Think of it as Yoga for the brain, we are going to stretch a bit.
Winning by Deceit – FOMO – The trap was always in your Mind.
The best trap doesn't force you inside. It makes you afraid of what will happen if you don't follow. We call it FOMO --YNOT!
FOMO – Fear of Missing Out is not new. It is ancient.
Some traps are made of stone. Some are made of iron. Some are made of wood.
And some of the most effective traps ever invented are made entirely out of human emotion.
More than 800 years ago, the Mongols understood something that marketers, negotiators, politicians, salespeople, casino operators, and business strategists still exploit today:
If you can make people believe they are about to win, they will often abandon caution and chase the victory themselves.
You don’t always have to force someone into a trap.
Sometimes you simply have to make the trap look like an opportunity. Everyone thinks they are going to win the lotto.
That may be one of the most important lessons modern business can learn from Genghis Khan.
And then there was Genghis Khan…
Who Was Genghis Khan?
Genghis Khan was born Temüjin on the Mongolian steppe in the 12th century. After decades of tribal warfare, alliances, betrayals, and conquest, he united the Mongol tribes and was proclaimed Genghis Khan in 1206. He became the founder and first ruler of the Mongol Empire.
Genghis died in 1227, but the military system he created continued under his sons, grandsons, and generals. The empire eventually stretched across much of Eurasia, from East Asia deep into Europe and the Middle East.
The Mongols are usually remembered for their horses, bows, mobility, and brutality.
But those things alone do not explain their extraordinary success.
Their greatest weapon may have been their understanding of human behavior.
They didn’t simply attack armies. They manipulated them.
The Army That Ran Away
One of the Mongols’ most famous tactics was the feigned retreat.
Imagine that you are a medieval commander.
Your army has been fighting Mongol cavalry.
Suddenly the Mongols break. They turn their horses.
They run.
At first you cannot believe what you are seeing.
The terrifying Mongol army is retreating.
Your men begin shouting. We won. The enemy is fleeing.
And now one emotion begins overpowering everything your military training taught you:
Chase them. Your cavalry surges forward.
Then your infantry follows. The fastest horses begin pulling ahead.
Slower cavalry falls behind. The infantry stretches farther back.
Units lose contact with one another.
Commanders lose control of their formations.
Soldiers who had been standing shoulder to shoulder in an organized army are soon spread across miles of countryside.
And still the Mongols keep running.
So you keep chasing. Every additional mile makes you more certain that you are winning.
That is the brilliance of the trap.
The farther you enter it, the more successful you think you are.
Then the Mongols Turn Around
Eventually a signal comes. The supposedly defeated Mongol cavalry stops.
Thousands of horsemen wheel around.
The army that appeared to be fleeing suddenly reforms.
Now it charges directly back toward you. Except your army is no longer an army.
It is a collection of exhausted men and horses scattered across the countryside.
And then things get worse. Mongol units that had been held in reserve or positioned elsewhere enter the battle.
The pursuers discover that the enemy they believed they were chasing has suddenly become the enemy surrounding them.
The psychological transformation is devastating.
Seconds earlier: We have them! Now: We are trapped.
The decisive weapon wasn’t merely the horse.
It wasn’t merely the bow. It wasn’t even the maneuver.
The weapon was the enemy commander’s belief that victory was escaping and had to be captured immediately.
The Enemy Defeated Himself
The feigned retreat was not invented by Genghis Khan; versions had existed for centuries among steppe peoples and other armies. But the Mongols became extraordinarily effective practitioners of it.
At the Battle of the Kalka River in 1223, Mongol forces commanded by Jebe and Subutai drew a coalition of Rus’ princes and Cumans into a prolonged pursuit. The pursuing forces became spread out and disorganized before the Mongols turned and defeated them decisively.
Genghis himself had used similar deception during the conquest of Khwarazm. At Samarkand in 1220, a feigned withdrawal helped draw defenders away from their fortifications, where they could be attacked in the open.
The specific battles differed. The psychological mechanism did not.
Make your opponent believe he is winning.
Then allow his own excitement to destroy his discipline.
That is an astonishing concept.
The Mongols did not always have to break the enemy’s formation.
They convinced the enemy to break it himself.
Eight Hundred Years Later, We Still Chase the Horse
Walk into a shopping mall. Open Amazon. Look at an airline website.
Visit a car dealership. Scroll through social media.
Watch an online auction. Different battlefield.
Same brain. The horse has been replaced by a flashing button.
ONLY 2 LEFT – SALE ENDS TONIGHT.
14 PEOPLE ARE VIEWING THIS ROOM.
PRICE JUST DROPPED. – LIMITED RELEASE.
EARLY ACCESS ENDS IN 23 MINUTES.
Something appears to be escaping.
And suddenly we want it more.
Modern marketing owes Genghis Khan at least a philosophical thank-you.
Not because marketers studied Mongol cavalry manuals, but because both discovered the same fundamental principle:
People become easier to influence when emotion convinces them that they must act before they have time to think.
The Mongols created the illusion of a military opportunity.
Marketing creates the perception of a commercial opportunity.
The mechanism is remarkably similar.
There it goes. Don’t lose it. Go after it.
The Modern Feigned Retreat
Today’s battlefield contains its own versions of the old maneuver:
A luxury company intentionally restricts supply so customers chase access.
A salesperson starts walking away from a negotiation, causing the buyer to reconsider.
An online store puts a countdown timer beside an offer.
A product launches by invitation only, making exclusion increase demand.
An auction forces buyers to watch competitors pursue the same object.
A free product gets you deeply invested before the valuable features appear behind a paid tier.
A company announces that an offer is disappearing, converting hesitation into action.
Each creates movement in the customer’s mind.
The sophisticated marketer doesn’t simply say:
Buy this. The sophisticated marketer creates circumstances in which the customer begins telling himself:
I better get this before somebody else does.
That distinction is enormous.
Once people begin pursuing something, another psychological phenomenon appears.
They become invested in the pursuit itself.
They have already spent time researching.
They have imagined owning it.
They have compared themselves with people who already have it.
They have negotiated. They have clicked.
They have filled out half the application.
They have mentally crossed the line from Should I buy it? to How do I make sure I get it?
The battle has changed.
Just as the medieval cavalry commander stopped asking whether he should pursue the Mongols and started asking how quickly he could catch them, the consumer stops evaluating the product and begins worrying about losing the opportunity.
Make Them Chase You
There is an important business principle hidden here.
Weak selling constantly chases the customer.
Please buy. Can I give you another discount?
Can we call you tomorrow?
What would it take to earn your business today?
Strong positioning can reverse the relationship.
Instead of chasing the buyer, the product becomes something the buyer wants to catch.
Apple has used versions of this psychology around product releases.
Luxury brands use controlled availability.
Nightclubs use velvet ropes. Private clubs use waiting lists.
Consultants limit the number of clients they accept.
Universities advertise selectivity.
Restaurants become more desirable when reservations are difficult to obtain.
Sometimes the most powerful message is not:
We desperately want you.
It is: You may not be able to get this.
Now the customer moves.
The Mongols move away.
The enemy follows.
The Dangerous Moment: When You Think You’re Winning
But there is another CEO lesson here, and it may be even more important.
You aren’t always the Mongol. Sometimes you are the army doing the chasing.
A competitor drops its price dramatically. You immediately cut yours.
A competitor enters a new market. You rush in after them.
Someone starts bidding against you for an acquisition.
You increase your offer. A stock is skyrocketing.
You buy because everyone else seems to be getting rich.
A new technology becomes fashionable.
Your company commits millions because every competitor appears to be doing it.
An employee threatens to leave.
You make an emotional counteroffer.
A negotiation begins slipping away.
You abandon the conditions you said were essential.
Be careful.
The moment when something appears to be getting away from you is exactly when your judgment is most vulnerable.
You start chasing. Then you accelerate. Then you rationalize.
And with every step you become more invested in continuing.
Eventually you may discover that your opponent never forced you into a bad position.
You ran there voluntarily.
Emotion Creates Momentum
This is what made the Mongol tactic so powerful.
The first hundred yards of pursuit were probably rational.
The next mile seemed reasonable because you had already pursued for a hundred yards.
Then another mile. Then another. Every decision justified the next decision.
The psychology of business works the same way.
$10,000 becomes $20,000.
$20,000 becomes $50,000.
“We’ve already spent too much to quit now.”
That sentence has destroyed companies, projects, investments, acquisitions, and careers.
The pursuit itself becomes the justification for continuing the pursuit.
And somewhere ahead of you, metaphorically speaking, the Mongols are still riding away.
Deceit Doesn’t Have to Be a Lie
This is where the concept becomes more sophisticated.
Deception does not necessarily require saying something false.
The Mongols didn’t have to send a messenger saying: We have been defeated.
They simply behaved in a way that encouraged the enemy to reach that conclusion.
This distinction matters enormously in business. People do not react only to information.
They react to the story they construct from information.
A $100 bottle of wine beside a $400 bottle suddenly seems inexpensive.
A nearly empty restaurant looks undesirable.
A restaurant with a line outside looks valuable.
A product marked “$199 — previously $399” feels different from the identical product simply marked “$199.”
A salesperson who says, “Take all the time you need,” can sometimes create more desire than one who keeps pushing.
Nothing physical has changed. Perception has.
And perception frequently determines behavior.
There Is a Line: Persuasion vs. Fraud
A smart CEO should understand psychological influence.
A smart CEO should also understand where not to cross the line.
Creating excitement is marketing. Creating scarcity can be marketing.
Positioning a product to increase perceived value is marketing.
Understanding desire, status, fear, curiosity, convenience, exclusivity, and competition is marketing.
But knowingly fabricating material facts, fake scarcity, fake bidders, fake reviews, or false claims can become deception in the legal and unethical sense.
There is a major difference between understanding human psychology and exploiting customers through fraud.
The sustainable company wants customers to walk through the door because they want what is on the other side—not because the company lied about what was there.
The Mongols only needed their tactic to work once against an enemy army.
A business needs customers to come back. That changes the equation.
The Lesson
Genghis Khan and the commanders who followed him understood something extraordinarily modern:
Control the emotion and you can often control the decision.
Fear makes people retreat. Greed makes people reach.
Scarcity makes people hurry. Competition makes people bid.
Pride makes people refuse to quit. Hope makes people continue.
And the belief that victory is just a little farther ahead can make people pursue something far beyond the point where logic should have told them to stop.
That was true on the Eurasian steppe eight centuries ago.
It is true in a boardroom. It is true in a negotiation. It is true in advertising.
It is true in investing.
And it is true every time you click BUY NOW because a website tells you the opportunity is about to disappear.
The technology has changed. Human beings haven’t changed nearly as much.
The Mongols needed horses, bows, discipline, and open terrain.
Modern marketers need screens, algorithms, offers, and a detailed understanding of human behavior.
But both depend on the same final ingredient:
You have to decide to chase.
And that may be Genghis Khan’s greatest marketing lesson.
Never forget:
The best trap doesn’t force you inside.
It makes you afraid of what will happen if you don’t follow.
The enemy believes he is pursuing victory.
The consumer believes he is pursuing an opportunity.
The investor believes he is pursuing profit.
The negotiator believes he is preventing a loss.
And sometimes, only after the pursuit has gone too far, does he finally look around and realize what happened.
The trap was never in the ground. The trap was in his mind.
