Eric Siu explains why people buy courses they never take, using Charlie Munger's insight that incentives drive outcomes. The problem isn't the course, it's that buying it feels like progress without requiring you to do the work.
The quote I always come back to time and time again is from famed investor Charlie Munger, and he's always said, show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome. So human beings, we're all driven by incentives, right? A, like, how much are you going to pay me? Well, what if I'm performing? I want some type of bonus. Or maybe if I'm going to co-found a company with you and spend years of my life doing it, maybe I get some equity. So it's always been about incentives, and that's how you get people to actually do things, right? What is the actual incentive? And so show me the incentive, And I'll show you the outcome. Now, previously, when you would— let's say you launch a course, for example. Let's say you launch an education program or a product. What happens afterwards is, let's say you buy the course. You're the customer, you buy the course, you maybe spend $1,000, $2,000, $5,000, $20,000. Who knows what it is, right? But afterwards, that money is gone. And like, you'd hope that you've taken that knowledge and you start to take action on it. But that course becomes basically, you know, useless, right? You've used it already.
