Thread by @AndrejDrats

Your brain has been lying to you your entire life.

This Nobel Prize winner spent 58 years proving it.

He exposed a major psychological flaw in human decision-making.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

And you'll question every decision you've ever made: 🧵

Meet Herbert Simon:

• Political science dropout turned Nobel Prize winner
• Father of artificial intelligence
• Revolutionized how we understand decision-making

After studying city managers for years, he discovered something shocking about human behavior...

Scientists used to think humans were perfectly rational.

But Simon proved we have severe limitations:

• Limited information
• Cognitive overload
• Time pressure

This changed economics forever. Here's how:

Simon discovered we make decisions using "bounded rationality."

We don't optimize. We "satisfice."

Translation: We search until we find something "good enough," then stop.

To show you how this affects your decisions, here are 4 hidden traps controlling every choice you make:

1/ The Scissors Effect

Simon used a brilliant analogy:

Your decision-making is like scissors with two blades.

One blade = your brain's limits
Other blade = your environment's structure

You can't understand your choices by looking at just one blade.

Here's what this means:

Your brain is limited. But it's incredibly good at using patterns in your environment to make up for those limits.

You don't remember every price. But you know expensive stores vs cheap stores.

The dangerous part:

Smart people design environments to exploit this.

Casinos remove clocks so you lose track of time.
Social media feeds use infinite scroll so you never feel "done."

Your brain + their environment = their desired outcome.

How to use the Scissors Effect:

• Change your environment to support better decisions
• Remove temptations from your space
• Design your surroundings to make good choices easier

Don't fight your brain's limits. Work with them by controlling your environment.

2/ The Programmed vs Non-Programmed Decision Blindness

Simon discovered two decision types:

• Programmed: Routine (what you eat, hiring, pricing)
• Non-programmed: Novel (market entry, launches, career decisions)

Most people use the same approach for both.

The billion-dollar insight:

Programmed decisions: Build systems and satisfice
Non-programmed decisions: Gather intelligence and analyze

Amazon automates small decisions but analyzes big bets for months.

Most entrepreneurs do the opposite.

3/ Your Brain Uses Dangerous Shortcuts

Simon discovered your brain uses "mental shortcuts" called heuristics.

These help you decide fast. But they also trick you.

You think you're being logical. Really, you're just using shortcuts that can lead you wrong.

Here are the shortcuts fooling you:

Recognition Shortcut: You pick brands you've heard of, even if they're worse.

Familiarity Shortcut: You choose what feels comfortable, even when new is better.

Recent Memory Shortcut: You think plane crashes happen a lot because you saw one on TV.

How to beat these shortcuts:

• Slow down your thinking
• Research the unfamiliar options
• Ask: "Am I choosing this because it's actually better, or just because I've heard of it?"

Your brain wants to go fast. Force it to slow down.

4/ Satisficing vs Maximizing

Here's Simon's biggest discovery:

Most people think successful people "maximize" (find the absolute best option).

But Simon proved successful people "satisfice" (find the first good option that meets their criteria).

Maximizers get stuck. Satisficers move forward.

Why satisficing beats maximizing:

• You make decisions faster
• You spend less mental energy
• You avoid "analysis paralysis"
• You can always adjust later

Perfect is the enemy of good. Good enough is the friend of progress.

Remember: The goal isn't the best decision. It's a good decision made quickly.

Simon's research changed how I approach my business.

After creating content daily for 18 months, I realized something:

Understanding decision psychology is the future of marketing.

When you design content that works with human psychology, it spreads faster and converts better.

That's why every entrepreneur should master the psychology of influence and build their personal brand.

When done right, it's the most scalable way to build trust and gain customers.

If you want to build a premium personal brand:

I help founders build brands on X and get more clients through viral threads like these.

So far, my threads have gained 400M+ impressions.

If interested, book a call below (serious founders only): calendly.com/andrejdrats/di…

Thanks for reading.

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Repost the first tweet to help more people see it.

https://twitter.com/1809954603259330560/status/1943667867452596578