
Wanting
The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life
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Narrated by:
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Luke Burgis
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Sean Patrick Hopkins
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By:
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Luke Burgis
About this listen
A groundbreaking exploration of why we want what we want, and a toolkit for freeing ourselves from chasing unfulfilling desires.
Gravity affects every aspect of our physical being, but there’s a psychological force just as powerful - yet almost nobody has heard of it. It’s responsible for bringing groups of people together and pulling them apart, making certain goals attractive to some and not to others, and fueling cycles of anxiety and conflict. In Wanting, Luke Burgis draws on the work of French polymath René Girard to bring this hidden force to light and reveals how it shapes our lives and societies.
According to Girard, humans don’t desire anything independently. Human desire is mimetic - we imitate what other people want. This affects the way we choose partners, friends, careers, clothes, and vacation destinations. Mimetic desire is responsible for the formation of our very identities. It explains the enduring relevancy of Shakespeare’s plays, why Peter Thiel decided to be the first investor in Facebook, and why our world is growing more divided as it becomes more connected.
Wanting also shows that conflict does not arise because of our differences - it comes from our sameness. Because we learn to want what other people want, we often end up competing for the same things. Ignoring our large similarities, we cling to our perceived differences.
Drawing on his experience as an entrepreneur, teacher, and student of classical philosophy and theology, Burgis shares tactics that help turn blind wanting into intentional wanting - not by trying to rid ourselves of desire, but by desiring differently. It’s possible to be more in control of the things we want, to achieve more independence from trends and bubbles, and to find more meaning in our work and lives.
The future will be shaped by our desires. Wanting shows us how to desire a better one.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press
"This book makes a startling case that many of our goals are merely reflections of what we think others want. It’s a spellbinding read, and it will leave you rethinking your own motivations for months and maybe even years later.” (Adam Grant, New York Times best-selling author of Think Again and Originals, and host of the TED podcast WorkLife)
"Luke Burgis’ Wanting is a brilliant exploration of the hidden and powerful dynamics of desire operating in our age of social media memes, commercial rivalry, and rising partisan scapegoating and violence.... It’s a call to discernment and a deeper fulfillment that lights a path beyond the darkness of our current world." (Stephen Hanselman, New York Times best-selling co-author of Lives of the Stoics and The Daily Stoic)
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Again, but Better
- By: Christine Riccio
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Shane has been doing college all wrong. Her life has been dorm, dining hall, class, repeat. Time's a ticking, and she needs a change - there's nothing like moving to a new country to really mix things up. Shane signs up for a semester abroad in London. She's going to right all her college mistakes: make friends, pursue boys, and find adventure! Easier said than done. She is soon faced with the complicated realities of living outside her bubble, and when self-doubt sneaks in, her new life starts to fall apart.
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Take it on a Plane and Forget It
- By Amazon Customer on 06-14-19
By: Christine Riccio
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Science Fictions
- How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth
- By: Stuart Ritchie
- Narrated by: Stuart Ritchie
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Science is how we understand the world. Yet failures in peer review and mistakes in statistics have rendered a shocking number of scientific studies useless—or, worse, badly misleading. Such errors have distorted our knowledge in fields as wide-ranging as medicine, physics, nutrition, education, genetics, economics, and the search for extraterrestrial life. As Science Fictions makes clear, the current system of research funding and publication not only fails to safeguard us from blunders but actively encourages bad science—with sometimes deadly consequences.
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Needed Now More Than Ever
- By Todd on 08-06-20
By: Stuart Ritchie
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The Great Mental Models
- General Thinking Concepts
- By: Shane Parrish
- Narrated by: Shane Parrish
- Length: 3 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts is the first book in The Great Mental Models series designed to upgrade your thinking with the best, most useful and powerful tools so you always have the right one on hand. This volume details nine of the most versatile all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making, your productivity, and how clearly you see the world.
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A dissapointing debut
- By Peter on 04-14-19
By: Shane Parrish
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Factfulness
- Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
- By: Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Ola Rosling
- Narrated by: Richard Harries
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of carrying only opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends - what percentage of the world's population live in poverty; why the world's population is increasing; how many girls finish school - we systematically get the answers wrong. In Factfulness, professor of international health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two longtime collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens.
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Great Read not for Listening
- By carlos gomez on 06-01-18
By: Hans Rosling, and others
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Pre-Suasión [Pre-Suasion]
- Un método revolucionario para influir y persuadir [A Revolutionary Method to Influence and Persuade]
- By: Robert Cialdini, María Serrano Giménez - translator
- Narrated by: José Manuel Vieira
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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La persuasión es una habilidad imprescindible en cualquier actividad profesional a todos los niveles en organizaciones y empresas. Pero, ¿cuáles son las mejores técnicas de persuasión?, ¿qué elementos de la comunicación permiten conquistar al público?, ¿cuáles son los momentos fundamentales en una argumentación? y ¿qué diferencia a un comunicador eficaz de un auténtico persuasor? Con el rigor científico y la capacidad de divulgación que le caracterizan, Robert Cialdini explica en este libro cómo capitalizar el tiempo previo a la transmisión de un mensaje importante.
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excelente audiolibro
- By Amazon Customer on 04-14-25
By: Robert Cialdini, and others
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The Startup of You (Revised and Updated)
- Adapt, Take Risks, Grow Your Network, and Transform Your Career
- By: Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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In this invaluable book, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and venture capitalist Ben Casnocha show how to accelerate your career in today’s competitive world. The key is to manage your career as if it were a startup business: a living, breathing, growing startup of you.
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Connected The Dots
- By Mike Del Vecchio on 01-18-25
By: Reid Hoffman, and others
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The Elephant in the Brain
- Hidden Motives in Everyday Life
- By: Kevin Simler, Robin Hanson
- Narrated by: Jeffrey Kafer
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better - and thus, we don't like to talk, or even think, about the extent of our selfishness. This is "the elephant in the brain".
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Let Me Save You the Credit
- By Evert on 03-16-19
By: Kevin Simler, and others
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The Art of Strategy
- A Game Theorist's Guide to Success in Business and Life
- By: Barry J. Nalebuff, Avinash K. Dixit
- Narrated by: Matthew Dudley
- Length: 17 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Game theory means rigorous strategic thinking. It’s the art of anticipating your opponent’s next moves, knowing full well that your rival is trying to do the same thing to you. Though parts of game theory involve simple common sense, much is counterintuitive, and it can only be mastered by developing a new way of seeing the world. Using a diverse array of rich case studies - from pop culture, TV, movies, sports, politics, and history - the authors show how nearly every business and personal interaction has a game-theory component to it.
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Completely misleading title
- By Motorjaw on 01-28-15
By: Barry J. Nalebuff, and others
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Principles
- Life and Work
- By: Ray Dalio
- Narrated by: Ray Dalio, Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Ray Dalio, one of the world's most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he's developed, refined, and used over the past 40 years to create unique results in both life and business - and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals.
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Idea-meritocracy/Principles Reference
- By P Eberle on 06-30-18
By: Ray Dalio
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The $100 Startup
- Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future
- By: Chris Guillebeau
- Narrated by: Chris Guillebeau, Thomas Vincent Kelly
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Still in his early 30s, Chris is on the verge of completing a tour of every country on earth – he’s already visited more than 175 nations - and yet he’s never held a “real job” or earned a regular paycheck. Rather, he has a special genius for turning ideas into income, and he uses what he earns both to support his life of adventure and to give back. In The $100 Startup, he tells you how to lead of life of adventure, meaning and purpose - and earn a good living.
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This book is poison for new entrepreneurs
- By Nate Woodbury on 07-14-14
By: Chris Guillebeau
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Shameless
- Republicans’ Deliberate Dysfunction and the Battle to Preserve Democracy
- By: Brian Tyler Cohen
- Narrated by: Brian Tyler Cohen
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In Shameless, Brian Tyler Cohen lays bare the long con of the modern Republican Party. While the radical right continues hiding behind gaslighting maneuvers, artificial slogans, and hollow catchphrases, Cohen’s unflinching narrative illuminates the realities and dangers of the ever-widening gulf between the vaunted Republican brand and their actual behavior.
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Great read and informative!
- By LizzyD629 on 08-29-24
What listeners say about Wanting
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- Ismail Al Kamal
- 06-19-21
A solid explanation of human rivalry
Can't agree more with what Luke has to say. I've seen and been influenced by mimesis, rivalry and scapegoating firsthand in my job.
The ideas presented are not new if you have ever exercised a bit of self awareness. What is new is the way that Luke articulates these ideas and projects them to modern life and not just literature.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Jon Bachura
- 06-14-21
Keep it on repeat!
Just finished the first time through and will be going back for round two to pick up what I missed. There is a lot here and all or any of it can make like better, relationships deeper and more real, and help focus energy toward true vocation.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Tyee
- 01-26-22
Very Interesting and Timely
In an age where social media has taken over the world by engineering all our desires, Luke Burgis helps remove the smoke screen to reveal why Facebook, Instagram, and all the other social media platforms have succeeded so well. Knowledge and understanding is the first step in self-defense from the constant barrage of engineered wants and desires.
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- Eric S.
- 12-10-22
Possibly the Best Book of 2022
Luke Burgis writes a book that brings an important topic to the public in an accessible way and yet makes you want to go deeper into Rene Girard’s theories. Wanting is well written and well performed as an audio book. The message of the book is about why we want what we want. The answer to this question points to how toxic and corrosive modern life had become to our core understanding of ourselves and the world around us. Luke approaches the topic of mimetic desire in a clear and approachable way.
This is the must read book of 2022….which is mimetic in itself. Luke has given Girard a breath of life and brought him to the masses. We need more introspective books like Wanting.
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- Brian W
- 08-01-24
excellent! Best book I've heard in months.
i listen to non-fiction audio books every day. this is the first one in a while that significantly impacted view of life.
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- Anonymous User
- 08-15-21
Outstanding and thought provoking!
I will definitely listen to this book. Again, again, and again.
A superb rendition and truly thought-provoking content.
I got so much out of this book… but is suspect I have barely scratched the surface of all that can be extracted.
10/10
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- Sarah Roberts
- 12-25-21
Fantastic book!
I’ve read just over 500 books in the past 12 years, and this is easily in the top 10.
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-13-22
how to live better
i’ve listened to this book multiple times. a very rare thing for me to do. wanting has become a touchstone for asking what the best version of myself and those around me looks like. and prompts ways for me to make progress towards those goals. this is the kind of work that i think will help me find peace throughout my life
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- Dana F
- 08-15-21
Great concepts, really makes you think and re-evaluate
Really enjoyed the stories, historical comparisons and how it aligned with today. The only challenge for me personally was staying engaged as the author became more “technical “ I would love a dumbed down version of these concepts. Thanks for writing this book!
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- Jeff Parrett
- 01-20-22
WOW…this perspective defines future possibility.
The role desire is playing in our life is mind boggling. This book creates a map and compass of future directions and systemic change.
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