#3 I’ve read that our two brains are driving a car.
Yeah, what the hell am I talking about?!
Hi,
This is Room To Fail, a newsletter about learning how to become a strategist right beside me, a junior-strat that is constantly (and fearfully) looking for things to do wrong & fail at, just to only get them right the next time. Or the next.
I’m Irina. Welcome and buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Hopefully.
🧠⚡︎BRAIN FAILURE
Heeyyy, this is the Feeling Brain speaking. What’s this thing I got myself into?! Who is reading and why should they? Who am I to share this and be listened to? Hold the wheel, Thinking Brain, cause i’m driving with my eyes closed! Or you know what? Just fuck it. Let’s see what happens!
Mark Manson’s Everything is fucked, a book about hope is good. Really good. One thing I loved is this metaphor of our two brains in the same Consciousness Car. The Thinking Brain is the reason, calculating options and expressing things with words, while the Feeling Brain represents emotions, impulses, instincts.
And they’re driving around. We usually believe that the Thinking Brain is driving and the Feeling Brain is grabbing the wheel from time to time or just asks to go places. But what Manson says - and I think it’s so true - is exactly the other way around: the Feeling Brain is always driving and the Thinking Brain is trying to guide it. We truly are moved by emotions and try to control them with some sort of reasoning, don’t you think?
That’s how everybody works, that’s how I work and that’s why I feel like there’s a constant fight inside: I want to do stuff that is good and valuable for me, but I’m afraid I’ll get something wrong. Then I just make up reasons to protect myself (or my Feeling Brain) of the disappointment that I haven’t even tried.
But sometimes I manage to go for that run, wake up early and have breakfast or start a newsletter. How do I manage to get things done when I freak out or need an extra push? Well, sometimes I fail, and sometimes through empathy. From my Thinking Brain to my Feeling Brain. You know - let’s sleep in the car for as long as we need and get going when we’re ready. Because then it may feel like flying.
As strategist, we should work with a whole lot of empathy too. Try to understand better people’s emotions and impulses in order to get their Feeling Brain and Thinking Brain drive the Consciousness Car together towards our brands, enjoy the ride and maybe come again.
How do you get the car running in the right direction?
🤯 “HOW DID THEY THINK ABOUT THAT?!” SECTION
Short links of long videos, but I promise they’re worth your time:
An IsolaTED with Rob Estreitinho, a senior strategist at VCCP London, about philosophy memes and what strategic (and life) wisdom to get from them.
A second IsolaTED with Zoe Scaman, Global Head Of Strategy at Ridley Scott Creative Group in London, about how to try and imagine the future with the help of science fiction & how big brands use sci-fi writers to grow.
Julian Cole’s new YouTube channel with strategy stuff to learn every week.
🍴INTERESTING TOOLS TO GET WRONG
So this week’s about some research work that any junior strat is doing and how to start it so it won’t seem dooming.
I’m talking about a basic competitive review.
Every creative or strategic job I've had needed some kind of assessment of the competition. I used to scan 2-3 competitors to see their tone of voice and main claims before I started writing copy. This helps a lot whatever you do, but I think it’s valuable especially when trying to position a brand in the consumer’s mind (will talk about this some other time).
Now, my competitive reviews have 2 components: a spreadsheet and a slides presentation. First sheets, then slides. Sheets, slides, sheets, slides, sheets, slides. Ok, I’ll stop.
I use the spreadsheet to list the competitors and compare different aspects I find relevant for the project - maybe names, prices, targets, social media numbers and so on - depending on what is our objective.
I use slides to create an image of the industry and where our brand stands now and what’s the opportunity. The slides part feels more like different clusters I gather the info around so it will get easier to draw the conclusions.
How I research, when I stop and more on this is here.
How do you do this? Have any tips?
📚 THE STRATEGY BOOK CLUB
(Underthink it, Adam Pierno - COMPLETED: Y/N, 54 pages)
My bookmark stands on page 54 now. I got to read a bit about how human choice happens. They’re 3 main things we should be careful about: cut as much pain as you can from the consumer journey, don’t make people do complex thinking and be consistent.
First idea is as simple as this equation: JOY - PAIN = VALUE. We should keep that in mind all along our consumer journeys- maybe less clicks from google to purchase, maybe a new feature that makes your product easier to carry around.
Second comes from Daniel Kahneman’s philosophy from Thinking fast and slow. There are two systems people use when making a choice. System 1 is automatic, fast, efficient but imperfect. It guides all decisions that don’t need much brain power like getting to work everyday or buying bread. System 2 needs more processing power to compare pros and cons, to take conscious effort. Like when you’re buying a house or a car. So next time think about which system serves the customer when deciding for your products and try making it as much of a system 1 as you can.
And third is about this:
Sometimes we make choices that conflict with how we see ourselves. It could be something small like buying a brand out of the norm or bigger - like acting in self-interest or greed. This action confuses us because we want to believe we are steady and reliably part of our group.
This is cognitive dissonance - our Feeling Brain doesn’t know where he’s going & makes some random choices and our Thinking Brain is confused, tries to rationalise the choices and make up reasons why it was ok the way we behaved. That’s what we, as communicators, cause when a brand is marketed one way and the experience with it is different.
So try not to cause more pain, more thinking and more frustration. Easier said than done, right?!
What do you think (with the Feeling Brain or the Thinking Brain)?
Use empathy on yourself and others - especially now.
Stay curious and keep failing - only to become better,
i.
Hi! Strategist in San Francisco here. Just wanted to say that I'm loving these posts. Especially admire the gumption to write and the organizational scheme you got going on. Keep it up!