Your Not As Rational As You Think by Ash Robertson

You're standing in the cereal aisle, carefully comparing nutritional labels. You're being rational, right? Weighing protein against sugar, considering price per ounce, making a logical decision. But here's what you didn't notice: you picked the cereal from the middle shelf (eye-level products sell 23% more), the packaging was green (which your brain unconsciously associates with "healthy"), and you'd been hearing your favorite song in the store, putting you in a good mood. None of these factors entered your conscious awareness—yet they all influenced your "rational" choice more than you'd ever imagine. You're Not as Rational As You Think explores the hidden landscape of your unconscious mind—the 95% of your mental processing that happens below the surface of awareness. Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and behavioral psychology, this book reveals why your brain makes decisions before you're consciously aware of them, why your memories are more like Wikipedia than video recordings, why your emotions are essential for good decision-making, and why your sense of free will might be the most elaborate self-deception in human history. But understanding your unconscious mind isn't about becoming a perfectly rational decision-maker—it's about becoming a more aware, intentional, and skillful collaborator with the vast intelligence that shapes your life. Because you're not as rational as you think—and that's not a bug, it's a feature.