Our brains evolved to notice what's different, not what's better. Early hunters paid attention to unfamiliar sounds and new berries because novelty meant opportunity or danger. That wiring hasn't changed, so embracing difference matters more than chasing incremental improvement.
Better is not better. Different is better. If there's one thing I want you to learn before we wrap up today, it's this ultimate lesson that better is, in fact, not better. Different is better. Remember third grade science class? My teacher was Mrs. Morrison, and Mrs. Morrison sat us down and she gave us the ultimate lesson in the importance of being different. It was science class and we were talking about biology. And remember the discussion around the hunters and the gatherers? The hunters were the men and the gatherers were the women. And the hunters would go out into the woods and they would look for the prey that they were hunting. You know, antelope or saber toothed tigers, whatever the pharaohs was for the day. And they'd be hunting through the woods, and under their feet would be the crunching leaves as they slowly hunted for the animal. But the crunching leaves would very quickly became familiar and got ignored. It wasn't important. It was just crunching leaves or sticks under their feet. What they were paying attention for was something different, a noise that they didn't expect. And you see, the faster they walked or moved quicker, it maybe made louder, better noise under their feet. But they didn't hear it. The caveman mind was designed to ignore that. It was designed to pay attention to something different. So when they heard hoofprints in the distance or a screech or a cracking branch over there, they froze. And they paid absolute attention to it because the caveman mind knew that something different meant that there was an opportunity or a threat. Well, go to the gatherers. Mrs. Morris in third grade explained that the women were the gatherers, and they would go and collect berries and fruits and vegetation in the area to feed the tribe. Well, when they were looking, sometimes they would find something new, something they'd never seen before, and they would look at that potentially delicious red berry. But it could be poisonous. It could actually kill the tribe, or it could be vegetation that would feed the entire tribe. So they paid absolute attention to that different berry. That lesson in science class taught us one of the most important lessons of how humanity operates. Yes, societies move very quickly. Technology has grown explosively, but our minds haven't changed much. We are still wired to notice different instantly and to pay absolute attention to it until we identify that's an opportunity or a threat. But we're also designed to ignore. Better get louder, stamping, crunching leaves. We simply ignore.
