Episode 465 - Don't Be Yourself with Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

'At some point, the right to be you ends and your obligation to others begins.'

'Just be yourself.' It's the most uncontroversial advice in the world, right?

Wrong, says Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. He's a man who likes to pick fights with universally accepted truths, because of course they're almost always more nuanced than we like to think.

In his new book Don't Be Yourself, he points out that unfiltered authenticity is a privilege reserved for the powerful, and it's not just selfish and a terrible career move for the rest of us but also limits our potential - because we grow by exploring our future possible selves, not just repeating who we've always been.

He's also a man with a nuanced opinion of writing: simultaneously 'the best way of... actually organizing your thoughts' and 'a lonely, slow, and occasionally masochistic pursuit, like knitting, except with more existential dread and less wool.'

I think we can all relate to this.