Marketing consultant, author, and innovation guru Andy Cohen talks about the definition of magic as understanding human behavior and the assumptions that humans make. By understanding those assumptions, the magician’s goal is to make you follow particular assumptions that lead you away to the secret of their tricks, and this is known as misdirection.
Cohen demonstrates a sleight of hand using a coin as an example of a magician’s trick, wherein the magician lets people believe the coin is hidden in one hand when in fact it is in another. He points out that if you challenge that assumption, in essence you will discover the secret to the trick or discover a new solution that you didn’t even think was possible before.
Business is no different. In business, we operate in assumptions all the time. We have to, otherwise we have to stop, think, and analyse everything we do and that would stop business. The problem is, we treat our assumptions as a set of truths rather than a set of beliefs.
What happens is we end up misdirecting ourselves from what’s important, which shouldn’t be the case. Be enlightened by Andy Cohen and watch this video right away.