Once upon a time, my friend Robert and I decided to do a spa day. We were
both feeling a bit weary and burnt out and needed to recharge.
At the spa, they offered a variety of services: massages, facials, manicures, and a beverage station filled with elixirs that would supposedly clear our skin, cure depression, ensure our eternal salvation, file our taxes, and more!
But we were especially intrigued by the "zero gravity chair."
"We'd like to do that, please."
We didn't know what to expect. Was this chair going to rocket us into outer space? Make us levitate? What was going to happen?
Here's what happened.
A lovely woman instructed each of us to sit in a large, soft chair. Then she swaddled each of us in a blanket like an infant, tenderly tucking the cloth beneath our feet. Then she dimmed the lights and left the room, promising to knock gently upon her return.
The door clicked shut as the spa attendant departed.
We heard a soft whirring of machinery...
And then...
The chair...
Tilted backwards about 10 inches.
Lowering our heads slightly while elevating our feet a tiny bit.
It seemed pretty anti-climactic. Robert and I glanced at each other, wondering, "Is this it? Is this the whole thing?" But then, within one minute, any doubts dissipated because Robert was in a deep meditative trance and I was drifting dreamily through the cosmos of my mind. That subtle tilt backward was astonishingly soothing. It sent us into another realm of reality.
Thirty minutes later, we both awakened and said, "Whoa."
Robert noted, "There's a lesson here," and I nodded in agreement.
The lesson is: simplicity is powerful and less is more.
If you run a business, you may feel an urge to over-deliver and give more, more, more to your clients or customers. More information. More lessons. More worksheets. More add-ons. More bonuses. More perks. More complexity.
But really, what your clients want (and need) is to be swaddled in a blanket and then tilted backward 10 inches.
The simplest product or service is often the best.
If you want to shift people's lives, do less.
-Alex
PS. Are you currently working on a project that feels unnecessarily complicated? What could you edit, subtract, remove? How could you make things simpler for you & for the people you serve?
PPS. When I'm doing a writing or editing project for a client, I always ask, "What is the one message that you want to impart to your reader, more than anything else?" One message, not forty messages. For a greater impact, say less.