One of my favorite things about kids is that they make you better at reconnecting to the magic.

🚛Like making a new friend in the recycling truck driver because my daughter loves following his “BIG TWUCK” around the neighborhood and waving at him.

🦉Like standing outside for 20 extra minutes after we’ve already got the day’s mail drop in hand because she heard an owl from our driveway *one time* and now insists that we “hoot hoot” and “wisten” every time we’re outside after dark.

🎄Or regularly coming back to the present moment during the holidays to appreciate the glow of the “pwetty wights” or look at each and every ornament hung with an “ooooooo, mama LOOK.”

Shopping for my almost-two-year-old daughter was the most fun I’ve had holiday shopping in a long time.

I carefully picked out her favorite things for her stocking: sticker books, play dough sets, coloring books with her favorite musicians Olaf (the snowman from Frozen) and Moana.

Then for the big stuff…

I texted friends whose toddlers are a bit older than mine to get their recommendations on favorite, long-lasting toys. I happily purchased the top two recommendations:

• Magnatiles (like magnetic blocks for building stuff)
• A play mat + wooden toy people and cars I proudly purchased from a small business who hand makes them

I thought she’d be so stoked to open these big-hitting gifts and dive in, but something curious appened when we started opening.

We started with the stocking and brought out ALL of the smaller gifts I’d individually wrapped (I wrapped each sticker pack individually to make the magic of opening last), and she was immediately…completely overwhelmed.

She’s still young, so she was unsure how to take the paper off the first gift. But after a little help from dad, she was beside herself at what she found.

Puffy, reusable animal stickers??
For her?? 🤯

She had to open and play immediately.

We tried to follow “Christmas protocol” and gently put the gift aside to open another. And at that, she was flabbergasted.

She looked around the room at all of the wrapped gifts, gave us a very clear no, and padded away from the madhouse with her new sticker book sensation to give it all of her focus.

As excited as I was to see her get excited about everything else, my husband and I pivoted.

We decided to make Christmas more of a two-week situation, where she got to open a new gift each day and actually enjoy it before moving on. She slowly got the hang of the idea and would request “more open!” quicker and quicker.

But with each “open,” the excitement wore off faster, and she was already moving on to the next.

And I don’t think it’s just our kid who has had this experience. In fact, I know it’s not. Because there’s been studies done on the number of toys that kids have access to and how it connects to their overall sense of satisfaction  

The takeaway was that the more stuff kids have access to, the more overwhelmed they got, and the less joy, creativity, and imagination they actually had during playtime.

I promise I’m not just rambling about my kid.

There’s a big point here that’s incredibly important in business. And a mistake I see practitioners make allll the time.

They falsely believe that: more stuff = more value.

• Check out all of these things in your treatment plan!!
• Look at all of this stuff you’ll learn in my program!!!
• You’ll get an action item EVERY DAY!

But for your clients, this can be so overwhelming that it actually convinces them not to buy.

It can also confuse them about what the outcome or transformation is even supposed to be.

Especially right now, people are investing in something because they want something specific.

Maybe that’s:

• an outcome
• a feeling
• a status symbol
• a practical benefit

And they do NOT want to spend extra time, money, or energy on things they don’t need.

This is even happening with free stuff. People are becoming more discerning. They don’t want just anything taking up space in their email inbox, desktop storage, or even their mental closet.

Think back to my daughter. She wasn’t paying anything for these gifts, yet she still rejected them because she was overwhelmed, and all she wanted was to play with her stickers.

Instead of forcing her to be excited about all of the “additional perks,” we spread them out. I even rehid the Magnatiles for her birthday, when she’ll be a little older and more excited to actually play with them.🤭

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You can do the same for your community.

We have to stop thinking about value as how much we give.

The reframe is: how clearly does someone know what to do next?

We want our people to walk away with:

1. One clear outcome
2. One focused next step
3. One way to actually integrate

Even if you’re sharing a free resource or writing a single email, please remember that you don’t have to give people everything. And more importantly, they don’t want it!

It’s much more important to offer up the right thing at the right moment and trust that the rest can wait.

Find the thing that’s your sticker book, and let your community experience the maximum benefit of it.