The View From the Mountaintops: Why It Makes a Difference – Part I
Monday, July 27th, 2009
What you see depends in part on where you stand. Whether you are in the valley or on the mountaintop, you may be able to see the sun, the sky, the rivers and the mountains. But how you see these things will be affected by your location. The view from the mountaintops will be different - even if you are looking at the same thing.
This difference in what you see depending on where you stand applies not only to scenic vistas but to the pursuit of Prosperity. And we believe there are good reasons for seeing and understanding the Mountaintops perspective on Prosperity, even if the other perspectives (from in the valleys or the hills) are valid. Here are a few thoughts to encourage you to take a look at the Mountaintops perspective.
Success is rare and Prosperity is not the default option in life. A quick survey of the human condition (from whatever vantage point) should be enough to confirm that success, in any endeavor, is not the norm for humanity. People don’t “naturally succeed;” they don’t automatically learn to read, grasp algebra, build a skyscraper, write computer code, or make fortune. Rather success is developed, through a combination of passion, education and effort. And because success requires passion, education and effort, not everyone succeeds.
But some people do.
This information (that success is not the norm, but that some people do succeed) prompts a simple question:
If you want to be successful, who should you study and perhaps emulate?
The obvious answer is “Those who have been successful,” right?
But quite often, this logical conclusion is rarely pursued or applied. Instead, the focus often changes to “why aren’t the rest of us successful?” Instead of trying to understand the view from the Mountaintops, many people are saying, “why can’t I see the same thing from down here in the valley?”
You may think this is a subtle distinction, but it has a huge impact.
Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein are the authors of Nudge, a 2008 book with the subtitle “Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness.” The book is a behaviorists’ perspective on how to guide, prod - or “nudge” - people toward a beneficial decision or behavior that they might not be able to make own their own.
One of the basic premises of the authors is that most people have little or no chance to make the right choices, even if they want to. They are too busy, too ignorant, too distracted, too lazy, too emotional - just “too human” - to make good decisions about their finances, their health, their relationships.
Since this is the case, most people would benefit from external nudges to make the right decision easier. In what Thaler and Sunstein characterize as “libertarian paternalism,” these external nudges would be provided by governments and social institutions, usually in the form of incentives or default options.
Automatic enrollment of new employees in an employer’s 401(k) is an application of this thinking. Rather than offering participation during an open enrollment period each calendar year, employees are automatically enrolled. Participation is not mandatory, but the employee must initiate the decision to not participate, by filling contacting Human Resources, filling out a form, etc. Studies show that inertia tends to prevail with most people - they do what’s easiest, and tend to keep doing what they’ve been doing - so they once enrolled, they tend not to opt out. Instead, they get used to having the deductions taken from their paycheck, and accept their participation in the retirement plan as a good thing.
According to the behaviorists, if there wasn’t the “nudge” of automatic enrollment, participation in a retirement savings plan wouldn’t happen for many people. And indirectly, the statistics validate this assessment, because 401(k) participation is higher when employers make participation the default option.
This “nudging” might seem relatively benign. Behaviorists would argue that most people are better off because of the nudge. But there’s something missing in the conversation:
What if you’re not “most people?”
Thaler and Sunstein note that numerous behavioral studies show it is human nature to follow the herd - if the group believes something, the individual will often follow, even if it conflicts with his own assessment. Hence, the desirability of having “choice architects” arrange things so that the group will choose the “right” choice.
But even these tests note that while the majority may be swayed, some are not. Most people may follow the herd, most people may make poor decisions, but some do not. And they don’t need nudges.
Mountaintops attempts to offer the wisdom, experiences and perspectives of those people who, for whatever reason, have already grasped that they want to be different, want to be better, want to reach their full potential.
If you don’t want to be most people, Mountaintops is a place where you can explore how to be different. While the perspectives “most people” have may be valid, we seek to be a vital source of “alternative” information, because we believe that when you see things differently, you may like the view a lot better.