The core theme is the "dopamine ladder," a six-level psychological framework designed to hook viewers and make them addicted to content by triggering increasing dopamine releases throughout their viewing experience, ultimately aiming for a Pavlovian response.
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If you want to get people truly addicted
to watching your content, there's one
trick you should be using every single
time. It's called the dopamine ladder.
And if you can understand this one
framework, you'll become a master of
attention overnight. Now, I know this
works because content is all I do all
day long. I have a million followers.
I've done billions of views. And I've
spent years studying exactly how to use
psychology to grow faster on social
media and YouTube. So, in this video,
I'm going to break down the six levels
of the dopamine ladder. how it works,
why it works, and most importantly, the
specific tactics for how you can use it
to your advantage. All right. Now,
before I explain the dopamine ladder,
it's critical to understand the
psychology of how attention actually
works. Like, what is really going on in
a viewer's brain when they watch a
video? And this alone will be a huge
unlock for you. There are six stages of
a viewer's journey when watching content
that release increasing amounts of
dopamine. And if you can ascend them
through all six stages, they will have
watched your entire video and want to
come back to watch more. Now, eventually
if you get them to the end of the
dopamine ladder and you do that
consistently, you will create a
Pavlovian effect. And this really is the
ultimate goal if you're making content.
Pavlov is the famous scientist that
proved classical conditioning. Every
time he rang this bell, he gave a dog
food so that eventually whenever the
bell rang, the dog's mouth would water
because it represented that sound with
getting food. You're really going after
this same thing when it comes to
content. Because the ultimate sign of
attention mastery is when you can make
dopamine release in the brain of a
viewer just by seeing your name or face
without actually watching any of your
content. And if you can do that, you've
basically created a super fan that will
watch every single thing you make. This
is when you reach king status in
attention land. Now, if you can learn to
do this on command, you can pretty much
build any business as big as you want.
It's that powerful. Okay, so the
question is, what are the six levels?
And how do you make your content so that
the viewer ascends through the dopamine
ladder and you instill the Pavlovian
response? And that's what we're going to
break down right now. All right, the
very first rung in the dopamine ladder
is the exact same for all visual
content. Whether it's short form or long
form, it applies the same. And this
first rung is called stimulation. Okay,
the stimulation step is what happens in
the very first one to two seconds of the
video. Think of stimulation like a
visual stun gun that gets someone to
stop and lock in on one thing. It's like
a deer in the woods noticing something
out of the corner of their eye, and they
can't resist the urge but to pick up
their head, look, and lock in on that
one spot. Now, dopamine from stimulation
comes from colors, motion, and
brightness that is picked up initially
from the eye. So, literally, if you show
a combination of colors, motion,
contrast, and brightness that is
different from what the viewer typically
sees, they're going to get a hit of
dopamine, and they will pause for a
split second. And this is all you need
to earn the space to get them to level
two. Now, to prove this is how it works,
I'm going to show eight 9x6 images on
the screen with colors and motion, but
I'm going to blur it out so you don't
know exactly what they are. I want you
to look at these and tell me exactly
which one your attention goes to first.
All right. Now, for most people, these
were the two that they noticed and
visually focused on. See, your eyes go
to the ones that have more motion,
color, and brightness. That's just how
your subconscious brain works. You can't
override it. And again, to prove it to
you in another way, if you were to watch
your social media on grayscale or black
and white, I guarantee it just wouldn't
be as interesting to you. What's really
happening under the hood here in your
neurochemistry is that your brain is
processing things in two stages. The
first stage is the rapid subconscious
processing stage. It's called bottoms up
processing. And this processing happens
so fast in like 200 milliseconds that
your eye and brain are just catching
vivid colors in motion. They're not
actually comprehending what they're
seeing. But knowing this is how you hack
people on the treadmill to pause and pay
attention for a split second. So for
you, the tactical tip is that when
you're making your own content, you need
enough color, motion, and contrast to be
able to visually stun them for the first
1 to 2 seconds. But here's the thing. If
everybody copies the exact same motion,
color contrast pattern, the viewer will
become desensitized because the whole
feed will have it and then that will
stop working. This is why coming up with
your own unique visuals, your unique
color palette, the motion, the aesthetic
that you want is really critical because
it helps you cut through the feed and
trigger this subconscious stimulation.
Okay, so that's level one. Now,
stimulation is the weakest and the
shortest of the dopamine releases, but
it's a very important precursor like we
said because if you don't trigger the
focus, the rest of the levels don't even
matter. All right, level two in the
dopamine ladder is called captivation.
And this is where the comprehension of
what you say and how you say it really
starts mattering. The first step was
literally just visual brain hacking. But
here, this is where the sauce really
starts coming in. Now, captivation is
the curiosity stage. Massive amounts of
dopamine are released in the viewer's
brain as soon as they are captivated by
an open question that they ask in their
own head. Many people call this a
curiosity loop. Your video must drive an
open question that puts the viewer into
a loop so that they hunt for the answer.
Now, the reason curiosity loops work so
well for triggering dopamine is because
the human brain is a problem-solving
machine. It evolved to be really good at
thinking critically and taking open
complex questions and solving them. The
bigger and more non-obvious the
question, the bigger the curiosity, the
higher the stakes, and the more dopamine
that gets released. The more relevant
the question to the viewer, the bigger
the curiosity, the higher the stakes,
and the more dopamine that gets
released. For example, if you made a
video that got a viewer to ask the
question to themselves, hm, I wonder
when the aliens are visiting Earth.
Well, this is a pretty huge question.
So, it could be very curiosityinducing.
But if they don't care about aliens,
then it's not going to be relevant at
all and they're going to churn. They
won't be captivated. So, tactically,
it's important to ask yourself these
couple questions as you're structuring
the hook to make sure you're setting up
the best possible question. First, what
is the most curiosityinducing question
that I could ask about this topic to
trigger in the viewer's mind? And
second, how well will that question map
to something the viewer cares about
given the ideal avatar I think I'm
attracting? And then you have to figure
out what words you say and visuals you
show to try to get that question to pop
in their head. Now, there's two ways to
get a question to implant in a viewer's
mind. You could literally ask it like
rhetorically the way I just did, or you
can imply it with details and try to get
them to put it in their own head. Either
way, as quickly as possible in the
video, you need the viewer to pop a very
interesting question in their mind or
they're not going to be captivated. And
if the question doesn't pop or it's just
not that interesting, then they're going
to bounce and you have no chance. So,
for example, let's say I was scrolling
the feed and I saw this really
attractive person with this red and
orange vivid graphic behind them that
was moving. I might be stimulated enough
from level one to pause for a second and
see what they have to say. But then, if
that person starts the video saying,
"Here's how you do your makeup for the
holidays." The questions that are going
to pop into my mind are the following.
How does she do her makeup? Why is she
doing it like that? These are the types
of questions that pop into a curious
mind regardless of who it is. But for
me, I don't obviously care about the
topic of makeup at all. And so that's
not relevant to me and I'm churning
immediately. Basically, she got me on
the stimulation and bought me into the
first kind of question posing period,
but then she didn't get me on the
captivation. The reality is, if your
hooks are not hooking, it means that the
question that popped in the viewer's
mind is either not relevant to them or
just not interesting enough to hold
them. So that's level two of the
dopamine ladder. If you want to
captivate the viewer and get them to
keep watching, you have to pop a
curiosity based loop in their mind from
the question. The act of opening that
loop will release dopamine. Now, here's
a few pro tips for triggering a massive
amount of curiosity in this process. For
one, you can use contrast, where you
compare a known thing to an unknown
thing. Or two, you can frame a super
shocking or weird premise that they've
never seen or heard before. Typically,
unknown things pop curiosity better than
anything else because curious people
want to know what the thing is they've
never seen. All right, level three in
the dopamine ladder is anticipation. So
far, you've stimulated them initially to
get them to give you a chance and then
you've captivated them by opening a
curiosity- based question in their head.
This next step, anticipation, is super
powerful and this is really where people
get locked in into the video.
Anticipation is what happens when a
viewer begins to guess in their head
what the answer might be to the question
you just posed in level two. This is
essentially a mystery novel playing out
in their head in real time as they watch
the video. Typically, what happens is as
soon as a question pops in someone's
head, they immediately are trying to
anticipate what the answer might be.
It's kind of like this subconscious
guessing game that goes on. Now, the
more information you give someone that
helps them anticipate what the answer
might be, the more curious they're going
to become right up until the answer is
revealed. The highest level of dopamine
is achieved just before the answer
comes. So what you want to do is give
them details to get that anticipation
close. Ratchet up that curiosity and
then just before you deliver the answer,
yank it away and head fake them in
another direction. Typically adding
misdirection, non-obvious twists, and
head fakes is a great way to reset the
curiositybased anticipation loop. And
this will make them guess the answer or
get distracted, pop a new question, and
then restart the process. This is why
it's called a curiosity loop. The loop
is them seesawing between question,
anticipation, and answer. Or if you
don't want to yank away the answer, you
could give them the answer and then pop
a second question right after that.
Either way, this looping game of new
questions and new answers is how you
build anticipation. Now, here's a big
pro tip on anticipation. The viewer is
only able to anticipate what the answer
might be if they're clear on the facts
that you're giving them. If you throw a
bunch of rogue details in that don't
really make sense with the question or
they can't understand the facts that
you're presenting, they're going to get
confused and bounce. So tactically for
you, as you develop your story, if you
want to ratchet up anticipation, you
want to ask yourself this. Based on the
question the viewer should have in their
head from level two, what should they be
anticipating the answer to be? And based
on that answer, what additional facts or
context can we give them to get them
closer to it? From there, should we give
them the answer or is there a way to
head fake or tease them away from it to
reset that curiosity loop? This
curiosity anticipation process is kind
of like the edging of the storytelling
world. Now, if you've ever seen those
visual hooks where it looks like
someone's about to get hit by a car, the
car is like slowly approaching. This is
using anticipation to get you to hold
on. The reason these work so well is
because you originally see the person
and the car coming and it pops the
question, is that person going to get
hit by a car? Is that car really going
to run them over? And then as the car
slowly approaches, you start
anticipating, wait, there's no way. Oh,
wait. I think they might they might be
getting hit by the car. Ah, and he comes
really close. That anticipation building
is in real time working to drive that
curiosity in you. It releases dopamine
as you anticipate what might happen.
These are the types of hooks that play
on the anticipatory instinct in your
brain and they work super well at
driving dopamine. All right, the next
level in the dopamine ladder, level
four, is called validation. Validation
comes when you do end up giving them the
answer to the question that you popped
in level two. In other words, level four
is you closing the loop. Now, the goal
with validation is to make sure you
reward or answer with something that was
nonobvious that they wouldn't have
expected before. Typically, with
entertainment content, this is the
resolution of the story. You don't end
it on a cliffhanger. You actually wrap
up the loose ends and close the loop
nicely. For example, in the case of the
incoming truck hook, usually they don't
get hit by the truck and they end up
being safe. And that's how you close the
loop. Once that loop is closed, you
realize the story is complete and more
dopamine gets released as that's
finished. On the education side, the
validation or reward in this case would
be you actually sharing the tip or the
story or the recommendation that gives
them concrete value that they can use to
solve a problem. If the viewer leaves
this flow without the loop being closed,
they're going to be unsatisfied and they
won't release that final dopamine. So,
it's curiosity, question, anticipation,
what could the answer be? And then
validation, giving the actual answer.
All three phases release dopamine at
each time. are the first four levels we
just went through of the dopamine
ladder. These are kind of like the base
levels that you can pull with any script
and visual storytelling. And again,
those were stimulation, captivation,
anticipation, and then ultimately
validation. But the last two levels of
the dopamine ladder is really where you
start building cult fandom. This is
where you ascend beyond the individual
story and into the storyteller. The
first four have to do with the video
itself. We'll call that the message. The
last two are more with the messenger.
Level five is called affection. Now,
affection is the stage where the viewer
starts taking a liking to the creator or
personality that was delivering the
story. And this is why it's kind of hard
for Faceless content to fully ascend to
that Pavlovian peak. It's easy for
Faceless to get those first four levels,
but it's hard when there's nothing to
like, when there's no personality to
attribute that taste, trust, and like
to. And this is what happens in the
brain. As the viewer begins to realize
they like and trust the person that's
delivering the message, more dopamine is
released. And think about it, if you
already like someone, you're going to
give them a lot longer leash when you
watch their content. For a stranger, you
might churn right away. But if it's
someone you like and you already know,
there's dopamine that's being released
there that buys a lot more time of your
attention. Now, as long as that viewer
recognizes it's you, that likability
will carry over from video to video. So,
of course, the million-dollar question
that everyone asks is, "How do I improve
my likability so that I can speed up
that process to get through level five?"
And here's four ways to improve your
liability. The first one, attractiveness
is a massive factor. Now, I hate to say
it as someone who has a face for radio
and a voice for vaudeville silent films,
but the reality is when you're
attractive, people just like you more.
It's subconscious and it's how humans
behave. So, if you're good-looking, lean
into it, show yourself more, and I
guarantee the liability will go up. The
second thing that improves likability is
your overall vibe. the way you look, the
way you dress, the way you sit, your
posture, the way you carry yourself. All
of that signals silently to someone and
it goes into them deciding if they like
you more or not. The third thing,
smiling is great for subconscious
likability. Joy is an emotion that
transfers through the camera lens. So if
you look like you're happy or
passionate, people will feel that warmth
themselves when they watch you. And then
fourth, and this is the easiest one, if
you're making education content, if you
actually solve a problem for them, max
trust and likability will be
transferred. The easiest way to get
somebody to like you and trust you is to
actually help them with something
they're struggling with. Agnostic of how
attractive you are, how smiley you are,
etc. Number four is the strongest one.
So, likability is one of those things
that you want to try to improve over
time. But the reality is you don't want
to force it. Just be yourself. Be
authentically passionate in what you're
doing and then try to live that out. The
more value you can deliver and the more
valuable you can be, the more likable
and trustworthy you will seem to the
viewer. All right, we've approached
level six, and this is really where the
Pavlovian response really starts kicking
in. But before we go into that, let's
just recap where we were. The first
level was stimulation. This was
subconscious. It's motion, colors,
brightness. All you have to do is get
somebody to focus, a little bit of
dopamine released, but that's what locks
them in, right? So, that's the
precursor. Then, we talked about the
three levels that really have to do with
the specific video and the storytelling
in it. And that was captivation with
initial curiosity, anticipation, getting
them to guess what's going to happen and
maybe leading them through a head fake
or zigzag on that curiosity. And then
ultimately validation, giving them the
answer and closing the loop so that they
get that dopamine release on the full
cycle. Those were 2, three, and four.
Then level five is likability. Right? So
you've got the answer from the video,
but now we've ascended beyond the
message into the messenger and we're
going to likability. If the viewer likes
you, they'll give you more leash.
They'll have dopamine release every time
they see you because they'll remember
that they like you and that'll be
helpful. Level six, the final level, the
final frontier, is called revelation.
And this is really where the viewer
begins to realize that you're going to
be a continued source of value for them
over time. Now, typically both
entertainment and education content can
ascend from level 1 to 5. But it's much
easier for educational content to ascend
from five to level six, revelation.
Entertainment content can only get to
level six if the viewer decides that
that creator is going to be a consistent
source of maximum entertainment for
them. Meaning, every piece of content
they see is going to for sure be above
their line when it comes to
entertainment. And this is just a really
hard bar to achieve. Maybe Mr. Beast has
this level of Pavlovian response.
Anytime someone sees his face, they know
it's going to be entertaining. But if
you're an entertainment creator and
you're not Mr. Beast, you're competing
with Netflix, the NFL, Kaisat, Mr.
Beast. It's just hard to beat the best
maximum bar in the entertainment
category. But on the education side, if
you solve specific problems for people
that they have in their life, they will
tie you with a consistent source of
value for solving in that area. And when
they have this revelation that you're
going to consistently help them, it
releases max dopamine whenever they see
you because you've trained that you
equal value. That is the Pavlovian
response. As a corlary, imagine dating
someone and then realizing that over
time after spending a lot of time with
them, you always feel good and you
always feel love. That means in the
future whenever you hear their name,
you're going to get a huge hit of
dopamine because you're going to think
positively and feel those feelings
again. It's the same way here with
content. Now, the way to achieve this
level six revelation, especially with
education content, is to deliver
non-obvious differentiated value over
and over and over. If they are deeply
struggling with a problem that you talk
about, it might only take a couple of
pieces of content for them to ascend
from level one to six and then build
that Pavlovian response. If they're not
really struggling with your topic area
that much and it's more of a nice to
have, it might take a lot more pieces of
content for you to build that Pavlovian
bond. But either way, when you can hit
this level six state, you have won the
attention game because it means if they
hear your name, see your face, or see
your name, even without watching the
content, they're going to get the
dopamine hit that leads them to watch
it. All right. All right. Now, super
quick before we end this video, I just
want to show you one live example of an
actual short form video and break down
as I narrate through the dopamine ladder
and the different levels as we ascend
through them. And I'm just going to do
short form video because it'll be easier
to watch. And because I always do
education examples, I'm going to do an
entertainment example on this one. All
right. So, this example is from a
creator named Citizen. If you don't know
him, he's kind of like a musician that
uses these viral stitch clips to market
his music. So, we're going to pull the
video up on the side. We're going to
watch it and then pause it a lot as I
narrate through the different pieces.
Okay, so the first step in the dopamine
ladder, as we know, is stimulation. And
this happens fast. Right away, there's a
slight zoom in. You see two people
hugging. You kind of see this like
perspective from a car of a car. It's
something you don't normally see on the
feed. That alone is all that's needed to
give me a slight hit of dopamine and
narrow my focus on the video. Next, we
go to level two, which is captivation or curiosity.
Now, as I'm watching this unfold through
the first like 2, three, 4 seconds, the
questions that are popping in my head is
this. First, who are these people? Why
are they hugging? Do I care? This almost
made me churn cuz I was like, why do I
care about this?
Then I look down and I read that little
text across. It says, "Bro, what did I
just witness?" And that pops the
question in my head, "What are we about
to see?" Now I'm curious again.
Then as the girl walks away and gets in
the car, I notice the shoelace stuck in
the door and I notice him noticing it.
And that pops the question, "Oh no, is
he aware? Is she going to drive away?
What's going to happen?" Right? Three or
four rapid questions in succession. So
at this point, my curiosity is pretty
high. I've got all these open questions
and I'm really curious to see what's
going to happen. Next level three is anticipation.
So, because I see the main character and
he sees that he's stuck, I'm
anticipating, is he going to get out or
is he going to get dragged by the car?
I'm trying to figure out what's going to
happen. That's me anticipating the solution.
Now, as the car starts pulling away, I
can see he's going down. So, I'm trying
to anticipate what's going to happen. Is
he going to be dragged? Are they
actually going to film this? Right? I'm
still really curious. Now, level four is
validation where I find out the answer.
let me off.
>> And in this case, he falls backwards
like I would have expected, but then it
hard cut match cuts away to him getting
dragged singing a song. The audio comes
in and he starts singing. That's not
what I was expecting. So, I get the
validation of closing the loop that he's
okay, but also this shocking headfake
moment where the answer is not what I
expected. And because now I know he's
not hurt, I get that dopamine release of
that initial anticipatory loop closing.
But also, I'm kind of interested in why
is he doing this? Does this music video
strategy work, etc.? All right, level
five now is affection. Now, here,
assuming this is the first video you've
seen of this guy, you probably haven't
seen enough to determine if you like or
trust him or not. And with entertainment
content, as I mentioned, it's a lot
harder to determine affection and
revelation than it would be with
education content. But I will admit, I
found this pretty funny and shocking,
and I kind of give a hat tip to him. So,
if I saw another video from him, I'd
probably watch it because I wanted to
see what crazy stunt is he going to come
up with next. Now, level six, the last
one, is Revelation. And it would have
taken me probably several other videos,
but eventually I would have realized
this guy is like a viral marketer meets
music, which is kind of an interesting
category. And if I like marketing or
music or his music, I might realize
every time I see one of his videos, I
get entertained in this unique way and
also get to see his song. So I may
associate this like entertainment value
drip with him. Now, in this case, I'm
not going to have the full Pavlovian
effect because this is an entertainment
use case, but you can imagine how this
ladder would work for educational
content, and if he was giving me a tip
that I could use in my life, I might
have that Pavlovian effect much faster.
So, this is a great example of how the
dopamine ladder works in content. And
when Citizen made this video, he
specifically engineered those pieces to
trigger you through those loops so that
you kept watching. And I promise you, if
you take any piece of educational
content that has worked on you and you
analyze it in this way, going through
these levels in the dopamine ladder,
it'll all be there clearly why you liked
it and why you kept watching. All you
have to do is figure out how to reverse
engineer that when you make your content
and you'll be good to go. All right,
guys. That is all I've got for this
video. As a recap, we covered the full
dopamine ladder, all six levels that you
need to get the maximum dopamine
released in the viewer's brain and get
them to keep watching for longer. This
will make them addicted to your content
if you can do it consistently. Your
goal, as I just mentioned, is to use
these levels, this framework, as a
checkpoint, as a checklist that you can
ascend the viewer through. Are you
driving the right curiosity? Are you
driving the right dopamine releases?
This is a great framework for that. As
always, guys, I'm trying my absolute
best to cover the non-obvious stuff that
gives you an edge when you're trying to
grow on social media and YouTube. And
one last thing, if you're an
entrepreneur or a business owner, I
built a completely free community called
Wavy World that has 65 other trainings
just like this one. So if you want to
learn the advanced mode of YouTube and
social media, it's in there for free.
Also, there's 37,000 other people in
there that are all teamed up, partnered
up, giving each other feedback. So if
you want a peer group that's in the
content trenches as a business owner,
they're in there as well. I've got a
free invite link for you below in the
description. All right, we will see you
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