I heard that story as well, and really liked the little perspective flip it encourages.

Merlin, taking your gym membership idea one step further: let's imagine a membership that actually goes up the less you use it - like, you are charged $10 bucks if you don't get there 2 days a week or whatever.

While in practice this may be hard to implement, I kind of love the idea of telling customers, "Look, you want things to change - that's why you're signing up for the gym - well, if you don't make things change by actually coming in here, then we're going to make things change for you by taking something away." Making goals and connecting them to present day action can be so abstract, especially since humans are so good at dealing with whatever the situation currently is; and so bad at dealing with a change to that current situation.

AND SO: I love the idea of creating situations where change is going to happen regardless and you're just weighing the relative difficulties of either change.

MEANING: if you do not have $10 now, you can imagine living without it, and so rather than doing the work it takes to get the gym, or whatever, you'll just live without it. It's like: "I know what it's like to live without that $10, I'm already doing it; so I'm not going to bust my butt to get the $10."

But put yourself in a situation where someone's going to take away $10, and suddenly you are kicked into action. Now, since you already have the $10, it is hard to imagine living without it, and so you do whatever it takes to keep the current situation as it is.

What else besides the gym, I wonder, would it be helpful to set up this way?