Speakers

Greg McKeown, Luke Burgis


Greg McKeown     

Welcome to the What’s Essential podcast, I’m going to be having a marvelous conversation here with Luke Burgios, who is the author of Wanting, The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life. Mimetic is not a word everybody hears all the time.

Here is the question to launch into today to be thinking about is how can we discern the difference between the essential wants and non-essential wants? How can we figure out whether we’re pursuing things that really matter or whether we’re pursuing them because somebody else thinks they matter? And it’s sometimes even subconsciously so.  Welcome to the show, Luke. It’s a pleasure to have you.

Luke Burgis

Well, thanks so much for having me on. Greg. You know, if you read between the lines of my book, even though I don’t say it explicitly, Essentialism is kind of a theme that runs throughout the whole thing, as I’m thinking and writing about desire and certainly has been a theme of my life and the search that I’ve been on. So really good to be here and glad to talk to you.

Greg McKeown     

I love hearing that. When I think about this book that you’ve written it reminds me of an experience. I actually do write it in in the new book Effortless but it’s a it’s a moment where I’m standing in it Halloween costume store, staring at myself in the mirror, dressed from head to toe in a stormtrooper costume. And, and I have this sort of out of body moment of like, how did you get here? How, how, what, what led to this moment? Because in this moment, as I’m about to, you know, on the edge of buying a an expensive, almost movie quality level Stormtrooper costume, I realized there’s no part of me that wants it.

And when I went back to sort of explore this, I found that it had been there a desire for 30 years born as a 10-year-old-ish when Return of the Jedi had come out. And you know, all the hype around that. Plus my older brother who said in passing, wouldn’t it be great to have a movie quality Stormtrooper costume, and their it sat having its effect, tapping on me for 30 years, till I’m standing in that store? It’s become known in our own family here is bit of a one liner question now my wife will ask it if I seem to be getting hyper focused on something or going down some path she’ll say is this a stormtrooper? It feels like that is on the same wavelength as what you’re trying to get to, in this book. First of all, tell me if that’s correct. And then tell us really what is at the heart of this book that you’ve written?

Luke Burgis

Well, I had my Stormtrooper moments in my late 20s, but I wasn’t in a Halloween store. And I wasn’t dressed up in a storm trooper costume saying, you know, what in the heck am I doing? I was in Las Vegas. I had started three companies in the past eight years. And I was standing there at a party looking around a lot of my colleagues were there, the company that I’d founded, asking myself, like, what am I actually doing? And do I even want to be driving this company for it? Is this even the business that I want to be in? And why in the world did I not discern and evaluate my desires? And what was important to me before I’d spent, you know, the last few years and millions of dollars and 80-hour weeks pouring myself out into this business. So that was my Stormtrooper story.  

Greg McKeown     

That’s a serious moment.

Luke Burgis

That’s a very serious moment. Right. And it was a moment when I said, you know, it was much more costly. For me, I don’t know how much that Stormtrooper critic, but much more costly for me, because we’re talking a decade of my life and a lot of money, and time and investment. And, frankly, some lost relationships that were at the expense of my work. And I realized at that moment, and I, you know, a series of things happened that kind of woke me up. And I think that’s my life has always worked like that, you know, something just happens to me, that breaks in and tells me that I need to stop and take stock of what’s going on. And in that particular mode is 2008, the economy was in shambles. My company was on the rocks. And I tell some of the story in the book. And I realized that I had to step back and do some serious discernment. Because what you did with a stormtrooper story, like you actually identified, you know, you went back in your history and in your life, it seems to me that you identified this reason, you know, that you’d kind of been something you’d been aspiring to for a long time. And, you know, you may have forgot about that. But in that moment, you realized it. And I think very few people do that. I mean, very few people take the time to discern to ask themselves, what are the models in their life that have been driving them. And when I say models, I really mean models of desire. People, they want to be like, you know, the thread that runs through their life, and I’d never taken the time to really go through that process of self-discovery to separate the essential desires, which I would associate with like a vocation or a calling. Like, you know, I sort of came to realize that certain things were essential and certain things weren’t. And the things that were essential to me, were the desires that were still going to be important to me at the end of my life, like what are those desires that are going to be important 20 and 30 years from now, and it certainly wasn’t the, you know, the company, I was never going to find total fulfillment in that. So I stepped back and went through a process which was a long process took me years, but that was the beginning of gaining a greater awareness of what it is I truly wanted.

Greg McKeown  

To give to pay a high price for anything is by definition expensive. To pay a high price for something that we actually don’t want in the end is something else, that feels on tragic to me as I’m hearing you talk about it, not necessarily that your experience itself was tragic, but just that sensation of giving. There’s a there’s a biblical phrase on the tip of my tongue about this about, about giving your, your time and resources for things that just don’t actually matter in the end.

Luke Burgis

I think that we have an obsession almost sometimes, especially Americans with obstacles and difficulty. And it’s almost as if we associate difficulty with goodness, or like because something’s difficult, it must therefore be more worthwhile than something that’s not difficult. It’s almost as if we’re suspicious of things that are too easy, that we perceive to be too easy. Okay, like a person that’s too easy to get or a job that’s too easy to get. We’re almost suspicious of that. Isn’t that curious? I find that funny because some of the most beautiful and valuable things in life are not hard. It’s like, just spending time with my father who has Alzheimer’s disease, right? I mean, nothing, you know what, it is difficult, and it’s sometimes sad, but I just need to be still and to just be present and to spend time with him.

Greg McKeown     

I think the sitting there and being present, doesn’t feel like the modern, you know, lifestyle that I am endlessly being sold. That I should be hustling all the time, that I want to make something of my life, it has to be just perpetual action, perpetual motion, rushing around. Yes, that being still is, is, I think, is a challenge not because the being still is hard. But the but the not pursuing all those things your brain is telling you it should be doing, all those wants you gravitate towards. When we aren’t actually driving our action, where something else is driving our action. And in, in your book Wanting one of the most haunting ideas, I think in it is this idea that many of us want what we want, because we think other people want that thing. Tell us about that?

Luke Burgis

Exactly, that. So the premise of the book is this idea of mimetic desire, which means that we are pre consciously imitating the desires of other people and those other people are what I call in the book models of desire for us. Before we have a conscious awareness that this other person is modeling value or signaling the value of something to us were perceiving that this other thing is important because somebody else thinks it’s important, or because somebody else desires it, and that these models are influencing our desires all the time, usually without us knowing it.

Greg McKeown    

When you say it, the reaction in me is like it says the worst but I’m sure there’s ways that this spins out in positive ways. But when you say it, I think what a game that is. It reminds me of Vanity Fair and the idea that, that nobody knew the value of anything. Everyone was just chasing what everybody else seemed to be chasing. And that type of the, the sensation of it must be important because the crowd thinks so I think can just consume our lives take us in 100 different directions. Well, that person is investing in those getting their children in those sports, well, maybe we should do that. Maybe that’s what we have to do all those people care about getting their children into that school, that maybe we need to do that, well, that person has a job in this company. Well, now maybe I should do that. I mean, it must be important if they care about it so much, that sense of doing things simply because other people seem to want them feels like a very shallow foundation, very sandy foundation for making decisions.

Luke Burgis

It’s a version of FOMO fear of missing out. But the argument that I make in the book is that most of us when we hear about this idea, and this idea, by the way, it did not come from me It came from a French thinker named Rene Girard who inspired my book, who sort of discovered this phenomenon of human behavior. And when he discovered it, he started seeing it everywhere. The argument in the book is that when we hear about it, we think that it applies to everybody else except us. The crowd, Bitcoin cryptocurrency, and look at all these people just running after this thing, like lemmings, not realizing that we’re all kind of susceptible to this, because we’re human. We’re social creatures, we have freaky powers of imitation. You know, we’re, we’re born with them. Anybody with babies kind of knows, you know, babies are constantly watching, looking, it’s the way that we learn everything so much, right? So our imitation sort of gets misdirected. And as we grow and get older, we start actually imitating the very desires of other people. That’s how deep this power of imitation goes. I think one of the keys though, is to when you’re aware of this part of human nature, you can flip it from pre conscious to conscious and be more intentional about the people that you are imitating, or the people that you’re influenced by. Right. So this is a tremendously powerful and healthy, good part of what it means to be human is that we can consciously select models to aspire to, and that we can be more intentional about understanding what it is we want, and who we are, who were created and called to be all of those things. So, you know, don’t go through life without understanding who these models are for you. And that’s one of the things I try to do in the book is just bring this to conscious awareness, because you gain some control over it. And you can just be much more intentional about separating the non-essentials, from the essentials when it comes to desires.

Greg McKeown      

So what you’re really saying is that the moment the mimetic process, where we are going to be observing other people and sensing what they want, and copying what they want, is really hardwired into us. The question is, do we utilize that hardwiring in an intentional way to go after? What, in fact, is essential? Or do we allow it to just happen and not even be aware that this thing is happening that this is shaping and guiding us, that’s what I hear you saying?

Luke Burgis

That’s right. And we can kind of like a muscle that we can develop. We can be more mimetic or less mimetic, in regards or relation to certain people and certain spheres of our life. So there are some really negative forces as sort of the news and media and consumption, that I want to be less mimetic towards, like social media, the models that I see people trying to sell me things. I want to develop some anti mimetic kind of machinery in my gut, so that I’m not just completely subject to those forces. At the same time, I have very positive people in my life, that I do want to be infected by them. It’s, you know, just to use that word. I mean, part of what I’m trying to say is that desires are contagious. And it’s just, it’s just the way that they are, you know, so there are some people that have beautiful aspirations and positive desires. And in a way, I actually want to be around them. And I want them to infect me with a bit of those healthy desires that they have, whether it’s fitness, whether it’s, you know, just their family life, I want more of that. So it’s not a matter of turning it off or on or, hey, this is a bad thing that we can’t, you know, I’ve got to be totally mimetic and stoic. No, it’s, it’s just being intentional about, you know, where does it make sense to, to expose ourselves to the to get infected by the positive things? And where do I need to erect some boundaries? And to be careful that I’m not this is not dominating my life in those destructive areas and taking me off course.

Greg McKeown     

What is one concrete way that I and the people listening to this can use this in a positive way, how would I go about selecting the people who are going to inspire me around doing what is really essential in life?

Luke Burgis

Part of it is being aware that we are influenced by these models of desire that we have in our life. And, you know, it’s important to name them, you know, just like emotions, when we were able to name things where we have some degree of control over them in the way that we react to them. Like, these are the people in my life that I’m paying attention to, you know, I noticed what they’re doing positive and negative. So a negative example could be well, there’s this guy in my office. And anytime he closes a new deal, I’m deeply aware of it. And it affects me, right, I care. And it makes me question myself and my ability and causes me real anxiety every time I hear about one of his accomplishments, okay, that’s a negative model of desire. Well, I mean, competition can be healthy, right? But having the awareness that you care that much about what this other person is doing, and their accomplishments is a signal that, you know, they’re, this may not be the most productive thing for you. And you may need to check your relationship to his work and his life, or else you won’t do the things that you’re uniquely supposed to be doing.

Greg McKeown 

I mean, I love that distinction right there that that if you if you get thoughtlessly into hero worship or into comparison, and competition with heroes, as well. So you have a sort of some sort of frenemy relationship with people who you kind of admiring but kind of resenting at the same time, I can see how that becomes negative. So you’re saying step one, make a list, I should make a list of my life people listening to this should make a list here are the people who are influencing me independent, at first glance, whether that’s positive or negative, just like who are the people who I noticed when they do something.

Luke Burgis

That is a great first step. Absolutely. And then and then if, if somebody is not on that list, that that should be on that list. How can I sort of design my life in such a way that I can have more exposure to them in the case of a positive model, right?

Greg McKeown   

Okay, so step two, I’ve got this list. So you’re saying, now add to the list, who are the people who may be I wish were on the list right now people I might state? These are the people who inspire me, but actually, I’m not really paying attention to them in the way that that these other names come up. So okay, so now I have the list of people who I want to be influenced by and the ones I am currently being influenced by? Okay, is that step two?

Luke Burgis

In both positive and negative ways, right? It’s important to recognize both. So that is another that’s definitely a step.

Greg McKeown     

Okay, so step three. So let’s say, let’s say, now I’ve got this sheet of paper, I’ve got these names, and I’m going to go through, and what I can rate each person as to like, whether that person has a positive or negative influence on me is this a reasonable next thing?

Luke Burgis

It is and also in which way, right to just say this person has a positive or negative influence on me is too broad. It needs to be more specific than that. So what, for instance, I could have a somebody who’s a very positive model in my life, when it comes to the kind of husband and father he is and his balance in his working life, and his priorities, but a very negative influence on me when it comes to his, you know, it very kind of reactionary, aggressive politics and news. And that’s right. You know, I, that’s not some, so it’s not like we can it’s like all or nothing, right? So I think we need to make some distinctions about the ways that different people affect us in different ways.

Greg McKeown     

Okay, so I can now see this. So is we’re saying here are all the people to influence me, here’s how they influence me for good, here’s how they implements me for bad. Now what now? I’ve got that sort of, I’ve got that page out. What do I do with it then, where do I go next?

Luke Burgis

Well you ask yourself, you know, how do I want to invest my time and effort and energy in these relationships? What does it look like? So we’ve taken a step back, we’ve taken stock, we’ve gained some awareness over these influences of desire in our life, we’ve made some decisions about how we might want to reallocate or adjust our relationships. That’s easier said than done, then it comes down to like, well, what do I have to give up in order to, in order to do that, and then we have to make some decisions about our work in our life.

Greg McKeown     

So I can see, I’m sort of seeing this as a, as a third column on the page, we’ve got names we’ve got how they influenced me positively and negatively. The third column, I’m saying now, okay, how can I spend more time with the people who influenced me most positively, you know, inspire me around the things that deeply do matter to me, I can see this. Now, what’s less clear to me is what to do about the ways in which somebody who influences me in a non-essential way, like what do I do, do I is the idea to try and reduce just spend less time with that person? In the US, I suppose there’s some people that you may be looking you’re like, well, there’s not really much upside here that you know that the influences just generally downside, like, how do I minimize the impact of someone who’s currently influencing me, but in a way that I now understand is, is non-essential? What do I do, then?

Luke Burgis

I think you have to take steps to actually either or depending on the relationship with the person, right, either have a conversation about with the person, if you’re in a position to be able to do that, about the relationship or erect some boundaries, depending on what the relationship is. I think there’s a step I mean, I do want to go back because one essential part of this, this is almost a first step before this kind of discernment can happen is understanding what is essential to you before you can begin to distinguish these different models. And one of the exercises one of the ways to be able to get at your sort of own essential desires. And this is something that I talked about in the book, which helps you make these decisions and helps you understand, you know, what’s positive and what’s negative, is understanding the thread that maybe has run through your whole life, which is a little signal as to what’s essential to you. And what do I mean by that, like, go back in your life, you know, to as early as you can remember, and begin asking yourself, what were those things that I did those actions, those accomplishments that I that I undertook and fulfilled that brought me this sort of deep sense of satisfaction and fulfillment and joy? And why, like, what was it about those things. And as you begin to do that, usually a pattern begins to emerge of a certain kind of desires, or certain kinds of action or ways of being that are essential to you, and have always been essential to you, which you may have forgotten, as we’re kind of in the thick of day to day life. And we’re surrounded by so many influences.

Greg McKeown     

One of the phrases I love that you use in the book is hidden desires, and the importance of sifting through the noise of like consumer culture that bombards us with these, I think this is what you’re saying about these, these temporary passing desires are thin desires fleeting and weak to identify. Instead, the thick desires, another term from your book, those that are meaningful and enduring. Somebody listening to this right now? What’s the, what’s the fastest way for them to discern between the thin desires and thick desires?

Luke Burgis

I have to tell you, Greg, it took me a long time. So I don’t know if there’s a very quick fix. But I will say that the best thing that I ever did, that helped me to distinguish was to take a retreat is to take three or four days of just completely disconnecting myself. Because it’s hard to know the difference when you’re completely plugged in, you know, I wish I could just develop some app, you know, that you could sign up for and, you know, answer these questions. And it will tell you, it’s just simply not that easy. And one of the things that I recommend doing in the book, is, because we’re too close, you know, we’re often so close to these things that we can’t see, unless we find a way to gain some distance. I don’t mean physical distance, I sort of mean like social and existential distance. So if you have the ability, the luxury of being able to take a few days to totally unplug, and to do these kinds of exercises that we’ve been talking about. Totally detached, and, and alone, frankly, it’s just amazing what happens in that kind of experience where you’re, you know, you’re in silence and solitude, you’re just you’re able to see things that you can’t see, when you’re in the hustle and bustle and you know, taking 10 minutes away to try to do the exercise quickly is very difficult. I mean, this, this took me months and quite frankly, years. And my hope is that you know, this, this book, and some of these ideas are the beginning, right, the beginning of a journey. So that we I mean, as people and as a culture can become less mimetic, less kind of reactionary, and less influenced unconsciously by things. And I think this is a lot of what’s leading to kind of, you know, just herd behavior, just uncritical reactions and thinking and pursuits. But and I think we’re going to have to slow down.

Greg McKeown

But it really does seem like it approximates the question that we posed at the beginning. It’s, it was something like, what is really essential to me versus what do other people think really matters and seem to want.

What you did seems like a thorough type experiment. We’ve heard it before. But I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately. He writes to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not when I came to die discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live, what was not life. Living is so dear. Nor did I wish to practice resignation unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To live so sturdily and Spartan like as to put to route all that was not life. And then this which I love, to cut a broad swathe and shave close to drive life into a corner and reduce it to its lowest terms. Get that feels like the very essence of what we’re talking about here to, to, to deliberately, intentionally try to separate chaff from wheat, what is real, what really matters, try to remove the other things that look. They look important, because lots of people think they’re important because other people that we, for whatever reason are paying attention to are talking about and doing in their life. And suddenly we get pulled into it, rather than internally. There was this phrase, I really liked this now, Live deep, that’s what we want. At the end of our lives, we’re not going to want to have to have lived based upon what other people not only expected of us, it’s even worse than that, to live in a way that we just did what other people appeared to want.

Luke Burgis 

Exactly when our perception of what they want, could be totally wrong. We’re just kind of guessing, from the outside looking in, and everybody lives curated lives, it seems like especially on social media. So chances are what they truly want, what they deeply desire. We’re not privy to that, you know, we’re just guessing sort of, I have a fundamental belief that everybody has a unique and unrepeatable purpose, it has been put on this earth to do something that literally nobody else can do. And if they don’t do that one thing, then it’s lost to the world forever. And I would call that one thing that you’re here to do your single greatest desire, you might not know that it is, but it’s your single greatest desire. You could call that a vocation, it’s your purpose. And your mission is to figure out what that single greatest desire is to become who you are, it’s to do the thing that only you can do. And it’s figuring that out, which is part of this, this beautiful journey of life. What is that thing and when you know what it is, and it you know, for most people, it doesn’t come in a flash doesn’t come in an instant. It comes through gradual discernment; it becomes more and more clear. It’s like you’re sailing across the ocean. And the closer you get to the other side, the more that sort of destination begins to come into view, and you pivot, yep, change your sails and make sure that you arrive at that destination. But when you begin to get an idea, it’s becomes like a hermeneutic, or something that becomes like a principle by which you say yes to things and you say no to things. Because when you know what that purpose is, you know, that’s what’s essential. And anything that doesn’t help you achieve that purpose is not essential.

Greg McKeown     

Yeah, that’s a beautiful sentiment, your single biggest desire that the work of life is to figure out what that is, to keep figuring it out. As you go through life, as it evolves. And then to and then to pursue it.  Yeah, give us your final word.

Luke Burgis 

Yeah, you know, the deathbed exercise, as Steve Jobs said something to the effect of you know, death is the great prioritizer so don’t wait until then, you know, you can put yourself there right now, in your imagination. And, you know, ask yourself, you know, what, what are those desires that I will be satisfied to have pursued? And which ones would I be sad to have pursued, what’s going to be important to me then? And many times, you know, life teaches us what our single greatest desire is. So it’s not always the case that you just go on a retreat or lock yourself in your room and go through these exercises. And you know, no, sometimes you know, life, through the unexpected things that happen, teaches you what your single greatest desire is, what your purpose is, but you just have to have the ears and to listen and the eyes to see. So I was finishing writing this book shortly before the pandemic, just to give you one little practical example, you know, I was Go go go, it’s crazy, launching a book and writing a book to you know, what that’s like. And, you know, my, my mother fell and broke her hip, my father has dementia, it’s now become Alzheimer’s. I had to get on a plane from DC and fly back to Michigan to be with them. And I ended up staying for a couple of weeks, it was a busy time of my life. But the message was clear. The message was at this particular moment, Luke, you know, life has something to teach you. And you’re single, you’re this, you know, desire that you know, has been implanted in you for these next two weeks is going to be to spend time to honor your father and mother. And that’s what you’re called to do right now, the plans you thought you had are now on hold. And that’s kind of the mission that I was given for those two weeks. And through that experience, I was able to learn a bit more about my own sort of single greatest desire related to my own desires for a family and things like that. So it’s just about paying attention as we go through. And if we’re attentive, you know, these unexpected events are always teaching us something about what’s truly essential.

Greg McKeown     

The book is Wanting, The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life. We’ve been talking together here with Luke Burgis. It’s a pleasure to have you on thank you for being on the What’s Essential podcast.

Luke Burgis 

So good to be here, Greg. Thank you.


Greg McKeown

Credits:

  • Hosted by Greg McKeown
  • Produced by Greg McKeown Team
  • Executive Produced by Greg McKeown