We have a deep motivational mechanism that underlies our reluctance to admit mistakes or accept scientific findings, even when those findings can save our lives.

This is what is called cognitive dissidents.

All the decisions that we make about what it is that we believe, what we buy, where we go, what we do, and how we live our

lives is driven by seeking consistency with our self-identity. We are all powerfully motivated

to maintain mental and identity consistency, not just crazy cult people or even social deviance, all of us. And we are all

terrorized by anything that clashes with closely held ideas and beliefs. We will do whatever

mental gymnastics are necessary to reject, debunk, or simply avoid any new information that would threaten your

pre-existing convictions or your new desires.

Welcome to Darren Daily on demand, your most trusted resource to help you become better every day.

Here's your success mentor, Darren Hardy.

Do you remember the religious cult Heaven's Gate?

Those are those crazy folks who believed that a spaceship was traveling in the wake of the Hale-Bop comet

that would be passing by Earth to pick them up in order to ascend to the next level, to some higher being. On January 30th,

1997, the cult's leader, Marshall Applewhite, and a disciple named John Craig, went down to the

Oceanside photo and telescope store and bought a $3,645 computerized telescope so that they could

see the flying saucer behind the Hail Bob

Common. A week later, they went back to the store demanding a refund. When the manager asked why,

they complained that the refrigerator-sized telescope was defective. They said it couldn't see

the spaceship following the comet. Two months later, 39 people and their newly purchased black and white Nikes put plastic bags

over their heads to shed their earthly containers, and they killed themselves.

Nothing, not even direct visual proof, was going to convince them against their belief.

Crazy, right? Well, you are just as crazy,

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