, hope, hopelessness in our inner sanctum, in our hearts. But that the actual buttons that trigger those feelings are vastly different.
While we’re at it: Does red look and feel the same way to you as red looks to me? We both see a red Corvette and we both say it’s red, but do we experience red the same way?
We may not. And I’m not sure there’s any way to know. Philosophers call that “Qualia” – the subjective conscious experience of a unique individual.
What all marketers must do – and what great marketers do very well – is translate our own limited, peculiar, eccentric view of the world into language that somehow manages to describe everybody, or most people, or at least “enough” people.
That’s why odd conversations like this are so valuable.
Share This Post
About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
2 Comments on “How differently we all see the world”
“Does red look and feel the same way to you as red looks to me?” – the answer has to be a “yes”. Remember people “see red” – the impact of the colour via such things as the Luscher colour test is also testament to this.
Red is red.
However, what it means to us is not always the same. It will evoke different memories in all of us – for me my father’s favourite puzzle of a railway engine. For you, what?
Understanding what people like is the key to marketing, and is expressed on your part by your USP. Those who truly value it are your best customers. You know from the tactical triangle that you cannot force this on people without devaluing it.
I’d like to add that colours are an everyday experience for all of us. There are things that are, how can you put this? Constants. We all see the sun as yellow; yet looking straight at it on a bright day, it’s all but white.
It’s only yellow when seen through the atmosphere – and at sunset on a hazy summer’s day it can appear even darker – as a deep red (but never more than red!). Yellow in this instance is “lightness darkened” as Goethe would have put it.
Yet looking at the darkness of night, it’s all but black. With the daytime atmosphere filled with light, the sky is blue. Looking up just now in my back garden, the sky is a blue that can only be described as the truest blue. You can say that blue is “darkness lightened”.
Take a thin piece of paper and hold it in front of a candle and in a darkened room you’ll see the near-white flame become yellower.
This is no coincidence. Taking the understanding that Goethe had of the world will bring you a realization of how green comes into being – for green stands in the middle of the rainbow.