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117 - The Dumb Things We All Do

You’re listening to episode #117 of the Feel Good English Podcast, “The Dumb Things We All Do”.

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Hello there, Kevin here, with another episode of the Feel Good English podcast. How are you? Thanks for joining me again, and if you’re new here, welcome! I hope this podcast makes you feel good. Good about English, and life. Because that’s what I do; teach life lessons for those out there that would like to become great English speakers. And would like to have a great life too, well greater life.

Today I have some ideas from a very interesting book called “Predictably Irrational” by Dan Ariely. And the main point in this book, the overall message is that much of our behavior is misguided, irrational. Through research and study, the author has found that a lot of this irrational behavior is also predictable, which means there are very human, and natural reasons we behave this way.

So, to kick things off, let’s talk about those two words, irrational and predictable. Irrational, or not rational, is when we act without logic, or in an unreasonable way. e-RA-tional. IrrAtional. You’re not acting rational.

And predictable, to predict, you probably know what that means, let’s practice the pronunciation a bit. PreDICtable. PreDICtable. You hear that? Pre-DIC-table.

So, I’m going to share two ideas I found very useful in this book. I could relate to this a lot. I’m quite irrational at times. Are you too? Good for you!

Now, without beating around the bush, let’s get into the lesson, let’s learn something new, and if you’d like to connect with me on my website and get more Feel Good lessons, go to feelgoodenglish.com after the episode. That sounds like a very rational thing to do.

Here is one of the ways in which we act irrationally. This kind of blew me away. And to start, let me give you an example of how this works.

Are you single? Are you currently on the dating scene? Or maybe you’re just at that time in your life when you’re looking to score as much as possible with the opposite sex. Well here’s a tip on how to pick someone up easier. When you go out, let’s say to a bar, bring a friend with you that’s just a bit less attractive than you are. Not way less attractive, but just a bit. Call that friend that is a notch or two lower than you on the “hot or not” scale, and bring them along. This will increase your chances of attracting someone to you for a future date (or a one-night stand if that’s your thing).

Why does this work? How does this work? Because our brains are wired to make comparisons when having to make decisions. And we do this in the laziest way possible, by only comparing what’s right in front of us. So, by showing up at a bar with a slightly less attractive friend, you’re giving your potential dates an easy comparison to make. Instead of going to the trouble of comparing everyone around them, they can clearly see that you are the better option between you and your friend.

Uh, sneaky, right? But you might have just gotten yourself a date.

And your poor friend? Well maybe after you get serious with someone you can share your dating secret with them and they can start bringing along less attractive friends with them.

So, this is kind of a mean thing to do, but it proves one of the points in the book, “Predictably Irrational”. One of the ways we behave irrationally is by making these quick, easy comparisons. You meet a couple people at the bar, compare one person with the other, and think that this better-looking person is your best option in the whole bar.

Or another common example; you might not buy a product, let’s say an online course, if it was the only option on the website at $100. But if there were other courses on that same website, let’s say the same course but with more features, and these premium offerings were much more expensive, like $300, the $100 course would now look a lot more attractive, and you would be more likely to buy that $100 course.

This happens all the time. It’s human nature. Sometimes you need to use tricks like price-comparison to convince people to buy something.

And even though a product might be great, you still have to convince people to buy it, right? It’s psychology. I’ve used this strategy before with my products and I don’t feel bad about it. I don’t feel bad because I know what I’m offering is a great value and can help people. So, the fact that we could consider this behavior irrational doesn’t mean we should try really hard to change it. It helps to acknowledge it, but still, we are human, we’ll always act like humans, and maybe we do need to be fooled into making decisions sometimes.

And speaking of making decisions, the next idea from the book I’m going to talk about is also about decisions. How having too many decisions to make is a bad thing.

But before I get into that next idea, let’s do a quick review of the first idea here. I’m gonna ask you some questions; answer them in English.

You ready?

• Why do your chances of finding a date improve if you bring along a less attractive friend with you?

• When was the last time you made a purchase based on

comparing prices? What did you buy, and why did you buy it?

• Was this purchase worth it?….. Yes it was worth it, no it wasn’t worth it because….

• Was it worth buying? Yes or no it was/wasn’t worth buying because…

• Last question, who’s your ugliest friend? Just kidding. Don’t answer that.

Here’s the next big idea. This one is pretty fascinating I think, and can also be very beneficial to our lives. And it goes like this: Humans try really hard to keep our options open. We don’t want to put ourselves in a situation with less options, opportunities; even if we’re just keeping these options on the back burner. With education, like choosing which school and which area to study, our careers, even who we choose to date. Do you have several girlfriends at one time? Well no one likes a cheater, but there might be a predictable reason for this irrational behavior.

Maybe this scenario sounds familiar: a girl is dating someone new, in a relationship that’s going well, but she hasn’t cut ties with her exboyfriend yet. That ex-boyfriend she broke up with because he was a total jerk, remember? Have you seen this happen before? I sure have.

Why does this girl still keep this ex-boyfriend in her life? Well, according to this book it’s because she’s just being human, irrational but human by keeping her options open, even if one of these options is bad for her. She needs to just drop the jerk, right?

A lot of us would say that in an uncertain world, it makes sense to leave open as many options as possible, but studies have actually shown that this tendency to keep options open can be harmful. Why? Well one clear reason is that it might keep us from putting all of our effort into something. Humans have a natural tendency to do things only halfassed if there are backup plans. We can always fall back on those plans if we fail. But what if failure wasn’t an option?

In the book, the author talks about a true story from over two thousand years ago. In 210 BC, BC meaning “before Christ”, there was a Chinese warlord, a commander named Xiang Yu. And during one of the battles he fought, there were tons of battles back then it seems, not a very pleasant time to be alive, but he was in a battle and had to cross a river.

He had ferried his army across the Yangtze River, to where the battle was, and then set fire to his own ships. He destroyed his own ships. And he did this to show his troops that retreat was not an option. Now they couldn’t run away even if they thought they were losing. So, what did they do? They fought so ferociously that they won nine battles consecutively.

This story has become famous because deliberately closing an available option runs counter to our natural instincts. Normally, we can’t stand the idea of closing the doors on our alternatives, but Xiang Yu did things differently. Typically, a scared commander might have done this: he would have sent back part of his army to guard the ships just in case they needed the ships for retreat. There also might have been people designated to work in the kitchens on the ships, making food for the possible return of the soldiers. A lot of resources would have been used in expectation of losing, and naturally, in the back of the soldiers minds they would have known that failure could have been an option which might keep them holding back during battle just a bit. But that’s not how it went. Xiang Yu put all his resources into an army that literally had no choice but to defeat what lie front of them.

In the context of today’s world, we work just as feverishly to keep all our options open. We buy the best computer just in case we need all that power. We buy those extra warranties that are offered with new electronics just in case they break. What else? We fill our kids’ days with various activities; soccer, violin, swimming, pot making, Tae-kwon-do, yoga for kids; just in case they find that one passion.

In running back and forth among the things that might be important, we forget to spend enough time on what really is important. Maybe you should just choose one thing for your kid? Let them develop the skills at that one thing, cuz once they get good they often create a passion for it, instead of having sixteen different hobbies.

Not making a decision, and trying so hard to keep options open could be detrimental. A person unsure about two career paths, say working with IT or being a psychologist, may not wholeheartedly pursue either.

As the story of Xiang Yu shows, sometimes closing options is beneficial, because it forces us to focus. Rather than kidding ourselves that we can keep all options open indefinitely, we need to make difficult choices about what is truly important to us. For example, if you really want to spend more time with your children, it might be time to shut the door on another time-consuming dream, such as becoming the director of your company.

In our modern world many of us are troubled not by lack of opportunities or the freedom to choose our path, but by having too many choices to make, too many options. Like with the girlfriend that keeps her ex around, she probably is not giving her new boyfriend her all, not trying to develop the relationship as much as she could because she is still holding on to the possibility of going back to the jerk exboyfriend.

According to the book the author thinks we need to close some of our doors of opportunity, eliminate some options. And how do you do this?

Well there’s no simple solution, as this is very personal, very specific to each person. But my advice, focus on what you think would bring the most value to you in the long run. What will still be relevant in 5, 10 years’ time? Don’t fall for what seems pleasurable now, and definitely don’t keep everything on the table because it feels safer. Be courageous, make a decision and stick to your guns even when doubts come up, self-doubt or doubts from others. Spend some time prioritizing, choose what you think is best, and have faith.

So, some review questions. Let’s wrap this up.

• What is the main idea of this second part? How are we irrational?

Right, we like to keep our options open, even if it’s not the smartest thing to do.

• Is there an area in your life where you are unnecessarily keeping your options open?

• What can you do to eliminate the unnecessary options, the options from your answer in the last question?

We humans are deeply irrational in many of the daily decisions we make. From deciding what to buy, to not committing to what’s most important out of fear of losing opportunities, our choices and behavior are guided by irrationality. But that’s OK.

Through vigilance and awareness, we can try to avoid being too irrational, and just by noticing these behaviors we can start to be more in control of them. Be less influenced by things we don’t notice.

If you liked the ideas from today, go read the book, “Predictably Irrational”. Or listen to the audiobook. You can find the links for those on my website, feelgoodenglish.com

And if you want to go deeper with the English I used here go check out a Premium Membership. Feel Good Premium Members get a full lesson set to this episode, including a full transcript, definitions and examples of the advanced vocabulary words, expressions and phrasal verbs I used here. Everything you need to take this enlightening lesson and transform it into a totally effective learning tool. A cool tool! Learn more at www.feelgoodenglish.com/go

And until next time, let’s start paying a little more attention to how we act irrationally. We all are a little bit crazy, but that’s OK.

See you soon, bye, bye!