Painkiller or Vitamin?

A useful test for your learning program

Many learning programs struggle with the same problem: people agree they’re valuable…but few feel urgency to take them.

A simple test I like to apply to online courses:

Is it a painkiller, or a vitamin?

The metaphor (popularized by Hooked) is simple:

• Painkiller: solves a problem someone feels right now.

• Vitamin: something people agree would probably be good for them.

People seek out painkillers.
Vitamins? Maybe they’ll get around to them.

Another way to think about it: vitamins improve you, painkillers rescue you.

I saw this distinction play out firsthand while advising the Constructive Dialogue Institute, where I’ve been involved since the organization’s early days.

CDI’s first major offering was an online learning program called Perspectives. It was designed to reduce conflict by helping learners understand different viewpoints and find common ground.

It was a strong program, proven effective by research. But for a long time we struggled with a basic question:

Who urgently needs this?

• Some college professors wanted their students to learn the material, as an academic exercise.

• Some corporate leaders hoped it might improve collaboration.

• Some campus life teams thought it might help students be more civil.

All good goals. But they were vitamins.

Then campus culture issues exploded into a national conversation. Suddenly university leaders weren’t asking the vitamin question: “Wouldn’t it be nice if students understood each other better?”

They were feeling pain.

• Students were occupying administration buildings.

• Alumni were threatening to stop giving.

• Presidents were being called to testify before Congress. Some were resigning or getting fired.

• Politicians, pundits, and conflict entrepreneurs smelled blood and moved to increase, rather than decrease, the temperature.

Just like that, a vitamin became a painkiller, and universities began rolling the Perspectives program out across entire campuses, sometimes requiring completion before students could register for classes.

Why does this distinction matter?

If your learning program is a painkiller:

• The value proposition is obvious

• Learners feel urgency to start

• Completion rates are higher

• Willingness to pay (time, effort, or money) increases

If it’s a vitamin, everything is harder: marketing, enrollment, and follow-through.

You can often hear the difference in how learners talk about their needs.

Vitamin: learn public speaking.
Painkiller: handle my first pitch without freezing.

Vitamin: improve my leadership communication skills.
Painkiller: deliver difficult news to my team without them quitting.

The point isn’t that learning programs should never be vitamins. Many valuable ones are. Learning skills to handle, or avoid, future pain matters.

But the clearer you are about the pain you’re addressing, the easier everything becomes. From attracting learners to helping them actually finish.

If you’re planning a course or learning program, it’s worth asking one question early:

For my learners, is this a vitamin, or a painkiller?

Curious what examples others have seen, or reframings that have been successful.

Disclaimer in case my mom reads this: No, Thinking Good should not be Thinking Well. In this case, “Good” is a noun (me) not an adverb. But thank you for your grammarian ways overall!