Sixty seconds. One national airing. A board of directors who did not want it to run.

That is the short version of one of the most famous ads ever made. The long version is better, and it says something about why the right clients choose a coach long before they know much about them.

In late 1983, Apple was getting ready to launch the first Macintosh. Its agency made a sixty-second ad for it, directed by Ridley Scott, who had just made Alien and Blade Runner.

When Apple's own board saw it, they hated it. The Super Bowl airtime alone cost about $800,000, and they did not want to bet that on an ad that barely showed the computer. They told the agency to sell the airtime back.

The agency sold most of it. It could not sell the last sixty seconds. Steve Wozniak liked the ad so much he offered to pay half out of his own pocket.

So it ran. Once, across the US, in the third quarter of the Super Bowl on January 22, 1984.

Rows of gray, identical people march into a hall and sit watching a giant face on a screen, telling them what to think. A woman in red shorts runs down the aisle, chased by guards, and throws a sledgehammer through the screen. Then a line of text: on January 24th, Apple would introduce Macintosh, "and you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984.'"

That is nearly all of it. No price. No features. Barely a glimpse of the computer.

What it did show was a side. On one side, everyone thinking the same way and buying the same thing, because that is what you do. On the other, one person who refused.

Plenty of the people watching that night had never touched a personal computer. They did not love Apple. Most of them knew very little about it. But by the end of sixty seconds, they knew which side they were on, and it was not the gray rows.

Think about the last time you chose something new, something you did not know much about yet. Did you compare every feature? Or did you go with the one that seemed to see things the way you did?

Most of us do the second. When we are new to something, we cannot judge the details. So we look for someone who is against the same thing we are.

Apple did not win that night by explaining the computer. The explaining came later. It won by naming something people were already uneasy about, and standing on the other side of it. The viewers did the rest. They filled in what Apple meant, and they filled it in with their own frustrations.

People do not have to love you to choose you. They have to know what you stand against.

So what happens when a coach does the opposite? When every post, every email and every answer at a barbecue is softened so nobody could possibly disagree?

"I help people feel their best" could be said by anyone. Nobody can argue with it. And nobody can stand beside it either.

Your people are already against something. You have heard it in their words.

"I've tried everything."
"Every program starts the same way, and I'm back here by March."
"I don't need another plan to stick on the fridge."

They are tired of the quick fix. The plan that blames them when it stops working. The fresh start every January. That is the gray room, and many of them are sitting in it right now, half watching the screen.

You do not need a sledgehammer. Standing against something is not being harsh, and it is never about another coach or another person. It is saying out loud the thing your people already think and have not heard anyone say.

When a coach does that, the person listening does not need to know the method yet, or the history, or the price. They only need to hear their own frustration in your words. Then they lean in, because finally someone said it.

Picture two coaches posting on the same Monday in January. One writes, "New year, new you. Here are five tips to get started." The other writes, "If you're starting over again this January, it isn't because you lack willpower. You've been handed the same plan in a new wrapper, and I'm done with that plan."

Which one would the tired person in the gray room stop scrolling for? The first is pleasant. The second picks a side, and the people on that side feel seen.

So if you had sixty seconds, and you could not mention your program at all, what would you say you stand against?

1. Write down three things the people you help are tired of. Use their words, not yours.
2. Circle the one you hear most often.
3. Finish this sentence with it: "I'm not here to give you another ____." Then add one line on what you offer instead.

Say it once this week, to one person or in one post, and notice who leans in.

A clear side is one piece of a steady coaching business. If you would like to see which piece is holding yours back right now, the free Predictable Income Assessment asks a few short questions and shows you the one gap to work on first.

Take the Predictable Income Assessment

Dedicated to your success

Adam Boag
Connecting Pieces