What Other People’s Physical Pain Taught Me About Money

It used to be infuriating when family and friends came to me and asked “I’ve got this pain in my back/shoulder/knee. What should I do?”. I’m a sports therapist and I get paid to help people rehab their injuries so asking me was logical but they would then either ignore my advice or pay to see another therapist for a second opinion.

I’ve spoken to many physios, chiros and doctors about this problem and they all said the same thing happens to them. The main problem is clients pay and family and friends don’t.

The way we interact with information fundamentally changes when there is a financial cost.

So now when my family or friends come to me, I recommend a therapist for them to see or an online course. Without fail, they will say “can’t you just tell me” or “it costs too much”. So I offer to give them advice on the condition they pay a deposit of £50 which they will get back if they do as I say (corrective exercises I give are never more than 5 minutes but has to be done daily for a month).

No one has ever taken this offer.

This was the first time I realised that the pricing of information may be more important than the content itself. It is a strange cycle when you think about it.

Information itself isn’t valuable, acting on it is. And paying for the information causes us to apply it which then gives it value. The higher the price, the more effort we put in and then the more it’s worth.

For me, every time I’m about to buy an online course, my brain automatically thinks I can find this online for free. Even if was given the information from that course for free, it wouldn’t be that useful as I won’t put enough effort into it. But when I have to pay for the exact same information, I’m going to put more effort into it and therefore get better results.

How much it cost isn’t the only factor that determines how much effort we put in.

I read a study that showed people who paid for gym membership monthly go to the gym more often than people who pay yearly. Typically, people attend more often just after their first payment and when their membership is about to expire.

So having regular payments is often better even if it costs you more. If you were offered a 10% increase in price but a 50% increase in output, I’m guessing you would take it.

I have experienced similar things with online subscriptions with services such as Skillshare. When I had a yearly subscription, I would use it a lot for the first month, then forget about it. But get a reminder email that my subscription is about to renew and then try to make the most of it in the last month. When I changed over to a monthly subscription, it cost me more, but my usage throughout the year went up.

I think it would benefit everyone if information came at a cost but a part of me still wants it all for free.