Why Do We Find Joy and Hate Watching the Kardashians?

The opening epigraph to Luke Burgis’ brilliant book gave me such a chuckle that I can’t resist sharing it here:

“We want what other people want because other people want it, and it’s penciled-in eyebrows all the way down, down to the depths of the nth circle of hell where we all die immediately of a Brazilian butt lift, over and over again.” —Dayna Tortorici via n+1 (as quoted in Wanting)

In today’s conversation, we’re talking about mimetic desire and our relationship to wanting. It’s a fundamental aspect of the fact that humans are social creatures: I see, therefore I want; I want, therefore I am.

But if what you’re wanting isn’t serving you, this conversation will be just the medicine you need to turn your attention inward again. As Luke says, “Mimetic desire is like gravity—it just is. Gravity is always at work. What gravity is to physics, mimetic desire is to psychology.” We can get better at escaping relational riptides and the rat race. Listen in to learn more about why Wanting is the key to unlocking our deepest desires and ridding ourselves of toxic comparison and competition.

More About Luke: Luke Burgis has co-created and led four companies in wellness, consumer products, and technology. He’s currently Entrepreneur-in-Residence and Director of Programs at the Ciocca Center for Principled Entrepreneurship where he also teaches business at The Catholic University of America. He writes and speaks regularly about the education of desire, and is the author of two books on these topics: Unrepeatable: Cultivating the Unique Calling of Every Person and Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life.

🌟 3 Key Takeaways:

• Our desires often don’t originate with us, but we do have agency and the freedom to rise above them
• We often experience mimetic rivalry with those closest to us
• Thick desires are ones in alignment with our own integrity and most meaningful pursuits, where status and recognition are byproducts (but not the aim) of deeper satisfaction

✅ Next Action: Be like the hawk (as featured in today’s conversation!)—notice what your subconscious Michelin Stars are and examine, Are they serving you? Do they represent your “thickest” desires, or merely what others in your life and industry tell you that you should want?

📘Books: 

• Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business
• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One 
• Life After College
• Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life (Luke Burgis)
• The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It: On Social Position and How We Use It by Will Storr

🔗Resources:

• Luke on the web, Instagram: @lukeburgis, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
• Articles: Dayna Tortorici’s n+1 article My Instagram, The New Yorker—The Floating World: Have’s and the Have Superyachts
• Videos: Rivalry: How to beat a basic instinct, How to know what you really want, movie trailer for Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend

🎧Related Podcast Episodes:

• 294: Confidence Conundrums and Attention Budgets with Terri Trespicio
• 278: Radically Content with Jamie Varon
• 299: Juggling Risk and Pursuing Passion while Pivoting in a Recession with Adrian Klaphaak
• Additional interviews with Luke Burgis (via Spotify)

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