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The Top 5 Lies We Tell Ourselves
Paperback
Series: Top Shelf, Book 2
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Oct 28 2025
Pages: 76
Weight: 0.25
Height: 0.16 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
In 1981 a psychologist asked students how good they were behind the wheel. Most of the American students in his study rated themselves more skilful than the typical driver. That is mathematically impossible, and it is a perfect place to start a book about the stories we tell ourselves.
The Top 5 Lies We Tell Ourselves takes five sentences almost everyone has said, and sets each one beside the best research we have. I'll be happy when... I don't care what others think. It's too late to start over. I can do it all alone. I'm fine.
Why did Buzz Aldrin struggle after walking on the Moon? Why does being left out of a simple computer ball game register in the brain's pain systems? What happened to the brains of London taxi drivers as they learned the Knowledge? Why do people underestimate how willing strangers are to help them, and how happy helping makes them? And why does trying not to think of a white bear make you think of it more?
Along the way you will meet Fauja Singh, who ran his first marathon at 89, Momofuku Ando, who invented instant noodles at 48, and Frank McCourt, who published Angela's Ashes at 66. You will hear why John Lennon later said that in Help! he had been crying out for help, how a calm British Airways captain told his passengers that all four engines had stopped, and what happened to a group of believers in 1954 when the end of the world failed to arrive on schedule.
Every chapter ends with small, practical things to try this week, and a closing section sets out honestly what the research does and does not show, including the famous findings that turn out to be shakier than their reputation.
This second edition has been fully rewritten. Every fact, figure and quotation has been checked against named sources, which are listed at the back of the book.
Warm, curious and grounded in evidence, The Top 5 Lies We Tell Ourselves is for anyone who suspects they are sometimes the easiest person to fool.
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