A few months ago, I went to a local old-school movie theater and queued in a line that stretched around the block. In the entire line, there were maybe three women. The rest were all guys, mostly young guys, under 25.
The movie being shown was Fight Club.
I got several valuable snapshots from that experience. The most valuable was an exchange from the actual movie, a scene in which the main character, “the Narrator,” played by Ed Norton, meets Tyler Durden, played by Brad Pitt.
The two are sitting next to each other on a plane. Tyler starts telling the Ed Norton character how you can make all kinds of explosives using simple household items. And then the following exchange goes down:
NARRATOR: Tyler, you are by far the most interesting single-serving friend I have ever met. [Pause.] See I have this thing, everything on a plane is single-serving—
TD: Oh, I get it. It’s very clever.
NARRATOR Thank you.
TD: How is that working out for you? Being clever?
NARRATOR [a little unnerved, shrugs his shoulders.] Great.
TD: Keep that up then. Keep it right up.
I read an article a few months ago, The Impotence of Being Clever. It’s one of a few related blips on my radar. Another was a second article, Beware What Sounds Insightful.
Both articles circle around the growing mass-realization that things that sound clever and insightful often aren’t — that “insightful” is a brand of shiny varnish that can be applied to any cheap furniture.
Last fall, I put on a live training called Age of Insight. It was all about exactly this brand of shiny varnish. About presentation techniques that take any idea and make it sound profound.
I’ve done a ton of thinking about this topic, and as a result, Age of Insight is the most in-depth treatment of it that anybody has created, at least to my knowledge.
Like I wrote back when I was putting on that training, I believe insightful presentation techniques will become mandatory in coming years. You will have to know them and use them, just like you have to know copywriting techniques to effectively sell a product, at least if you want to do it in writing.
There’s a deeper parallel there:
You can use copywriting techniques to sell a mediocre product. And you will sell some of it, definitely more than if you didn’t use proven copywriting techniques. But you are unlikely to sell a lot of it, or sell it for very long.
On the other hand, you can use copywriting techniques to sell a good or even great product. You can make a fortune doing that, feel good about it, and even enjoy the process for the long term.
The same with this insight stuff.
You can use insightful presentation techniques to sell a mediocre idea. And you will do better than if you didn’t use them at all.
But if you also find a genuinely novel, surprising, even mind-blowing idea, and then use insight techniques to sell that — well, the result can be explosive, and it can survive for the long term.
I’m not sure when will I re-release Age of Insight, which deals with the presentation side. But right now, I’m releasing Insight Exposed, which is about good or great “insight products” — meaning novel, surprising, even mind-blowing ideas.
Insight Exposed is only available to people who are on my email list. If you’d like to get on my list, click here and fill ou the form that appears.