Made to Stick

The SUCCESs Framework

Made to Stick is organized around six principles that make ideas memorable: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credentialed, Emotional, and Stories. The acronym SUCCESs is itself an example of the principles at work — it is simple, concrete, and easy to remember.

The Heaths did not invent these principles from theory. They studied ideas that had persisted for decades — urban legends, proverbs, effective advertising campaigns, successful teaching methods — and reverse-engineered what they had in common. The result is one of the most practical communication books available, applicable to presentations, marketing, teaching, and any context where you need ideas to land and stay.

The Curse of Knowledge Is the Real Enemy

Before getting to the six principles, the Heaths identify the primary obstacle: the Curse of Knowledge. Once you understand something deeply, you lose the ability to imagine not understanding it. You speak in abstractions, jargon, and shorthand that make perfect sense to you but land as noise for your audience.

This is not an intelligence problem. It is a perspective problem. The more expert you become in a domain, the worse you become at explaining it to non-experts. This is why brilliant scientists give terrible public talks, why executives speak in strategy jargon that their teams cannot translate into action, and why product descriptions often describe features rather than benefits.

The cure for the Curse of Knowledge is deliberate concreteness. Instead of talking about what your product does in abstract terms, describe the specific experience a user will have. Instead of presenting data, tell the story of one person affected by that data.

Simple Does Not Mean Dumbed Down

The Heaths’ definition of simplicity is finding the core of your idea — the single most important element — and expressing it in a compact, accessible form. This requires active exclusion. Simplicity is not about removing detail for the sake of brevity. It is about identifying which one truth matters most and being willing to let go of everything else.

Southwest Airlines provides their example. Their core message was “THE low-fare airline.” Every decision — no meals, no assigned seats, fast turnarounds — flowed from that core. When someone proposed adding chicken salad to flights, the response was: does it help us be THE low-fare airline? If not, the answer is no. The core message functions as a decision filter.

The Commander’s Intent concept from military planning makes the same point. No plan survives contact with the enemy, so military orders include a simple statement of the mission’s purpose. When the plan falls apart, soldiers can improvise as long as they understand the core intent.

Unexpected Creates Curiosity

The attention principle is about creating knowledge gaps. When you present something unexpected — a statistic that contradicts assumptions, a question that reveals ignorance — you create curiosity. And curiosity, unlike interest, is active. A curious mind cannot rest until the gap is closed.

The technique involves two steps: break a pattern (the unexpected element that grabs attention) and then create a mystery (the knowledge gap that sustains attention). News leads use this structure instinctively. Effective teachers use it deliberately. The best presentations start with a surprise that makes the audience need to know what comes next.

Concrete and Emotional Make Ideas Stick

Abstract ideas slide off the brain. Concrete ideas grip it. The Heaths show that language involving sensory information — things you can see, hear, touch, smell, taste — is processed and remembered more efficiently than abstract language. This is why Aesop’s fables have survived for thousands of years while philosophical treatises from the same era have been forgotten.

The emotional principle works through identity rather than simple feeling. The Heaths argue that the most effective emotional appeals ask not how does this make you feel but who does this make you? Appeals to group identity — “What would a person like me do?” — are more motivating than appeals to self-interest.

Stories Are Simulation and Inspiration

The final principle argues that stories are the ultimate sticky-idea delivery mechanism because they serve two functions simultaneously. First, they act as mental simulation — hearing a story about how someone solved a problem gives your brain a rehearsal for facing a similar situation. Second, they provide inspiration — stories about overcoming obstacles motivate action in a way that instructions and data cannot.

The Heaths argue that you do not need to create stories from scratch. Most effective stories follow three basic plots: the Challenge plot (overcoming obstacles), the Connection plot (bridging gaps between people), and the Creativity plot (finding innovative solutions). Recognizing these patterns helps you identify and deploy stories that already exist in your organization.

Read This If…

You communicate for a living — presentations, marketing, teaching, writing, or leadership — and want a practical framework for making your ideas memorable and actionable.

Skip This If…

You are looking for deep communication theory or academic rigor. This is a practitioner’s book with clear applications but limited theoretical depth.

Start Here

Read the Curse of Knowledge section first because it diagnoses the problem. Then read Simple and Unexpected, which provide the highest-leverage fixes. The Stories chapter is worth reading last because it shows how to package everything else into a delivery mechanism.