Most of us are confident that we know our own mind. We live in a free society where little is now taboo, and we can think and say pretty much what we want. Nobody is telling us what to do or what to believe, right!
We’re intelligent, educated individuals, who act according to our own determination – weighing things up rationally, based on our experience, our knowledge, and our gut reaction. 
But if that’s the case, how come advertising works so well? After all…
We know it’s just stories told to sell us things.
We now see more than 5000 advertising images a day. And rising…in fact, there are so many that researchers have given up counting.
One thing’s certain – the stories must be working, or why would companies bother to spend fortunes on telling them?
Strangely, we don’t seem to care that marketing and selling techniques are based on tried and tested principles of manipulation. Is this because we all think that it’s only other folk who get bamboozled? Not us. We’re far too smart for that. We’d never get caught in the trap.
The thing is…whoever we are, we’re susceptible. Whatever the salesperson is peddling, they can sell it to us if they’re skilled in spinning the webs of reciprocity, recency, urgency, scarcity etc.
We react in an automatic way to anyone skilled who’s selling us anything.
And this goes way beyond the selling of shampoo.
The most powerful weapon in the hands of an oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
Steve Biko
We’re surrounded by purveyors of dissatisfaction and false dreams, who tease away at our perspective, until we’re desperate to buy their solution to a problem we don’t even have.
Sadly this messes up our relationships with ourselves and each other, it warps our concept of value, and it destroys our appreciation of the gifts we already possess, often for free.
With this onslaught, can we really know our own minds?
Not unless we keep vigilant…and let’s remember, no-one is that smart .
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