In a comment thread on LinkedIn, Dimitar Bakardzhiev suggested to compare the idea of Enlightened Self-Interest that we have in the TameFlow Approach with that sustained by Ayn Rand. In this post I expand on the reply I provided.
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum in 1905 in St. Petersburg, Russia) was a Russian-American writer and philosopher best known for her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, as well as for founding the philosophical system known as Objectivism. After immigrating to the United States in 1926, Rand established herself in Hollywood and eventually achieved literary fame with her advocacy of individualism, reason, and laissez-faire capitalism. Her works, both fiction and non-fiction, became influential among conservatives, libertarians, and generations of readers interested in her defense of personal freedom and rational self-interest.
At the core of Rand’s moral philosophy is the idea that rational self-interest, or “ethical egoism,” is the proper basis for ethics. She argued that the highest moral purpose is the pursuit of one’s own happiness, guided by reason, and that “selfishness” — properly understood as rational self-care and achievement—is a virtue, not a vice. Rand rejected the traditional moral elevation of altruism, which she defined as self-sacrifice for others, and instead held that each individual should act for their own benefit, provided they respect the rights of others. In her view, values and morality are objective, rooted in the facts of existence and the requirements of human life, and reason is the only means of acquiring knowledge and guiding action.
Rational Self-Interest vs. Enlightened Self-Interest
Rand is a heavy hitter when it comes to self-interest, so this should be an intriguing comparison. The similarity between Rands’ Rational Self-Interest and TameFlow’s Enlightened Self-Interest is found in considering rational reasoning as a decisive element. But then the thinking is quite different.
Let’s explore whether Ayn Rand’s works offer any parallels to the notion of Enlightened Self-Interest in the TameFlow Approach.
Bedrock of Morality
In Rand’s world—think The Fountainhead (1943) or Atlas Shrugged (1957)—self-interest isn’t just a quirk of human nature; it’s the bedrock of morality. She calls it “rational self-interest” or “selfishness,” but don’t let the word throw you—she’s not talking about petty greed. For Rand, rational self-interest means pursuing your own life, happiness, and values as your highest purpose, guided by reason, not whim or coercion. It’s about living authentically, creating value through your own effort, and rejecting any duty to sacrifice yourself for others. In The Virtue of Selfishness (1964), she argues that this isn’t a flaw to overcome—it’s a virtue to embrace. You don’t owe anyone your goals, and no one owes you theirs.
The Individual at the Center
Now, let’s hold that up to TameFlow’s enlightened self-interest. There’s an immediate resonance: both put the individual front and center.
In the TameFlow Approach, Enlightened Self-Interest is all about focusing solely on yourself — your own outcomes, your own throughput — without deliberately aiming to benefit others. The Mental Models (like the Goal Tree, Throughput Economics, Constraint Management, etc.) shift your perception, so you see what really serves you, often ditching old habits that seemed self-interested but were actually detrimental.
Rand’s rational self-interest vibes with this in spirit: it’s about reasoning your way toward what is genuinely good for you, not just grabbing what’s in front of you.
Both approaches say, “Look out for yourself first,” and both rely on a kind of revelation — Rand’s through independent reason, TameFlow’s through Mental Models — to get there.
The Transformation Angle
Here’s where it gets juicy: the transformation angle.
In the TameFlow Approach, enlightenment isn’t just a tweak — it’s a qualitative leap. The locus of self-interest changes through enlightenment. Pre-enlightenment, you might chase short-sighted wins that might actually hurt you; post-enlightenment, your self-interest evolves into something sharper, more effective.
Rand’s got a parallel here, though it’s subtler. In her novels, the main characters start with a raw drive, but it’s through rational clarity — often hard-won — that they refine their pursuits. They don’t change what they value (e.g., building railroads or designing buildings), but they shed illusions—like pleasing others or bowing to mediocrity — that were holding them back.
It’s not as radical as a Mental Model swap as in the TameFlow Approach, but there’s a similar arc: reason strips away the junk, revealing a truer self-interest.
Big Overlap?
Neither Rand nor the TameFlow Approach care about any intention to help others.
Rand would scoff at John Stuart Mill’s (see Understanding Enlightened Self-Interest in the TameFlow Approach) collective happiness calculus — she’d say it’s your life, your values, end of story. If others benefit, fine, but that’s not your job.
With this regard, the TameFlow Approach is the same: you act for yourself, and when Unity of Purpose emerges, it’s a side effect of the Mental Models aligning everyone’s self-driven choices. Though it must be understood, that the Mental Models promoted by the TameFlow Approach are deliberately designed to produce exactly this side-effect; the alignment does not all come about by happy happenstance, but by architected design.
In The Fountainhead, the protagonist, Howard Roark designs buildings his way, not to serve society’s tastes, yet his genius elevates the world around him anyway. That’s close to TameFlow’s “byproduct” effect — the self-interest that creates value beyond the self without trying. But for Rand, that is a fortuitous result; in the TameFlow Approach it is an effect that is deliberately caused by the design and choice of the Mental Models.
Great Divergence
Rand’s rational self-interest is a moral absolute, a philosophy for all of life, rooted in individual rights and capitalism. She’s not designing systems or optimizing flow—she’s preaching a worldview.
The TameFlow Approach’s take with Enlightened Self-Interest is more down-to-earth and utilitarian, tailored to work and decision-making. Your Mental Models are tools to rethink how you act, not a sermon on why you exist. Rand might nod at the focus on self, but she’d likely see TameFlow’s system-building as too narrow—her lens is grander, less about throughput and more about human purpose. The TameFlow Approach has a more humble system-building raison-d’etre. Pragmatic if you want.
Conclusions
So, parallels? Absolutely. Both champion self-interest as the starting point, both demand a reasoned shift in perspective, and both let collective benefits fall where they may. Rand doesn’t use “enlightened self-interest” (she’d probably call it redundant — self-interest, to her, is inherently rational when done right), but her “rational selfishness” echoes TameFlow’s vibe: act for yourself, get your head straight, and the rest sorts itself out.
The difference is scope and flavor — Rand’s a crusader for the soul, TameFlow’s a strategist for the system.
Ayn Rand uses rationalization to refine the pursuit of self-interest; but that self-interest remains the same — only your understanding of it gets more “rational."
With the TameFlow Approach the very core of the self-interest moves — what it becomes after the enlightenment is often the straight opposite of what it was before.
Again, a heck of a difference! No?