Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

by Chip Heath

For an idea to stick, for it to be useful and lasting, it’s got to make the audience: 1. Pay attention 2. Understand and remember it 3. Agree/Believe 4. Care 5. Be able to act on it

Pay attention: UNEXPECTED 2. Understand and remember it: CONCRETE 3. Agree/Believe: CREDIBLE 4. Care: EMOTIONAL 5. Be able to act on it: STORY

The SUCCESs checklist, then, is an ideal tool for dealing with communication problems.

This book is filled with normal people facing normal problems who did amazing things simply by applying these principles (even if they weren’t aware that they were doing it). These people are so normal that you probably won’t even recognize their names when you see them. Their names aren’t sticky, but their stories are.

All these people distinguished themselves by crafting ideas that made a difference. They didn’t have power or celebrity or PR firms or advertising dollars or spinmeisters. All they had were ideas. And that’s the great thing about the world of ideas—any of us, with the right insight and the right message, can make an idea stick.