Mark Manson

It circles back to the whole point of this episode.

How do you change?

You can't figure out how to change until you understand who you are and what your natural predisposition is.

I think we instinctually seek out information and frameworks that will reflect back to us an accurate picture of who we are.

We feel that there's like a deep-seated need to feel some sort of certainty and predictability around who we are.

I think this is why people love horoscopes.

I think it's why people get really into like stuff like the Enneagram.

I think it's why people are like obsessed over astrology.

And I think it's why corporate people are really into MBTI.

It gives them that false sense of certainty.

It is a plausible framework that is just accurate enough for them to find some credibility in it and then, you know, base some decisions off of it.

you start justifying why it's true right so it's like i could sit down and let's say we've never met and i could sit down let's say i'm a fortune teller quote unquote right and i could start saying like oh you're somebody who's been through a lot in your life and you do a lot for others but

sometimes are not appreciated, right?

Like these are things that are literally true about every single fucking person, right?

But it's when somebody says that to us, we feel so seen.

We're like, oh my God, they understand me.

And this is, it's essentially what horoscopes are doing.

It's like leveraging this cognitive bias

to affirm a reflection of ourselves that we like you want to believe that you've been through a lot and people don't appreciate you so of course when somebody says that to you you're gonna be like yes right right when an mbti says yeah you tend to get in your head a lot and that causes you know means you're really smart but it also causes some problems because you're a little bit cerebral when you should be feeling a little bit more you're like

So let's talk about why this matters and why this is actually very dangerous.