Sometimes It’s Good To Be Irrational

To even assume our ability to be rational is dishonest. Rational thinking caresses the ego; it’s easy to take pride in it, feel superior. But we are generally armed to the teeth with cognitive biases—a result of the brain’s attempt to simplify information. It happens, no matter what.

Cognitive biases present as selective attention, due to time being a limited resource. Personal memories can create biases. People have different recollections of the same event, according to their personal experience. It creates a shift in the way we all percieve our own realities. While there are baseline “rules”, those rules are always getting skewed. But this isn’t a weakness in the world; it’s a realization that we can build and define a dream.

Since rational thinking is a conclusion drawn from available information, our sense of what’s going on is always changing according to who’s taking advantage of media sources, art, and literature. It’s always changing as more data becomes available over time. Some people even need less rationality, according to personal priorities and goals. We do not all share identical priorities in this world. Even scientific laws can change as our technology and information grows.

What I’m getting at here, is that being irrational once in awhile is a good business move. There is a time and place for everything, and sometimes, a “crazy and wild idea” is just what we need. Taking risks belong in the business world; it can be a superpower. It also takes courage and a highly skilled thought process. I liken it to improvisation on a musical instrument; you have to know how to navigate the “solo” of a business idea on the fly.

Always playing it safe and being too rational about how we reach our goals can hinder our goals. Why not open more doorways? Fear is what normally keeps one from learning to use irrationality in a skilled way, because irrational choices are terrifying. You must know your business, know your competition, and have the capacity for quick, deep thinking. It isn’t for everyone. Being analytical and deliberate is good; it’s conservative. But being predictable isn’t always the best move for someone in the arts industry; people look to performers for inspiration and things they don’t get anywhere else. As a performing artist, a writer, or anything that requires a strong, inventive mind, you are the one who’s supposed to be making waves and showing people new angles to old ways.

During the pandemic, the entire world got the opportunity to witness what would happen if people were to make irrational choices. It was a bittersweet phenomenon. There was a short stretch of chaos, but out of it came some interesting, new ideas. Those ideas changed the way we work, the way we interact, and how we plan for the future.

Some people quit lifelong jobs to throw all their passions into a home business. And guess what? It worked more often than it didn’t. Other people started standing up to their traditional employers, and those employers had no choice but renegotiate, and find new ways to satisfy everyone on a more equal basis. Young professionals invented new apps that rivaled traditional banking, and they were a shocking success. People collaborated and built business communities. New companies took root, like Trucknetic and Boddess.

These things really happened. We changed the course of how entrepreneurship and employment works forever.

So how do you use irrational thinking without slamming your career into an early grave?

If you are selling something, simply remember people do not always make rational choices when they’re buying. If you’re basing every business decision on rationality, you’re missing half your buyers.

If you can commit to embracing a creative, out of the box idea and put it into play before you have proof of what can be achieved, you’ve just made an irrational business decision. You don’t have to spend your life savings on something you don’t understand. Do a little bit at a time, and test out some ideas. Start bending the rules a little bit. Or you could do something completely crazy, like Robin Chase and Antje Danielson did…

Robin and Antje were dropping their kids off at the same pre-school, and decided in the car one morning they’d try to build a business called Zipcar. They only had $68 in their bank accounts at the time, which they spent all of in the pursuit. Just three years later, they sold their company to Avis for $500 million dollars.

People start things all the time, and they never know where it’s going to go. They’re taking risks, and they’re sticking with it until it does what they want it to do. That takes patience—never giving up. It takes work. It takes courage.

Living rationally is safer, but it’s probably not going to make you wealthy (unless you’re going into medicine). Not all jobs work the same way. Of course we need to be reasonable a lot of the time. But if we never take those irrational chances, we could be missing a few miracles.