Everyone Wants a Piece of You. Here's How to Stay Whole -- with Luke Burgis

Paula Pant (0:00)

Here's the thing, as humans, we are trapped between these two drives, because we want to be known as a distinct person. We want to be individuals, but we also want to feel like we belong. And there's an inherent tension between these two things, because many communities demand tribalism. They demand over-identification, group think. And so in order to resolve this tension, many of us, all of us develop a form of a pseudo self. It's the version of ourselves where we renegotiate ourself every time we walk into a room. And that's exhausting and it never sets.

It never ends. And so today's guest, Luke Burgis, is here to talk about this, about that tension between being an individual and belonging to a group. He has a really interesting thesis. He believes that we don't have a shortage of community. We actually have too much community. But it's not deeply embedded community. It's these tech communities, these online communities where the barriers to entry are very low, but so are the barriers to exit. And because of that, we never have to deal with any difficulties or challenges. If we don't like something, we can just leave, which means we don't learn conflict resolution. And so the friction's been stripped away, but the friction was the very thing that formed us in the first place. So we dive into all of this in today's episode. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows you can afford anything, not everything, which means it's a show all about making choices. I'm your host, Paula Pant. I trained in economic reporting at Columbia. Today's guest, Luke Burgis, has been a guest on this show before. He was a guest in episode 335, which aired in 2021, where he talked about this concept of copy-paste goals.

So in that first interview, we talked about how humans are the greatest imitators on the planet, and we don't simply copy how others dress or speak. We actually copy what other people want. We copy other people's goals. And he joins us again today to talk about an extension of that idea. Today, he talks about how we can stay inside of groups, while also maintaining a strong sense of self. Luke briefly worked on Wall Street and then co-founded four companies in his 20s, including a vending machine company that sold healthy food. After that, he spent five years in seminary, and then went on to write his first book, Wanting, followed by his latest book, The One and the Ninety-Nine.

If part of your road to financial independence is figuring out the social piece, the community piece, the what do I really want versus what do I just think I want piece, this interview, as well as the first one that we did with Luke, both interviews that we've done with Luke, are going to be very insightful. Here he is, Luke Burgis.

Luke, thank you for joining us.

Luke Burgis (2:51)

Paula, really good to be back with you.

Paula Pant (2:53)

What browser tabs are open on your browser right now?

Luke Burgis (2:59)

Well, given that I have a book launching, first of all, I have like 75 My wife is mortified at how many browser tabs I keep open, because I just forget to close them.

Right now, there's a blog post by Tim Ferriss that he published recently on non-fiction book sales, which is fascinating because he makes the case that AI is devouring prescriptive non-fiction. You can just ask the AI what should I do? It can summarize my book and tell you. So, fascinating blog post by Tim Ferriss. A lot of stuff on the New York Knicks. I'm having this conversation right after they won the championship. I have like eight email accounts, so I have a browser tab open for each of my email accounts. I know, pretty brutal. And then a bunch of random AI tools that I'm using for research.

Lots of Google Maps as I'm navigating New York City this week, trying to make sure I know how much time I need to get to different places. So lots of logistical things and Amtrak tabs and things like that.

Paula Pant (4:02)

Oh, nice. Why did I ask you that question?

Luke Burgis (4:05)

This is a question that is a favorite of my friend Tyler Cowan, who is brilliant and he loves to get people off of their scripts so they can't just kind of go into the normal things that they say.

Paula Pant (4:19)

Right.

Luke Burgis (4:20)

And that is one of the questions that he likes to use in interviews with people to just kind of find out who they really are and just sort of get them...