As I’ve said, the true warrior knows that less is more. I recently read an interview with psychologist, Nobel-winning economist, and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, in an old copy of Time Magazine1. It turns out that Kahneman has proof that we are normally blind about our own blindness, and as a result, we make mistakes because we’re overconfident in our opinions, impressions, and judgements. We exaggerate how knowable the world is. Incidents of worldwide terrorism are up substantially. There was a report the other day, on the CBC, about a Canadian tourist from Toronto killed in Mexico last month, while on vacation with his family.

How much would you pay (as a one-time fee) for a travel insurance policy that pays $1 million to your loved ones in case of death for any reason? How much would you pay (as a one-time fee) for a travel insurance policy that pays $1 million to your loved ones in case of death from an act of terrorism?

Based on the availability bias2, people will respond that they were willing to pay more for the terrorism policy, even though the statistical likelihood of death from terrorism is extremely small when compared to “death from any reason.” So why would people be willing to pay more for something that is less likely to happen?

Let’s see … you are willing to pay more for a diamond than you are for a cubic zirconia because there are fewer diamonds. They are rare. Cubic zirconium can be manufactured, and so are readily available. Does this mean that, because there are fewer deaths by terrorism, we should pay more for that type of policy? Well—completely ignoring the fact that insurance is priced on the basis of actuarial tables (or probabilities of occurrence), and the fact that the rarer an event (or less likely it is to happen), the lower the premium will be—our brains say, “Yes.”

We get it backwards, which is a clear example of “less is more.” The true warrior knows that when we understand how the human mind works, and how it is likely to respond to a product/service offering, we can be in a position to be victorious. You are warriors. Can you see the secret that you must embrace in order to take your skill up to another level?

Chris Guillebeau, author of The $100 Startup3, counsels us to “give them the fish!” (which sounds odd out of context, I admit). To clarify, when your prospect is looking for a fish, the business opportunity is there to give him a fish. So, you establish a repeat customer relationship (many sales = many dollars). However, if you teach him how to fish, the same prospect becomes a potential competitor (one sale, not so many dollars). This can be somewhat likened to the many service providers who don’t get this message. Their clients come wanting fish, but they make it so complicated that it seems like they are teaching them how to fish, in the most elaborate fashion possible. The true warrior knows that it is far better to set our sights on the simple, give-me-the-fish button, and make it happen as soon as we can. Less complication is better than more complication. Simple. Just give them the fish! All the evidence is in, and all true warriors know that less is more!

You are warriors, and if you but listen and embrace the concept of less is more, you will discover that providing less is often 100 times or even 1,000 times more rewarding than providing more. So it has been written.