Shiny Object Syndrome – Why We Keeping Buying

You know the feeling. You get an email promoting a new product launch. It catches your attention but you already have three other pieces of training you are trying to get through. Your tendency is to get distracted so you just ignore it. You delete it.

“Not this time,” you say to yourself.

Of course, if it’s a good launch you know the emails will keep coming so deleting it wasn’t that big a risk. If you have been playing this game for a while you can expect text messages and maybe even a voice drop or two.

Ah those internet marketers, they really know how to surround you with chances to have a look, right?

Just take a look. You know, to see what’s new or interesting that could support what you already have lined up. Hey, it might even give you an edge over the other students in this course.

You resist for weeks but an hour before midnight on the last day of the launch, you watch the final replay.

Wow, it’s a good thing too because this is EXACTLY what you were looking for. All those other pieces of training were great, and you probably could have made them work, but this, this really suite your style.

With 15 minutes left on the counter, you hit the sales page and buy it.

Just in time!

You feel the rush of hope and anticipation. Training starts in two days and my goodness are you ever ready to get started.

In the meantime, you read everything you can find about the product. You go back through all the emails you didn’t delete (insightful of you to hang on to those). You read the online reviews and get so excited you wish you could sign up again. What about those bad reviews? Well, they are just some guys trying to jack the keywords to promote their own loser programs. Seen that before.

You think “Come on Come on, release the training! This is it! I am so there!!”

Day One of the Training.
You devour the material. You are on the call. You are asking questions. You know what to ask and how the trainer should answer. You are a pro at this. You are a pro because you have so much experience that till now has been wasted on all the wrong strategies.

Day Two of the Training.
I am thinking “Why do they have to drip this stuff out? If I don’t keep moving forward, I’m going to stall.”

Thank God for this coronavirus thing or there’s no way I could have found the time to devote to this. I may still even get the chance to finish that last course. Lord knows I paid enough for it. As well as the one before. Oh God, the one before.

Well, I’m glad I finally found my way.

Day Three of the Training.
I’m not sure I understand how to get this assignment done. I’ll just come back to it once I get through the full course with a clear picture on how it all fits together, then it will make sense.

Day Four of the Training.
I should see how this fits in with the training that I started last week.

Day Five of the Training.
An email comes into your inbox. You try to ignore it but the pressure is on.

Why the hell didn’t I wait a few days so I could afford this product instead?

Maybe I can get a refund, on something.

When is that virus check coming in?
——————-
Hello, my name is Rick Daniel and I feel like I just beat myself over the head with that description.

Too real!

The story is real enough, even if the current events have changed. I have the bankruptcy papers to prove it.

WHY DO WE KEEP BUYING NEW COURSES?
Why do we continue to jump from one course to another before we even give the thing we are doing a chance to fail for real, or, imagine this, actually work?

I am smart. I got good grades. My brick and mortar business did well. I’m not afraid of taking a chance. I have faced my fears and done it anyway. I even jumped out of an airplane. Twice!

Why can’t I do this simple thing?

I used to say I was cursed. You know, some outside evil entity or voodoo girl must have put a spell on me.

I have blamed my failure on some past life karmic debt I owe.

I’ll bet you didn’t know I had four planets in retrograde when I was born, did you? It’s true. I was doomed by the stars themselves.

WHAT I DISCOVERED
Over time, persistence and personal inquiry I have made some important discoveries.

What I discovered is the problem is not “out there” floating in the cosmos. No curse, no evil stars, no voodoo girl.

What I discovered was being brave is not the key. Nor was being positive, enthusiastic, well prepared, poorly prepared or aloof.

What I discovered was those were all ways I found to stall and distract myself from doing the actual work that needs to be done to get something built, branded and found.

What I discovered was unless I found a way to change my brain chemistry and rewrite the code in my nervous system, nothing was ever going to be any different. I don’t care how perfect and step by step with nothing held back to guarantee success the training claims to be, unless I changed inside, I would always be presented with yet another reason to quit.

What I discovered was it’s not my fault, although changing it is my total responsibility and completely within my ability.

SHINY OBJECT SYNDROME – WHY WE KEEPING BUYING

Why do we keep buying?

Let me quote myself and perhaps the answer will be evident:
“You feel the rush of hope and anticipation.”
“…and get so excited you wish you could sign up again.”
“Come on Come on, release the training! This is it! I am so there!!”
You can actually feel it.

It’s the rush.

We are addicted. And the copywriters know it.

SCIENCE TIME WITH WIKIPEDIA
The second we opened that email a complex series of chemical reactions began to occur in our nervous system triggering emotions that can range between survival and pleasure, depending on our unique experiences and memories.

The flood of hormones that enter our brains once the marketing message penetrates our meager defenses makes us completely vulnerable. Those hormones are called catecholamines (catuh-cola-meenz). Perhaps the most familiar is dopamine.

“The fight-or-flight response (also called hyperarousal, or the acute stress response) is a physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival… more specifically, the adrenal medulla produces a hormonal cascade that results in the secretion of catecholamines, especially norepinephrine and epinephrine. The hormones estrogen, testosterone, and cortisol, as well as the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin, also affect how organisms react to stress.”

Dopamine: “The brain includes several distinct dopamine pathways, one of which plays a major role in the motivational component of reward-motivated behavior.” Source: Wikipedia

Dopamine triggers pleasure centers of the brain. It’s a kind of natural high. It feels good, it feels appropriate or it feels soothing.

It has very little to do with what is rational, for example, here is how we might explain our reasoning for buying all these products, tools, training and systems.

“I am creating an online business to improve my family’s lifestyle and build for my retirement blah blah blah.”
Or
“With the income, I will be able to open a school for the underprivileged children in our community and blah blah blah.”

Now those are very good, rational and even noble reasons for building an online business.

We are even instructed by our guru-mentors to write out our BIG WHY and put it on the walls so we are always reminded of it. Without being reminded of our BIG WHY we will lose focus and fail.

So, the BIG WHY may be our rational justification for spending the money, but the purchase impulse generated deep down in our brain was “Buying is what I crave.”

It really isn’t our fault. From the time we were conceived our nervous system has evolved to where we are today. Our nervous system’s job has been to keep us safe and alive in a hostile world. If you are reading this, your nervous system has been very successful at doing its job.

Now, for whatever reason, we automatically respond to the copywriter’s message because of the feelings it triggers. That impulse may be so deep we can’t even articulate it, but we sure do feel it, and that is where we have the ability to do something about it.

My own conclusion is that feelings are the physical response to the memories/beliefs held in mind. Beliefs are not reality but are limited constructs of reality that help us function in society and the immediate physical environment. They are also markers that can help direct us in the direction we need to proceed if we are truly interested in living a new reality.

OK, SO NOW WHAT
In 2011 I had to take a year off from my internet marketing efforts.

By then the economic downturn of 2008 had pretty much killed my home inspection business and, well, it’s a long story for another time.

I had to stop my marketing efforts and devote time to my mental/emotional health.

It was that or drive off a cliff. Yeah, that bad.

MY FOUR MOST EFFECTIVE DECISIONS
I found four resources that helped change my life, and may have literally saved it.

1. The Sedona Method
2. Hoʻoponopono
3. Coach Wendy Hart
4. “Pitch Anything” by Oren Klaff
No links here. Look them up.

The Sedona Method training gave me the primary tools to DIY reprogram my subconscious mind. Amazing, simple. The tools helped to dissolve the underlying memories and subconscious structures of fear and stress. Get the video for an inexpensive way to see how fast the method works.

Hoʻoponopono is an ancient Polynesian practice which essentially means “correction” or “to make right.” The idea is to utilize the powers of forgiveness, thankfulness, and reconciliation to eliminate un-serving energy and emotional baggage.

The practice teaches us to consider reality from two points of reference:
1. Is what I am experiencing derived from memory or,
2. Is what I am experiencing actually happening now?
“What I crave” is driven by memory, not actual need.

Both the Sedona Method and Hoʻoponopono teach us how to escape the hooks of the past by dissolving and releasing the emotional memories that insist on maintaining themselves as part of our “personality.”

My own conclusions inform that when we begin to let go of our insistence of being who we “think” we are, which is also a form of addiction, we begin to free ourselves to new opportunities. When we free the creative potential locked in our subjective minds from the bounds of limited belief we can access the tools we already have inside.

In my opinion, Coach Wendy Hart is one of the most effective self-support coaches on the planet. I would not call her a motivational speaker. What she does is so much more powerful. I consider her to be a master at implementing the most powerful subjective mind-clearing tools and techniques available anywhere.

I spent nearly a year in one of her amazing courses. It seemed to me her ability to cut through to the “hidden places” was astounding, all the while honoring the ecology of the mind. That’s important. The idea of ripping and slashing through the subjective mind is not helpful.

Teachers who instruct “Power” methods of change are touting outdated ideas of self-motivation and will power. Those techniques are short-lived and do not reach the part of the mind that matters. The BIG WHY ideas come from this school of thought.

“Pitch Anything” is a technical book about selling but from a reference point that is centered on understanding the primitive mind, the “Croc Mind” as Oren calls it. An understanding of how the brain processes information and makes decisions is crucial for any person in the business of marketing and sales. This book provides a practical method for applying that knowledge in real-world situations.

I would suggest you start with this book to get a fast, inexpensive education on how to train the brain to be an ally instead of a roadblock, odd as that may sound.

Thank you for your time and interest.

MY MARKETING MOMENT
I invite you to visit my website https://ImTestLabs.com for a deep look into John Thornhill’s Ambassador system. John has obliterated the traditional Affiliate Marketing paradigm with a fresh, REALLY FAST approach to launching an online business.

Sincerely Yours,
Rick Daniel

This is a guest post from Rick Daniel, if you would like to be considered for a guest post please contact me.