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Tom Asacker On The Psychology Of Desire And Human Behavior – This Week’s Six Pixels of Separation Podcast

Episode #965 of Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to:

Tom Asacker has been challenging my thinking for years, ever since we first connected in the mid-2000s when his book, A Clear Eye For Branding, offered a fresh perspective on marketing and branding. Over the years, Tom has continued to push boundaries, diving into the intersection of belief, behavior, and what truly drives us. His latest book, Unwinding Want – Using Your Mind To Escape Your Thoughts, is a natural progression of his work, building on the insights he explored in earlier books like The Business Of Belief, Sandbox Wisdom, I Am Keats, and Your Brain On Story. In this conversation, Tom and I delved deep into the paradox of desire – how what we think we want often reflects our conditioning rather than our true selves. We discussed how marketers manipulate emotions, the societal constructs that shape our decisions, and the role of personal agency in breaking free from unconscious patterns. Tom shares profound insights about the human experience, such as how recognizing our conditioning can help us make more authentic choices and how the pursuit of comfort can sometimes rob us of meaningful experiences. He also touched on how AI mimics the human mind’s patterns, creating an eerie reflection of our own thought loops. What I’ve always appreciated about Tom is his ability to merge intellectual rigor with practical wisdom, challenging us to reexamine not just what we want but why we want it. If you’ve ever found yourself questioning whether the life you’re living is truly your own, this episode – and Tom’s work – might just give you the tools to find out. This is a great discussion to kick off 2025 (Happy New Year!). Enjoy the conversation!

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via Apple Podcast or whatever platform you may choose): #965 – Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast.

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond,check it out.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.