Good Afternoon
,
During the past few years, I've worked with several coaches and other advisors. Among other things, I've been learning how to make use of the enormous power of the subconscious mind.
As we discussed a few weeks ago, the subconscious mind and the RAS* work together to control what we pay attention to.
*Reticular Activation System, described in
this issue of
The Unity Community.
Here's a great article by
Christine Lagorio-Chafkin describing the rocky journey of Michael Acton Smith. He's the founder of the mobile application named "Calm". This app and some related functions help people meditate, and to fall asleep. Good sleep and effective meditation are keys to a balanced mind and top personal performance.
In my own work I've been blown away by the effects of this truth. Some sense of the workings of the subconscious mind is important in applying this.
As Smith learned about marketing, selling, mobile app development, etc. he had many hard lessons. Among them, he learned:
The value of an engaging story.
The fickleness of markets, especially in the entertainment space.
The difficulty of raising money.
That users often turn a product developer's aim on its head. They find other uses, which may be unrelated to what the developer intended.
Smith and his partner originally built the app to aid meditation. It quieted the mind to help reach the alpha state, so crucial to meditation.
Watching the usage of the app, they saw a spike in the open rate in the late evening. "Hmm", they thought, "What's that all about?" Well, it turned out people were using the app to settle down, so they would go to sleep at night.
With that new insight, they developed more functions and other apps to make the go-to-sleep aspect more effective.
Christine ably relates Acton Smith's many-year saga (up to now) and the lessons he learned. It's a fascinating story! I hope you'll
check it out.