Humans are more rivalrous than we like to believe. Nearly every religion has ancient stories of sibling rivalries. Unfortunately, we humans seem to delight in seeing others fail.

But according to Luke Burgis, envy often leads to misery.

The strange mystery of desire is that we look to others to figure out what it is that we want, and then we adopt another’s desires as our own. Occasionally, though, rivalries can produce good outcomes, like the rivalry between Enzo Ferrari and Ferruccio Lamborghini.

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About Luke Burgis:

Luke Burgis has co-created and led four companies in wellness, consumer products, and technology. He’s currently Entrepreneur-in-Residence and Director of Programs at the Ciocca Center for Principled Entrepreneurship where he also teaches business at The Catholic University of America. Luke has helped form and serves on the board of several new K-12 education initiatives and writes and speaks regularly about the education of desire. He studied business at NYU Stern and philosophy and theology at a pontifical university in Rome. He’s Managing Partner of Fourth Wall Ventures, an incubator that he started to build, train, and invest in people and companies that contribute to a healthy human ecology. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Claire, and her crazy New Orleans cat Clotille.

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