The Ridiculous Thing That Actually Works
Jul 23, 2026
Have you ever gotten out of your car… walked away… and then wondered, “wait, did I actually lock it?”
That was me this past week.
I had just parked at the grocery store, grabbed my 500th reusable shopping bag (they just keep accumulating, right?), and started heading toward the entrance.
Halfway there, that familiar doubt crept in. Did I lock it?
I turned around, pointed my key fob back toward the car, and pressed the button.
Nothing.
No beep. No flash. No reassuring chirp.
I was too far away.
Now…I COULD have just walked the forty feet back to the car, verified it, locked it, and gone on with my life. That’s what a rational person would do.
But there I stood in the parking lot, holding a piece of plastic in my hand, and facing an existential crisis that only a first world problem can create.
And then… I remembered something I’d heard years ago:
If you hold the fob to your head… the signal goes farther.
I felt slightly ridiculous. But there was no one watching. So up went the key fob… pressed right against my temple.
And like some Harry Potter wizard casting an intense spell, I focused all my energies on my helpless car and clicked the button.
Beep.
The car locked from further away than it had before.
I stood there for a second, fob still pressed against my head like I was auditioning for a Verizon commercial, and thought:
“Wait. Why does that actually work?”
So I looked it up on the good old interwebs.
It turns out there’s real science behind it.
Back in 2007, a New York Times reporter named Roy Furchgott decided to test this exact quirk. He measured the range of a car key fob two different ways… once held out at chest height, and once held against the head.
The results?
· Fob held out normally? Reliable range of about 75 feet
· Fob held against the head? Reliable range of about 98 feet
That’s an extra 23 feet of range… a roughly 30% boost… just by touching a piece of plastic to your skull.
Here’s why it works.
Your body…and specifically your head… is mostly saltwater. And saltwater conducts electricity.
At the radio frequency your key fob uses (about 315 megahertz in North America), the wavelength of the signal is almost exactly the size of a human head.
Which means when you press that fob against your skull… your head becomes the amplifying antenna.
You’re not adding energy.
You’re not making the fob more powerful.
You’re just… helping its signal reach further by lending it your body.
Here’s how this connects to influence and success.
So often when we search for solutions, we assume it has to be some dramatic effort.
But what if we were able to simply adjust what we are currently doing… in a small but meaningful way?
For example, what if you made small adjustments to the words you use when you communicated with others?
Which is what my book, UNFORGETTABLE PHRASES is designed to do.
Inside are specific words and phrases that are engineered to get better results. All it takes is a simple adjustment and you’ll be amazed at what happens.
Just like holding a fob up to your head… instead of walking all the way back.
Because you’ll find that when you make slight tweaks to your language… you’ll be surprised how everything suddenly clicks.
Christian
CHRISTIAN HANSEN has gone behind the scenes in some of the biggest organizations in the world to find out the reasons why some people get chosen and why others don’t. As the #1 bestselling and LinkedIn Top Ten ranked author of “The Influence Mindset: The Art & Science of Getting People to Choose You” Christian helps teams and organizations who want to stand out and be the obvious choice. With degrees from Brigham Young University and The London School of Economics, he’s helped thousands of individuals position and sell themselves. A fan of international communication, history, and choral music, he currently lives in Utah with his family. Reach him at: TheChristianHansen.com
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