Imagine if other industries behaved like the health and fitness industry…using the same off-the-wall marketing and the same “action before education or preparation” mentality.
Imagine this approach in…say… aerospace engineering:
Speaker: And in conclusion, that is my theory on how to land a space shuttle quicker and more efficiently then ever before.
Potential Investor: Wow! The was so fascinating.
Speaker: Thank you.
Potential Investor: I had no idea that the trigonometry involved in calculating the landing vectors of a space shuttle could be so simple!
Speaker: I know right? It’s actually based on this One Weird Trick…most people are trying to bring the space shuttle back to earth, which is completely wrong, what I’m proposing is that we bring the earth UP to the space shuttle.
Potential Investor: Wow…I didn’t even know that was possible! Where on earth did you learn that, MIT?
Speaker: Oh no, I don’t have a degree in aerospace engineering or anything like that, I have in the trenches experience.
Potential Investor: Pardon me?
Speaker: Yeah I have over 15 years experience working at future shop fixing computers, plus I spend over 2,000 dollars every year on subscriptions to Popular Science and Scientific American, because…well let’s face it, they don’t teach this kind of stuff in school.
Potential Investor: So, you’ve never actually studied anything directly related to space flight?
Speaker: Well I wouldn’t’ say that. I’m a star with computers, I’ve won multiple amateur rocket building contests…I’d say I know things that NASA doesn’t know, because they are too caught up in their classic view of ‘science’ and ‘physics’.
Potential Investor: So NASA has it all…backwards?
Speaker: Oh yeah, I mean, if you look at the money trail it becomes obvious what’s going on…
Potential Investor: It does?
Speaker: Oh yeah, all the funding for their research comes from the people who make Rocket Fuel..so no wonder they want the space shuttle to come back to earth, think of all the money they are making.
Potential Investor: But you think that instead we should bring the earth to the space shuttle?
Speaker: Absolutely, it’s faster, more efficient, all natural and uses zero fuels and produces zero emissions. I follow some of the top bloggers on this topic and they all agree with me, plus I have a collection of scientific abstracts to back me up.
Potential Investor: Wouldn’t it be dangerous to move the Earth out of its Orbit?
Speaker: That’s what they WANT you to think, but it would actually be the best thing to ever happen to the earth.
Potential Investor: Hmmmm. OK sound good, let’s do it.
It doesn’t seem to make sense here, so why do we it let if fly when it comes to our health?
In the realm of health, fitness and weight loss many people are actually promising the concept of ‘moving the earth’ instead of simply returning the shuttle as quickly and easy as possible. In other words, they’re completely ignoring what needs to be done and trying to impress you with what can never be done.
It’s OK to make it sound simple…”look, I know how to get weight loss accomplished, and I can’t make it sound like I’m actually going to move the earth to do it…it’s just a lot simpler than that”…as long as you are still being realistic, explaining what is, and what is not possible, and sticking within your realm of expertise.
The bottom line – if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is,
BP
PS- Just to make sure I wasn’t completely out to lunch with my analogy I ran this past my friend Brad Howard…(You probably know him from the Adonis Effect, but he’s also an aerospace engineer)..This is what he said:
when I was in school for ae, I had a homework assignment that I “winged” and didn’t use any of the methods for solving the problem that had been discussed in class. Proud that my methods got results that matched the actual results that happened in the real world, I happily turned in my paper only to get a fat F back the next day…I badgered the professor about my grade, noting the “accuracy” of my methods to which he replied…
“Using your method, you have come to the correct answer ONCE… however, in this field, when you mess up, people DIE… so you better be damn sure you know what you’re doing when you propose something untested.”
Really, same goes for health and fitness…people may not die, but it IS their lives that are at stake.
