The Grift of Magical Thinking in Online Business

Leap and the net will appear. Invest at the level you want to be at. You’re one offer away.

None of those have anything to do with how money actually shows up in a business. That’s magical thinking, and online business is more than ready to sell it to you. Welcome back to Duped! Let’s dive in. 

Leads are down. The economy is a mess. Launches are underperforming. And it’s election season in the US. 

Everything feels out of our control. This is the exact condition that produces magical thinking, and an industry is standing by to sell you the one thing that makes your business take off.

And on that cheery note, welcome back to season 6 of Duped.

Today, we are diving into Magical Thinking and how it shows up in online business. We talked about this on the Patreon, but we thought it was important to bring it to the main feed. Because magical thinking abounds in online business, we’re walking through three spells online business is casting right now, in the order you’re going to be hit with them between now and February.

What is Magical Thinking?

Magical thinking is believing your words or actions influence an outcome they have no causal connection to. Lucky socks. Knocking on wood. Wearing the same underwear through the playoffs. 

Psychology Today says: Magical thinking—the need to believe that one’s hopes and desires can have an effect on how the world turns. 

Whitson & Galinsky, Science, 2008 — “Lacking Control Increases Illusory Pattern Perception.” Six experiments. When people felt they lacked control, they saw patterns in random static, invented correlations in stock data, perceived conspiracies, and developed superstitions. Loss of control manufactures patterns that aren’t there.

Spell #1: The Revenue Goal

It’s planning season. Set your 2027 revenue goal. Write it down, double it because your goal is too small. Put it on the mirror so you can see it every day. Say it out loud every morning.

Because that will help you achieve the goal, says the grift of Magical Thinking

Gabriele Oettingen at NYU has spent more than twenty years studying exactly this, and her finding is the opposite of what the industry sells. Positive fantasies about a desired future predict less effort and less success, across weight loss, job searches, grades, and recovery from surgery. 

When people vividly imagine the outcome, their blood pressure drops. The brain registers the goal as partly achieved, and the energy to pursue it drains out. Visualizing the 7-figure year isn’t harmless. It’s counterproductive.

Oettingen says it’s better to have a challenging goal and to think about an obstacle that will prevent you from getting so you can pair it with an action. 

Make $300K” is a wish. “Send 40 proposals” is a goal. Revenue is an outcome of the actions you take; it isn’t a Post-it note on a mirror.

And here’s the grift layer: the inflated goal is how they get you into a sales funnel. Tell someone their goal is too small, get them to commit publicly to a number they cannot reach alone, then sell them the way to get there. 

Where does revenue goal setting tip over from useful into magical?

Spell #2: Leap and the Net Will Appear

Once you have the big number, you get the pitch: invest at the level you want to be at. Bet on yourself. Investing in yourself shows the universe you’re serious, and when you’re serious, opportunities come your way.

This is the one that costs people real money, so let’s take it apart. If you take the leap, the net will appear.

First, it’s unfalsifiable by design. If opportunities show up, the investment caused them. If they don’t, you weren’t really committed, you invested from scarcity, or you need the next tier. 

The universe can’t be wrong, and neither can the seller. That’s the self-sealing logic from the program promises episode, applied to the purchase itself, before any program content even exists.

Second, the net usually does appear, and that’s what makes the story so convincing. But look at what it’s made of. A partner’s income. Savings. A severance. An audience built on someone else’s platform. The leap story edits the net out because the net isn’t inspiring. Nets don’t appear. They’re woven, or they’re inherited.

Third, the money does something, just not what you were told. A big purchase feels like regaining control; you did something. Then effort justification takes over. Aronson and Mills, 1959: the harsher the initiation, the more people valued the group they joined. The bigger the investment, the harder you work to make it worth it. So the results come from twelve months of your hustle, and the program takes the credit. 

Spell #3: The One Small Thing

This one is subtle because it looks like strategy. There is one small thing standing between you and the business you want. Fix it, and the whole trajectory changes.

Why Smart People Fall for This

Back to Whitson and Galinsky. Lose control, see patterns in noise. None of this works on people who feel steady. It works on people who are scared and looking for the lever.

The last ingredient is the parasocial relationship, which we did a whole episode on back in season three. A one-sided relationship: you’ve put in the time, the energy, the interest, and the person on the other end doesn’t know you exist. And the research is clear that it influences what you buy.

Here’s how it feeds magical thinking. First, you ascribe expertise to people you feel close to, whether or not they’ve earned it. Then Cialdini’s liking trigger kicks in: repeated exposure makes them familiar, self-disclosure makes them feel like a friend, and liking bypasses the part of your brain that would normally ask for the causal chain. Add the trappings of authority, the audience size, the income, who they’re photographed with, and you’ve got someone whose “one small thing” doesn’t need evidence because they said it. And underneath all of it is the reciprocity deficit. They’ve shared so much, for free, for so long, that buying feels like settling a debt.

That’s why none of these magical thinking spells work on their own. They work because someone you trust, who doesn’t know you, casts them.

How to Protect Yourself

It wouldn’t be Duped, if we didn’t tell you how to protect yourself

• Ask for the causal chain. If someone can’t explain why the thing produces the result, it’s a lucky sock.
• Set goals you control. Actions, not revenue. Then do what Oettingen calls mental contrasting: name the obstacle and decide what you’ll do when you hit it.
• Ask yourself what would happen if the net didn’t appear? If you wouldn’t want to endure the consequence, then don’t do it.
• Do you like this stranger more than you should? If you’re buying because they feel like a friend, take a beat and remember they don’t know you at all. 

Links for this episode: 

• Psychology Today: Magical Thinking
• Lacking Control Increases Illusory Pattern Perception
• From Feeling Good to Doing Good
• Duped: The Grift of Program Promises
• The Effect of Severity of Initiation on Liking For a Group
• Duped: Friend or Foe? Understanding Parasoical Relationships in Marketing
• The Science of Persuasion