The School of Greatness - 665 Jordan Peterson on Pain and Suffering

Episode Date: July 11, 2018

“When you love someone, you not only love them despite their fragility: but also because of it.” One of the hardest things you have to deal with in life is watching someone close to you suffer from an illness. Especially if you’re a parent. Although I’ve never had the experience of seeing my child suffer, I’ve had close loved ones go through the pain. It’s this time in life that either makes or breaks you. You have to be strong, not just for you, but also for them. That doesn’t mean you should discourage their vulnerability. You still need to embrace it, and there is a delicate balance in doing so. It’s also important to be there to support them and let them know that they are not a victim. They are still as strong as they want to be. If they fall into that victim mentality, it’s game over. They begin to lose their character in their illness. To dive into this more, I brought back Dr. Jordan Peterson. This is part two of my interview with Dr. Peterson. If you missed the last episode, go back and listen. In this part of my interview, Jordan dove into what it was like watching his child suffer with an debilitating illness. He talks about the lessons he learned as a professional, as well as a father. We discuss how his entire family was affected, and how he was able to teach is daughter to stay strong and vulnerable. This is a powerful episode, and you need to listen to it because there are valuable lesson you will need to use one day. Learn how you can avoid the victim mentality when an illness hits, on Episode 665. Some Questions I Ask: What’s the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome? (5:16) How does mapping out your time play into the self authoring program? (9:09) Did your daughter feel responsible for causing all of the pain? (13:18) Is there anything that you wish you had done differently with your children? (21:22) Did you ever doubt yourself, in terms of your ability? (26:56) What’s your biggest fear now? (35:18) In This Episode You Will Learn: How to emotionally navigate seeing your child suffer (7:42) How to focus on your career at the same time as dealing with a loved one’s illness (11:03) What Jordan taught his daughter at an early age about her illness (16:06) How Dr. Peterson feels about his daughter’s experience (23:48) How his daughter’s health affected his career (30:27) Dr. Peterson’s plan moving forward (40:22)

This is episode number 665 with best-selling author, Dr. Jordan Peterson. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now, let the class begin. Aristotle said, suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness,

not through insensibility, but through greatness of minds. We are back with the second part of this two-part series with Dr. Jordan Peterson. And for those that don't know who Dr. Jordan Peterson is, he's a professor at the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist, and author of 12 Rules for Life, An Antidote to Chaos, which has sold over a million and a half copies in the last six months. And he has taken the world over by storm. Make sure to check out part one of this series, which is all about responsibility and meaning. We went deep in that episode,

and this is picking up on the second part of that first one. This is all about how to deal with something that is brutally painful. And Dr. Jordan Peterson dives into some of the most painful and emotional parts of his life and how he's dealt personally with suffering with his own life and with the lives of those closest around him. Also, how to avoid a victim mentality when illness strikes. We dive in deep on this topic and how most people focus on this mentality, and they're never going to live a great life because of that. Also, why we should keep children vulnerable and teach them to be strong.

Some important topics on that about kids and raising children as well, no matter how much challenge they may be facing. I'm super excited about this one. Make sure, guys, check it out. Part one. First, share this with your friends as well. This is lewishouse.com slash 665. Tag myself at Lewis House and Dr. Jordan Peterson over on Instagram and Twitter to let us know that you're listening and what you think about it during this episode as well. about it during this episode as well. What's been the biggest challenge in your life that you've had to overcome or the biggest suffering that took you the longest to get beyond to improve? Oh, I think that was probably, and I wrote about this in the last chapter of my book, which is called Pet a Cat When You Encounter One street and it's about it's about dealing with you know you think what's the worst

thing that can happen to you well I think the worst thing is that you do something really horrible and you screw up your life and everyone's life around you that's that's bad with it yes yes and you have to live with knowing you did it it's like that's rough man that's seeing it's worth of dying yes because then you don't remember right remember there are worse things than dying because then you don't remember. Right, right. There are worse things than dying. Yeah, there are. Yes, there are. No, no, that's a bad thing, man.

But I think the hardest existential situation that I've been in is the situation with my daughter because she was very, very ill. And she had rheumatoid arthritis. She had arthritis. It wasn't rheumatoid type. And she had rheumatoid arthritis. She had arthritis. It wasn't rheumatoid type. And she had 40 affected joints. That started to bother her when she was two. But it really manifested itself fully when she was six. And some of the medical treatment helped.

But when she was 15, 14, 14 through 16, first her hip disintegrated. And so she had that replaced after walking around on it for like a good year and then her ankle disintegrated on her other foot and she had to have it replaced and so there were two years of absolutely brutal pain for her like brutal daily excruciating pain and we were really running around trying to figure out what to do about it because the hip wasn't too hard to replace you know because surgeons are actually pretty good at hip replacements but ankles are still so many bones touch and go yeah yeah and so and just watching that and and well watching what it was doing to her because she was in enough pain at one point it just about broke her you know and

i mean you know you and i you've probably been in a situation where you were in pain for a night and couldn't sleep it's like yeah fine so multiply that by five and extend it over two years that's Jesus Christ yeah and she was on like huge doses of opiates and so that was sedating her and so that made her look drunk in public and she can only stay awake for about six hours a day and she had to take Ritalin to stay awake because otherwise she was just sleeping all the time and and it was a very bad autoimmune condition. And so it wasn't only manifest in the joint deterioration and the pain because arthritis is also very painful. And 40 joints happens to be quite a lot. Oh my gosh, just one joint. Yeah, right. No, it was absolutely brutal beyond belief. As a father or parent, how do you navigate that emotionally yourself? Yeah,

well, that's what that chapter is about. I mean, so what do you do when things are too much? Well, one of the answers is you narrow your time frame. Another answer is you look for occasions of grace and beauty where you can get them so when she had a dog that really helped yeah you know so that was something that was with her all the time and we tried to put things in her life that she could care for she had a whole raft of pets although she was allergic to almost everything so most of them were lizards well yeah i know we get her a guinea pig here's a guinea pig it's like oh i love this guinea pig it's such a pain and then you know three hours later she'd have a big rash we'd have to take the guinea pig back to the pet store.

Like a hairless dog or something. Jesus Christ. So the dog, luckily the dog she could tolerate. And so we had the dog for her. But one of the things you do when you're in a situation like that, it's just a bloody ongoing nightmare is that you shrink your timeframe. It's like, well, what are we going to do in a year? It's like, oh God, we can't even think about that. It's like six months, no, three, yeah. A week, tomorrow, today, the next hour. Yeah, so that's what you have to do.

You really shrink your time. You shrink your timeframe until you can tolerate it. So you're not planning out years because then you'll go crazy. Yeah, it's too much uncertainty. You think, okay, how can I make the next hour the least amount of awful possible? That's what you do at someone's deathbed.

You shrink your time frame, and that's what you have to do. How does that play into the self-authoring program? If you have this vision for yourself and you're mapping out a year, two, three, five years ahead. Yeah, well, sometimes. You have to re-navigate. Yeah, that's right. You have to re-navigate. You have to say no.

And just fit it into that time frame. Yeah, because even the best laid plans of mice and men go astray. You know, I mean, that's part of being alive. And so you have your map. But, you know, if you get a flat tire along the way, you still have to stop and fix your car. Maybe the bloody thing bursts into flames and you have to get a new car. Right. You know, so, I mean, your ascent towards your goals can be punctuated by unexpected catastrophe.

And then, well, then hopefully you've made yourself into a resilient person at that point. And the catastrophe is no worse than it has to be. And you're not making it worse. I mean, one of the things we were fortunate about is that by the time she got really ill, my relationship with my wife was pretty well put together. And my relationship with my son, who's younger than her,

was also well put together. And so he was an absolute trooper, man. Because most of, for a lot of his teenage life in particular, there was a huge amount of focus on the suffering of his sister. And we were like right up to here with that. It was just, it was enough. And he conducted himself admirably. He didn't, if he caused trouble, we didn't know about it. He kept it to himself, you know, and I don't mean he was hiding. I mean, he dealt with it. Right. And he spent a lot of time at home and he didn't do any unnecessarily stupid things. And he put up with his sister and his parents who were on edge a lot without adding additional catastrophe and misery and grief to it. And when she was a little bit crazy and was leaning on him too hard or bothering him he was there to support her and it was massively helpful

my wife and i weren't any more crazy towards each other than we had to be and so there wasn't like any additional stress during those periods of time stressful enough yeah yeah any extra would have been like i'm done that's right that's. How were you able to compartmentalize or just focus on your career at that time? You know, lecturing or writing or whatever it may be at that time. Well, that's also part of the vision of hell. It's like, well, what's the alternative? You let things go and you make them worse. It's like.

Not showing up and yeah. Oh, no. There's no excuse for that. It's like. How did you say, was it a compartmentalizing of like, okay, it's 9 o'clock or 8 o'clock in the morning, I'm going to work. Yeah, well, we made rules and we talked about some of them. Like some of the rules were we didn't talk about my daughter's illness after 8 o'clock at night. That was the rule.

It's like, no. Your sanity. Well, it's a war. You wear yourself out in a week you're dead and everyone suffers a lot so you got to keep going through however long this is going to be and so what what do you have to do well you have to sleep you have to sleep or things are going to go bad and sleep yeah that's right it's time to stop talking and go to sleep yeah so you have time cut off yeah well and i had learned some of that because i've been a clinical psychologist for a

long time and so i've been dealing with people's problems. And you learn how to, you know, you think, well, how can you go home when you have all of those problems to contend with? It's like, well, A, they're not your problems. They're not going away right now. No, and they're not going away. And having them bring you down is not helping the person who has the problem. It's the same with my daughter. It's like had my wife and I deteriorated as a consequence of her condition, A, that would have been horrible for her because

then she would have had to bear the weight of watching her illness destroy her family, right? And have that guilt. Oh, Christ, yes. I mean, that's one of the terrible things about having a very bad illness is that not only does it do you in, but you can see it taking its toll on the people around you. I think that might even be worse. I mean, this is gradations of hell. So you also can't allow that to happen. If you have a loved person around you and they're ill, you have a moral obligation not to let it tear you down because then it's on them. That's no good. And you think, well, how can you remain healthy and strong in the face of the terrible suffering of someone who's close to you?

It's like, well, because the alternative is worse. You want me to get sick and get overweight and not be able to take care of you or me? Right. And then we both drown faster. Right. Not helpful. Did she ever go through a place of, I guess some people do this, where, you know, kids who have some type of autoimmune or some type of disease or whatever it may be, they didn't necessarily, they were born with it or it happened somehow. It's not like they ate something themselves.

They weren't necessarily responsible, you could say, right? I mean, was she responsible for causing all the pain in her body or was it just something that happened? Well, that's what we told her. It's just, well, this life, kid. It's not you. We also told her very, very many, many times, and we were very careful about this, do not use your illness as an excuse.

As soon as you do that, you can't tell the difference between the illness and your character. So don't let it turn you into a victim, even though obviously it's a catastrophe. We were very clear about that, and it wasn't her fault, but that she still had to bear up under it as well as possible and to do everything she could and not use it as an excuse.

And we talked to her about that a lot, and we're clear about it. And I've seen this. It's one of the things I really dislike about what the universities are doing with disability. It's like everybody gets a disability.'s like well and no wonder because people have hard lives you know it's like it's very rare to find someone who isn't suffering under an undue load of some sort there's something wrong with pressure and anxiety whatever it's like any type of or there's something wrong in their family that's serious or they have terrible economic pressure like there's something wrong it's like okay's serious, or they have terrible economic pressure. Like there's something wrong.

It's like, okay, we should make allowances for you. It's like, oh, yeah? What allowances? What exactly does that entitle me to? Well, I tell you, man, that's a murky place you do not want to go because then you don't know anymore. It's like, well, what's my responsibility? I mean, I have this undue burden to bear. Well, how does that mitigate my responsibility?

Well, the answer is as little as possible. You don't go there because you get confused. And as soon as you get confused, well, then the illness has not only got you physiologically, it's got you psychologically. And then you're in deep trouble. And to her great credit, as far as I can tell, I wouldn't say she never used her illness as an excuse because never is a lot, you know, or never is an extreme. But she certainly withstood the temptation to do it habitually and to warp her character as a consequence. And she did figure out what was wrong with her and fixed it. And so now she doesn't have any of these.

She's healthy now while she still has some residual damage from from everything that happened like i just found out yesterday she went to chicago to have her ankle checked out because it isn't working very well and they told her that she had to have the old replacement taken out and a new one put in so but but in her realm of catastrophe that actually constitutes news that's not as bad as it could be right so strangely enough so it's not like she's out of the woods but so you taught her from an early age though and sorry to cut you off no no no that even though she had a you know let's just for this state of the conversation a physical disability right she wasn't as able-bodied physically as the majority of people is that clear to say that you told her like never allow that to give you special privileges?

Well, never allow that to be, never, no, it wasn't that exactly. It was never use that as an excuse to not do something you could do. Even with the challenge. Yes, because it's the, there's a deception element there. It's like, well, I don't want to do that. And I have this illness. So maybe I can get away with it. That's right.

Don't use your illness as a means of getting away with something because you'll blur the line. Then you'll constantly use that for the rest of your life. Right, and if you do that a hundred times, you'll be so confused about what's illness and what's not that you'll not know. You won't know anymore, and maybe you won't be able to figure it out again,

and then you're in a very bad place. There were some things that she had to have done that were allowances like when she was doing exams she had to type because she couldn't write you know and she couldn't sit on the floor cross-legged so she had to sit in a chair like things that she actually couldn't do but she still did the work yes she still did the work and just said oh i can't take the test yeah I can't do the exam at all. Yeah. But she was able to do it with different circumstances. Yes, right, right, right. And the consequence of that was that once she figured out that most of what was causing her, what was bothering her, all of it by the looks of it,

was a consequence of a set of extreme sensitivities to almost every sort of food. So she hardly eats anything now. The only thing she eats is beef. That's it. Beef, salt, water. That's it. Nothing else. That's it?

Yeah, that's it. And she's been eating that way for, well, mostly for about three years, but almost completely for a year. And she feels fine? She's 100%. She has no symptoms. No vegetables, no supplements? No, that's it.

Beef, salt. I'm serious. She never cheats. Wow. Never. Because she doesn't want never cheats. Wow. Never. Because she doesn't want to feel pain and suffering. Yes. Well, if she eats the wrong thing, she has a catastrophic emotional and physical reaction for a month. Wow. Does she essentially eliminate all food and try one thing at a time until, okay, that didn't work. Let's

try this. Yes. It took about three years to figure it out. Wow. So yes, wow is right. It's absolutely beyond comprehension. It's a diet that I follow almost entirely now it out. So yes, wow is right. I can't, it's absolutely beyond comprehension. It's a diet that I follow almost entirely now. Just beef, salt, and water. Yes. I've been eating that way for about three months and I've been on an extremely low carb diet for about two, two and a half years, something like that. Both my wife and I have autoimmune symptoms and she got all of them. Your daughter, yeah. So she got all of them. So it was like the worst of worst, magnified by a thousand. Yes, that's right.

But when she sorted out what was wrong, she convinced me to also try what she was doing and it's been extraordinarily helpful for me too. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Who would have guessed it? So anyway, so what you do when things are too much for you is you narrow your time frame.

Also in chapter 12, there's a fair bit of discussion in there about fragility and vulnerability, which is really what you confront when you have a sick kid. It's like, oh my God, how can the world be constituted so that a child can unfairly suffer in this manner? It's like, okay, here's a way of thinking about it. All right, take away everything from your child that makes them vulnerable. Well, let's say I have a three-year-old. It's like, well, three-year-olds, they're kind of cute. They run around. They're little and they're vulnerable, obviously. But that makes them cute and attractive and lovable.

All of the vulnerability that's built into that. So you think, well, you remove that one by one. Well, they're eight foot tall now and they're made out of steel. And their parts are replaceable. And they have artificially intelligent brain. Like you replace them. Obviously, this is hypothetical. With a superhuman robot that doesn't die.

It's like, fine, but where's the three-year-old? Right. So one of the things I thought about when I was writing this was when you love someone, especially when you love someone, you love them not only despite their fragility, but also because of it. And so then that's the price you pay for it. It's like, well, they wouldn't be who they were if they weren't fragile and limited in their particular way. And the fact you like to have them around, you think, oh, well, I guess you think that that fragility and vulnerability is justifiable.

It's like, well, then you can't allow that, its existence to make you bitter, because you can't have it both ways. You can't have them being vulnerable and cute and interesting and small and needing care, but striving to develop and grow. You can't have that without them also being prone to pain and destruction and vulnerability. And so, take your choice. And then what do you do? You teach them to be strong. That's what you do. You don't get rid of the vulnerability. You teach them to be strong. That's also a theme that runs through the book in many, many ways. You don't protect your children. In fact, you do the opposite. You expose them to the world as much as you

possibly can, and you make them strong. That's the best antidote to their vulnerability not to protect them there's no protecting people we already established that life's a fatal game there's no protecting people but you can definitely make them strong and maybe you can make them strong enough to transcend that that's the goal man so is there anything that you wish you would have done differently with your daughter or your son that you didn't do not of any great significance I mean I have I have wishes I suppose from time to time things could have been different I I spent less time on the positive aspects of my son and my daughter because we were contending with catastrophe so frequently. And so, you know, both my kids have a variety of interesting talents and it would have been

better, perhaps, to have had the time to develop those more thoroughly. But, you know, and my son, I wouldn't say he didn't get as much attention as he needed. He didn't get as much attention as I would have liked to have paid him. But by the same token, it isn't obvious that it's been bad for him because it required him from a very early age to grow the hell up. And we relied on him right from the time he was a young kid to make intelligent decisions. We assumed he would make intelligent decisions. He was consulted with regards to decisions.

intelligent decisions. We assumed he would make intelligent decisions. He was consulted with regards to decisions. And so, and it also made him into someone who is very self-sufficient and capable of taking care of himself. So it might've been nicer for me, I suppose, to have spent more time with him, but he lives down the street from me now and I spend time with him and we have a great relationship. And so it's just, it's it's you know and he has a very good relationship with his sister so it turned out as well as it could have right but that didn't mean that those years in there they were brutal there were some brutal times man it's one night in particular like she was in absolutely absolute agony and I couldn't get it under control and I could see well because I am. And I could see, well, because I am a clinician, I could see. I thought, God damn it, I'm going to end up taking her to CAMH.

That's the psychiatric hospital because it looks like it's going to break her. Wow, really? I thought, God damn it. I couldn't see a way to resolve it. But it pushed her right to the brink, but not over. So, and there was another episode after she had her hip removed have hip replaced She was put in a rehab home Hospital for a while and she was the youngest person in it by like 60 years and they treated her terribly

It was a terrible place mean mean blind nurses and a very very badly run and they Traumatized her the hospital was a worse experience than the damn surgery And so that that was that took her quite a while to recover from but she did recover from it do you ever think now since you're a clinical psychologist and you've done all this research and work and studies do you believe that your daughter was meant to experience this for you to kind of test your ability to be with her? And do you think she would have been able to grow in the way she is now as someone who didn't have the practice that you had?

Well, I think it was fortunate for all of us that, well, my wife too, like my wife had worked in palliative care as a volunteer and she was a massage therapist for a long time. And she's very good at, and my wife has a real, she's a really tough person. And if you don't need help and you want it, she'll cut you into ribbons. But if you need help, she will really help you. So she's really good at differentiating between people who actually need help,

in which case she is right there, and people who could stand up on their own. And if you can't stand up on your own, and you could, if you could stand up on your own and you aren't, you don't want to be around her because she will put you in your place. And it was so funny because our kids used to bring their friends over all the time when they were teenagers, which we actually quite liked. But we had a rule for the teenagers, which was, we're really happy you're here. but if you do something stupid and you never get to come back, that's actually okay with us. Right. And so they knew that. And it was no joke because we were

happy they were there and they were welcome, but we were perfectly happy to dispense with them if they misbehaved. Forever. And so, but what was really funny was that the kids would come over, the teenagers would come over and they were pretty afraid of me to begin with. But after being around for a couple of weeks, they were way more afraid of my wife so yes so that was very funny yeah because she's you know she's quite a pleasant person and she's she's not a she's only five foot two you know she's imposing enough because she's also in good physical shape but it was because i'm actually kind of soft-hearted and she's not soft-hearted although she can really take care of people who need to be taken care of. So I think Michaela had a fortunate circumstance in that sense because both of us had a lot of experience dealing with catastrophe.

And so when it came along, we were overwhelmed by it, but it wasn't because we didn't know what we were doing. We knew what we were doing. It was just even though we did know what we were doing as much as might be possible, that doesn't mean that we could deal with it because it was, well, it took us what must have been seven or eight months to arrange the ankle surgery. And there was a waiting list in Canada at that point of, I think, three years. Actually, they wanted to fuse her foot, which is a really bad thing for someone young. And so we looked in India.

We looked in, oh, Christ, we looked all over the world for someone young. And so we looked in India, we looked in, oh Christ, we looked all over the world for ankle surgery, like really everywhere. And finally, the government in Canada was actually quite helpful. We found a private clinic in Vancouver that did the surgery and the Ministry of Health in Ontario was quite helpful to us at that point. But we were scrambling to, well, what should we do? Should we have an ankle replaced? Well, what sort of replacement? Who do we talk to? Well well what should we do should we have her ankle replaced well what sort of replacement who do we talk to well what about this waiting list three years it's like no way she can't live man she can't live a week out yeah you're done for a week oh yeah that's three years

that was just beyond did you ever doubt yourself in terms of your ability and your research and your studies did you ever say to yourself like man, man, if I can't, you know, figure this out, then all of my work is for nothing? Well, no, I never thought it was for nothing, but I certainly doubted whether or not we were going to be able to figure this out. And if you thought, you know, and at that time you were extremely educated,

researched, you know, you'd seen a lot. Did that give you a fear of, like, well, if I can't figure this out, then no one can. Of course, of course. Well, her prognosis was multiple early joint replacements. And that was like, that was the good news because the bad news is, well, how many? And how many can you stand? And when does that kill you so her real prognosis was plenty of pain with an early death you know because well even now the surgeon who talked to her yesterday said well because he talked to her about the risk of amputation in the future it's like well this is the second joint revision it's like maybe this will last 15 years we don't know what the hell's going to happen then well so our response to that is that's 15 years from now.

It's like, who knows? Deal with it then. Well, things are better now for how people understand how to replace an ankle than they were, I think it was 10 years ago that she had this one replaced. And it helped. It wasn't perfect. Her hip is perfect. The ankle has always been trouble, but way less trouble than it was. And so, well, you struggle

forward the best you can. And so I suppose she could adapt to an amputation if that was necessary, but at the moment it isn't necessary. But multiple amputations is not something to really be looking forward to when you're 16. You know, and they were going to put her on corticosteroids to control her inflammation, and that would have produced Cushing's disease. And so that makes your face all puffy and it makes you gain weight. And so it's very physically disfiguring. So we decided not to go down that route and yeah well but you know it's worked out. Thank God. It's quite the miracle and she had a baby a year ago and we were never sure that was going to happen. So congrats. Thank you. Congrats to you. Yes that's's for sure so now we have this respite

where she's healthy and the last time i saw her she was looking great like she just glowing she's so healthy i can't believe it it's just that's beyond belief congrats on all the hard work you've done to make it make it a possibility you know you spent a long time we avoided the worst excesses of hell during the catastrophe so that's something and it did allow her the space to figure out and my wife had always thought that diet had a relationship to it and we investigated that like there's a good literature that shows if you have arthritic symptoms and you stop eating if you fast they go away so that's interesting it's like well food must be causing it yeah but once you start to

eat again to survive what you eat comes back it turns out no not no matter what almost no matter what because she's sensitive to virtually everything but she isn't sensitive to meat and so it turns out that if you eat meat you you can live. So that's a big difference between being sensitive to everything and not being sensitive to one thing. And so it's a harsh diet. It's made traveling difficult, although I can eat in restaurants because most restaurants can cook a steak with nothing on it. And that's made things much easier while I'm traveling. But whatever, whatever, it's working. And so thank God for that. Amazing.

Do you think, hypothetically, if your daughter was healthy and never had any of these complications, that you would be the man you are impacting people, the success, the attention you'd be getting? Do you think you'd have as much impact? Well, I wouldn't have written the 12th chapter, that's for sure. Do you think in general you would still be able to have the ideals, the belief, the fortitude that you have to reach people and really impact people? Yeah, I think so. But I know what you're saying.

Your question is, well, to what degree is adversity character building? And the answer to that is plenty. But I was already, like I said, and it was the same with my wife, we weren't naive people. Because I had an extensive clinical practice, I was dealing with heavy level adversity always. It wasn't your personal, it wasn't your daughter. No, no. But there were other problems in my family and so forth that I dealt with as well. And so we were already, we'd already, I think, garnered most of what we could from confronting adverse situations. Now, did that add a different

level to it? It probably brought our family closer together, all things considered. I saw the same thing happen when my wife's mother died. She died of prefrontal dementia and she developed it quite young. It started to really manifest itself in her early 50s and she died when she was 70 and she fell apart over 18 years and she was very physically healthy. And her husband, who was quite the man about town when he was a young guy, real extrovert, he was a real character in our hometown, he took care of her so well, it was absolutely jaw-dropping. Every time she slipped, he'd step up to the plate. And he took care of her until he couldn't lift her out of her chair anymore.

And he was getting old too. And so she wasn't in an old age home for very long. And then we were around when she died, you know, over the couple of days just before her death. And her family, her sister is a palliative care nurse, her other sister is a pharmacist, and Tammy's had the experiences that I already described. And then her father really stepped up to the plate. So the whole family gathered around for that,

and they acted impeccably throughout it, I would say. They took care of their mother very carefully while she was dying, and they pulled together. And one of the consequences of that, which was so interesting, is that although their mother died and that was a terrible loss, their bonds that connected them, all of them, strengthened to the point where I would say that was almost compensation for the loss of their mother.

So that was really interesting to see what happens, even in a dire circumstance, if people do what they can. Now, I'm not saying that that's going to work for every situation because I know people get cut off at the knees. And sometimes you hit a tragedy that, well, that's fatal, that you cannot rectify. It's a real catastrophe. But it was very interesting watching that because they were alert and awake around the deathbed, and they weren't fighting with each other at all. There was no familial squabbling, because you can imagine that that would happen, because everyone's stressed.

And then you can just imagine how terrible that would make something that's already awful. There was none of that. They focused their attention on her. They gave her water when she needed it, and they watched her, and they made this terrible thing the least amount of awful it could be.

And it definitely pulled them together. Like that whole family, including me, is closer because of what they went through and also how they went through it. And it's probably the case, well, I would say it definitely advanced the maturity of my son. It definitely advanced the maturity of my son because he was called. And I told him, look, kid, like you can't add anything to this. We're up to here. You have to conduct yourself properly because otherwise everything's going to shake and fall. We can't have more of this.

You can't bring anything unnecessary into this. The kid was an all-star. It was remarkable. Champion. He was only in grade-star. It was remarkable. Champion. He was only in grade 10 when most of this happened. And your friends are pretty damn important when you're in grade 10. And he stuck around a lot to be helpful.

So yeah, it was really good for him, man. Well, yeah, he's a good character. He's amazing. He's quite something. And he was very helpful. He was very helpful to his sister. They had their fights, obviously, while she was often unreasonable and no bloody wonder.

Well, when you're strung out and... You can't feel anything but pain. Yeah. God, she went through so much, like even watching her withdraw from the opiates because she was on them for about a year and a half. Oh, my gosh, the pain. She just quit.

As soon as she was done her surgery, she's like, I'm not taking these anymore. And she had formication, which is the sensation of ants crawling under your skin. Oh, my gosh. She had that for like a month. And, oh, God, unbelievable. She just sailed through it.

It's like, I'm done with these. Wow. Yeah, yeah. You guys have been through a lot. Yeah, it was a lot, man. What's your biggest fear now moving forward in your own life? Oh, making a mistake at the moment. Because I've been the subject of so much public attention in the last two years.

And I've been in a situation where even things I didn't say have also almost been fatal because people take them out of context. Right. You know, but my biggest fear has been that I do something careless and that there are serious cascading consequences. Do you feel like you've done something careless? Well, everyone's done something careless. Right. You know, but I've been pretty careful. I mean, I was fortunate. So when this political scandal blew up around me in Canada, when I opposed some legislation that I thought was reprehensibly constructed.

The radicals on the left in particular came after me hard. But I was fortunate because, you know, they called me every name under the book and went after my character. And, you know, I suppose there was some degree of, that was understandable to some degree, because if you stand up against something, if you stand up against the radical right, well, maybe you're a communist. You might not, probably not, because you don't have to be a communist to not like the radical right. But if you stand up against the radical left, well, maybe you're a Nazi. Well, probably not, but you might be. And so it's certainly in the interest of the people who are proponents of the philosophy of the radical left to assume that you're a Nazi, because then they don't have to deal with you. And so that's what happens. You

throw yourself into the fray. People try to localize you, and they do that by saying, well, maybe you're this, maybe you're this, maybe you're this, maybe you're this. It's like, well, yeah, maybe not, too. But I already had 250 hours of lectures up on YouTube at that point, so people could actually go and see what I had said because virtually every word I'd ever said to students in a professional capacity not not every word because I didn't tape every lecture, but I taped multiple years of lectures and so People went over those with the fine-tooth comb trying to find out if there's anything I'd ever said that was and they couldn't find anything And that was because I've been very careful with what I say ever since I was about 25 I started paying attention to what I was saying and

and trying very hard not to say things that I would trying not trying very hard not to say things that something in me objected to well that provided me with a buffer. And so people came to my website because they were interested in, well, before the political stuff blew up, I had a million views on YouTube, which is nothing. A million of anything is a lot. But then when the political scandal started to break,

yeah, then people came for them but stayed for the content. And that's been really useful. Yeah, well, it's not that surprising. Well, you know, because people came for them, but stayed for the content. And that's been useful. Yeah, well, it's not that surprising. Well, you know, because of what you do, it's like there's a great hunger for information that is practical and useful and that helps people find meaning in their lives and orient themselves. There's a great hunger for that. And most of my lectures were derived from solid psychology, some of it experimental, some of it biological, some of it from the domains of neuroscience, a lot of it from great clinicians. It's not surprising that people find it helpful because, well, great clinicians were great because they were really helpful. And

so to distill that and to offer it to people in a digestible form, to have that have a good effect on them, well, that's what you'd expect. That's what the whole discipline is about. And so that's been great. These public lectures that I've been doing, so I think I've done 50 of them in about 45 different cities now in about three months. And the average theater size is between 2,500 and 3,000 people and they're unbelievably positive events because people come there and we talk mostly about the political spectrum and why there's room for voices on the left and why there's room for voices on the right and where the parameters of that should be because both of those can descend into extremism and that's not

good and the role of individual responsibility and individual sovereignty and the necessity for people to develop a vision, the sorts of things that we already talked about. And virtually everyone that's coming there, they're not coming for political reasons, even though that's the story you hear from the more ideologically possessed journalist types because they see the world that way. They can't imagine anything else could possibly be happening. But the people who are coming to these lectures are coming because they are doing everything they possibly can to make their lives better. And it's lovely to talk to people like that because it is. It's great. It's literally great. School of greatness, baby. Right. Exactly. I've got six minutes to be mindful of your time and your schedule, and I want to ask you three final questions, if that's okay.

Yeah, you bet. As much as I would love for you to go on for another few hours on these answers so I can get to the last question. I'll do my best to be brief. I wish I could go on longer, so we'll have to have you come back next time you're in LA.

The first one is, what is your purpose now moving forward? Through everything you've had in your life, what's your purpose moving forward? I did a series of biblical lectures last year. I did 15 lectures on Genesis. I'm going to continue doing that. So in November, I'm going to start with the Exodus stories. And what I'd like to do over the next 15 years is make my way through the whole corpus of biblical writings. So that's one major goal. I want to write another book. I've written half of it already,

which will be a follow-up to 12 Rules for Life, because I actually had laid out on a site called Quora 40 rules. And so I'll do that and write another couple of books, I suspect, over the next few years. The touring, I'm going to continue. I have 10 cities coming up in Canada and another 20 in the US and then 12 in Europe and I'm going to go to Australia in February and then back to Europe I think in April so there's lots of touring on the horizon and it's for the reasons I already described I'm having I don't the lectures differ every night although there are themes that constantly emerge and I'm using those as an opportunity to have a detailed and engaged discussion with the audience about how we might proceed forward individually and collectively so that we can make things consciously better and why that's associated with necessary meaning and why that's a moral obligation. So it's a dialogue about responsibilities and not rights, even though rights are only important insofar as they set up the space for you to shoulder your proper responsibility.

And as a sovereign citizen, you have the responsibility for the integrity of the state resting on your shoulders. And it's something that if you don't take seriously, then the state shakes, and that's not good. And so I'm trying to convey that to people. It's like you have, there's actually something that you need to do. You need to take care of yourself. You need to take care of your family. You need to take care of your community. And if you don't do that, then there'll be hell to pay. And it's on you, each of us. It's hard for people to grasp that. Well, they don't want to, first of all, maybe because they don't want the responsibility, but then they don't get any meaning. Then they suffer.

Then they get bitter. That's not good. So it's like, which of these are you going to pick? But it's also salutary to people because it's useful for everyone to know that if you don't live up to your potential, that you leave a hole in the fabric of being. And it's filled by something approximating hell. And unless that's what you want, then you shouldn't be doing that. And so it's perfectly possible to have a serious discussion with 3,000 people about this, and they're right on board with it all the way. And so that's really something amazing to behold. And one of the things I've realized is all of these new technologies,

the technologies you're using, enable these long form discussions. Turns out that people are smarter than we thought. Right. TV narrowed it, right? It's like 30 seconds. Say your complicated thing in 30 seconds. Like, but can't. Yeah. So we were viewing the population through this narrow window and everyone looked kind of stupid. It's like now the window's fully open. It's like, oh, look at that. You people like 40-hour Netflix specials that are incredibly complex, right? And you like three-hour Joe Rogan discussions that are complicated. You'll follow the whole thing. It's like, oh, good. We're smarter than we thought. Thank God for that, because we better be. So that's where I'm aiming in the future. That's your purpose. Got it. Love it. Okay. Question number two. This is called,

you've got the 12 rules for life. Make sure you guys, again, go pick it up. Get it right now. What's the link as well? Oh, selfauthoring.com. And I put up a code, which is greatness. Greatness. Yes. 20% off. There you go. Full suite. Two for one. So you can give the suite to your friends too. Selfauthoring.com. Yeah. Not slash greatness. Just the code is greatness. Just the code is greatness.

Yeah. And I would say to everyone, if you're going to try this exercise, which I would recommend, do it over a few days and don't do it perfectly. Just do it. Get it done. Do a bad first draft, which is an important principle in life. A bad first draft is a great thing to have. That's good. You're also on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.

Yep, yep. So we'll link all that stuff up as well. Okay, yep. And your website, what's your main website? JordanBPeterson.com. Perfect. Okay, so make sure you guys get the book, subscribe to everything, get the self-authoring. The future authoring, for you university students out there, the future authoring for you university students out there the future

authoring program decreases your probability of dropout if you're in a college program university program by somewhere between 25 and 50 percent especially if you're kind of aimless it works better if you if you already got a plan and you're implementing it you've got a good direction then you know it's not as helpful because you're already halfway there. But if you're kind of lost and you do this, it'll help you not only establish your goals but stick to them. It really helps. We've done three very detailed, published, peer-reviewed studies showing that this really works.

Powerful. And it doesn't hurt you either. That's the other thing. That's great. That's great. You've got the 12 rules for life. I've got something called the three truths, which is a question I ask everyone at the end.

So we're going to try to boil this down for three truths for you. Imagine this is your last day. You get to choose the day for you when you die. It's many years away as it wanted to be, and you've achieved your purpose. Everything you set out, you aimed for, you hit the target. And then you pass away. It's the last day. Everyone's there. It's a celebration. But for

whatever reason, there's no more videos of you up online. There's no more lectures, no more podcasts, no more books. For whatever reason, you have to take them with you. So no one has access to your information. But you get to a piece of paper and you get to write down three things you know to be true about your life that you would pass on. I like to call it the three truths. Don't say things that make you weak. Number one. Lift your eyes above the horizon and aim at the highest star that you can contemplate. What's the third one? Put your family in order.

Yeah. Powerful. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Jordan, for your incredible wisdom and vulnerability with me. We just met, but I feel very connected to you and your mission and your purpose. And I just appreciate everything you've been through as a father and as a husband, for your daughter, for your son, for your wife, to continue to move on in your own dreams and pursuit of bettering humanity while going through all that you've gone through. So I really acknowledge everything you've been doing

and what you stand for and your ability to use your words carefully to make sure to try to make the best impact on people who are listening. So I'm gonna acknowledge you for all that. I hope we get to have you come back sometime when you're in LA because I think we can go for another hour or two. And the final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

Well, greatness is what reveals itself when you attempt to formulate, when you attempt to carefully articulate and live out what you believe to be true, it just happens. Because there isn't anything more powerful than truth. Right? That's the antidote to suffering. Truth. Right?

So it's a strange thing because you think, well, yeah, it produces a lot of suffering too. It's like, yeah, in the short term. Yeah. So, yeah. Awesome. Jordan, thank you, sir. a lot of suffering too. It's like, yeah, in the short term. Yeah. So, yeah. Awesome. Jordan, thank you, sir. You bet.

Thanks for the invitation and the opportunity. Very nice to meet you. Good meeting you. Yeah. Thank you. All right. There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this one.

Jordan Peterson on pain and suffering. Again, suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility, but through greatness of mind. That was Aristotle. And I hope you enjoyed this one and got profound wisdom and insights on how you can apply this to your life.

If you did, share it with your friend. Text a friend this link right now, lewishouse.com slash 665. Ask them to listen to this. Ask them to share with you what they learned. Ask them to share it with a friend. You can put it on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook. Email your friends.

I'm telling you, this will be a powerful series for you to share with your friends or your audience. And as always, tag me on Instagram, at lewishouse, and Dr. Jordan Peterson. You can connect with him over at the show notes for this. You can watch the full video interview, get his book, the self-authoring program as well. All of it is incredible information. And make sure to share this with your friends. If you enjoyed it, let me know. Leave us a review over on iTunes, on the podcast app, on your phone, or you can go over to iTunes right now and leave us a

review. We've got over 3,200 plus five-star reviews. Big thank you to everyone who's left a review. And again, would really love your thoughts on this specific series, because for me, I believe it's going to be extremely helpful for so many people. So make sure to share it with your friends. I hope you guys enjoyed this one and this two-part series. Again, it means the world to me that you continue to elevate your mind, you elevate your life, and you make a big impact on the people around you. That's what we're all here for. We're all here to find meaning in our lives.

We're here to learn how to overcome the pain and the suffering that is inevitable in our lives. And we're here to make a greater impact on those around us. And I hope this two-part series with Jordan Peterson supported you in learning how to do this in a better way. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Bye.