He's back!

I'll be honest, I can't even remember the last time I wrote a blog post. I think it was before I moved to Vancouver though, so that puts it at over six months.

Oops.

For the longest time there, I just told myself I was focusing on other things, which was at least partly true. I'm focusing more than ever on a new book I'm writing, and am actually making progress. I even have production deadlines for myself and I'm about 60% done and only a week behind. Considering I'm the only person keeping me accountable (and I have a poor track record of that), that's a good win in my books.

But to claim I didn't have time to revisit this as well as that is just not true. I sure had time for a lot of other nonsense.

--And a lot of fun.

One thing I'll say about BC: there's never a shortage of activity. The snowboard season is five months long and there's plenty of overlap with the biking season. It rains a lot but there are always breaks long enough to run through the mountain trails.

But even still: this isn't much of a commitment. This is the easy stuff--the no-brainer/no-pressure stuff. This is just me writing.

That's why I'm back. I gotta write.

I just got through the first forty-odd pages of the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. One lesson I've gotten so far: choosing the person you want to be is more important than setting the goal you want to achieve. And when you figure out who you ought to be, you act like it.

I'm a writer. This is me acting like it.

Consistently nailing 500 new words for the book every day would also be acting like it, but doing this once a week is an easier win.

So we're back! The new plan will be: dedicate at least 1hr every week to sit at a pub and noodle out a few words. (That's not a saying, but I think you'll get where I'm coming from.)

Now the question is: do I have something to talk about?

Sure, let's tell a story.

I just finished a chapter of the book talking a lot about cognitive biases, then just yesterday had a fun awareness moment with one.

I get my coffee from this place called Nemesis. Their packaging is beautiful. Each roast (they usually have twelve at a time) gets its own nicely-coloured box. I have two in my cupboard right now (I was running low so I bought a second for when I run out).

Yesterday, when I opened the cupboard to grab the day's beans, I saw the two next to each other and thought, "wow, how nice would it be to have a whole shelf full of those different boxes."

I semi-seriously considered buying an extra five boxes for aesthetics alone. Cooler heads prevailed—because it's obviously ridiculous to spend $100 on coffee that’ll go stale long before I have a chance to drink it.

But then...

I started thinking, "wouldn't it be nice to have a bunch of different coffees to choose from every morning?" I pictured the experience: the kettle is heating up, filter's in the pour-over, and I go to my cupboard and hum & haw over how fruity vs. nutty vs. chocolaty I want the morning to be.

That doesn't sound nearly as insane. Suddenly I'm talking myself into this idea that, at first, made absolutely zero sense and had no business being explored at all.

I think that's a strange example of "anchoring."

Typically, anchoring is when the first piece of information you receive influences the rest of a thought process. The first number thrown out in a pricing negotiation becomes a reference point for all future bids, for example.

In this though, one random thought popped into my head: having a variety of coffee is cool. The reason I initially thought that was dumb, but the thought was there. I then actively looked for other things that supported that first thought.

I'm now realizing: I was emotionally attached to the idea. When I pictured the pretty cupboard, I felt satisfaction and--oddly enough--pride. I imagined other people seeing my selection and saying, "ooh look at that."

“Having a bunch of coffees to choose from is good,” was anchored. From there, I actively sought ways to support the idea—even though the first reason was silly.

When I caught on to what I was doing, my first thought was, "how can this be weaponized in marketing?" Creating packaging that encourages buying multiples of something is an easy trick. You could do it with cases of pop that, when put together, form a picture. It's dumb, but it's something. It gets people to start thinking about having multiples of the thing. In case they realize that's a dumb reason to buy 36 cans of coke at the same time, maybe you put them on sale, or introduce flavour tweaks. Then it's not that crazy at all!

I then started to wonder how this works with the misinformation or conspiracy pipelines. You can lead with something that's completely baseless, but drops the anchor. When it's found to be dumb as hell—no problem. It's done its job: the seed’s in place. Now, the unsuspecting victim tries to corroborate the idea on their own.

Example:

There was a video floating around social media talking about how guys never get compliments. It was an emotional plea to create empathy for the men who feel unloved.

It was also a seed to say, "equality has already gone too far." There was an idea there: it's harder to be a man.

That's not true.

Even if that one example is sometimes true, the broad idea isn't true. But the seed is there.

It could be days or weeks later, but if you're still on social media, that video will be followed up by something from Jordan Peterson, or a meme saying, "when's International Men's Day?" and the narrative builds.

The first video was seemingly innocuous—like coloured boxes of coffee! Not a lot was said, but it set a baseline for the story to come. A part of us holds onto the underlying message—even if we can explain away some (or all) of the facts that led to the belief.

For whatever reason, we think having a bunch of coffee is good. It’s then not very hard to talk ourselves into buying more than we need.

Moral of the story: pay attention to the seeds. If you find a friend (or yourself) parroting some seemingly-innocuous lines from a meme, ask if there are any anchored ideas carried with them. Even if someone just jokes about international men’s day, or says the $0.72 gender pay gap is due to career choices, check in. They know there’s inequality out there, right?

Root out the anchors. It’s way easier to do that than to resurface after being dragged into the deep waters of bullshit.