Most of us walk around with the private (sometimes not-so-private) conceit that we are doing better than the average person. We are smarter, more objective, more disciplined, more self-reflective, more whatever than average. Ask any room full of people to guess their IQ, and unless it is some support group for depressed people, the result will always be higher than the 100--the statistical average by definition. Which begs the question, where are all the below average people hanging out?
This conceit/over-confidence is one of the reasons why writer Joseph Hallinan says we make mistakes.
Take for instance the success of the NutriSystem company. They sell low-calorie, prepackaged meals by mail to millions of subscribers who want to lose weight. Their stock went through a 233 percent growth in three years.
They advertise with the now well-known disclaimer "Results Not Typical" showing celebrities and regular people who lose something like 60 pounds... But the results are not typical! NutriSystem, it turns out, banks on not what people will do, but what people believe they will do. Turns out, most people think they're not typical. But if everyone is above average, then...
You get where I am going with this. We are easily self-deceived.
Read more from Why We Make Mistakes, by Joseph T. Hallinan.
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