The School of Greatness - 742 Ben Shapiro: Problem-Solving in Life and Business

Episode Date: January 7, 2019

DON'T LET "POTENTIAL" BE WRITTEN ON YOUR TOMBSTONE. About ten years ago when I was playing professional football, I got injured. I ended up on my sister’s couch. I felt bad for myself and thought that there should be a way for people like me to get help. Then I realized- what if I could solve this problem? It was that experience that led me into the work I do today. One of the reasons I don’t follow politics is because I want to focus on overcoming our own challenges. That’s why I’m so interested in my guest on today’s episode of The School of Greatness: Ben Shapiro. Ben Shapiro is editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire and host of "The Ben Shapiro Show," the top conservative podcast in the nation. Ben is the New York Times bestselling author of seven nonfiction books and is constantly featured on major newspapers and websites. Ben believes that people need to look within when they have a problem. He’s more interested in root values than debating specific issues. He ruffles a lot of feathers and I don’t agree with everything he says, but I still think you’re going to enjoy this one. So get ready to learn about going from victimhood to a powerful mindset on Episode 742. Some Questions I Ask: Why are you so passionate about your message? (3:00) How do you avoid judging people you disagree with (6:00) Who was the most influential person in your life growing up? (17:00) What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned from your mom? (35:00) What’s your most proud moment growing up? (57:30) What is your purpose moving forward? (1:15:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: How to debate effectively (8:00) The difference between rights and duties (28:00) The four things humans need to be happy (38:00) About Ben’s challenging upbringing (50:00) About the importance of authenticity (1:00:00)

This is episode number 742 with Ben Shapiro. 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. Earl Nightingale said, your problem is to bridge the gap

which exists between where you are now and the goal you intend to reach. And our guest today is so well known all over the world on the internet and on college campuses everywhere. His name is Ben Shapiro. He is a very popular political commentator, bestselling author, writer, and lawyer. He has written several books and published his first one as a teenager. And in this interview, we talk about Ben's journey personally with bullying and not fitting in when he was younger and how that played such a major part of his life today. How to take away personal judgment in a debate. Ben is one of the best

debaters in the world, and he talks about how to take away the personal judgment and the feelings in a debate so that you can win every single time. Also, the power of looking within first when you have a problem, as opposed to blaming and looking out, taking full responsibility of the situation. And how to be solution-focused, not problem-focused in life and business. Now, Ben is extremely controversial online. There are millions of people that love him and a lot of people that disagree with many things he says. And in this interview, I want to learn more about the personal side of him, not necessarily

what he believes in politically and what I believe in politically, but more why he thinks the way he thinks, how he's so successful in debates, how his mind works so that he can win at a lot of these conversations that he has by backing it with facts and proof and so much more. I wanted to learn so many other things and it was such a great interview. I want to have him come back hopefully in the next few months to dive in more and continue on the conversation. And if you have any questions, then feel free to let me know because maybe I can ask some in the next follow-up interview. Make sure to share this with your friends. It's lewishouse.com slash 742. You can watch the full video interview there as well. Tag both myself, at Lewis House, and Ben Shapiro on Instagram to let us know that you're listening

while you are listening. All right, welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness. We've got Ben Shapiro in the house. Good to see you, sir. I appreciate it. Very excited about this. As we were talking before we just started, I don't know anything about politics. I don't follow politics. I'm probably the least ignorant person or the most ignorant person about the topics that you cover so this is gonna be interesting for me yeah not that I really need to go into politics I'm more fascinated about you as a person and how you think and how you work and how you solve problems because as I started going down the rabbit hole of your video content I became just so impressed with your ability to communicate a message, make a point, and win your point.

You know, you're really great at debate and winning your arguments and your ideas based on facts, not feelings, which is what you talk about a lot. What do you say? Facts don't care about your feelings. Facts don't care about your feelings. And you ruffle a lot of feathers for people. I already know just by having your name in the title of my show that I'm going to get so much critique. I had Jordan Peterson on. Oh, wow.

And I had so many people just like unsubscribe. I can't believe you would associate with this person. Yeah. So you're just jumping on every landmine you can find, basically. I'm like, this is going to be a bomb for me.

I already know. We're going to get a lot of great attention and people are going to be unsubscribing just because they're not willing to listen. Because they see a name and a title and they're not willing to see what happens. And I was telling people, you know, with Jordan Peterson, if they just listened, there was nothing negative that we talked about, anything. It was all positive stuff.

But you're very controversial in some of the things you talk about. People call you a lot of different things and we don't need to go into that. But I'm more fascinated about how you became so smart. I also love, I watched a video of you playing violin, which I was very impressed with. My brother's the number one jazz violinist from the world. Oh really, okay, I didn't know that, that's awesome. So I grew up around violin every single day

and watching this, and he's performed all over the world. But I'm curious about the way you think, and why you're so passionate about sharing your message, speaking around the world, your company, your media content you put out there, and why you think it's important for you to continue sharing the message the way you do. Well, you know, I think that there are certain eternal values that we've lost politically, but also just interpersonally. And so for me, the idea of building back up a social fabric where we actually have some values in common is really important. And politics is one means of discussing

that. Politics is basically the stuff we fight about at the tip of the iceberg, but the stuff I actually like to discuss is the stuff below that. And that's why when I'm discussing ideas or debating in a college setting, for example, I'm much less interested in debating sort of the vagaries of what's going on in the White House and much more interested in sort of root issues as to how do we balance things like our desire for liberty and our desire for communal commitment and capacity. These are things where we actually have to have serious conversations about what matters to us so that we can reach any sort of conclusion or at least clarify where we stand on the issues. Because what you find usually

is that there's just not a lot of clarity in political conversation. And so my job is to try and drill down and not only make as clear as possible what I'm saying, but also try and elicit from the person I'm talking to what is their root core position and what is there for me to disagree with or agree with. And this is the part I've always found a little bit frustrating about, you know, the level of controversy that's associated with me, is that when I was at Harvard Law School, my favorite professors were all people who were on the left. I got a recommendation for law firm jobs from Lonnie Guinier, who was as far on the left as it's possible to be. She was so far left that when, I think it was Clinton nominated her for Under

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, I believe, she was rejected by a Democratic Senate because she's so far to the left. But she and I got along great. I mean, the idea that you have to hate the person that you're talking to is something that I think has really pushed a lot on social media. But if you do that, you can't get to the root of the argument. You can't have a conversation, right? If you hate the person you're talking to, you're basing things off of emotions, right? You're more emotionally charged as opposed to, let me hear what you're saying and then back it with facts. Right. And it means that you can't have a conversation because the entire conversation is your judgment of the other person's character. And this is why I've always maintained that the first move in any conversation has to be to take

that off the table. The judgment. Yeah, right. I mean, about the assumption that the person is motivated by something bad. Because probably they're motivated by something good, and they're just coming from a different premise. That doesn't mean you're going to leave the room and agree on everything, but it does mean that you're at least going to know what you disagree about, because our tendency as human beings is to, because we're cognitively biased, it's very easy for us to fall into the trap of thinking,

I disagree with this person, and that's because this person's a bad person. And this is super true in politics. Or I don't agree with how the trap of thinking, I disagree with this person, and that's because this person's a bad person. And this is super true in politics. Or I don't agree with how they, the judgment of character or how they handled a certain situation or their viewpoint on one thing, so they're bad at everything. Right, exactly. And the truth is that we wouldn't treat any of our friends that way. We wouldn't treat anybody we dealt with in regular life that way. On social media, we treat each other that way. And in politics, we definitely treat each other that way because it's a lot easier to suggest that your political opponent's a bad person than it is to actually have the necessary conversations about where you guys differ. So you take away the

judgment first when you're going into a debate or some type of conversation? How do you take away that judgment of the other person, or you try to eliminate that judgment of them onto you? Well, I mean, both. I mean, so we all fail at this. So I try to, in myself, I try to say, okay, I'm going to assume this person isn't a bad person. And now I have to try and drill down on what it is that makes them tick. And for them, if somebody comes in with a preconception

about me being a nasty, terrible human being, then my first move has to be kind of harsh, which it has to be, you don't have any evidence I'm a bad person other than we disagree. And if that's your feeling, that I'm a bad person just because we disagree, then you are actually the person acting like a bad person. If you are suggesting that I'm evil or nasty or cruel simply because you heard someone one time say that I'm evil, nasty, or cruel

without you examining my material, or you've examined my material, and what you take away from that is that I'm poorly motivated as opposed to we just have a fundamental disagreement on root issues, well, then that's you attempting to avoid the conversation altogether. So that's the first step. And then you can have the conversation. Maybe it doesn't go anywhere. Maybe it does go somewhere.

But you're not going to know until you get out of the headspace where the other person is a Nazi. When you try to go into a place where you know it's heated then, where you're like, this person has said online they don't like me or they're completely against me, or you just have a gut feeling like this is probably not going to be good based on whatever, what do you think about going into a speech, a debate, an interview where you know there could be some emotionally charged expressions

happening. How do you prepare yourself mentally for that? So first of all, I treat debate like a game. I watch game tape, in other words. So before I... You're looking to be an athlete. Yeah. When it comes to this stuff, yeah. I mean, when it comes to debating somebody, I actually will sit there and I will watch how they debate, what are their tactics, what are their favorite tricks to use, what are their favorite facts that they cite. Maybe they've got a point, and I haven't considered that point, so do I have to adjust my viewpoint in order to make room for that point? But you actually have to study this stuff.

And I think most people go and debate and they just think, okay, well, I'm just going to go out there and say what I want to say. You actually have to know what the lead tactic is before the person uses it. So, for example, the most famous debate that I was in probably was the one with Piers Morgan. That was sort of the initial kind of boost to top-line status for me. It was 2013, and it was right after Sandy Hook, and so gun control was being talked about a lot. And so he had been doing this thing, this very intellectually dishonest thing, where he's having on a bunch of people who disagreed with him on gun control, and then he would lead by saying, if you disagree with me on gun control, it's because you don't care

about these poor, slaughtered children. And that, to me, was exactly what we're talking about. It's you attacking my character, not attacking my argument. Now, we can disagree on gun control. What's effective?

What's not? Do we think certain solutions work and certain solutions don't? What are the rights versus the risks? We can do all of that stuff and that's an important conversation to have. What we can't do is I sit down and the first thing you say to me is you disagree with me because you're evil. That's not something. So I went into that debate knowing that I was going to,

that he was going to lead with that. And before he could lead with that, I essentially punched him in the throat, right? I mean, he, he basically, it was, it was, it was the Mike, I mean, it was the Mike Tyson thing, right? Like that everybody's got a game plan until they get hit in the mouth. And that was, that was that. I mean, he started off by saying, you know, you've called me a bully. Why have you called me a bully? And I said, well, Piers, it's because when it comes to these sorts of debates, you stand on the graves of children in order to push your political agenda. And he got very offended. And I said, well, if you want to have a conversation about the topic, we can do that. But if you're going to suggest that I don't care about dead kids because I

disagree with you, then we can't have a conversation. You're just being a jerk. And there was no place for him to go because that was his only tactic. Because he wasn't qualified to have the conversation, which is why he was misdirecting to the character assault. Now- Didn't you say, I think I watched a video where you talked about this, that he was going to bring out a kid after the break? Yeah, this is right. He had brought out a kid like after the break. Yeah, this is right. He had brought out a kid who had been crippled in a, had been really hurt in a gun violence situation. And his plan was to swivel and have me say, okay, make all your arguments to this kid who's been, who's been wounded. And from my point of view, that's a dishonest thing to do because the argument, the content of the argument does not change based on who it is that you're talking to. That's an emotional appeal.

That's not an argument. It's an emotional appeal. So you can do it, but it's intellectually dishonest to do it. I mean, there's arguments that we make on politics every day, and those political arguments affect any number of people in any number of given ways. The question that you have to ask as an intellectually honest person is what is the best solution? Understanding that bad things happen in the world. And if your argument changes because you're talking to one audience versus another audience, there's a level of dishonesty to that. And so once I did that, once I said, you know, basically you're emotionally manipulating your audience by stacking the deck against me,

he couldn't do that anymore because the trick had been called out. I mean, it's like watching David Copperfield make an airplane disappear. But once you know what he's doing, you can't unsee it, right? Once you know how the woman is being sawed in half, you understand that there's actually, you know, that the woman's not being sawed in half, that the table has a deeper part of it. And you can't unsee the trick at that point. Wow.

Do you ever go into a situation where you kind of do the M&M eight mile, like, yes, I've said this, and yes, I've said this, and I'm bad here, or whatever? 100%. Yeah. I do that one all the time. Because as a person who's been writing a syndicated column since I was 17 years old, sure, I've said some really dumb stuff, right? I mean, I've said some stuff that I regret. I have a full column that I put online called, here's a giant list of all the dumb stuff I've ever said, right? Because I think that it's important to do that. And some

of that stuff was said a year ago or two years ago. As human beings, it's our job to grow and change, and not only that, to evaluate where we've gone wrong in the past. One of the things that's kind of nasty about our current political environment is that people made a mistake 10 years ago, and now they don't hold by that. They've never provided any evidence that they doubled down on that. And now we're going back 10 years ago and digging up stuff that they said in order to destroy their careers.

I mean, the most obvious example recently was Kevin Hart, where you go back and you find a tweet that he wrote in 2010, and now he can't host the Oscars in 2018 because he said something back in 2010. He tweeted something about how it was an anti-gay tweet, or he suggested that his, I think it was that he suggested his five-year-old, he wouldn't want his five-year-old son to be gay, something like that. And so people got all over him for that. Well, he can't host the Oscars now. Well, number one, there's no evidence that he's ever done anything actually anti-gay. Number two, we actually have to, if we're going to do this,

we actually have to evaluate the question as to whether you should be barred from hosting the Oscars if you would prefer that your five-year-old son be heterosexual versus homosexual, which I think is actually an interesting conversation. But more than that, regardless of all that, it's now eight years later, and you're digging back through some guy's history because you saw he's going to host the Oscars. You saw the Heisman Trophy winner, right? The Heisman Trophy winner. And within a day, they're digging through his old tweets, and they find some, he called one of his friends gay when he was 14 or something. And now he's forced to apologize. Okay, if he had committed a murder at 14,

then it would have been expunged from his record when he hit 18, right? He would have done it as a juvie. But he tweeted something when he's 14 and now we're going to go back and ruin everything, ruin him. As a society, if we don't have the compassion to say people make mistakes, it's going to be very difficult to move forward.

Is your goal to ruin other people or is your goal to actually forward the conversation? And so to that end, if somebody calls me on something and I feel like I've done something wrong, I'm more than happy to repent for it. I mean, as a religious person, I repent three times a day to God. So I'm more than happy to repent for stuff that I've said in the past that I think is bad or stupid or wrong.

I write, as I say, I have a full 3,000-word column about it. When people alert me to stuff that—I don't remember everything I've ever said. When people alert me to stuff that I've said that's dumb, then I'll go back and I'll update it. I mean, it's a constantly updated list. What is a moment where you wish you would have taken back something you've said? You were like, you know what?

That was really one of the dumbest things I've ever said or done or interacted with. Maybe I shouldn't have pushed it that far. So, I mean, this sort of stuff happens all the time. I mean, first of all, because I was writing when I was 17, there are several columns I wrote when I was 18, 19, 20 years old that are half-baked, stupid, you know, ridiculous. Yeah, what an 18-year-old would say. Right, exactly. And so I've said that was dumb, shouldn't have done that. I've actively rejected my own writing on that score. In terms of kind of interpersonal relations, so a few weeks ago, to take an example, there was a speech that I did at a particular university.

I'm not going to mention the university for reasons that are going to become obvious as the story continues. And it's in front of a couple thousand people, and a transgender person gets up and is asking me about my position on transgenderism, which is that men are men and women are women, and women can't become men and men can't become women. Very controversial, but that's the way I feel about this. And so it happens to science. In any case, we're discussing this. And this transgender person, very nice person, is really pressing me on the issue. And we're going back and forth. And at one point, this person brings up his personal story. He's a genetic male who is a transgender woman. And when I speak publicly about... So my rule when I use pronouns is that when I'm

speaking publicly about the issue, because I believe that gender is biologically based and that he and she are descriptions of biological status, not of subjective mental states. Because of that, when I speak publicly about this, I use biological pronouns in the same way. I've always used biological pronouns as have most human beings, virtually all human beings throughout human history. So a transgender woman, you were saying? I will say he for a transgender woman. Even if they ask, we use she. It depends on the scenario.

Right, so it depends if it's public or not. If it's personal, one-on-one. If it's one-on-one, for sure. Gotcha. Because then it's just being rude not to. But if we're discussing it in the context of should I use transgender pronouns or be forced by society to use transgender pronouns, then the answer is no. So on national TV, I've done that, right?

And been physically accosted for doing that. Right, I just watched that. Yeah, exactly. So my position is that in interpersonal relationships, and I've done, I did an interview with Blair White, a transgender woman, specifically about this. We were out to dinner, and Blair and I were out to dinner. I would be calling Blair she if there were a third person at the table because why be a jerk? But it's not the same thing

when you're talking about, as a society, what should our standard be for he and, are these subjective terms or do these actually mean something? In any case, this conversation goes on

and the transgender woman starts telling his personal story and I said, I really don't want to do personal story stuff because personal story stuff, there's no way to avoid this becoming offensive. And I said, I really don't want to do personal story stuff because personal story stuff, there's no way to avoid this becoming offensive and emotionally charged.

And this person insisted on telling a personal story. And at a certain point, at a certain point, this transgender person said something and I said something and the person became very offended and started to cry and walked out of the room. And I regretted how the entire exchange went.

So, I mean, perfect example. So in that case, what I did is I knew the organizers of the event. The organizers of the event, it turns out, knew this person. I called this person. I asked them if they wanted this removed from the video version of the tape because I didn't want this to go out and embarrass and it turns into a Ben Shapiro destroys video or something nasty like that. And so we cut it out of the tape.

I had breakfast with the person the next day to make sure that they were okay. Right. I mean, when, when I, when things don't go the way that they should, then I want to make sure that they do. So, I mean, I think this is what anybody of good heart should be trying to do. And we all make mistakes in that process. Yeah. Well, that's powerful. So you had a one-on-one with this person and they felt fine. It was fine. Yeah, exactly. It was fine. They understood your position and you're not going to all agree. Not all of us are going to agree on that. Exactly. But we can still treat each other civilly and be nice people to each other. And just because we disagree on a public position, even one as fraught as that doesn't mean that we can't be human beings to each other. Absolutely. Who was the most influential person in your life growing up?

Well, I would say that my parents, obviously. My dad was extremely influential. So my home life was, my parents had been married for, let's see, they married for nearly 40 years at this point. So thank God I grew up in a, well, actually, no, they've been married longer than 40 years, actually. I grew up in a very stable home. It was great. My mom worked, my dad stayed at home. So that was unusual. My dad was a musician. He came out, my parents came out to LA so he could write for film and TV. That didn't really work out, but my mom ended up as a film exec. So having a degree in education. So my dad was home with me. And so that meant that, and I have three younger sisters, so he was home with all of us. And so that meant that I was constantly talking with my dad about ideas

and him recommending books for me to read and me reading books that he didn't recommend. And because he was a musician, I got very into music, and I was a very highly trained musician, and so were some of my younger sisters, actually. And so he was really influential in my life, obviously continues to be influential in my life. As far as sort of other folks who were influential, I had certain teachers along the way. I had a fourth grade teacher in public school named Miss Janetti, who's I believe now at the Burbank Unified School District. And she was just wonderful. I mean, really focused in on kind of being creative in how I was educated because I had to skip certain grades.

I skipped third and I skipped ninth. So when I skipped into her grade, she was really great about that. And she also understood that she could be exacting with me. And people ask, like, what's the most memorable thing that somebody's ever said to you? The most memorable thing somebody ever said to me is I was, so I was in fourth grade, but I had skipped third.

So I was probably seven or eight years old. And she said, don't let potential be written on your tombstone. So this is something, so it's pretty, you know, deep stuff for a kid who's eight, maybe. And, but she was, she was like that. She was great. The principal of the school, Carolyn Brum, was also terrific. And then I had a teacher in high school who was named Anthony Miller, who was a really good writer and had studied at Trinity College in Dublin. And so he was really creative in his writing. And that had an impact on me in terms of how I wrote. Wow. Since your dad was with you a lot during the days, what was the greatest lesson he ever

taught you? Well, I think that the biggest lesson he ever taught me is to take everybody you talk to seriously. So with my dad, there really is no gap. I mean, folks who know him and a lot of folks where I work know my dad. They know that he treats everybody exactly the same. So whether it's a member of his family or whether—he's the kind of person where if you get in an elevator with my dad, he will have your entire life story by the time you get out of the elevator. In 20 seconds, yeah. Exactly. It doesn't matter if it's one floor.

He'll be your best friend by the end of like, he has met so many people on airplane rides. That's how my dad is. But he was also like that with us as kids. Meaning that if I had a question, he took it extremely seriously and tried to get the best answer. He always addressed me as the, why we're an adult when I was a kid. And he, and he took that stuff very seriously. And so for me, that's always been the case. And I think that's one of the reasons why my show and the stuff that I do has particular appeal to young people, because I'm treating these ideas seriously, and I'm not dumbing them down for young people. I think there's this perception, I mean, first of all, number one, I'm still relatively young, right? I'm only 34 still.

But part of that is also in politics, people who think they know a lot about politics tend to think, okay, well, if I translate this into second grade level, then that's what people really need. They need me to dumb this stuff down to a level they can understand. I think people are capable of understanding a lot more than they think they're capable of understanding if they're treated with respect in how this stuff is presented. I mean, when I present, I'm presenting at a relatively high level. I mean, I use some $5 words, and I cite philosophers, and I cite data from actual think tanks. And people like that.

People want that. People are hungry for that. Pick it up, yeah. Yeah, they're sick of nostrums. I mean, politics is all nostrums. It's all a bunch of people who are just spitting at you slogans, bumper sticker slogans. And we all instinctively know. It's appealing, just the way that any advertising slogan is appealing.

But we all instinctively know, it's appealing, just the way that any advertising slogan is appealing, but we all instinctively know it's bullshit. I mean, deep down, we all know that when somebody says that they can fix all your problems, it's just garbage. And when, and which is also one of the other messages that I think my dad and my parents inculcated, which is, if you've got a problem, the proper order is that you first look within and see if you can solve it yourself, right?

That accepting that my parents weren't the type of people where if we had a problem at school, they blamed the teacher, right? Their first question was, okay, did you do it? Right. How can you change it? How can you respond differently to it? Yeah. And this is my pet peeve with people I deal with in family, friends, society, is if a good piece of advice is given to you, do you ignore the advice? Do you fight against reality? Are you more angry at reality than you are willing to change yourself? Because if that's the case,

you're doomed to lead a pretty miserable life because reality is not changing. Now, that doesn't mean there are certain social circumstances that we can't all work together to change. But if you're running smack into certain baseline realities, such as some people are smarter and some people are not as smart and some people earn more money

and some people earn less money, and you're living in a free society, and you're running into reality. Like, I made a bunch of bad decisions in my life, and now I'm poorer than I otherwise would be. Or I made a bunch of... Because of those decisions. Because of those decisions. That ain't society's fault. Maybe you ought to get... It's not the government's fault. That's right. Maybe you ought to get your stuff together. Yeah. I mean, there was a joke going around that if I were to run for president, my slogan would have been, solve own problems because for every politician, it's I'm going to solve your problems. And this is something I despise on all sides of the aisle, right? I think that President Trump, to take an example, campaigned on the basis that you have a dying factory town.

It's been dying because technology is ripping away those jobs and because the market doesn't help create new jobs in this particular area. Well, we're not going to say that you should leave your town and go to a different town where the jobs are and treat your life as an adventure and go forth. Instead, we're going to say, no, we're going to bring those jobs back because it's the Mexican and the Chinese who stole those jobs. That's nonsense. Okay. And when you hear the same thing from politicians like Elizabeth Warren, who recently spoke

at a historically black college, and she said to a group of black students that America is inevitably stacked against you. And I'm thinking, these are people going to a top-level college who majored in probably useful things and will get a job after that major. No, I mean, it's one thing to say that I can cite a specific example of somebody who has discriminated against me, done something bad. Here's a specific law that disadvantages me. If your solution's focused, then you should be asking, okay, what is the problem and what is the solution? But I think that we as a country and just generally human beings, we're oriented toward being problem-focused, meaning that something bad happens and we think, okay, how can we complain about this problem? How can we blame this problem on somebody who's not me? As opposed to, okay, how can we solve this problem? How can we just- Take ownership, yeah. How can, yeah, right. How can we do something about it? And you know, my, my wife and I have a basic rule that this applies in relationships

also. So my wife and I have a basic rule that, that came up very early in our marriage. So my, my wife was a lovely person. And as my listeners know, a doctor, uh, she is, um, she, she does a thing that I think many women do. Uh, and she, she will want to talk to me about a problem. And as a man, my first instinct is, okay, here's what we should do. And she will want to talk to me about a problem. And as a man, my first instinct is, okay, here's what we should do. And she gets pissed, right? Because she doesn't actually want the problem solved. She just wants to talk to me about the problem because it makes her feel better. Why can't you listen more? And so I said to her, that's fine, but I need to know upfront in the conversation, is this a problem-solving conversation or is this a me-hearing-you

conversation? Yes, tell me so you understand. Right. So this is an actual rule in our house, that when we start addressing a problem, I'll say to her, and she doesn't get offended because she's awesome, I'll say to her, is this a you-want-me-to-give-you-a-solution problem, or is this a you-just-want-me-to-listen-to-you? And very often she'll say, I just want you to listen. It's like, okay, good, now I know. Because what's the worst for guys is you say, right, so here's the problem, and here's three ways you can solve it. And she's like, what are you talking about? So I think that's true in politics also. We mix up

what it is that we want out of our politicians. We pretend that what we want out of our politicians is solutions. What we actually want out of our politicians is sympathy. The problem is that sympathy does not create solutions. Sympathy is just a way for people to pander to you for votes and money. Sympathy, like, you should people to pander to you for votes and money. Sympathy, like, you should be viewing your politicians like you view your plumbers. Do they solve the problem? You shouldn't be viewing them like you do your psychotherapist. Do they hear me?

Do they listen to me? Wow. You know, it's interesting because about 10 years ago, I was playing professional football, kind of like minor league football. I was getting $250 a week, so it wasn't like I was making a lot of money. But I was doing professional football, kind of like minor league football, I was getting 250 bucks a week, so it wasn't like I was making a lot of money. But I was doing what I loved, and I got injured, and I was sleeping on my sister's couch for about a year and a half afterwards.

I didn't have a college degree yet, this was in 2008 when the economy was pretty bad, and people with degrees weren't even getting jobs. And I remember thinking at the time, I was like, how am I gonna get out of this, and can someone help me out? And this is gonna be a struggle, you know? I was thinking like, there's got to be a better way for people like me who can get taken care of. And then I realized after my sister, you know, lovingly

kicked me off her couch after a year and a half, she was like, you need to start paying rent, get a good job, do something. I remember saying, okay, what if I could solve this problem? As opposed to being a victim to society, what happened to me or whatever, what if I could solve this problem and be in complete ownership of every decision I've made up to here? And I think one of the reasons I don't follow politics or watch the news or do any of that stuff is because I try to instill what you talked about with people on this show, which is like how do we overcome our own challenges

by not putting the blame on someone else, by not hoping for someone else to save us or rescue us or to give us a higher minimum wage or whatever it may be, but how can we develop skills with the society we're in? How can we develop new skills, be more valuable to society so that we can earn more? How can we take care of our health better so we're not sick and needing medicine or someone to supplement that through whatever it may be, some financial aid through medicine? How can we just take care

of our lives better and improve the quality of our life? And I think when we can focus more on improving the quality of our lives, the political things don't really matter as much. What's happening in the world doesn't matter. What John Adams said, and I think this is right, is that the Constitution of the United States, and what he meant by this is freedom, is really only built for moral and religious people. What he meant by that really is that if you've got a group of people who are

waiting around for somebody else to save them externally, you can't have a system where even we can take care of each other, right? There are going to be situations in which the community needs to come together and take care of people who legitimately can't take care of themselves or are going through a rough stretch. Understood. All that's right. But if you don't have a group of people who are motivated not to take advantage of that or who are not being told by politicians that they should be taking advantage of it or that society has a duty,

why don't we focus on our own duties more than we focus on everybody else's duties to us? We focus a lot on rights in our society. We have a right to X, Y, and Z. We focus very little on what are our duties to ourselves and to society. And that doesn't make us happier. It makes us more depressed. What's the difference between rights and duties? So rights are, so there are a couple of different visions of rights. And I think that this is where we actually get political. So I think that there are two different visions of rights. According to people on the right, on conservatives, what rights are are things that you have a right to do X without government controlling you. So basically these are called negative rights. This is the parlance that's sort of used is that you have a right against the government.

So, for example, I have a right to free speech. What that really means is the government does not have the ability to compel me to speak in a certain way. No matter what I say. Right. Anything at all. Right. Anything at all. Right. Even threats or. Well, not threats because that's actual assault, but anything that's not indicating violence,

for example. Gotcha. I have a right to say because the government does not have the power to encroach upon that. So when someone grabs you by the throat and says you're going to be in an ambulance if you keep speaking. Right. Like that happens to you. That's illegal. Yeah. That's actually a violation of the law but but me saying

something that offended that person is not a violation of the law right and the government can't compel that so the idea for people who believe in sort of traditional constitutional freedoms is that the bill of rights is an expression of a bunch of negative rights for the most part things where you write to freedom of religion means the government can't impose upon you things that would exist in what johnke would call a state of nature, that if there were no government, you just lived in a community with your families or whatever, that the government wouldn't be there to impose things on you. So what would you have without the government imposing anything on you?

So right to bear arms is the government does not have the right to take away your arms. Now, what people on the left have said is that those rights are not sufficient. You need actual material goods to provide you with a sense of well-being sufficient that you can lead a happy life. So, for example, a right to health care. That's something that we have to force somebody to provide for you, whether it's through taxation or forcing a doctor to take care of you. A right to health care is an affirmative duty on someone else.

A right to free speech is an affirmative duty. If I'm just sitting here, I have a right to free speech. Have I forced you to do anything? The answer is no. If I have a right to healthcare and I get hurt, now I have to compel somebody to provide that healthcare for me, right? Because I have a right to it, which means that it doesn't manage. If I'm just sitting here, the healthcare doesn't just arrive. There has to be a doctor qualified to take care of me. And if that doctor doesn't want to take care of me, he has to be forced to take care of me or she has to be forced to take care of me. So that's true for rights to healthcare, right to education, right to any of the right to housing,

many of the rights that focus on the left side. So when I say rights versus duties, this applies broadly to virtually all rights, but particularly it's important for people who believe in a positive version of rights. So the right to free speech comes along with the duty. If you want to have a functioning society is what I'm talking about. The right to free speech comes along with a duty not to be a generalized jackass. Because if you do that, it wrecks the social fabric, right? So if you're just going around, like, I believe that you have a right to call somebody an ethnic slur. You do. You have a right. It's not illegal. If you do it. It's a right, but it's not a. It's a bad thing to do, right? It's a wrong. It's a right, but it's a wrong. Like, you can be wrong in your use of rights.

People do it all the time. People do stuff I don't approve of all the time. That's legal. That's good. I'm glad it's legal. But if people act like jackasses within the bounds of their rights all the time, there's no social fabric. We can't live together. If you're just offending people all day long, then what's the point of being here?

Right, exactly. And if the offense comes with a point, as in we actually have to have a substantive conversation, that's one thing. This is a conversation I had a lot during 2016 about President Trump and also a conversation I had about a couple of folks who are kind of alt-right in Milo Yiannopoulos, for example, is they would say things that were deliberately taboo just to say I want to say something that's taboo because we have to break political correctness. And what I said was, political correctness is only bad if it's trying to bar speech that is valuable, meaning that if there's a politically correct taboo against using the N-word, agree, very bad to use the N-word. No one should use the N-word. I'm not going to say the N-word just to violate the politically correct taboo because it's

bad to say the N-word. But if you're going to tell me that political correctness says that I am no longer allowed to say that male and female are biological categories, that's a valuable thing that has ramifications for society. There, I'm anti-political correctness. So that's an example of you have a right to say bad things, but you shouldn't do them just to be a jerk. The same thing holds true when it comes to positive rights. And I think the left has failed to recognize this, particularly when they cite, for example, the Nordic countries. They'll say, well, there's a right to health care. OK, let's assume that you're right. I disagree.

I don't think there's a right to health care. I don't think you can compel somebody else to provide your health care. I think that's wrong. But let's take your point of view for a second, that there's a right to health care. Well, this should come along with a constant duty to take care of yourself. So if you are smoking and drinking and never move your body and you're eating junk food all day, then you're not taking care of yourself. Right. And then you are throwing the obligations, the externalities onto this entire other group of people. To save you. Right.

And the reason that – one of the reasons that you've been able to support, practically speaking, a larger social welfare state in places like the Nordic countries that Bernie Sanders likes. You know, I'm not a Sanders fan, but places like Sweden or Norway or Denmark is because they have a very strong social fabric where everybody is, for everybody, yeah, people know their neighbors, they feel an obligation. Like, to take an example. In fact, did they help each other yet? Right. You saw Cinderella Man, so the movie with Russell Crowe. Oh, I didn't see it. Oh, you didn't see it? Okay, with James J. Braddock. Okay, so James J. Braddock is this champion boxer who rises

from being basically on welfare, right? Okay, so you remember there's a scene in it where he's been on the welfare rolls, and now he's the champion of the world, right? And he goes back into the welfare office with a roll of cash, and he hands it back to the welfare agent. Well, and they say, well, you don't have to do this.

He says, no, I do have to do that, because that's a duty that I owe to you, right? I no longer need the welfare. It wasn't his right. It was a duty. Right. It's a duty for me to bring that cash back to you. That's something that I think Americans have lost. And it's something that also happens in the context of government taking care of us because the government is by nature faceless.

The government is a barrier between you and your fellow citizen. When you get a check from the government, you tend to think, ah, the government, it's what's giving me the check. The government doesn't have any cash providing auspices of its own. The government is taking money from another human. Well, if the—we don't think about that way in our churches or synagogues, right? Like, I belong to a synagogue. When somebody in our community has a financial problem, we all get together and we contribute to the person via the rabbi. He'll go to the rabbi.

The rabbi will come to us and say, this person is having a rough month. We need to pay his rent. Can we all get together and do that? Well, that's good in the sense that this person knows who exactly is giving him the money and he feels an obligation to all those people not to mooch off of them because we all share a community together. Well, that sort of social fabric has to exist. That feeling of obligation has to exist if we are to have functioning rights in the first place. And that includes people who believe that you have a right to other people's stuff. Yeah. Wow. I love this.

Now, I'm curious. What was the biggest lesson that your mom taught you growing up? So my mom is really different from my dad for a variety of reasons. And she is eminently practical. So she is, she was... Your dad's the artist. Exactly, exactly, and visionary and likes to dream. And my mom was like, okay, yeah, but who's going to sign the check?

And so that's where my mom comes in. And so, you know, I'm a little, I'm a lot less ghetto-less than my dad, even though I talk a lot. My dad talks even more than I do. And my mom is a lot more kind of to the point. The word in Yiddish is tachlis. She's very down to the meat of it. And so from her, it's more a manner of we're not going to waste time.

We're going to get right to the point. We're going to get things done. And so because she's very practical. And so I would say that the lesson that I learned from her is just like, go do it now. Like, stop talking. Just go do it right now. Like, if you don't have an excuse, then you shouldn't be wasting time doing that. And so my dad taught a lot of kind of life lessons about morality and decency.

And my mom was much more about, like, you got to take action now. You need to go out and you need to move. Make a plan. Like, this is always, honestly, I've had, you know, depressed folks in my family, and I know, you know, I have friends who have been depressed before. And to me, you know, when you're not talking about clinical depression, obviously, where you need actual care, but if you're talking about just you're down, the number one thing you should do is make a plan. Literally get a piece of paper and a pencil and write down a bunch of goals and then write concrete steps. Step by step.

This is correct. And then when you're not in Peterson's way. Yeah, exactly. And I think, honestly, I don't think it's Jordan's way or my way. I think it's everybody's way, right? The successful people in life make lists of things they want to do. And then if you really want to be successful, then what you do is you take the little things first, you cross those off. It gives you a feeling of momentum and then you can tackle the big things. I think it's a big mistake for people to think, okay, well, my goal is to be president. And so here's a list of 100 things I'm going to do. How about take out the garbage first?

Yeah, make your bed. Right, as Jordan says. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think the key is, that's why routines and habits are such a big hot topic right now. It's just like when you have a routine where you do something every day, you build momentum, you start to feel better.

You feel less depressed. And if we don't have something to aim at, then we are aimless. We feel like we're just wandering in no man's land. And the worst comes to us as opposed to us creating the best for ourselves. Exactly. And I think that this does have some deep philosophical roots. So I have a book that's coming out in March, and it talks sort of about why suicide is up and why depression is up. And my basic thesis is that we're sort of living... So I talked at the very beginning about eternal values. I think there are certain eternal values that undergird our free and prosperous

civilization. And we're living on the fumes of those values, having undermined a lot of those values. Maybe a few of the core values you're talking about. Okay. So I think that there are four things that human beings need to be happy. You need individual purpose. So you're alone on a desert island. What do you do today? What gives you meaning? So you need individual purpose. You need individual capacity. So you need to feel like you have the capacity to do something. You live in a world where you have free will, where you can make a freely willed decision, where your reason is capable of understanding things. You can think things through and make a good set of decisions on your own. You have to believe that the universe is predictable enough

that things aren't magically changing around you and harming you and victimizing you. So you need that on the individual level, and then you need the same on a communal level. You need to feel that we together have something to do, right? As Americans, we have something to do, right? Or as a religious community, we have something to do. Or as a group of friends, we have something to do. And then you need to feel like there's communal capacity. We as a group of people can do it without violating the rights of the individual. Now, my view is that Western civilization was really good at creating a system where people had all four of these things based on, historically speaking, a unique set of circumstances that springs from Jerusalem and Athens. So Judeo-Christian values, these ideas that there is free will, that you can act within the world, that there is a creator who stands behind a rational universe, that you have the capacity to understand that universe if you apply your thinking to that universe, that you

are made, you have an estimable value, right? You are made in God's image. These are things that come from the Judeo-Christian value system, and that you have an obligation to your fellow man, to treat your fellow man in certain ways. And these are things that come, again, from the Judeo-Christian value system. And then on the other hand, you have Athens, which is the idea that reason and logic can allow you to delve into the depths of the universe and really understand the world around you, and to apply that reason to even the biblical rules that you receive, where you can say, okay, well, new evidence has arisen. That means that we may have gotten our original interpretation of this rule wrong.

So let's reinterpret the rule in a way that meets the evidence. So for example, the most obvious example is if you are a biblical believer, there are a lot of people now who are creationists. I'm not a creationist. So when I'm a creationist in the sense, I believe God stands behind the creation of the universe, but there are people who believe literally that God created the universe in six 24 hour days in exactly the order described by the Bible. I don't believe that, right? I believe that the evidence shows that that's not the case, which means that God was giving a document, as a religious person, as a religious Jew, God was giving a document to human beings in language we could understand at the time,

but that doesn't necessarily mean— So it's not the literal word, it's the interpretation. Well, right. The interpretation was always taken for granted because as human beings, that's what we do. Anytime I say something to you, you're interpreting. So if God says something to me, I'm also interpreting and God knows that because he's omniscient. So the basic interplay, the tension between faith and reason is what created the West because without certain core assumptions, then you couldn't actually feel as though you have

the capacity to operate in the world. So I think we've ripped away a lot of these things. I think we've ripped away the Judeo-Christian value system. We've said that you don't need to go to church. The Bible is worthless. Not only that, it's oppressive. It's repressive. It sets up all these standards. And you, you have the capacity to make your own meaning. People suck at making their own meaning, but you have the capacity to make your own meaning and you can make your own world, your own set of morals. Well, the problem is that the same book, right, the same set of values that created the set of morals and meaning also says that you are made in God's image, that you have inestimable value as a human being that separates you from the animals, that you are not just a series of firing synapses adapting evolutionarily to your environment. Okay, take all that stuff away too. Now explain to me how you are a freely willed creature who can make a difference in your world.

And the answer is you can. Now you're a meatball wandering through space. So I think that what happened over the course of the last couple centuries is that Western civilization got rid of all the bases for why human beings are unique, which are religious assumptions. And then it substituted reason. But reason requires certain religious assumptions. And so what we ended up with is we are a bunch of emotional creatures who are manipulated by our environment. And so that being the case, you actually don't have the power to do anything in your life.

You're just what you are, right? You may think you're willing things, but you're not willing things. You're here. You're doing stuff just because you're doing stuff. And life doesn't have any higher meaning. There's no purpose to serve, even getting married and procreation and all this stuff. Like that's just, that's pleasure, but that's not actual meaning, that's not actual purpose. Well, pleasure can be a purpose, but it is not a purpose high enough to actually drive people to

do the right thing. And it also doesn't explain why you should be altruistic, why you should, why you should help out other people, why you should worry about what happens after you die, right? Why you should, I'm not even preaching the afterlife here. I'm preaching that there are certain values inherent to being a human being that say that you should care about something beyond yourself. As a society, we focus very much inward. We're very subjective now. Meaning is made by us.

Biology, apparently, is defined by us. We get to define the world around us in our own personal terms. And again, we suck at it. We are not good at it. People don't create their own meanings. You either feel that there is meaning that is discoverable out there in the universe and that it's your job to go find it. This is where Jordan and I are really on the same page.

Or you are sitting in a chair trying to convince yourself that the meaning was made by you. Yeah. And it wasn't. And if it was, then why is your meaning any better than anybody else's meaning?

Right. Is that why you think people are suffering and more depressed than ever right now? I think that's the cause without them knowing it. I think that the question is what gets you up in the morning? What's your mission today? And I think that we've been basically, as long as you don't look at it, you're okay, right? As long as you don't look too deeply at the problem, you're all right. So you just say, okay, well, my goal is to act morally today. And you say, okay, well, where do morals come from? And then we all get very uncomfortable, right?

I know what's right. I'm a nice person. Okay, define nice. Define person. I mean, define all these terms. But those having no roots, that's why if you strip three layers down, then none of it makes any sense. And so I think that you've seen this manifest in basically, well, I'll let everybody do what they want. I'll do what I want.

Now I'll be happy. And that's not right. I mean, happiness, according to Judeo-Christian values, was in service of God. And in Greek thought, happiness was, at least in large part, living in coordination with reason. And so we've said we don't have to live in coordination with reason to be happy. And we've said we don't need to serve God or our fellow man in order to be happy. So what exactly is it that's supposed to make us happy? Our food?

Our TV? I mean. Even if those who are watching or listening are not religious or don't believe in God, I'm sure that you've done the research on just the studies of what brings people happiness. Right. Religion is one of these things, by the way. Right. I mean, it is deeply tied in.

Or a core belief system, right? A belief in something greater than yourself. Well, and this is the thing. People are religious even if they don't want to be. So if you're not, you're going to be religious about a thing. The question is what are you going to be religious about? And when people, I mean, communists were the most religious people on planet Earth. They religiously believed in an ideal of a new utopia that was going to be created and was going to take effect over time.

And if we have to murder a few million people to do it, we'll do it. People need a vision of what life is supposed to be, and they need a vision of what meaning is supposed to constitute. The number of people who are honest enough to just say, okay, well, you know what? I'm an nihilist. F it. That's five people, and their lives don't end up being very good. None of this is a suggestion that you have to be religious

in order to be moral at all. I think that there are plenty of people I know who are atheists, which I understand, who are moral human beings. My contention is that there's a lot of religious people who are deeply immoral. Yeah, for sure. The question is, what can you build a civilization on? I don't think you can

build a civilization on mere matter. I don't think you can just say, like, the world's just made up of stuff and then stuff happens to that stuff.

There's no greater purpose. We're just here to exist. But somehow we end up at a system that directly mirrors the Judeo-Christian value system built over 3,000 years.

Like, I think this is, it's a question I asked Sam Harris. I'm friends with Sam and we did a podcast together and at one point I said to him, you know, Sam, you and I hold 95% of the same values, but you're an atheist and I'm a religious person. So why is that? Where did your values come from? And he said, well, you know, I've studied all these different philosophies

and religions. And then I came up with this moral system that I think makes sense for me. And I said, right, that explains why you think that you think that these things are true. But why is it that we have such overlap here? Isn't it more plausible that the overlap exists because you and I grew up like 10 miles from each other in Los Angeles after 3,500 years of common history that developed to this point? People living in the same environment, having grown up in the same civilization, do have certain commonalities. But I think what we're seeing right now is that even the most basic commonalities are being ripped away. And I think this does have political overtones, or at least undertones. One of the most devastating lines that I heard in modern politics came in 2012

when President Obama, during his second inaugural address, said, we in the United States, we don't have to have the same definition of liberty. We can each define liberty in our own way. And I thought, well, then you can't have a society, because if we can't agree on what liberty is, I don't know how you can say that we have a free society together. I mean your definition of liberty is inherently going to conflict with mine. Right.

So we at least have to have a very baseline definition of what liberty constitutes. Yeah. I mean it's like – Liberty and justice for all, what does that mean? Right. If we don't share that definition, then what exactly – It's our interpretation of what it means. Right.

then what exactly? It's our own interpretation of what it means. Right. I mean, if we all decide that we're going to go out to ice cream, and then you tell me that by ice cream you meant that you want to go to the salad bar, then we don't actually all want to go out to ice cream, do we? I mean, this is a serious problem of terminology. I want gelato and you want regular ice cream.

It's different, yeah. Right. Interesting. And even there you can say, okay, well, gelato is within the giant category of ice cream. But if we're saying that, like, polar opposites, my liberty involves me taking a thing from you because i'm not free unless i have that thing and my liberty involves you not being able to take that thing from me we now have directly conflicting visions of what liberty is right now i'm fascinated by i keep coming back to your childhood because i'm fascinated by this you skipped a couple grades third and ninth i think you said uh you went to ucla at 16 yeah all right you started ucla 16

and i'm assuming you took like college credit classes when you were like 13 i'm assuming that's right you probably took some advanced credits uh early in your in your in your high school years what was that like jumping the first grade was there a big difference like going from second to fourth and being with kids older than you there or is it harder when you jumped from, I guess, seventh? Eighth to tenth. Yeah, eighth to tenth was a lot harder, right? I mean, when you're a kid.

Because you're in middle school until your sophomore year in high school, right? Right. Also, like, when I skipped the first grade, I was merely a little bit younger than all the students. When I skipped the second grade, I was a lot younger than all the students. Also, I didn't hit my growth spurt until I was basically a senior in high school. So I spent most of my high school years 5'2 and 105. Wow. So that made a bit of a difference. Also because I had gone to a private Jewish day school

for high school, a lot of the cliques had already been formed. So my family only became fully religious in terms of being Orthodox Jews when I was like 11. So a lot of these other kids had been that their whole life, so they all had friend groups. I only went to a fully Jewish school full-time, I did for a couple of years earlier, but I only went to a fully Jewish school when I went to high school, so all the cliques had already been formed.

So I was an outsider coming in, then I skipped a grade. This was like a few hundred students? Yeah, a couple hundred students. The whole high school, right? Right. Well, there was a boys' school and a girls' school. They kept them separate, which is typical in Orthodox Jewish day schools, and so it was probably 200 students in the boys' school and 200 students in the girls' school, something like that. So it was small. We lived in the valley and the schools in the city. So that meant that almost all the students were from the city. So I didn't know anybody. And so, yeah, socially it was pretty difficult. And also I was, you know, I was a little smart-ass. I mean, I was, you know, one of the smarter kids in the class, even after having skipped. And so that, you know, that's not conducive to leading a rich social life.

Sure, sure. So high school was rough, yeah. What was the biggest challenge for you? Was it that you kept speaking out or you didn't feel like you could share your voice because people were making fun of you? Mostly it was that you know how kids are, that if you're not part of the in-group, you're part of the out-group. Or there is no out-group. Even if it's religious, loving. Does not matter.

Does not matter. Community experience. People are still people. Religion is based on the assumption that people are still people and religion proves it out, man. There are a lot of religious people who treat each other viciously. And this is particularly true when you're talking about teenagers who are just by and large terrible human beings. Trying to fit in and figure out life. Yeah, I mean, you're the worst version of you, aside from when you're two, which I know because I have a son who's two.

Right. Aside from when you're two, and you're completely a selfish person. Yeah. Until you hit adulthood and actually experience responsibility, when you're like 14 or 15 and mom and dad are taking care of all your bills and you can— And your laundry and your food and your bed. And when you're going to an upper-class Jewish school, they're giving you a car, right? I mean, like, it's like that... That you didn't have to pay for, yeah.

Right, exactly. Like, that does not tend to breed particularly great behavior. And it does breed a certain group mentality also. I mean, there's a herd mentality among kids, obviously, and among people generally, but it is very strong among teenagers. So you spent two years in high school then, essentially, right? Three. Three years, so yeah, 10th, 11th, 12th, yeah.

Gotcha. Did you feel like you were the outsider the whole time? Yeah. What were people saying or doing to you? Oh, yeah. I mean, it was, yeah, I mean, I was the outsider the whole time for sure. I mean, I would be physically accosted. There was one situation where I was on, there was kind of a weekend getaway.

And there was one situation where guys legitimately, like, held me down on a bed and hit me with belts. No way. I mean, yeah, there was a situation where, and then that concluded with them, like, somebody brought one pair of handcuffs. They dragged the bed frame outside the cabin and then handcuffed me to the bed frame in front of, like, the entire school. So, yeah. No way. It was good times. The guys and the girls?

Well, the girls weren't there. So this is just guys. But it was. Still, so horrible. But could you times. The guys and the girls? Well, the girls weren't there, so this is just guys. But it was— Still, so horrible, but could you match the guys and girls? Oh, you know, if girls had been there, it would be even worse. But I was having my own level of unsuccess with the girls as well. Right. So they were hitting you with belts, pinning you down and hitting you with belts,

and then they handcuffed you to a bed outside? Yeah, that was the next morning, yeah. And because— Wow. And so, you know, high school was not a lot of fun for me. Was that your first year, sophomore year? That would have been, yeah. I think it was either sophomore or junior year.

Wow. I can't remember. Did it get better? Did it get worse? It got better than that. I mean, it wasn't like that every single day. That was definitely the low point. But it was unpleasant.

Again, I don't think most of the kids there were like that. It's tough because you get in this group mentality when it's like everyone's rallying against a cause, right? Right. And in school, the cause is always somebody. It's always some kid. Yeah, exactly. And so I was that for a while, and I was excited to get out of high school. I mean, I enjoyed the learning aspect of it, but I was very excited to leave.

And when I got to college, I was so happy, especially because when I was in college, I lived at home. So that meant I wasn't with the other students full time. I was spending a lot of time commuting. But I would go to class, and I'd learn stuff, and then I'd leave, and then I'd go write essays and read, and then I'd go back to school. And it was great. It was just great great and I got along with people in college because nobody in college cares how old you are really yeah there's care that you're smart or you're kind or whatever right exactly no I loved college I thought college was great and then when I went to law school I loved law school too so the high school was was the worst of it for sure but the

the question was you know again it was just the mentality was what do you do about it? How did you overcome it during high school? I just put my head down and pushed. I mean, I never shut up. I mean, I never – it was not like I just kind of receded into silence or being sullen or anything. It was like, okay, well, this is how life is going to be. You take a few punches and you keep moving. And that had been inculcated a little bit younger because when I went to middle school even, I used to wear a yarmulke to middle school and it was a public middle school. So there were some issues there as well.

Were you the only one wearing a yarmulke? Oh, yeah. Really? Yeah. It was Walter Reed Middle School. Not a lot of Orthodox Jews going there. So I was kind of a social outcast there too. And so, again, you sort of learn to grow a thick skin and you either just basically say to these people, go F off, you know, or you knuckle under to it.

Did you have any close friends, middle school or high school, where you could confide in or talk to? No, no, no. Zero, not one kid? No. Not one kid your age that you could be like, hey, let's talk at lunch or let's practice together? No, I mean, I had people I was acquainted with, but no. I wouldn't say I had any strong close friends. So did you get invited to like birthday parties, kids at school? Did you go hang out? I mean, occasionally, but not really. I mean, that wasn't... Church kids,

like anything? So, no. I mean, honestly, I spent most of my childhood talking to adults. I mean, that was really kind of like most of the people I was having conversations with were 45. So that meant, number one, the level of conversation was better, but no, I've never been a friends person. I'm a very family oriented person. So I spend almost all my, like my best friend is my business partner. But aside from that, all of the people that I'm closest to are my parents who live a mile and a half away from me, my wife who I spend 95% of all waking free time with, and my two kids, who I spend

an enormous amount of time with. And I think, I do think people are either built one way or the other. I think there are people who are kind of more friends people and social, and they like to be out with friends, and they want to spend time with friends. I'm the kind of jerk who would go to a party at Harvard Law, and we'd go to a party, and I would bring a book with me. Because if people were boring, I was not going to waste the two hours just sitting there. It's a good time to read right now.

Yeah, exactly. I got in a lot of good reading at these parties. Wow. So, yeah. So if I ever call you up and say, hey, do you want to hang out? I'm going to get the X right away. I mean, unless my wife and kids are out of town, yeah, basically. That is the reality.

Sure. Because for me, every interaction has to be weighed against the opportunity loss. Sure. It's like your mom. It's very practical. Exactly. There's a certain economic cost foregone in every conversation, in every bit of time that you spend. Sure.

And so I turn down dinner invites. It's very difficult to get me to go out to dinner, even with people who are prominent, because I don't want to. You have to make the case as to why I should be spending the time with you as opposed to spending the time with my two kids who I like a lot better than you. Right? And that's, I mean, my kids are great. My wife is great. I picked them.

They're fantastic. And so, you know. Wow. Do you feel like you kind of got robbed from your childhood then? In a sense, I suppose. I mean, high school wasn't fun so if childhood is supposed to be kind of like fun then yeah but it was an alternative use of time for me

I spent a lot of time reading and a lot of time writing and a lot of time involving myself in stuff I wanted to be involved with so I considered my childhood pretty happy without it just was not social you had a focus. You had goals early on because you're a musician.

Yeah, I mean, I was a near professional musician. I studied with one of the top ten teachers in the world at the time. In violin? In violin. And piano too, right? Not piano. My dad's a professional pianist, so we'd play Brahms together and like that. Were you a Suzuki trained?

Yeah, originally. Yeah, and then I moved on to a teacher named Abram Stern, who was a Russian, top-level Russian teacher who lived out here in West LA. And then in full with that, I would fill it with, again, a lot of reading and a lot of conversations. It was a good time to pick up on my movie watching, so I've seen every Oscar-nominated film since 1933. Wow. So, you know, that's how you create the cultural knowledge base for doing a show. It all pays off in the end.

Sure, sure. But, yeah, I mean, in the sense that I wasn't getting invited to the cool kid parties, then, yeah, that was disappointing and upsetting. It was much more disappointing at the time than it is now. And I will say that it is amusing. Just people are, human beings are amusing. And I'm sure you know this, I'm sure you've experienced the same thing, is that people treat you very differently when you are less successful and when you are more successful.

And now they're all coming back and be like, oh, man, you remember us in high school? Yeah, I haven't seen you. Like, yeah, I do remember you in high school. Yeah, yeah. Delete, yeah, yeah. What was your most proud moment growing up? Well, I mean, the best moment growing up is when I caught a foul ball at a Dodger game. But my most proud moment growing up, I don't know.

You'd have to say before college and after college. Okay, before college. I mean, before college, I would say that my, I still think my most proud moments are doing nice things for people. So, like, I try to do nice things for people and not talk about them. So that means that I can't talk about them. Sure, sure. But as far as, you know, I was proud that when I was in high school, I was 14 and I won a 10-minute play contest from Princeton.

That kind of stuff. A 10-minute play contest? Yeah, a fiction play, like a short play. Oh, wow, that's cool. So that was kind of fun. That's pretty cool. Yeah, that kind of stuff was neat. Yeah.

There's the occasional school fight that you win, right? Those are always proud moments. Dude, those are always proud moments. There's always some point where. I fought back. Exactly, exactly. Or there's, you know, a sports moment where you finally make one move playing basketball. Like when I was in junior high for some reason, I just got incredibly hot and, you know, hit 15 shots in a row.

And the coach was right there. And he's like, why don't you try out for the basketball team? I'm like, I suck at basketball. You're not lucky yet. Because I'm terrible. There's that kind of stuff. Post-college, obviously, my proudest moments are getting married, having my kids, taking care of

my family, things where I've stepped in to help people. That's all the stuff that I actually care. And then, listen, I'm very proud of the stuff that I do on a daily basis where I feel like I'm actually reaching. I get a lot of letters from folks saying that because they've listened to the show, that it's changed their life in some material way and it's made them think about something differently.

And that's great to hear, especially because my show is so political. Yeah. Right. It's political entertainment. So if I get a letter from somebody saying that I changed the way I got one the other day from a guy who said that he was, he,

his girlfriend had gotten pregnant and he wasn't thinking about marrying her and she was thinking about having an abortion. And he listened to the show, and I'm very pro-life, and so he had listened to the show and he went to her and said, listen, I think that we ought to have the baby and I think that he, and I'm also obviously very pro-marriage,

and I said you should, and he said I think we ought to have the baby and I think we ought to get married. And they got married and they had the baby and they couldn't afford it and it didn't matter. And he said we're happier now than we've ever been in our lives. I've gotten letters from people who say that they were drug abusers, and they listened to the show. And then because the constant message is kind of get up off your ass, that doesn't mean that we won't help you out if you need it.

I give a lot of charity. People should give a lot of charity. But the first step has to be you, right? I mean, the first step in the morning has to be you right i mean the first the first step in the morning has to be getting out of the bed and so i get a lot of letters from people who have been addicts who have gone to 12-step programs because they feel the necessity to change their lives and materialize i mean that's the stuff i'm i'm really yeah i'm really proud of all the other stuff is just ancillary i think yeah it's funny i feel in some ways very similar to you because i was picked on a lot growing up even though it doesn't look like it because I'm like this bigger guy or whatever. I was going to say how. Yeah. It's funny because, you know,

I was always, I was the complete opposite of you. You were like the smartest kid in the class. I was the dumbest kid in the class. So I was in the bottom four every year through high school and middle school. I had tutors my whole life. I was in special needs. I had a second grade reading level in eighth grade. Wow. So I was the kid that they would call, the teacher would call in front of the class to speak and read, and I couldn't read the first lines, and I would just stutter and mumble. So I was just made fun of constantly for being the most ignorant kid. And I used that kind of frustration and anger of being picked on to be like, I'm going to be the best athlete I can be to prove everyone wrong and show you guys, right?

And so when I got into high school, I was one of the better athletes as a freshman. I was kind of like the opposite of you, right? You were, like, the smartest. And I was, like, the better athlete. So I was on varsity my freshman year of every sport. And so everyone was 17, 18. I was 14. So I was the one they picked on.

I was the one they picked on, right? I was 14. So I was the one they picked on. I was the one they picked on, right? And so every year I was just like the younger one that they picked on and kind of like razzed and, you know, hazed or whatever. Until I was a senior, then all of a sudden I was like, oh, all the people I was hanging out with are gone. And I remember having a moment going into my senior year. I was like all my friends and the ones who like picked on me the whole time are gone. I can either be like them to lower class men,

but I was like, that feels horrible to me. I don't want to just repeat what they did. So instead I said, I'm going to focus on trying to connect with everyone. Like the geeks, the science people, I was in choir, I was in like musical plays, I did tap dancing, I did everything. And I was just like, I'm going to try to connect with all humans and learn about people and not repeat what happened to me my whole childhood.

And I think hearing you say your most proud moments are when you give and when you're kind to people and when you're in charity. It violates my brand, but yeah. I think it's really inspiring to hear because the same thing for me. It's like I don't feel good when I'm just constantly, you know, making money is fun and having these accomplishments are nice, but it's like the times that I'm in the most flow and in the most love and fulfillment is when I'm in service to someone else

or in service to humanity, which is what my mission is. And that's also the big thing, I think, is that learning from your own mistakes and mistakes other people have made dealing with you, do you learn from that and you decide to react against that in a way that's better, or do you just react to it and lash out because of it and decide that because somebody else did something bad you also get to do something bad and you know i i think that the mark as i get older i think that the mark of a of a of a good

person or at least a person who's trying is a person who wakes up in the middle of the night worried about the mistake they made the previous day and And how do you fix that? And the mark of a person who's going to have problems is a person who wakes up in the middle of the night angry at what somebody else did to them. Because there are certainly cases where somebody's really victimized you in a serious way. And that's something we should all worry about and try and do something about. But most problems are not going to be overcome by being angry at stuff that's happened to you in the past, unfortunately. Reacting in a negative way.

Now, I'm curious. If you had this normal childhood, let's say, right? You didn't skip grades. Kids were nice to you. They invited you to birthday parties. They celebrated you as opposed to put you down and whipping you with belts and crazy stuff. Do you think you would be as driven as a human being that you are today and as focused on, you know, building everything you're building and having all these debates?

I doubt it. I doubt it. I mean, really, because one of the things that you learn when you get beat on a lot is that you either have to care what people think or you really don't care what people think. And I think that it is a, it's something that doesn't help you when you're in high school not to care what people think because caring what people think is what makes you popular in high school. Yeah. And trying to cater to that crowd. And leading, yeah, going into the herd as opposed to being like, screw you guys. Right, exactly.

But because I was sort of out of the herd from the time that I was young, it was like, okay, well, I don't care. And you say that enough to your, at the beginning you do care, obviously. But at a certain point. It hurts. Right. And then at a certain point you're like, you know what? But I actually don't. Like, my life is not materially worse because I'm not dealing with these people.

And having followed them would have been dumb. Am I hanging out with, would I want to? And so I feel that same way about politics and principles. Like, I'm not somebody who has typically tended to move with the herd. And that's true on specific issues. And it's true, you know, insofar as things like elections, right? In 2016, I took the most unpopular position you could take. I didn't vote for either major candidate.

I did that as a... And you announced it, too. I said that out loud. I said it repeatedly. I was extraordinarily critical of President Trump's character and personality. I still am. And it's not my job to please people.

I mean, if people are pleased with me, then great. But it's not my job to please people. It mean, if people are pleased with me, then great. But it's not my job to please people. It's my job to say things that I think are true. And if I start sacrificing what I think is true in favor of pleasing people, then I'm not doing my job. I'm not being true. I'm not being honest. And people can sense that. You become a politician.

Right, exactly. Authenticity is about saying a bunch of unpopular stuff, which is why politicians are generally inauthentic, because their job is to say stuff that people want to hear or you don't win. Yeah. I guess Trump proved us wrong by saying a lot of things that people didn't want to hear. Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. But I think that we'll find out whether that's a lasting trend. I mean, not to get into 2016 election analysis, but I would say that President Trump won, I would say Hillary Clinton lost the election much more than President Trump won it.

Won it, yeah. I would say Hillary Clinton lost the election much more than President Trump won it. Won it, yeah. So, you know, I think that, and she, and it is true that in politics there is this weird thing where people want to hear what they want to hear, but they also hate inauthenticity. And so. So his authenticity. His authenticity trumped her inauthenticity. Uh-huh. Right?

Obama was an authentic politician. He tended to believe all the things that he was saying. It didn't feel like he was pandering as much, even though I think that he was. I think he was, but he was, Obama is who Obama is. I think, I'm not even sure that Hillary Clinton knows who Hillary Clinton is, and I think it was a problem for her in 2016.

Trump is exactly who he is, for better and for worse. I mean, for all of the things good about him and all the things bad about him, that dude is authentically what Donald Trump is. And people sense that. And so when they had the choice between, not even choosing between Hillary and Trump, because I don't think that's how most people came down to it. I don't think most people were like, ah, should I choose one or should I choose the other? I think it was people who were like, should I go to the polls today or not? And for people who thought Hillary was inauthentic, they're like, meh, she's probably

going to win anyway. I really want to waste my time today. I really owe that to her. And for people who thought Hillary was inauthentic, they're like, meh, she's probably going to win anyway. I really want to waste my time today. I really owe that to her. And for people who thought Trump was authentic, like, yeah, I'm right. I'm going to the polls today. That dude's authentic. He's saying what I think. That was sort of the feel in 2016. Yeah.

Wow. So you think if you had more of a normal childhood where you weren't as bullied or picked on or these things, where do you think you would be today? What would you be doing? I'd probably be a successful lawyer. Right. And that's what you did. You went to law school. Right.

And then I worked at a law firm. And part of being in a law firm requires you to be part of the social group because otherwise working at a law firm really blows. It's a terrible job, especially the early years. And for me, it was like, well, I don't care about any of this stuff. I mean, I was the guy who, yeah. And so the authenticity has its upside and its downside. When I was interviewing for law firm jobs, I was way too authentic for the interviewers, and it did not work well.

I had the worst law school interview. I had the worst law firm interview record of anybody I've ever heard of at Harvard Law. I had 32 law firm interviews, and I got one offer. And I graduated cum laude from Harvard, and I'd written three books at the time. So my resume was pretty good. You got one offer. And I got one offer, but that's because I would be asked questions like somebody would say, I remember one interview, they would say something like, well, why do you

want to work in corporate law? Now, look, we all know the answer. Why do you want to work in corporate law, right? You've got $200,000 of debt or $150,000 of debt. And no one, no one grows up thinking, you know what I really want to do with my life? I want to spend the next four years of my life directly out of law school, reading for page numbers and for missing commas and indents, which is what you do. You work 2,100, 2,200 billable hours at a major law firm. You were there from eight in the morning to nine at night reading for page numbers and paginations and i and so they said you know why do you want to why do you want to work at in corporate law i said for the money and which is the being authentic true answer but not the good answer right because i want to help people who are

you know wrongfully acute reality but that's not even what you do at a corporate law firm right so you can't even say like oh i want to be atticus finch or something instead it's like what do you want to do what the answer they want is because I want the intellectual stimulation and because I really like the back and forth and I love the court system and I really enjoy reading case law and all this stuff. And I was like, nah, cash. That's why you're here, aren't you? I mean, what are you doing here? You're making $2 million a year as a partner. You're going to be doing this for $100,000 a year? I mean, and that was for me always an issue when it came to jobs was the money actually was, maybe this is because I,

so I grew up middle class, but middle, middle class. Not poor, not rich, very middle class. And so, like, my first home where I lived until I was 11 was probably an 1,100 square foot home in Burbank

where we had one bathroom for six people. And I shared one bedroom with three of my sisters. So not poor, but we were fine, but not loaded or anything. And so because of that, I was never really afraid of either living like that. And also because I grew up with a solid education, I wasn't afraid of falling completely off the ladder completely. And because I'd made decent decisions, I wasn't really afraid of that. Listen, again, it's the biggest privilege you can have in American life is twofold. Two biggest privileges in American life,

being born here, having two parents at home. Those are the two biggest privileges. And I had both of those things. So I wasn't really that afraid of, of not earning tons of money or anything. Uh, and so when, so I never had to be forced into a position of, I need to take a job just for the money. I worked at a law firm for 10 months, and the initial pay at the law firm, this is not private information because it's true for every major law firm as of 2007 when I joined. The initial pay at these law firms was about $180,000 a year. It's a nice first salary. Which is a great first salary.

It's a lot of money. I mean, it's a great second salary. It's a great salary, right? $180,000 a year is a lot of money. And I worked there for 10 months, and I hated it, hated it. I mean, just despised it. And after 10 months, I walked in and I quit with no job lined up and a mortgage because I had just bought a condo with my wife.

Here in L.A. or was this? Yeah, it was in L.A. And I walked in and I quit and I took a job a couple months later working for Talk Radio Network, which was a syndicator for Michael Savage and Laura Ingram for less than a third of the pay. And that was just the way because I didn't feel fulfilled. I hated it. I mean, I remember turning to my, she was then my fiancee, I remember turning to her and saying, I hate this so much. I'm miserable. I mean, I remember turning to my, she was then my fiance. I remember turning to her and saying, I hate this so much. I'm miserable. I mean, I'd lost weight. Like I wasn't eating. And I said, I'm miserable. I can't, I was down

to like, you know, I'm like my normal weight is like 160, 165. I was down to like 138. And I, and I, so I turned to, I turned to my wife and I'm like, I'm just miserable. I said, well, then you should quit. And her parents were like, no, don't quit. Her parents are like, don't do it. Don't do it. You're making lots of money. And I was like, no, I quit. The funniest part of that is when I quit, I walked into the senior associate's office and I'm Doug.

And I said, you know, I can't deal with this. This is just the worst. I need to quit. And he was trying to convince me not to do it. And he brought in another senior associate who had played minor league baseball. And this guy, you know, was still young. I mean, he was a senior associate, but that means he's like 31, 32. You're 22.

At this point, yeah, at this point I was 24. 23, 23. And so, yeah, 23. And 24. In any case, we all sat down. And Doug is trying to convince me not to quit. And then Andrew is trying to convince me not to quit. And I'm saying, like, guys, this is miserable.

The hours suck. The work is boring. All the people here are jerks. You're being authentic. Yeah. And about five minutes into the conversation, Andrew turns to Doug. And he says, you know what? Maybe I should quit. And he was dead serious.

Andrew was the other senior associate. He turned to the other senior. He's like, maybe I'll go back to playing ball, man. I hate this. So it turned from them trying to stop me from quitting into one guy trying to stop two guys. So I guess I was convincing him that he didn't end up quitting. I think he had a mortgage too. But then I walked in. I mean, the punchline to the story is I walked into the boss's office, the guy who ran the branch. And I said, I'm quitting. And he said, you'll never

make as much money as this again. You're blowing it. You're never going to make anything like this money again. I said, well, then I guess I'll never make this kind of money again. I've wanted him to send my tax return. I've wanted to send him my tax return for so long. That's the bullied kid in us that wants to prove people wrong, right? It's like I always did that too for all of my 20s. People said I wasn't going to make it as a pro athlete. They said I wasn't going to make money when I was broke on my sister's couch, all these things. And now— Success is great revenge.

It really is. It's the emails I get, the messages I get on Facebook from people from back in the past. I'm like, this is just so funny to me. It's so funny, but it's all good I used to be so motivated to prove people wrong and It worked I would achieve everything by proving people wrong and prove them wrong And then I realized like wow this doesn't actually bring me fulfillment right happiness, right? It wasn't until I when I hit 30 when I started to shift it all and say, you know what? I'm just going to start lifting people up and like serving people and not focusing on the five bullies in high school or middle school or the person who did this and that right and focus on

like now no that's exactly right I mean you've seen a back to the future three remember there's the train in back to the future three where they keep throwing in these kind of incendiaries into the train and it changes the color of the smell coming out. But it gives a boost to like a higher speed each time. So anger can be that boost, but it can't be the actual baseline fuel that you're using to run the train. Yes. So it gives you that temporary high and it's like, okay, I'm going to go out and do something today.

But what actually makes you go do the work on an increasing level over an amount of time is the actual purpose and meaning. Exactly. I've only got a few minutes left with you, so I've got a few questions. Since you just mentioned purpose and meaning, what is your purpose and mission moving forward? So I'm deeply interested in revitalizing the values that I think we all ought to hold in common and that undergird the idea of God-given rights in a limited government. So on a political level, I've always been very committed to the idea that freedom is based on we as individuals are made in the image of God. And that means that we have certain rights that go along

with that, the right to free speech, the right to freedom of religion, the right to economic freedom. We get to make decisions with our own money without somebody sitting over our shoulder and telling us what to do. All of that is rooted in certain fundamental values that require us also to have a social fabric. So we need to help other people. We need to live in communities where we have a common set of rules. We need to stand up against discrimination when we see it. And we need to also stand up against pandering politically when we see it. I've always been committed to the idea that we need to change how people think in order for them to change how they live.

And so that's basically what I'm dedicated to. Being able to change the way they think. Yeah, and think more in terms, again, it's everything we've been talking about. Change the mindset from, you know, why is the world being mean to me to, okay, here's where the world is, now here's how I'm going to succeed,

and here's why I should succeed. And so I think that as a religious person, I think that I'm here to fulfill a godly purpose in doing all of those things, but I don't think that I have to speak specifically in godly terms in order to justify why I do that stuff. So it's why whenever I talk on my show or politics or in my lectures, I never cite the Bible. I never cite religion.

I tend to cite values and principles, but I don't tend to think that i have to well i believe that as a religious person i'm doing something that i think is in the service of god i think that it also can be secularly justified as something that's in the interests of of a functioning civilization yeah humanity and that's why you are very detailed on your research and your facts to try to back these things as opposed to religious well again the again, the argument from authority cuts no ice with people who don't accept the authority. If I say the Bible says X and somebody doesn't believe the Bible is going to go so, and they're right.

I mean, that is a so question, right? But if I say, okay, you should believe this because here's the reason. Right, here's the data. Then that's a different thing. It's harder to deny data. Yeah, amazing. This question is something I ask everyone at the end of my interviews. It's called the three truths.

So imagine it's your last day on earth, and you get to choose the last day whenever you want it to be. It could be hundreds of years, whenever. It could be whatever it is. And you've achieved everything you want. You've achieved all your dreams. Your family is thriving. Everything is great.

And I hope it all goes great for you. But for whatever reason, it's got to be the last day. You've got to say, okay, this is my last moments. And you've said your goodbyes. But everything you've created up until that time, you have to take with you in your death. You have to take it with you so no one has access to the videos or the books you've written or anything you've ever said in the past.

There's no longer that access. But you get to write down on a piece of paper three things you know to be true about your life. The lessons that you would leave behind that people would have

to remember you by. And I call this the three truths. So what would you say are the three truths that you would leave behind to the world? Three lessons or truths.

And this is all they would have. You as a human being have inherent meaning. And I don't just mean that you have something to live toward, but that you actually are a meaningful thing. That your life matters and the decisions that you make matter. That would be number one. That would be number one. Number two would be that you, as that person, you have obligations to yourself and others that can only be achieved through you making actual decisions, reasonable decisions that you can explain the reasons for. It shouldn't be based on knee-jerk reactionary emotion.

You should actually try and think through why you're doing what you're doing. And if you do, you're likely to come up with a better result. And three, the money's in the banana stand. I mean, the third would probably be that you are going to be, that the power that you have been given in using that reason and being made with that inherent value mean that everybody else is given that reason being made with that inherent value mean that everybody else is given that reason and made with that inherent value too.

And so you ought to respect their ability to have a conversation with you and use your powers of reasoning in order to convince rather than to compel. Because compulsion is the sign of a weak argument. If you have to compel, it's because you've made a bad argument and you haven't bettered anybody through compulsion is the sign of a weak argument. If you have to compel, it's because you've made a bad argument and you haven't bettered anybody through compulsion.

Convince. Convince, don't compel. Yeah, those are great truths. Thank you for those. I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Ben, for your authenticity, man. Thanks, I appreciate it. You show up very authentic and you show up as yourself. I love that you have a clear mission for your life, that your mission is to serve people,

to support people, to help people live a better life. I don't think you're as bad as the guys people call you. Well, thank you. That's the highest compliment I could get. That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. I acknowledge you for also overcoming a lot of challenges. I'm sure there's a lot of things that you didn't talk about that happened growing up that I can only imagine the amount of insecurities or guilt or shame or whatever that you felt.

And so I acknowledge you for not destroying your own life in those challenges, but actually saying, how can I improve my life? How can I master skills with my music, with my art, with my debate skills, you know, my intellect? You dove into mastery as opposed to depression. And I think of those two options, I'm glad you did. No, thank you. I appreciate it. Because you're doing a lot of good things.

So I already know I'm going to get a lot of people giving me flack just for acknowledging you. Get ready, man. And I'm not saying I agree with everything that Ben has said. So just putting that out there. But I acknowledge you for who you've become and your work in the world is trying to make it a better place. You're like a personal growth expert. Who would have knew that that's really what your mission is?

It's like to better people. Even in controversy and even when people disagree with you, I think your mission is to better people. I hope so, yeah. How can we follow you online? How can we support you? You've got a book coming out in March as well. Yes, I have a book coming out in March. It's called The Right Side of History.

So that comes out in March. We can preorder it now. Oh, yeah, you should be able to preorder that at Amazon. And that's all about these questions, these specific kind of meaning, purpose, history of civilization questions. And then if you want to check out my podcast, you can go to iTunes or any other place you get podcasts for The Ben Shapiro Show. And if you want to subscribe over at Daily Wire, you get stuff behind the paywall.

Come January, you have two extra hours of the show every day behind the paywall. So that should be fun. Your Sunday. Sunday specials. Yeah, those have been. I've been listening to those. I think those are fun. Yeah. Yeah, because they're not as political.

So for me, I'm not as interested in the other stuff. But those are really good. So I appreciate it. And you. Yeah, because they're not as political. Exactly. So for me, I'm not as interested in the other stuff. But those are really good. So I appreciate it. And you bring on some interesting people and talk about some wide topics. We'll have on anybody pretty much. Yeah, it's really cool. Yeah, thank you. It's really cool.

Final question for you is what is your definition of greatness? So can I give two? Sure. Okay, so I think that there's greatness as in you're presented with a crisis in your life, and you make a decision that is valuable, moral, and decent. You make a change. You're Winston Churchill. You're faced with a terrible crisis, and then you stand up, and you make a strong stand,

and you've done something great. That's greatness in one sense. And I think the other sense of greatness is, I think, a more important sense. And that's just goodness. I said this about George H.W. Bush. I don't think that George H.W. Bush was a great president. I'm not even sure that he was a good president. But I think he was a good man.

And it's a lot harder to be a good person than it is to be a great person. To be a great person requires you to stand up in a crisis. And it's kind of thrust upon you. There's a moment in time. You have to stand up up and now's the time when you make that heroic move and that's what makes you a great man or a great woman or a great person. But being a good person, which is the process of making decisions that are beneficial to you and your family and moral every day, knowing that you're not going to be remembered, right? Knowing that all your friends and family will eventually die and nobody's going to remember you. We go to be remembered, right? Knowing that all your friends and family will eventually die

and nobody's going to remember you. We go to people's funerals and say, oh, we'll remember grandma for X. You won't. In two generations, nobody's going to remember what grandma did. I know because I don't know my great-grandparents. I didn't know them. I barely know their names.

But your legacy in being a good person lives on in the promulgation of a civilization of which you were a minute part. And so being a great person really means being a brick in the wall that is a civilization that is in and of itself great. Ben Shapiro. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. It's fun, man.

Thank you. And there you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Ben Shapiro has taken over the world lately with his conversations, with his controversy, and with his insights. Now, whether you love him or hate him, you can learn a lot from him and you can apply that to your life. And some of you already know are going to unfollow me from interviewing him. And that's fine because I'm looking for the truth from everyone. My goal is to learn something from everyone. And I really respected Ben the more I got to know him and I

can't wait to have him back on. So take the things you like from people and apply that to your life. If people are doing things in a successful way, we can all learn from those individuals. So I hope you enjoy this one. Make sure to share with a friend, lewishouse.com slash 742. Text to a couple of friends, let them know they should listen to this and also tag me at lewishouse and at Ben Shapiro and follow him on Instagram. He's got a very popular Instagram account as well. And as we bring this back to the beginning of the episode, Earl Nightingale said, your problem is to bridge the gap, which exists between where you are now and the goal you intend to reach. Whatever that gap is, it's your responsibility in life to learn the lessons, to learn the information, to meet the right people,

to master certain skills so that you have the ability to bridge the gap from where you are now to where you want to be in the future. that desired vision, that desired goal, that desired dream that you have. It's yours for the taking, but you've got to be willing to rise up and take what you want by taking action consistently. I love you all so very much, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thanks for watching! Thank you.