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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Listen to the Intro
Fascinate summary
Sally Hogshead
Your Seven Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation
3.9 (91 ratings)
26 mins
11 key ideas
Audio & text
What is Fascinate about?
In Fascinate, author Sally Hogshead helps us realize our potential for fascination. By explaining in vivid language exactly how fascination works and how you can trigger it in others, Fascinate provides you, your company and your brand with the tools to fascinate. These “seven triggers of fascination” can help you to increase the odds of success, both in your personal life and in business.
About the Author
Sally Hogshead is one of the leading marketers and advertising writers in the United States and develops marketing strategies for leading companies such as Starbucks and Microsoft. Hogshead graduated from Duke University and founded her own advertising agency when she was just 27 years old.
Table of Contents
Fascinate
summarized in 11 key ideas
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Key idea 1 of 11
Each one of us naturally has the ability to fascinate and be fascinated.
We’ve all been fascinated by something: a piece of music, a meteor shower, an intelligent and beautiful person.
But what is fascination?
To be fascinated can be defined as a moment of total fixation on a particular thing. Where, though, does fascination come from? And why do we experience it?
Our capacity for fascination is a product of human evolution – put simply, it evolved to help our ancestors survive.
Consider the rest of the animal kingdom. To survive, animals too have to fascinate and be fascinated. The peacock’s colorful fan is noticed and judged by the peahen, and the most impressive fan – the one which fascinates her – will belong to the peacock that will father her peachicks.
A capacity for fascination is a trait that continues to play an important social role: it helps us to develop social ties.
In a study, researchers showed babies a series of pictures, some of them depicting human faces. Interestingly, whenever a picture of a face came up, the baby stared at it much longer (up to twice as long) than at the other pictures.
Why? We’re fascinated with faces at such a young age because it helps us to establish and develop close social bonds with others.
However, our innate capacity for experiencing fascination is just one side of the story; we have also an inborn desire and ability to be fascinating ourselves.
Just like the peacock, we desire and aim to attract others by fascinating them. Flirting, for example, is a universal and innate ability to fascinate others. It doesn’t matter which culture, language or religion we examine; everyone knows instinctively exactly how to fascinate, without needing to be taught.
Yet, just because we all know how to be fascinating, this doesn’t mean that we always do it well! You can reach your full potential for fascination by learning about the seven triggers of fascination.
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Best quote from Fascinate
Lust conquers the rational evaluation process, freeing us to stop thinking and start feeling.
—Sally Hogshead
Who should read Fascinate
- Anyone who owns or works at a company interested in improving its reputation
- Anyone who’d like to improve their own ability to fascinate others
- Students of psychology interested in the concept of human fascination
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