Self-Destructive Conformity or Liberating Truth?
The biggest challenge you face is contending with the self-destructive aspects of human nature…
Classical economics is predicated on the notion that people are rational beings. Most people believe this is at least approximately true.
After millions of dollars invested in marketing and thousands of conversations with people from every socioeconomic stratum, I can tell you this statement is patently false. Regardless of whether you’re dealing with Fortune 500 CEOs, heads of state, or working-class citizens, rationality is the extreme exception—not the rule.
The overwhelming majority of people will choose self-destruction before releasing the false beliefs that drive their self-esteem. In other words, they value their socially constructed identity more so than their well-being—and often even more so than their own lives.
Our marketing machine learning algorithms can find only 15,000 or so people across all Google and LinkedIn users who meet the criteria of truly rational decision-makers: people who possess the ability to objectively assess their beliefs and change course in the pursuit of what demonstrably best serves their own stated self-interests.
In short, that means people don’t make decisions based on objective, fact-based messaging.
This is why most commercial messaging is so blatantly dishonest. It’s designed to appeal to people’s false beliefs, internal narratives, and tribalistic adherences—all various flavors of a visceral drive to conformity. People complain about the dishonesty, but in the aggregate, their wallets send a very different message.
If you decide to have a conversation about your company’s future cash flow, profit, and equity, we need to talk…
Best,
Mike