One of my heroes, Rory Sutherland, addresses one of my core principles in his funny and mind changing talk on TED.com. Rory talks about how the circumstances of our lives may matter less than how we see them, he makes a compelling case for how reframing your thoughts is the key to happiness. In other words he talks about how ’we don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are’ and what happens in your mind once you realize this.
His story is about the fact that we too often forget:
- Things are not what they are, they are what we think they are
- Things are what we compare them to
- Yet, Psychology is subordinate to everything else
- While in fact psychological value often is the best kind
These points are completely in line with my beliefs. I really feel that in our current world we are looking too much at things from a ‘spreadsheet’ perspective and we entirely forget the human and psychological side of it. For example, once you have a very, very large budget, you actually look for expensive things to spend it on instead of looking for creative ways that might require a little more thinking but in the end increase the happiness of your consumers.
The best way to explain his thoughts is the example of the high speed train (Eurostar) travelling between Paris and London. When Eurostar cut their journey times by 40 minutes at a cost of £6bn, they also dismissed the tangible potential to increase actual customer enjoyment. Why not spend the money on improving the experience so customers might actually want to want to stay longer, rather than shortening the time we have to endure the journey? They could have simply included high speed wifi for a fraction of the cost and customers might want to stay actually longer on the train (we all know the best work is done on the train).
I would really like you to also realize that you see the world from you personal and biased perspective (as do I). Things might not always be the way you think they are. When trying to solve a certain problem, please look up, reach outside and discover that the exact opposite of what you think also can be true. Please watch the two movies below to help you adapt this mindset.
Enjoy looking at the world in a different way!
