Luke Burgis on Wanting: The Impact of Mimetic Desire

Luke Burgis shares the incredibly powerful concept of mimetic desire and how it shapes our behavior in fundamental ways. Learn why your mental models are the foundation for everything you do, how to figure out what motivates you at a core level, and how to eliminate the negative aspects of desire and replace them with a transcendent desire that drives you to change the world.

Mo asks Luke Burgis: What is your big idea in Wanting that can help people deepen their relationships and grow their careers?

• Human desire is the fundamental basis of everything, but we don’t often think about how desire works and operates. Desire has laws just like physics and one of the most important is that desire is mimetic.
• Desire is fundamentally imitative. Most of us have a model of wanting that’s linear, but very little human desire works like that. When it comes to most services and products, desire is almost always mimetic, and therefore nonlinear.
• Desire always operates through a third party. In some cases, this is obvious, like in commercials featuring a celebrity. Getting under the surface and understanding who the models are is crucial to understanding the desires of your clients. Most people buy something because they are trying to be like someone else.
• Mimetic desire is a positive thing for the most part, though we also have negative models.
• Models change as we go through life. When it comes to client relationships, their models of desire will change as the relationship develops and they should. Otherwise, the relationship isn’t going anywhere.
• When it comes to business development, understanding the models that our clients have will give us a better understanding of what they aspire to do or to be, which is critical.
• Understanding what kind of family life or career your client aspires to is a great way to create continuity in a relationship. As there is disruption around us this allows the relationship to be grounded in something deeper and is conducive to effective long-term business development.
• Asking open-ended questions can be very effective in understanding someone’s models. People are looking for outlets to have those conversations but you have to signal that you are open to them.
• One of the key things to understand about mimetic desire is that if your model changes, your desire changes very quickly. This is the key to understanding the volatility of desire.
• Think about how a flywheel of desire would work in your life and for your clients. Most people have a deep desire to understand models that explain complex and deep things, and mimetic desire is one of those things. As people learn about the concept, they will look for a quick and easy introduction to what the model is all about.
• The flywheel of desire works by leading back to what people will want once they learn about a specific concept. If you get the sequence of wanting correct it can help you develop any number of positive habits.
• By decoding who you are desiring to be and assessing whether you really want to be that, you can get in control of your models and how they are impacting you.

Mo asks Luke Burgis: How can people use mimetic desire to shape the world in a positive way and bring in more business?

• Luke has a fundamental belief in business that you can’t understand what another person’s good is unless you actually know the person. Sometimes you need to help people get what they think they want in order to earn the right to give them what you think they need.
• At the beginning of Covid, there were a number of students that were second-guessing enrolling in University and College all across the country. Instead of insisting the student behave as if nothing had changed, innovative schools could help facilitate the gap year to continue serving their needs in a way that aligns with their desires.