The Hook brings you back

Blues Traveler’s “Hook” is one of the most underappreciated subversive songs of the 1990s. The song’s lyrics are meaningless, and intentionally so. The lyrics disclose the lack of meaning but argue that the music is so catchy the listener will not care. The chord progression follows Pachelbel’s Canon, one of the most recognizable pieces of music ever created.

The result is a song that feels… familiar, and so we are drawn to it. The lyrics follow the same tone.

Yes, another post about music. (Hi Bono, and thanks for reading!) But this one really does have investing at its heart. A friend and one-time coworker messaged me after the last post (Hi Robert, and thanks for reading!) joking that he wasn’t surprised I had swerved to music, but he was surprised the topic wasn’t Hook.

Here’s why: We had a coworker with a sterling resume and a big name who was always happy to recite said resume without prompting. And he spent a lot of time in front of cameras discussing his own brilliance, among other topics. Maybe I was jealous? But it was annoying. We had a bit of an inside joke where I would start humming that song during that person’s showmanship.

Tell me this doesn’t sound like someone you’d hear on CNBC…

This relates to one of the founding themes of this newsletter: That the financial services industry makes things needlessly complicated in order to separate you from a substantial chunk of your life savings.

I am pretty sure Blues Traveler lead singer John Popper was not thinking of investing when he wrote the lyrics. (John if I’m wrong on that get in touch. And thanks for reading!) But the song does highlight one of the ways financial types are able to so successfully extract your cash.

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Turn on financial television, and you’ll hear a lot of buzzword bingo from the guests. Not so much from the anchors, especially the good ones, but always from the guests.

• Say the right words…

• establish your expertise…

• profit!

Way back, when I worked with that friend, I got some of the same media training that our talking head compatriot received and took to heart.

Two lessons in particular seem to be the basis of the financial tv interview:

1. The cardinal sin of a television appearance is silence. It doesn’t matter what you say, just keep talking. 90% of the viewers are watching while doing something else, and only half listening. Keep talking and they will keep rolling with you. Stop talking, to say think through an answer or actually consider what to say, and the viewer will sense something is amiss and look up in hopes of seeing a train wreck.

2. Know your cues. These were the days before SEO, before we all started to organize our lives around clickable keywords. But the concept is as old as time. When we did appearances, we were given a list of talking points, or phrases to use. Don’t fight the Fed. It’s a stock picker’s market. Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered. There are a lot of them.

These cues work in the same way Pachelbel’s Canon works in the song. It is the old reliable, the familiarity, that lures you in. We’ve heard them enough not to really take the words to heart. But we do unconsciously give credibility to the speaker, just as the Canon almost surely triggers a memory.

Sounds can be transformative. Pachelbel’s Canon jets us away to a royal wedding. Financial buzzwords take us to a really serious room full of really serious people in suits. Half of the job of a salesperson is to establish credibility. These television appearances are a shortcut to gain that credibility.

So, what does this all mean for us? You can’t fight the Hook. Don’t try. Accept that our brains are pattern-recognition machines forever searching for familiarity, and understand that your subconscious will race towards that familiarity when identified.

You can fight what you do after the hook is established. Even if your brain forces you to prescribe some level of credibility to a person based on their sterling television appearance, or seemingly brilliant talk over a steak dinner you were invited to, it is still a separate act to write that person a check. The Hook, the sales job, is designed to make the writing the check part a no-brainer. As in, not something that you think about before doing. This is the moment where you can save yourself.

You can of course simply watch less tv, and listen to less music. You will remain blissfully unaware of a whole huge range of products that you weren’t aware you needed until some jingle informed you that was the case.

But turning off the tv is hard. An easier solution is to just make sure your brain doesn’t turn off during the sales pitch.

Disclaimer: Fits and Starts DOES NOT provide financial advice. All content is for informational purposes only. Stocks mentioned are as reference only, and a mention should not be interpreted as a buy or sell recommendation. The author is not a registered advisor or a broker/dealer. DO YOUR OWN HOMEWORK. The information contained within is not and should not be construed as investment advice, and does not purport to be.

No statement or expression of opinion, or any other matter herein, directly or indirectly, is an offer or the solicitation of an offer to buy or sell the securities or financial instruments mentioned.