You probably think that your computer or phone that you are currently using to view this lesson is producing millions of colors, but that is not true. It produces only three: red, green and blue. Your screen is designed to trick your brain by mixing these three primary colors. A new color is created in your head. The screen is designed for people; in other words, your dog thinks your TV is terrible because dogs can only detect two colors, while humans can detect three colors. Pigeons, on the other hand, can detect five colors, one of which is ultraviolet.

Just like you can create a new color in the human brain, you can do the same thing and create new things without actually creating them in real life. You can make something bad look good and something good look bad. Rory Sutherland, author of a book called Alchemy, calls this process interventions.

Intervention is similar to innovation, but instead of creating something new in the physical world, you create it in the brain. In summary, I will share with you seven amazing lessons from that book.

Lesson number one: Perception is reality. In 2009, Eurostar, the train company, was losing customers to airlines. So they asked, how can I make the journey from London to Paris better? And what was the solution? The engineers came... Well, they spent over eight billion dollars and built brand new railroad tracks, which reduced the total travel time by 40 minutes, from 3 hours and 20 minutes to 2 hours and 40 minutes. A psychological way to solve that problem would be to stop looking at the quantity of time and start looking at the quality of time. So what could they do? They could have made the trip a better experience. For example, they could have installed Wi-Fi on the trains for a fraction of that amount of money, which, by the way, they didn't do for another 10 years. Or they could just spend $1 billion and hire the most beautiful male and female models and pay them to serve free champagne throughout the trip. It sounds funny, but this could be a much cheaper solution, and people would ask for the train to slow down. We perceive time differently depending on what we are doing during that time. For example, you probably said things like, 'That was the longest five minutes of my life,' or 'I didn't know how an hour had already passed.' Now take a look at your job or business and see how you can apply this knowledge. For example, maybe you can redesign the waiting room in your office so that your clients can do some fun things and forget about waiting.

Here's another thing about time: We absolutely hate waiting in suspense. You can reduce time not by reducing it, but by reducing the uncertainty around it. Compare Uber to a taxi, for example. You probably feel that Uber gets to you really faster than a taxi. The thing is, Uber hasn't necessarily reduced the time it takes for a car to get to you. Instead, they reduced the uncertainty of how long you have to wait. How? Showing you a map where you can see where the driver is and have an estimated time of arrival. You feel more in control and less anxious about the wait. We are happier waiting 10 minutes for a car knowing it will take 10 minutes than waiting five minutes for a car in a state of uncertainty. People hate uncertainty, so if you can find a way to reduce it, then you definitely have a valuable product or service on your hands.

If you look at problems psychologically instead of logically, you come up with different answers that can be better and even cost less. For example, in the UK, if you buy a Ferrari, they will deliver it to your local dealership for free, which is pretty cool. But there is another option: they call it a factory tour. Here's how it works: you pay £500 to visit the Ferrari factory, and you have to travel at your own expense. But check this out: at the end of the tour, you get to drive your brand new Ferrari from the factory and take it home. So what they did has nothing to do with reality. Reality has not changed at all. But calling it a factory tour, they made you pay £500 and collect your car.

Another example from the auto industry: Rolls-Royce made its cars cheaper by changing the context in which they were displayed. They were usually displayed at car shows, but there they looked absurdly expensive compared to other cars. So they came up with a very smart move: they stopped showing cars at car shows and started showing them at yacht and airplane shows instead. Now, if you've been looking at planes and ships all afternoon, a $250,000 car looks pretty cheap by comparison.

Another example: many companies fail not because their product is bad, but because they don't know how to sell it. One excellent example is England's Royal Mail. In fact, it is a very good service; the percentage of first class letters and mail delivered overnight in the UK is 97%. They wanted to improve it even more and reach 98.5%. Unfortunately, this imposed huge costs on the system and almost broke it. Interestingly, if you were to go and ask people what percentage of first-class mail arrives the next day, typical answers would range from 40 to 80 percent. None said 97%. This proves that the problem was their perception of the service, not the service itself. If perception is so much worse than reality, why are you trying to improve reality instead of improving perception? What they needed to do was simple: just advertise and let people know how good their product is. That's why it doesn't make sense to focus on the product and forget the marketing. People need to get a great product, but they also need to believe they're getting a great product.

Conclusion number two: Small interventions can have a big impact. We often assume that complex problems require complex solutions, but sometimes a small, seemingly trivial intervention can have a significant impact. For example, instead of spending a lot of money to speed up the elevators, you can install mirrors. Mirrors keep you distracted and avoid boredom; therefore, the ride appears faster than it actually is. Another example: suppose you're a doctor, and your patients have a terrible habit of stopping antibiotic therapy as soon as their symptoms subside. The rational solution is to explain to them how dangerous it is, perhaps with a little biology lesson explaining how bacteria can become stronger. You can scare them and create a real fear of a serious illness. Or you can find a much easier solution: instead of giving them 24 white pills, give them 18 white pills and 6 blue ones. Tell them to take the white pills first, then the blue ones. By breaking it down into parts, they will feel that this is a two-step process; people are much more likely to get to the end when there is a tipping point somewhere in the middle.

Conclusion number three: The opposite of a good idea is a good idea. In science, there are right answers and wrong answers. The opposite of a correct answer is an incorrect answer. Five times two is ten; any answer other than ten is incorrect. But in psychology and marketing, this rule may not apply. The opposite of a good idea can still be a good idea. For example, when you go to a restaurant, you expect polite and cordial treatment. The opposite of politeness is rudeness, and there are some restaurants that have made rudeness a part of their service. If you visit one such restaurant, the waiter will bring the food and throw it in front of you and say rude things to your face. In a way, when you make rudeness a part of your culture and people expect to be treated badly, then it becomes a fun experience, and people are happy to pay for it. Take Red Bull, for example. It's the opposite of Coca-Cola. It tastes weird, comes in a small can, and costs several times more than cola. Everyone would laugh if you told them you were going to develop a drink that you deliberately made to taste weird, charge two to three times as much for it, but sell it in a small can so people could get very little drink for their money. But it's Red Bull, and it's successful.

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Conclusion Number Four: Ask stupid questions because no one else will. Sometimes the solution to a problem lies in asking what we would consider a stupid question, the kind of question that everyone thinks they know the answer to. Asking unconventional or even silly questions can lead to breakthrough insights and innovative solutions. Let's take a super common example: taking your child to the doctor. Why do you take your child to the doctor when they get sick? I know it sounds like a very stupid question, but bear with me. Is it because they are sick and you want them to get better? You obviously want them to feel better, but beneath this supposedly rational behavior lies a much more ulterior motive. When people go to the doctor, most of the time they are not looking for treatment but comfort. More than the treatment, you want the doctor to tell you that your child will be okay. If you have kids, you know that most of the time your child has a fever from a cold or just a stupid virus they picked up from another kid at daycare, and that their bodies will work it out on their own. That doesn't change the fact that you want to hear your pediatrician tell you it's nothing serious. Most people will go to the doctor even if they are not sick, just to make sure everything is okay. The only reason anyone would do something like that is for comfort. The best proof is that you don't see people visiting the dentist for no reason, right? Well, you know the dentist is going to do something, even if it's just cleaning your teeth. Most people don't want to look stupid, so they don't ask stupid questions. But they can help you discover powerful insights. There can be a tremendous competitive advantage if you create a small space in your business for people to test things that don't make sense. The great value of experimenting outside the rational is that most of your competitors will be too scared to go there.

Conclusion number five: Don't design for the average person. Designing for the average person may seem like a safe move, but it can lead to failure. That's because almost no one is actually average. Think of it this way: some adults are two meters tall; others are 1.3 meters high. This means that the average person would be 1.65 meters tall. If you design something, say trousers, for a person who is 1.65 meters tall, it will fit them perfectly. But will it fit a six foot tall person? Will it fit a 1.3 meter tall person? Probably not. And we haven't even taken average weight into account. Designing something for the average person is like trying to create a pair of pants that fit everyone. It might fit some people ok, but in reality, very few people will fit them perfectly. Just as everyone's bodies are unique, everyone's preferences and needs are also unique. If you try to design something for the average person, well, there's a chance your product won't be completely hated, but it won't be loved either. Instead of trying to make something that will appeal to everyone, it's better to focus on a specific group of people who have unique needs or preferences. If you can make something these people really like, they will tell all their friends and help make your product a success. An interesting example of this is Harry Potter. The story was created for English 11-year-old boys, but became so popular with their audience that it spilled over to other audiences, and today the story is loved by people of all ages and countries.

Conclusion number six: People do not see the world objectively. I need to make an ad for a car and I don't know which one to choose. Which option would you recommend? Option A is to create an ad that shows the car, shows how beautiful it is on the outside, how spacious it is inside, and talks about the powerful and fast engine and the comfortable seats. Option B shows a car driving along the African savannah next to a big cat, like a lion. If you think option B will be more successful, you're probably right. The reason is simpler than it seems: an animal is involved. Ads with beautiful or intriguing, powerful animals have been proven to simply do better than ads without them, regardless of the product. Now, if I'm buying a car, I should probably consider things like comfort, power and space. So why am I allowing myself to make my choice based on that big lion instead of all the objective features of the product? The reason has to do with your unconscious mind. We do things for reasons that we consciously know nothing about. If you ask someone why they do something, they'll obviously give you a reason, but that doesn't mean it's the real reason. The founder of the Ford company, Henry Ford, once said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." We assume that people perceive the world objectively and that people see clearly and think logically all the time, but that is simply not true. We do not see the world as it is; we see the world according to what it means to us. Subjective experiences are valuable and can be just as important as objective data when making decisions. If you have a business or are a leader, you must always keep this in mind. Even if you're not dealing with a business context, you're solving problems all the time. You solve problems with your partner, colleagues and friends, and thinking in psychological terms will help you remember that what people say is not always what they mean and does not always translate into what they feel or intend to do.

Conclusion number seven: It doesn't pay to be logical if everyone else is logical. One thing is very interesting about military strategy: it never makes much sense. Of course, if you look back at all the steps the army took during the attack, for example, you will realize that in the end there was a clear objective and the steps taken to get there. But the point is that there were also diversions along the way. The reason is that if the army acts logically, it will become predictable, and you don't want the enemy to be aware of your every move, right? Companies that follow a predictable path also quickly become obsolete; they simply become the same as everyone else. This happens because even if you have initial success, soon everyone will know what you are doing and will be doing the same as you. To be successful, it is essential to think differently, creatively and innovatively. The author says, instead of copying your competitors because what they're doing works, find out what they're doing wrong. What are the weaknesses of their strategies? Identify their weaknesses and use them to your advantage. That way, you can develop a unique selling point that will make people choose you over anyone else. For example, if you are planning to write a book, find books similar to the one you want to write and read all the one and two star reviews. If you want to start a YouTube channel, then read the comments and see what people are complaining about and what they want to see, but no one is providing. According to the author, many solutions in the future will probably come from psychology, not from logic and rationality. We no longer live in the Middle Ages; most problems that require logical solutions have already been found. The remaining problems are very likely logic-resistant, meaning they cannot be solved by logic. If there was a logical solution, we would have found it by now.

That's all for this lesson. I have summarized several psychology books similar to this one. If this analysis was interesting to you, you have many similar to this one inside Insight Academy. The most important currency in the world is time; you just spent some of it reading this analysis. I hope it was worth it. I wish you a nice day.