40k Tactics – List Building

Psychologically your brain should get to its checklist through trial and error. I say ‘should’ because there are individuals who will continue to use a certain technique regardless of the outcome because statistically speaking even a 1% chance happens once every 100 times. Let’s use the example of a man in a pub looking to gain the attention of an attractive woman. One technique is to simply walk up to the woman and ask ‘how about we find out how your clothes look on the floor next to my bed?’ This is a perfectly valid technique, however – most of us know with 99% certainty that this technique will end badly for the individual in our example. After this bad outcome the brain files away that information and adds it to the ‘do not use’ list in our subconscious.

In our next example the young man offers to buy the woman a drink and listens intently as she goes on endlessly about her cat, roommate, boss, friends and favorite character from Dr Who. After hours of incessant jibber jabber perhaps the young man in our example gains access to the young ladies phone number and the potential for a second date where there will be more talk of feelings, hopes, dreams, disappointments and life goals followed by the potential invitation on a second date or perhaps even a ‘night cap’ involving the ultimate goal of discovering exactly how her clothes look on the floor next to his bed. In both cases the goal is the same, the difference is how reliably the goal is achieved. The brain is taking notes and filing this information away for later use – even if you don’t realize it.