The Focusing Illusion

Bestselling business author Simon Sinek gives a motivational speech called “Understand the Game,” where he mentions a study asking people if they would rather have a $400,000 house on a street where all the other houses are $100,000, or a million-dollar house on a street where all the other houses are two million dollars. People chose the $400,000 house, even though it was lower in value than the million-dollar house, because they wanted to be better than their neighbors.

…There is a theory that psychologists have described as the “focusing illusion.” This theory suggests when we…