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The Swimmer's Body Illusion affects advertising, marketing, sales, management and more.
Consider this short story.......
A person decides to start a new work out to achieve a great new look.
After spending hours looking at photos of different athletes for inspiration, it is decided that swimmers have the desired body and look. To achieve that same look, the new workout will follow the workouts of Olympic swimmers.
Several months of extreme dedication and hard work later, the swimmer's body has not been achieved. Frustrated, the workouts are increased, trainers are hired, and more and more extreme measures are taken.
A full year later, the endless workouts, trainers and significant amounts of time and money have not resulted in the swimmer's body.
Depressed, the goal is abandoned and it is assumed that the athletes in the inspirational photos must have started earlier in life, had better trainers and spent even more time and money.
Everything is blamed except the thought process prompted the new workouts to begin with.
Here we see what is known as the "swimmer's body illusion".
Swimmers do not have a specific body type because of how much they swim - rather, swimmers are successful because of their specific body type.
Don't let your strategy be misguided due to the swimmer's body illusion. We commonly see this issue when it comes to ad spending levels, company culture, management styles and sales strategies.