The Egg and the Mountain

It's like Betty Crocker on Mt. Everest

In the 1940s, Betty Crocker cake mix only required water.

For housewives, this was a problem.

In 1956, cake mix sales were so flat you would’ve thought there was a yeast shortage. So General Mills did an analysis.

“We made it as easy as possible to make a cake,” they thought. “Why aren’t people buying?”

To conduct their study, General Mills brought out their employee handbook and asked themselves:

“Which one of our employees has a name that sounds like a dry box of brown powder?”

And that’s how they landed on Ernest Ditcher.

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Here’s what Ditcher discovered:

The cake mix was too easy. 

For housewives who took pride in their homemaking, the idea of just adding water to bake a cake felt like a cop-out. There was no labor. No effort. No nothing. Just water.

So General Mills changed the product. Now, you needed to add water … And mix in a fresh egg.

They made it “harder.” They made it more expensive.

And sales took off.

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A life without challenge is worse than a life with challenge.

(Bear with me as we swirl from Betty Crocker to neuroscience in just two transition sentences.)

In your brain is something called the limbic system. It’s a set of structures that helps regulate your emotions, behaviors, and motivations.

The limbic system is to your brain what Ernest Ditcher is to Betty Crocker cake mix. It plays a huge role in the Ingredients of You — your emotional well-being and your mental health.

And your limbic system likes a challenge.

When you get shot up with serotonin or dopamine, it’s partially thanks to your limbic system. And more often than not, that’s your limbic system giving you an “attaboy” for overcoming a challenge and achieving a goal.

But when the limbic system lacks meaningful goals?

It stops being stimulated.

And when it stops being stimulated?

It doesn’t see as much of a reason to shoot you up with serotonin or dopamine.

So you start feeling like life is a paint-by-numbers book where 1 is gray, 2 is beige, and 3 is brown.

All because you’re not being challenged.

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Constant challenge is hard to embrace.

What happens when you finally summit the mountain you’ve been climbing?

You want to relax. Enjoy it. Bask. You want to take it easy, flick on cruise control, and convince yourself there aren’t any more mountains to climb.

And your brain — which made you feel good because you overcame an obstacle — isn’t confronted with another challenge.

So you start to change.

And because years are just a collection of seconds, you never feel yourself changing.

And then you look up and wonder why things feel so hard. And the answer, ironically, is because you created a world where everything is easy.

To be satisfied, you need challenges.

Seek them out.

Spin them in a circle.

Flirt with them, court them, embrace them.

So add an egg to your cake mix.

Hell, make the whole thing from scratch.

A life without challenge is worse than a life with challenge.