Why do we not like the simple way?

I was talking with a friend of mine recently. He is looking to open his own business consultancy. He already has one consultancy specialising in something else but he is looking to branch out into a different area in the near future.

Because of that he has been reading various books to help him shape his methodology. One of the books he read suggested that when you are brought into a business, the more complicated you can make your suggestions or solutions the more money you can charge. This got me thinking about human psychology and how ridiculous sometimes we all are.

Lets think about this for awhile, when we ask a consultant or adviser for advice, we expect some kind of solution, right?

How many times have you been to the doctor and his or her advice is to do nothing, just rest in bed for a couple of days? I don't know about you but for me, that is the best result that could happen. However some people expect an impossible to understand explanation and enough medication to sink the Titanic. Some people feel that if they don't get that at the minimum, they feel shortchanged. It feels like a waste of their time and money. They feel like their is something wrong with them so they need something. Whatever that is.

In other consultancy type scenarios, if the consultant gives a very simple solution, we also feel like we have been shortchanged.

Our attitude is, "What am I paying you for? I can do that myself. I don't need your overpriced advice."

The consultant ultimate comeback to that objection would be "Have you done it?"

99.99999999% of the time the answer to the above question is, "No."

"Why not? You just said it was really easy and you can do it yourself."

"Yes, but, umm."

Why do we have to overcomplicate things? Why do we disregard simple things? Human psychology is interesting, isn't it? We don't value free things although we want it for free and then we get an answer we can understand and we are paying for it we complain.

Why do we make it so difficult for ourselves?

I guess we think life is difficult when it doesn't have to be.

KISS - Keep it simple, stupid.