- From the book “Self-Deception and Leadership”
- While reading Atlas Shrugged I arrived at these definitions.
- Self-Betrayal: Acting against an impulse that’s congruent with who I want to be.
- Self-Deception is the result of self-deception.
- Seeing myself better than I am. Seeing others as objects, not as people.
- Blaming others.
- Resisting that reality is at it is. Resisting that others are as they are.
- Self-betrayal is a form of resistance. Our relation to reality determines our degree of freedom
- Originally the book “Self-Deception and Leadership” defined two ways of being (towards a person or group):
- Two ways of being (towards a person or group):
- in the box: Focused on myself. “Resisting what the humanity of others calls me to do for them.” When we betray the sense of what we should be doing, we get self-deceived.
- Core difference of this definition to the one I use now: I shift the deciding criteria for impulses from outside of myself (acting on a should) to within my control (I decide who I want to be)
- out of the box: Focused on how people really are.