The pull of irrational behavior is like gravity… you can jump up but almost as soon as you have left the ground you are back down again.  It is in our human nature to be swayed by our subconscious, so much so that some times it is nearly impossible to choose the rational choice.

A Harvard Professor offers some of his MBA students a 20 dollar bill for auction on the first day of class.  Everyone in the class is allowed to bid for the 20 dollar bill, all bids have to be more than 1 dollar, the winner of the bid wins the twenty but the runner-up has to pay up his or her last bid.  At first the students jump at the opportunity to win a twenty dollar bill at a cheap price, when the bids reach double digits the hands start to dwindle leaving two students with the highest bids in the class to make the decision, do they continue?  Without fail the students continue to bid well over twenty dollars, rationally it would make more sense to stop the bidding before they reach twenty dollars and suffer the loss but the students get caught up in the moment and the loss of their money.  The highest bidding war the Professor has ever seen is $204 dollars, no matter who participates in this experiment  (business executives or students) the participants are always swayed.   It sounds ridiculous from an outsider point of view but in the moment you and I might fall to the same trap.

Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman,  authors of Sway, have attempted, and quite successfully so, to bring the various subconcious pulls toward irrationaly behaviors to light.  This well written, incredibly informative book encourages you to think twice before making a decision, to not attribute value to something prematurely, and clears up questionable behaviors.  I want to read this book again which is why I encourage you to pick up Sway at your local bookstore.  Take a peek into the human psyche, who knows maybe it will talk you out of making a horrible decision in the nearest of futures.

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