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Kindle Notes & Highlights
People are born average and die unique.
Experience shapes you.
A hit is new wine aged in old oak, or a stranger who somehow feels like a friend—a familiar surprise.
Quote
People like a challenge if they think they can solve it.
The home rental company Airbnb was once called “eBay for homes.” The on-demand car service companies Uber and Lyft were once considered “Airbnb for cars.” When Uber took off, new start-ups took to branding themselves “Uber for …” anything.
Best example of familiar but new
They concluded that the most successful headlines on Reddit presented novel images or stories while “[conforming] to the linguistic norms of the community to which it is submitted.”
Reddit research
“How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the ark?” Many respondents said two. But when the question was printed in a harder-to-read font, respondents were 35 percent more likely to recognize that it was Noah, not Moses, who built the ark.
It is precisely because great narratives seduce us that the best stories deserve the greatest skepticism.
