Self-Deception

I stood at a trade show with a bag full of silicone wristbands and said things like: You’ll be stronger. More stable. More balanced. People believed me. People bought. And I earned.

Was it a lie? Or was it perfect marketing?

The honest answer: I don’t know anymore. The transition was gradual. In the beginning, I asked questions. Then I stopped.

In the beginning, I was curious. I came from e-commerce, had studied marketing, started companies, built software. My compass was simple: What works? Where is demand? Then came the test, and the test worked. People stood more stable afterward. They felt something. Thousands of them. Athletes, celebrities, regular buyers. Everyone swore by it.

Then came the science. Double-blind, controlled. The result: Placebo. No measurable effect. No bio-frequency. No energy resonance. What the studies said worked: belief, expectation, group dynamics.

Now I was caught in the middle. The scientist says no. The customer says yes. And I’m earning.

That’s the moment self-deception begins. Not as a decision. Not as a conscious act. But as a quiet shift. You stop asking the one question you should be asking. You push it to tomorrow. And tomorrow the register is full again, and the question isn’t so urgent anymore.

The French have a word for it: mauvaise foi. Bad faith. You hide behind the market, behind the customers, behind the role. You pretend you’re not free. As if something is forcing you.

I was free. I could have stopped. At any time. But I pretended I wasn’t.

You see yourself as good without checking. After all, you’re helping people. They feel better. They believe. What’s wrong with that?

What was wrong with it: The effect probably came from the buyers’ heads, not from the silicone. And I suspected that. Not from the start. But at some point. And that point didn’t arrive as a shock. It arrived as creeping knowledge that I put in a drawer.

I recognized the deception. That didn’t stop me. It made me better at it. I now knew how it worked. I knew which sentences landed. I knew the test convinced people because the body reacts to expectation. And I kept using that knowledge.

The dilemma I never spoke out loud: Should I take away my customers’ illusion? Or keep earning?

I kept going. Not as a cynic. As a participant. In a collective placebo that everyone wanted. The customers wanted it. The retailers wanted it. The market wanted it. And I wanted it too, because the alternative was uncomfortable.

The biggest deception wasn’t a conspiracy. It was the wish of millions that it was true. And I fueled that wish because I made my living from it.

This isn’t an accusation. It’s an observation. About me. About the mechanics.

I recognized the deception. That didn’t stop me. It made me better at it.