Inner Propaganda with Owen Fitzpatrick

When people give, they're not just transferring money. They're rehearsing a version of themselves. That insight, shared by my guest Cherian Koshy, cuts to the heart of why logical fundraising pitches so often fail, and why identity-driven communication changes everything. Cherian is the author of Neurogiving , a behavioral scientist, and one of the most original thinkers I've encountered on the qu...

When Louis Gerstner took over a dying IBM in 1993, he told his leadership team the company's last problem was a missing vision. Every expert in the room thought he was wrong. He was not. In this episode of Inner Propaganda , I argue that culture is made of exactly two ingredients: the stories people tell and the behaviors people repeat. Everything else, the values document, the posters, the offsit...

In 1938, a London stockbroker named Nicholas Winton canceled a ski vacation and went to Czechoslovakia instead. Over the following months, he organized the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children, got them onto trains to Britain, and then went home and told almost nobody for nearly 50 years. What moves a person to do something like that? The answer, I believe, is meaning, and not the kind you find, b...

Why do so many people read the book, understand the advice, and still not change? Nir Eyal started asking that question when readers began calling him to say his books had not worked for them, only to admit they had never actually tried the steps. That reckoning became the foundation of his new book, Beyond Belief . In this conversation, Nir introduces a framework that reframes everything we think...

A coach with decades of experience once told me she knew exactly what she needed to do to stop smoking, but just couldn't do it, because she was a smoker and that was all there was to it. One reframe later, she never touched a cigarette again. What changed was not her knowledge or her willpower but her identity. That story sits at the heart of this episode, because identity is one of the most powe...

I was lying on a wooden floor in the Amazon jungle, convinced I was finally seeing the truth. The colors were sharper. The connections were obvious. Everything made sense. There was just one problem: I am a psychologist who studies how people get tricked into believing things, and right at that moment, I was being tricked. What the ayahuasca did to my perception that night is a more extreme versio...

Socrates was executed for it. The ancient Greeks called it parrhesia: the practice of speaking truth openly, even at personal risk. The form of conversation it made possible, genuine dialogue aimed at mutual understanding, has quietly disappeared from the way most of us communicate today. What replaced it was debate. And debate, it turns out, is one of the least effective tools we have for actuall...

At 25 years old, Anne Devlin was tortured, thrown into a cell with six inches of sewage on the floor, and offered the equivalent of $90,000 to talk. For three years, she endured it all without saying a single word. The psychology that explains her silence is the same psychology that determines whether the people on your team will give everything for your mission, or quietly walk away. In this epis...

Nobody thinks they're the one watching propaganda. It's always the other channel. That's naive realism, and it's one of the biggest barriers to meaningful conversation. In this episode of Inner Propaganda, I introduce the Five Types of Truth: past, objective, shared, emotional, and desired. Each one shapes how we think, decide, and relate to others. Each has its own power and its own risks. I also...

This episode of Inner Propaganda is one I have been waiting to make for a long time. In honor of May the 4th, we are going full Star Wars to answer one of the most important questions in movie history: how did Emperor Palpatine turn the galaxy's greatest hero into a mass murderer? And how did Luke Skywalker manage to turn him back? In this episode, I break down how Palpatine engineered the convers...

Welcome to the very first episode of   Inner Propaganda . In this episode, I open up about the darkest moment of my life, at 14 years old, sitting down to write a goodbye note to my parents, and the one question that stopped me, shifted my beliefs, and ultimately saved my life. That moment became the foundation for everything I've built since. I also explore the fascinating difference between fact...

In this episode of Changing Minds, I sit down with resilience expert Courtney Clark to explore a powerful idea: sometimes the key to winning is knowing when to give up. We dive into why grit alone isn't enough, how flexible goal setting can outperform perseverance, and why letting go of the wrong path can actually move you closer to success. Courtney shares deeply personal stories, from surviving...

In this episode of Changing Minds, I walk through 14 powerful ideas that can transform the way you sell, market, and persuade. Drawing on some of the most influential thinkers in psychology, marketing, and negotiation, including Robert Cialdini, Dan Pink, Chris Voss, Seth Godin, Zoe Chance, and Will Storr, I explore the key principles behind effective persuasion. From understanding intrinsic motiv...

In this episode of Changing Minds, I share 10 powerful leadership ideas drawn from some of the most influential books ever written on leadership. From vulnerability and trust to courage, discipline, and wisdom, I break down the big ideas from Brené Brown, Simon Sinek, Patrick Lencioni, Jocko Willink, Kim Scott, Jim Collins, and Ryan Holiday and explain how you can apply them immediately. If you're...

In this episode of Changing Minds, I walk you through 16 powerful ideas from bestselling personal development books that have transformed millions of lives. From Atomic Habits to Man's Search for Meaning, from The Five Second Rule to The Obstacle Is the Way, I break down the core insights that help you change your habits, master your mindset, and thrive, especially during stressful times. If you w...

In this episode of Changing Minds, I break down 10 powerful books that have fundamentally reshaped how I think about high performance and success. From the 10,000-hour rule to grit, antifragility, flow, and redefining wealth, I explore the big ideas from Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Simon Sinek, Angela Duckworth, and more. If you want to dramatically improve your performanc...

In this episode of Changing Minds, I explore 16 powerful books that explain how the world really works, from human psychology and morality to technology, attention, status, and time. These big ideas help us understand why we argue, why we're distracted, why society feels polarized, and how we can think more clearly in a complex world. If you want frameworks that genuinely change how you see people...

In this episode of Changing Minds, I kick off a brand-new Big Ideas series by exploring 12 powerful books that can fundamentally transform the way you think. From behavioral economics and neuroscience to emotion, decision-making, and self-awareness, I break down the core ideas behind books like Thinking Fast and Slow, Think Again, How Emotions Are Made, and more. These aren't productivity hacks; t...

Trust changes everything. In this episode of Changing Minds, I explore the art and science of trust and why it matters so deeply, how it works in the brain, and what we can do to build it more intentionally with others and with ourselves. I break down the neuroscience behind trust, explain how our brains use prediction to decide who to trust, and share my 10 Cs of Trust framework, a practical chec...

Judgment is everywhere, and it's quietly tearing us apart. In this episode of Changing Minds, I explore why being judgmental comes so naturally, how it fuels polarization, and why it damages both our relationships and our mental health. I break down the three ways we judge people, the psychological reasons behind it, and most importantly, practical tools you can use to stop falling into the judgme...

In this episode of Changing Minds, I explore what it really means to be wealthy beyond money. Drawing from The Five Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom, I focus on time wealth and social wealth, and how mastering your time and relationships can dramatically improve the quality of your life. If you've ever felt successful on paper but unfulfilled in reality, this episode will challenge how you define su...

In this episode of Changing Minds, I walk you through five powerful mindset shifts that can help you succeed in life, especially in a world full of uncertainty and constant change. I explore the achievement mindset, adaptive mindset, attention mindset, growth mindset, and a concept I call the belief growth mindset. Together, these help you focus on solutions, adapt faster, protect your attention,...

In this episode of Changing Minds, I walk you step-by-step through the exact process I use to make the coming year the greatest year of your life. I break down goals, priorities, obstacles, skills, knowledge, habits, systems, and strategies and show you how each piece fits together to create real, lasting change. If you've ever struggled to follow through on New Year's resolutions, set goals you d...