The Sunscreen Effect

As an adult, I’ve finally learned to put on sunscreen regularly. I lather some on every morning before heading to work, I apply it liberally before heading out to the pool, heck, I even wear sun shirts.

But reapplying after a few hours, or after a run or a swim? I’m not so good at that. Once I’m all wet, or sandy, or both, it just feels like a chore, and I tell myself that the first coat was good enough and waterproof enough.

So it goes with ideas as well.

We have an initial exposure to a new idea, so we diligently engage with it. It helps us in some way, changes our perspective or gives us some new tactics, and we feel good.

The initial impact is important, but where deep, more fundamental change comes from is re-exposure and re-application. Even rereading that same idea at a different moment will allow you to interact with it from a new perspective and have it affect you in a new way.

This has implications for how we interact with ideas that feel new and important, and it also impacts our approach to spreading ideas: it’s not necessary, or helpful, to say something new each and every time, because your audience needs to hear something lots of times and lots of ways for a new and important idea to really seep in.

Like, say, this gem from Seth Godin, which I’ve heard a hundred times in a hundred ways, and I still need to be reminded of it a hundred more times:

I don’t blog every day because I have a good idea.

I have a good idea because I blog every day.

Or the wisdom I heard from Thulsiraj Ravilla yesterday while speaking to him about the importance of values to the Aravind Eye Care System, which has given sight to millions, and that I got to visit for the first time last week in Madurai, India:

Values mean nothing if individuals do not put them into practice through their actions.

There are truths we have all been exposed to, things that we know to be real and important, that we let ourselves dabble with and then dropped before they could really impact us.

It’s time to reapply.