Cravings & Aversions Drive Our Economy

A little ancient wisdom colliding with modern times.

For a digital native, you may have encountered a resurgence in mindfulness meditation. Traditions stemming from the east have trickled into the west before, largely as an alternative spiritual practice. The current crop is interested for an entirely different set of reasons - as a response to the overdriven attention-economy and for the pursuit of a mental edge in business and in life.

Likewise, if one puts aside the notions of ‘enlightenment’ or some sort of spiritual purification, meditation has some profoundly simple, but impactful lessons that can be ported over to understanding yourself, and your customers.

Stripping away the cultural and religious components, the practice is actually a very simple activity. Regular life is filled with too many sights, sounds, smells, tastes and sensations for anyone to experience them all. The meditator tries to shut off as many inputs as possible and focus as keenly as possible on one thing - usually a thought or a breath. They are instructed to pay very close attention to the moment-to-moment sensations, and to do so without judgement.

As the mind calms down, attention dials in like a microscope, and the meditator realizes just how often stray thoughts distract and throw off this concentration. The meditator is trained to not view those thoughts as positive or negative, just to simply let them drift away and return to focusing on the moment-to-moment sensations.

Now this is where it gets interesting.

All those stray thoughts - interestingly enough - fall into two groups: 1) “Cravings” or things we want and desire, and 2) “Aversions” or things we dislike or want to avoid. Or put in terms more familiar to a western audience, you have ‘Carrots & Sticks’. Folklore uses a donkey as a metaphor for human motivation - the donkey is either motivated towards something it wants (a delicious carrot) or away from something it doesn’t want (getting struck with a stick).

As meditators become better trained at quieting down the mind, these cravings and aversions become amuch more clear. Thinking about that tax audit that might be coming up? Big aversion. Thinking about that great pancake restaurant you went to on vacation last month? Craving.

Though not specifically the goal of meditation, it gives an opportunity to be very clear on what the forces driving you are, and they’re seldom unique. Chances are other people - including your customers - have very similar carrots and sticks.

Products and services are essentially a way to meet these drives. The right product gives you what you want, the right service helps you avoid what you don’t want. The key is having a very deep understanding of what those drivers are, and communicating how your product or service will bring your clients closer to ‘what they really want’ or keeping them far away from ‘what they really don’t want’.

Think about taking some time to ‘quiet down the noise’ and think deeply about what cravings your customers are chasing, and what aversions they are running from. Solve that in your marketing, and you’ll have more business than you could ever dream of.