Swapnil Devre says we humans think within boundaries. We think within legal boundaries, physical boundaries, moral boundaries, and technological boundaries. And if you break any of these boundaries you stand out easily. A criminal stands out, someone who broke the physical 4-minute mile limit stands out. Advertisers keep pushing the moral boundaries of what is socially acceptable to stand out. And then there are technological boundaries that if you break people easily notice you, like previously impossible technology realized is a good way to stand out.
People believed that electric cars will never become cheap, all you have to do now is to breach that wall and people will gawk at you. When someone breaks the bubble that people are inside, they notice. So, find what people consider as impossible, figure out the boundary, and breach.
When I started, my network just knew me as this regular guy from India, and people by default assume that everyone around them is average until something happens. This was the initial perception, people perceived that I am an average guy. But average guys don’t post their client testimonials and payment screenshots. So when I started posting all these stuff I broke a bubble, I breached their perception about me. So people noticed, I got messages from people that I hadn’t talked to in years. But now the perception has changed, now posting payment screenshots and testimonial videos don’t help me stand out, people expect me to do it. This is my new bubble, and if I challenge this perception again people will notice. I got featured on small publications, again my network didn’t see that coming. So it grabbed attention.
Unexpected behavior and events grab our attention. This means if people perceive me as successful and if I say one day suddenly without a hint that I am going bankrupt this too will break the news cycle and grab attention. What people expect from you matters, only then you can challenge that expectation and grab attention.
Luckily, the entire world expects you to continue on your current path and this makes it easy to disrupt their bubble. All you gotta do is breach any of the boundaries. If people expect you to do a 9 to 5 then closing your first client will break the perception and this makes people extremely curious. They want to know more about it, it’s like a road accident. Why do road accidents grab attention? Do we not know that an accident is a thing? It’s because we weren’t expecting it. If you are expecting it, it won’t captivate you.
And fortunately, there is too much inertia in people’s perception. So just about anything can grab attention. But the problem is I am a human too, this makes me unable to see the boundary myself unless I devote some time and energy to think about it. So put some thought into this.
Swapnil Devre is the Founder and CEO of Upstage Media. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
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