How To Lie To Yourself Better:

Cognitive science research tells us our brains don’t see the world as it is. Make your cognitive biases work for you.

As Inevitable As Gravity: 

We tend to think of gravity as a limiting force, which makes sense. In our day to day lives, it’s what, literally, keeps us down. But when Apollo 13’s oxygen tanks exploded 10 minutes after takeoff, gravity was used as a slingshot off the Moon as a last-ditch effort to have enough energy to make it back to Earth safely. Since then, gravitational slingshots have been instrumental in getting Voyager 1 and 2 deep into the cosmos with as little fuel as possible. 

We tend to think of cognitive biases and distortions as a limiting force, which makes sense. In our day to day lives, they often lead us to overlook crucial information, feel insecure and anxious, particularly in our relationships, and inaccurately assess our likelihood of success in countless situations. But cognitive biases & distortions are also endemic in many of the most successful people. 

So, what are cognitive distortions?

Cognitive distortions refer to repeated thoughts that lead to anxiety. For example, a common distortion is “all or nothing” thinking, where one assumes that a single mistake proves you are a failure. The lies included below are (mostly) the opposite sides of these cognitive distortions. For example, a successful We’ll call these Cognitive Idealizations to make them sound fancy. 

Top-performing CEOs, politicians, performing artists, and influencers tend to be delusional in ways that improve their likelihood of success. They are not discouraged in the face of failure, because those failures, in their minds, can be attributed to outside problems. The odds may seem insurmountable from an objective perspective, but their biases make them believe the odds are in their favor. They are able to, knowingly or unknowingly, shift between mindsets to in one breath feel they are not getting enough money in a deal, and in the next brag to shareholders or voters about what a fantastic deal they have landed. Ruminating in harsh reality, whether it be self-critical or pessimistic about outside factors, makes us angrier while literally raising our blood pressure. The truth keeps you up at night. The lies help them sleep. 

Crucial Disclaimers:

As I am wont to do, these claims all come with nuances that do not make for as fun or clean a narrative. Some things to keep in mind:

• Survivorship and Salience Bias are crucially at play when it comes to examples of “successful”-anythings. For every 100 year old who swears by candy corn & cigarettes, there’s thousands of people who had the same habits who died sooner. For every delusional politician or business leader who’s achieved success by being somewhat delusional, there are thousands of regular people who are just delusional working as an accountant at KPMG or a cashier at Kum & Go. For every person who wears Axe body spray who’s hounded by hordes of attractive women there’s at least one person who only has a few attractive approach them. Point is, it’s not a guaranteed formula.

• A lot of successful people seem to be annoying and/or sad on an interpersonal level. As many as 10% of CEOs display psychopathic traits, and, in general, successful people tend to fall into the Nate Silver/David Sacks trap of assuming that their expertise in one area extends to expertise in others. If you buy into the delusions enough, the delusions might win. They might even kill you (see: Steve Jobs, below) So, be careful. (Just make normal friends who’ll call you out for being weird & you’ll be fine.)

• This should not be taken as mental health advice in any way, shape, or form. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) uses “cognitive restructuring” to combat cognitive distortions. These are not that. Therapy is good, and CBT is effective for a large number of people who struggle with cognitive distortions; this technique likely will not be effective if you severely struggle with negative thoughts, because it hinges on you being able to will yourself into & out of certain thought patterns, i.e. what CBT teaches you to do. 

Read part two to learn about some successful self-liars and the distortions they employed. Or, skip straight to part 3 to learn some helpful cognitive idealizations you can use!