Why Lying To Yourself Is More Powerful Than Belief

When it comes to high pressure and very stressful situations in life its better to know than to believe.

Johan Lorbeer

We humans are a fascinating species, we make everything complex out of simple things like black and white.

That may be the reason why religion and science exist, why we can fly to the moon but can´t cure cancer.

My approach to successful self affirmation is whether driven by esoteric means or spirituality, its part of my being to believe in myself rather than a god. Ah wait... the belief was yesterday, today I know, or better said I know how to lie to myself.

I have to say its part of my daily routine and whenever the situation occurs I tend to see why something is working and why some things are doomed to fail.

The title may sound bold, but here is a solid explanation why its absolutely right;

As children we learn to believe in a god and it might even be a kind of knowledge that we feel, we have no proof but our parents do believe too, right?  Depending on our growth the belief can decrease as young adults and in later life god is only a mere assumption. But what is lost with the belief is the knowledge, or better said the process of the belief how knowledge, or lying successfully to ourself, works.

We can learn to lie to ourselves again when we learn how marketing works

Seth Godin has a nice example in his book "All marketers are liars" Where he describes this process with the taste of expensive wine from a $2 Glass and a $50 Glass. Tests have shown to a lot persons, not knowing about the price differences, that there is no change of flavor. The only thing that´s left is the price, maybe the design and the fact that it is expensive so it has to taste better. What works here is a lie. A lie that we tell to ourselves and to others. In the mean to buy such an expensive glass and lead arguments to friends who are in doubt we come into the "marketer" position ourself and being successful in converting our friends we turn into liars too, or we accept the lie as a truth which makes our conversation with a friend feel better.

This example literally happens several times a day to us, we lie to ourselves in the belief that it is the truth. We believe newspapers, we believe the diagnosis of a doctor, we pretend that the price for an apple is justified, etc. But do we know all of these things? Either we tell ourself a lie or we believe it, but no one knows for sure.

When it comes to situations described in the first sentence, lets say facing a meeting with an important client, and our work is just halfway done, why isn´t it possible to lie to ourselves in a way that we can ensure a wonderful outcome for both parties? Like with the converted friends who drink overpriced wine out of overpriced wine glasses?

Because we are trained that believe is inherent and that lying is wrong, blame your parents for that.

If we can learn to reconnect emotions with the aspect of knowledge, we can adapt this connection to really powerful affirmations that work.

An example: You can associate that feeling of knowledge that you are right, when in that thriller movie you can exactly say why someone is the killer from the onset and the ending shows proof of that.

It is simple as that, observe this behavior and especially the emotional connection and try to reproduce this feeling when doing a self-affirmation, lets say you want to be successful in the meeting tomorrow- its all about knowing how to lie to yourself in a way that you believe it, and you´re done. 

The Fear Of Failure

Milton Glaser is a graphic designer,
best known for the I Love New York logo,
his "Bob Dylan" poster, the "DC bullet"
logo used by DC Comics from
 and the "Brooklyn Brewery" logo.

"Know or listen to those who know."
Baltasar Gracian

This quote is so important that we forget about the meaning from time to time, I´m glad someone mentioned on twitter the link to a Milton Glaser speech about the fear of failure.

In this Video below he describes the process of failure which seems to be contradictory to professionalism as an important asset for creative people.

He encourages to embrace failure and that by transgression an artist can develop a unique style that leads to a unique selling proposition.

In a world where everyone guesses that everything is already invented, the only way to find a niche is to allow, even embrace - failure.

Milton Glaser – on the fear of failure. from Berghs' Exhibition '11 on Vimeo.


In my opinion its important to be careful with the experimentation and failure part and its something that needs to be kept like a secret behind a curtain sometimes. The reason is simply that the public or target audience want to see results and repeated success stories. And its important striving to see how other artists have become a success through failure to find inspiration, but if it comes to the unique selling proposition - this should never be the main topic of any conversation.

I have written about the many disciplines an artist has to master and like a big company like Coca Cola or Sony or Google have laboratories and special departments to find new ways of making things, any artist should spend some time in the lab.

I highly recommend to read "Ten things I learned" from Milton Glaser´s page as part of AIGA talk from November 2001, very good insights about the industry and creative professionalism.

You Get What You Give: How To Deal With Criticism

"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give."
Sir Winston Churchill

You can think what you want, believe in what seems best for you, but one thing cannot be denied: there are some universal rules like gravity around us that apply to all and every individual. We can learn how to cheat on these rules, like closing the eyes in hope that they might not see us, but sooner or later they will get us.
There is a reason why there is lie in believe, in in pain and if in life.

When it comes to these rules you either have an ethical understanding for them, such as knowing that breathing fresh air is good for you. Is this understanding inherent, you no longer believe, hope or guess, you simply know.
Its the same with giving and receiving constructive critique as an artist. Its absolutely important and helpful for those getting the enlightenment through another individual who takes their time to point out flaws or weakness of another artists work.

Lets talk about some online-community habits...
It does cost time,yes - it even forces you to outline your thoughts well and it needs a writing that does not hurt the artist in question.
But the most important aspect of giving helpful and constructive critique is that it does help the critic far more than the one who is being criticized.

In fact: if appreciated from both sides, the act even creates a true connection between those two parties.

Sounds weird, doesn´t it? But the reason why its true is simple. It just is a basic rule that applies here: you need to be objective to realize whats wrong to point out any flaws, which in turn helps you to avoid this error yourself. (Assumed its a constructive critique)  Do this often and you are (theroretically) a master.

How to deal with inappropriate criticism is material for another post, but being objective is the key here, regardless on which side you are. If you or your work is put into critique, it means you´ve done something right, I´m quoting Bruce Lee here; you only attack someone who is in possession of the ball.

This means on the other side you need to be interesting enough to get even criticized.
No one would want to put 5 minutes writing on a piece of art that is done or looks like its done in 2 minutes. Hard but true.

Another quote about that topic is from Randy Pausch: When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be. Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care.

In terms of social media and the possibilities we have today with the internet, it means that its far more important to make real connections to true people. That is the key to find people who care for you and who wholeheartedly support you in whatever you do. But this should always be a 2 way street. Without these "true" friends, you will get nowhere, not 10k myspace friends nor 100k twitter followers stand behind you if you fail, because the habit of accepting the - oh so easy to fawn on getting praise, will evoke exactly that you´ll fail...sooner or later.

Which lead to another conclusion, that its always easier to believe the praise than the bad words.
The best attitude you can develop is to see the "words of praise" as motivation factor that is reason to get your butt up in the morning and the critics are the ones that give you reason to work harder on yourself - to get you even later to bed.

As a subsequent conclusion it can be said that the level of critique you´ll receive is always dependent on what you give and how much popularity you gain. Sometimes not a really justified or pleasing system, but in that aspect not much of a difference to the real world.

After all you´ll always have to do with people not just numbers, screen-names or machines, and people live by rules, right?