Better Decision Making With Owen Fitzpatrick - TWMJ #1059

Welcome to episode #1059 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

What if the most powerful propaganda you encounter every day isn't coming from politicians, the media, or social media... but from your own mind? Owen Fitzpatrick is a psychologist, author, and expert in the science of influence, persuasion, and belief. His work has taken him across more than 30 countries, from studying propaganda in North Korea and Afghanistan to exploring how our beliefs shape our decisions, relationships, and sense of reality. In his new book, Inner Propaganda, Owen makes a provocative argument: our brains operate like propaganda machines, constantly selecting information, constructing narratives, and convincing us that what we believe must be true. And the more intelligent we are, the better we may become at justifying those beliefs. In this conversation, Owen and I explore why we confuse certainty with truth, how emotions and identity influence what we believe, and why our desire for simple explanations makes us so vulnerable to polarization, conspiracy theories, and manipulation. We discuss the difference between critical thinking and nuanced thinking, why questioning your own beliefs can feel so unsettling, and how the modern attention economy rewards outrage and exaggeration even when we recognize what's happening. Owen introduces his framework of "Feels Right, Fits In, Makes Sense," explaining why logic alone rarely changes minds and what this means for leaders trying to inspire genuine commitment rather than simple compliance. We also explore the psychology of persuasion, the difference between facts and the stories we construct around them, and why understanding someone else's beliefs requires more curiosity and less judgment. This conversation gets personal as we wrestle with the discomfort of uncertainty, the challenge of maintaining intellectual humility, and the possibility that changing your mind might actually be a sign of strength. Because perhaps the greatest challenge isn't recognizing propaganda in the world around us... it's recognizing the propaganda we're creating for ourselves. Enjoy the conversation...

Running time: 56:38. Hello from beautiful Montreal. Listen and subscribe over at Apple Podcasts. Listen and subscribe over at Spotify. Please visit and leave comments on the blog - Thinking With Mitch Joel. Feel free to connect to me directly on LinkedIn. Check out ThinkersOne. Here is my conversation with Owen Fitzpatrick. I