Inner Propaganda with Owen Fitzpatrick

Most people chasing followers are playing the wrong game entirely. In this episode, Howie Chan, founder of the Behavioring Company and LinkedIn's number one branding creator, explains why the visible metrics of likes and reposts often hide the real currency of influence.
Howie built his career by switching tribes, moving from stem cell science into brand strategy and eventually into entrepreneurship after being laid off from the agency he helped grow to over 2,000 people. That experience shaped his belief that behavior change, not belief change, is usually the fastest and most reliable path to real influence.
In this episode of Inner Propaganda, we explore why LinkedIn behaves more like a risk management exercise than a true social platform, why belief often follows behavior rather than the other way around, and why the smartest people online are usually optimizing for authority rather than applause. Howie also breaks down his six-part framework for building influence and his CARE method for earning trust quickly.
What you will discover:
Why the mechanics of a platform matter less than the psychology of its audience
Why LinkedIn users protect their reputation more than they chase engagement
How changing default settings can shift behavior faster than changing beliefs
The six-part framework for moving someone from noticing you to recommending you
The CARE method for building trust: competence, authenticity, repeatability, and empathy
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my brand new book, Inner Propaganda. It explores the same mechanics of belief and influence that Howie and I discuss, applied to how we lead, communicate, and change minds. 
Connect with Howie Chan: https://howiechan.com/
Take his free quiz at https://influencestylequiz.com/
Connect with Howie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/howiechaniam
Visit my website: https://owenfitzpatrick.com/
Join my newsletter: https://owenfitzpatrick.com/newsletter/
Order my book, Inner Propaganda: https://www.amazon.com/Inner-Propaganda-Leading-Through-Turbulent/dp/1646872444/

A few weeks ago, I posted photos of myself signing books at Barnes & Noble on Fifth Avenue and at my local bookstore. It looked like a win. What I didn't share was how some stores I visited hadn't stocked the book at all, or had a single copy on order from a friend of mine who had put in the order.
There is a story I heard years ago from my friend Philippe about Grigory Potemkin, who supposedly built fake, beautiful villages along a riverbank just so Catherine the Great would believe everything was thriving. That image has stuck with me, because most of what we see on social media works the same way.
In this episode of Inner Propaganda, I pull back the curtain on the last six months of launching my book. I talk about landing incredible endorsements from people like Tony Robbins and Robert Cialdini, and about the far larger pile of rejections that never make it onto Instagram. I talk about hitting USA Today's bestseller list and missing the New York Times list I wanted. And I break down what I call the story war, the way our minds can take the same fact and spin it into two completely different realities depending on which internal narrative wins that day.
What you will discover:
The Potemkin village metaphor and why so much of what we present publicly is a curated version of reality
How the same piece of news can trigger either a confidence-boosting story or a self-defeating one
Why "am I good enough" is a question with no useful answer, and what to ask instead
The four core themes of my book and why mental health and polarization matter most to me
Why the meaning we assign to an experience shapes our next move more than the experience itself
 
Visit my website: https://owenfitzpatrick.com/
Join my newsletter: https://owenfitzpatrick.com/newsletter/
Order my book, Inner Propaganda: https://www.amazon.com/Inner-Propaganda-Leading-Through-Turbulent/dp/1646872444/

Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness spent decades as sworn enemies in one of the bloodiest conflicts in modern history. Then they became genuine friends, so close the press nicknamed them the Chuckle Brothers. If they could bridge that gap, the divide behind your last political argument may not be as permanent as it feels.
In this episode of Inner Propaganda, I explore why disagreement now so often feels like disrespect, and what is actually driving us apart. Not just human nature, but a set of forces, from the way our brains sort people into us and them in milliseconds, to feeds engineered to keep us certain and furious, that are pulling us further apart than we would ever go on our own.
I also explore the research behind polarization and share the four moves I use to bridge even the deepest divides. I draw on my own experience sitting down with people in North Korea, Afghanistan, and Iran whose beliefs seemed completely alien to me, and I walk through the deep canvassing research showing that a single honest conversation, built on real curiosity rather than argument, can shift a belief and make it last for months.
What you will discover:
Why we overestimate how extreme the other side actually is
How social media turns an ancient psychological effect into a machine for manufacturing outrage
Why shaming someone out of a belief almost always backfires
The four moves that actually bridge deep divides
Why the goal is never to win, but to find the common ground underneath
Visit my website: https://owenfitzpatrick.com/
Join my newsletter: https://owenfitzpatrick.com/newsletter/
Order my book, Inner Propaganda: https://www.amazon.com/Inner-Propaganda-Leading-Through-Turbulent/dp/1646872444/

In the early 1980s, Steve Jobs asked an engineer to save 10 seconds off the Macintosh boot-up time. The engineer found 28. His skills never changed. The story he was working inside of did.
This episode brings together everything I have taught this summer on logic and story into one complete system I call DELP: Demos, Ethos, Logos, Pathos. It is built on Aristotle's original framework, with the one piece he never had to think about added back in: knowing your audience before anything else.
In this episode of Inner Propaganda, I explore what real, ethical influence looks like in practice. I walk through Sophia Jex-Blake's fight to study medicine, the unsettling truth behind Milgram's obedience experiments, why a mint on a restaurant bill can raise tips by 23 percent, and the single three-word question that gets other people to argue your case for you.
What you will discover:
Why influence, done right, is something you do for someone rather than to someone
The four elements of the DELP framework and why order matters
How the same fact can produce completely different decisions depending on how it is framed
Why conceding a point first builds more trust than any amount of extra evidence
A three-word question that gets people to talk themselves into a decision
Visit my website: https://owenfitzpatrick.com/
Join my newsletter: https://owenfitzpatrick.com/newsletter/
Get my new book, Inner Propaganda: https://www.amazon.com/Inner-Propaganda-Leading-Through-Turbulent/dp/1646872444/

I almost said "pick up the phone" was the wrong call for Stanislav Petrov to make. His training said launch. The screen said launch. He said wait, and that pause is the reason the world is still standing.
Most of our decisions will never carry those stakes, but the machinery behind them is identical. Your mind was built to keep you alive, not to get things right, and that single fact explains why brilliant people make reckless calls and why the rest of us default to whatever is easiest.
In this episode of Inner Propaganda, I explore why even Isaac Newton, a man who mapped gravity, lost a fortune chasing a stock bubble he knew was irrational. I walk through the four-part toolkit I use to make better decisions: Defusion, Debiasing, Decision Modeling, and Discernment, and I share why grading your decisions by their outcome instead of their soundness teaches you exactly the wrong lessons.
Before we get into it, I have AMAZING news to share. Last week, Inner Propaganda was listed at No. 8 on the USA Today national bestseller list, No. 2 in nonfiction, No. 1 in psychology, and No. 1 in business on the same list!! It also made the LA Times bestseller list and the Independent Press Top 40 for nonfiction. This result far exceeds my expectations. I am still over the moon! 
Thank you for your support and feedback. If you have already picked up a copy, thank you, and I would love it if you took a moment to leave a review on Amazon. If you have not grabbed it yet, you can find it at innerpropaganda.com, on Amazon, or at your favorite bookstore.
In this podcast episode, you will discover:
Why Stanislav Petrov's doubt in a Soviet bunker prevented nuclear war
How Isaac Newton's own envy overpowered his intelligence
Why defaults, not choices, run far more of your life than you think
The four-part toolkit for sharper decisions under pressure
Why the conviction paradox is the key to leading with both doubt and confidence
Visit my website: https://owenfitzpatrick.com/
Join my newsletter: https://owenfitzpatrick.com/newsletter/
Get my book, Inner Propaganda: https://www.amazon.com/Inner-Propaganda-Leading-Through-Turbulent/dp/1646872444/