If You're Curious About These Questions...
You should listen to this audiobook
- Have you ever wondered why you suddenly want the exact same things as everyone else, from your career path to your lifestyle choices?
- Did you know that your deepest desires might not actually be yours at all, but rather a reflection of the people you admire most?
- What's the secret to breaking free from the cycle of comparison and finally choosing the goals that will lead to genuine fulfillment?
Listen to Wanting — Free Audiobook
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Key Takeaways from Wanting
- Discover why your desires are rarely your own by exploring the theory of mimetic desire, which reveals how we subconsciously imitate what other people want.
- Understand how the subconscious drive to imitate others compels sameness and fuels intense, sometimes dangerous rivalries in our personal and professional lives.
- Learn how to take back control of your decision-making by identifying and naming the hidden models who influence you, especially the peers you least want to see succeed.
- Find out how businesses and PR experts manipulate mimetic desire to sell products by using trusted figures, like doctors, to subtly shape your consumer habits.
- Master the distinction between distant models in 'Celebristan' who inspire safely, and close peers in 'Freshmanistan' who trap you in toxic cycles of jealousy and competition.
Learning Tools
Reinforce what you learned from Wanting
Mind Map
Wanting
The Nature of Mimetic Desire
Imitation Over Instinct
The Power of Models
The Two Worlds of Models
Celebristan (External)
Freshmanistan (Internal)
Mimetic Crises & Conflict
The Cycle of Reflexivity
The Scapegoat Mechanism
Escaping Mimetic Systems
Rejecting Artificial Goals
Thick vs. Thin Desires
Transforming Desire in Leadership & Life
Transcendent Leadership
Practical Anti-Mimetic Tactics
Quiz — Test Your Understanding
Question 1 of 10
What is the core premise of René Girard's theory of mimetic desire?
Wanting — Full Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: Recommendation
Chapter 2: Mimesis governs everything we desire.
Chapter 3: Models are all around us, and we weaken their influence by naming them.
Chapter 4: Models influence us differently depending on whether they’re within or beyond our social world.
Chapter 5: Mimesis can become a virtuous cycle, provided someone ultimately breaks it.
Chapter 6: Mimetic crises can only be resolved once a scapegoat is chosen and punished.
Chapter 7: Mimetic structures tie us to contrived, unrewarding objectives.
Chapter 8: Business leaders need to reflect on the desires they are shaping.
Chapter 9: Compassion breaks mimetic deadlocks and ignites constructive patterns of desire.
Chapter 10: We need to move from designing desire to reshaping desire.
Wanting Summary & Overview
Wanting (2021) provides a riveting, philosophical answer to the question Why do we want the things we want? Drawing on theories originally developed by the celebrated polymath René Girard, it reveals an uncomfortable truth: that our desires are all ultimately a product of other people’s desires. The point isn’t to eliminate them, but rather to choose, carefully and consciously, which ones we should actually strive for.
Who Should Listen to Wanting?
- Lovers of philosophy, psychology, and literature
- Dedicated self-improvers
- Young entrepreneurs and business leaders
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