Luke Burgis - The One and the Ninety Nine S8 | E14

Radical Candor: Communication at Work

Radical Candor

Careers, Relationships, Society & Culture, Business

4.7 • 740 Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2026

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

While the podcast team is taking a Radical Sabbatical, Kim is interviewing authors of the books that have had a big impact on her in the past two years. In this episode, she’s speaking with Luke Burgis about his new book, The One and the Ninety-Nine, Forging Identity in the Age of Social Contagion. Through stories ranging from the parable of the lost sheep to August Landmesser, the only person in a huge crowd to refuse to salute to Hitler, Luke describes the missing skill that makes real community possible: learning how to remain oneself while staying connected to others. He offers practical, tactical advice for how to recognize false belonging, escape coercive dynamics, and pass through the rites of passage that produce people with integrity and courage. This is a book that will help you figure out what YOU want, so that you can go get it rather than being distracted by what others want. Guest Background: Luke Burgis is the director of The Cluny Institute and a professor at The Catholic University of America, where he studies the invisible forces that shape human behavior. He is the author of Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life. He lives in Washington, D.C., and Michigan with his wife, Claire, and their children. CHAPTERS (00:00) Introduction to the Radical Sabbatical and Luke Burgis' Book (02:09) The Meaning Behind 'The One and the 99' (03:24) Exploring the Parable of the Lost Sheep (06:05) August Landmesser: Standing Alone Against the Crowd (10:48) Family Dynamics and the Solid Self (17:55) Education and the Self: Navigating Expectations (22:37) The Role of Technology in Education (29:13) The Loss of Subtle Cues in Communication (31:37) The Evolution of Education and Rites of Passage (35:18) The Importance of Ownership in Learning (37:45) Mimetic Desire and Its Impact on Choices (40:44) Understanding Political Mimesis (46:20) The Tension of Relationships and Community (51:36) Finding Meaning in Tension and Discomfort Connect with the Radical Candor team: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:23.3	like you sign up for your one dollar a month trial at shopify dot com slash setup
0:28.6	hello everybody and welcome to the Radical Sabatical.
0:39.6	The rest of the Radical Canter team is taking a sabbatical, including me.
0:43.6	The thing I love to do more than anything else is to read great books.
0:48.5	And recently, I read The One in the 99 by Luke Burgess, and we are lucky to be in conversation here today. Welcome,
0:57.3	Luke. Thanks so much, Kim. It's good to be with you. My first contact with you came, maybe the audience
1:02.7	should know. We share the same amazing editor, Tim. Yeah, shout out to Tim Bartlett, who is wonderful.
1:10.5	Who is humble, great at his job, but he's not a poster.
1:14.6	It doesn't post a lot.
1:15.8	And I happen to see on his Instagram a photo of Tim and you in some idyllic cabin editing one of your books.
1:25.1	And I called Tim and I was like, Tim, where do we get to the part of the editing process
1:29.1	where we're sitting in a place together going through my book?
1:33.0	He's like, well, that was a bit of a special situation.
1:36.4	Well, you know, I have this she shed in the backyard, which you all are welcome to use.
1:42.4	It's basically three sliding glass doors and one
1:45.6	big window. And it's a great place to write and think. So beautiful. Yeah. Thanks for having me on.
1:51.6	Well, thank you. I'm so excited to talk to you about this book. As our listeners know, there's,
1:57.8	in radical candor, there's sort of a picture of what it means to be a leader and
2:04.5	you are at the center and then there's your relationships and then there's your responsibilities and
2:09.9	from the way that you conduct your relationships and your responsibilities your culture emerges So I can't think of a better book
2:19.8	to interrogate all the parts, but in particularly the U part of that diagram, than the one in the
	...

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