The School of Greatness - Jordan Peterson on How to Build Confidence, Cultivate Inner Peace & The Psychology of MONEY (Part 2) EP 1094

Episode Date: April 7, 2021

“Generally, someone else’s comment is unlikely to bring you to a halt unless you value that comment.”Today's guest is Jordan B. Peterson. He’s known for teaching mythology to lawyers, doctors and business people, helping his clinical clients manage depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and schizophrenia. His lectures have been viewed by millions of people online. Jordan has published over a hundred scientific papers, transforming the modern understanding of personality. This is actually the second part of my interview with Jordan, so if you haven’t listen to part 1, make sure to go to www.lewishowes.com/1093.In this episode Lewis and Jordan discuss the keys to building confidence and attracting the life you want, how to overcome feeling lazy and unmotivated, what Jordan’s mindset is around money and how you can prepare yourself psychologically to start earning more, and so much more!For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1094Check out his website: www.selfauthoring.comCheck out his book: Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for LifeThe Wim Hof Experience: Mindset Training, Power Breathing, and Brotherhood: https://link.chtbl.com/910-podA Scientific Guide to Living Longer, Feeling Happier & Eating Healthier with Dr. Rhonda Patrick: https://link.chtbl.com/967-podThe Science of Sleep for Ultimate Success with Shawn Stevenson: https://link.chtbl.com/896-pod

This is episode number 1094 with Jordan Peterson, part two. 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. Sharon Salzberg said, the difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do

with our attention. And psychologist Ellen Langer said, it is not primarily our physical selves that limit us, but rather our mindset about our physical limits. I am so excited. If you listen to part one of Jordan Peterson, then you know you're in for a special treat today because Jordan Peterson is back for part two, and he is known for teaching mythology to lawyers, doctors, and business people all over the world, helping his clinical clients manage depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, anxiety, and schizophrenia. His lectures have been viewed by millions and millions of people around the world, and

he's published over 100 scientific papers transforming the modern understanding of personality. His previous book, 12 Rules for Life, was a massive New York Times bestselling hit, selling millions of copies, and he's now back with a new book titled Beyond Order, 12 More Rules for Life. And this is part two of our episode with Jordan. And if you haven't listened to part one, it is going to blow you away. You can check it out just by going back one episode on Apple or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this or go to lewishouse.com slash 1093. And in this episode, we discuss the keys to building confidence and attracting the life you want, how to overcome feeling lazy and unmotivated in your life, why Jordan believes in cultivating inner peace even when there's chaos happening around you, the skills that Jordan believes everyone should be developing now in their life, and what Jordan's mindset is around money and how you can prepare yourself

psychologically to start earning more. And if you're enjoying this, make sure to share this with someone you think needs to hear it or who would be inspired by this message. And if this is your first time here, please subscribe to the School of Greatness over on Apple or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this and leave us a rating and review sharing your biggest takeaway from this episode as well. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Jordan B. Peterson. I saw a clip from an interview of your daughter and your wife together.

I think it was on your daughter's podcast. And your wife was mentioning something about how you were smitten over her for, I don't know, a period of time. Maybe this was years, but she was never showing the interest in return until. Just glimpses of it, just enough to keep me interested. Right. But she wasn't going to date you, you know, or be committed, I guess, or whatever she said until there was. I can tell you what she's like. It's easy.

One day I went over there. I was about 13 to her house. I was delivering papers and it was her paper route. I'd taken it over. And so she was there with one of her friends and my wife, Tammy,

she was very popular among all the boys, even when she was in grade three and four. There was like 10 of us. It wasn't a very big town and we're all in love with her yeah except for one guy who was not just out of spite and this is true like i can remember this very clearly anyways um i went over there when i was she was a friend of mine when i was a kid, but there was always this romantic interest part of it, even when we were very young. And we didn't see much of each other when we were around 13. You know, girls mature faster than boys, and I was also one year behind. In any case, I went over to

her place one day delivering these newspapers, and she was talking to her friend, Hazel, blonde girl, who was a very attractive girl as well. And they were talking about getting married. And they were, you know, being kind of cynical and smart ass about it. Tammy said to her friend, I don't want to change my name when I get married. I'm going to have to marry some wimp. And she turned around and looked at me and smiled. And she said, Jordan, would you like to get married?

Wow. And I thought, and she was playing like it was a poke and it was you know genuinely but she knew i liked her and and so you know it was one of those barbs that's funny because it's close to the bone right right well that's where real humor exists right it's right on that cutting edge and so that was her she was provocative like that and i told her that story when we decided to get married and i said well you're tammy peterson and so that you know i got the last laugh in that story but it took like 20 years for sure so well she had mentioned something like you know he wasn't suitable or ready for me until until you were and i don't know she you know it's typical like as soon as she found out that i was attractive to other women because i was you know vaguely competent then she swooped in for the kill exactly so i'm curious when what is the what are the keys to building confidence when you feel insecure or afraid or scared of being embarrassed, whether it be dating someone or career or anything?

What's the keys to building confidence so that you're attracting what you want? Look, I read some of your biographical history before we talked today, and you tell a story about being picked last and then you compensated for that yes now they're alfred adler by the way the psychoanalyst the associate of freud built his whole theory around compensation of that sort inferiority complex plus compensation but it's adaptive right like you got picked last it embarrassed the hell out of you. So what did you do? You decided that is not going to be me anymore. Never again. Okay.

Now you did say, you know, that you adopted a maybe too, what, inflexible model of what it meant to be masculine as a consequence. But when I read that, I thought, thought yeah but still you fair enough it wasn't the the new you that you adopted wasn't optimal in all possible manners but it was definitely improvement over the previous you exactly i wasn't picked last again that's for sure right well exactly okay so so so the first thing i would say is that if you feel insecure and less and ashamed and all of that, that you have to take stock. And look, I have an exercise online at selfauthoring.com.

There's three exercises there. One helps you write about the past, one about the present, and one about the future. The present authoring program helps you assess your faults and your virtues. Okay, well, if you have some faults and you feel insecure and inferior because of that, well, you should. Now, it shouldn't be so much that you're crippled by it and unable to take action. You shouldn't be beating yourself into the ground because you're not everything you could be because no one is. And if you beat yourself into the ground, then you can't get up and improve. But you have to differentiate.

It's like, okay, to what degree am I being hard on myself, counterproductively critical, hearing the voice of my too harsh and angry father in my head, adopting inappropriate stereotypical representations of masculine competence? How much of my self-criticism is ill-advised? Fair enough. And you want to deal with yourself with a certain amount of care. But then along with that, there's the, well, fix your weaknesses. You know, if you're ashamed of being ignorant, you're shown up at a party because, you know, you claim to knowledge that you don't have and someone exposes you.

Well, you can be angry at them and you probably will, but they've actually done you a favor. They pointed out an inadequacy is a pathway that you can travel down, right? A recognized inadequacy is, as soon as it's such a gift in some sense if if it's accurate i'm in it because you think well what should i do what should i do with my life that's a real complicated question right oh here's an inadequacy excellent you have a you have a goal now rectify it now you still have to think strategically and figure out how to rectify it and do it step by step. But Carl Rogers, the psychotherapist, pointed out that for therapy to be successful, the person has to want to change.

So they have to have recognized that they have a problem. If someone is mandated by the court to attend therapy, it's very difficult for the therapist to convince them that they have a problem. Once you're convinced you have a problem, it's like away you go. I know it's still technically difficult. It requires discipline and all of that. There's no magic solution. But if you're plagued by feelings of inferiority,

you should rectify the most obvious inferiorities. Right. Focus on those first over-optimizing strengths, would you say? No, not necessarily. Not necessarily. And you don't have to redress every... I'm a terrible jazz musician. Right. But it's not a thing where you hold shame around or like insecure. Well, it's not an impediment. Yeah, yeah. I would say that you have to rectify an inadequacy when it's clearly an impediment to your goal, or you have to shift goals. But if you're shifting goals because of an inadequacy-related impediment, then you have to ask yourself, is your desire to shift the goal reliable or are you just taking the easy way out?

Right. You can protect yourself by picking a different goal that's more difficult. That's a good mental hygiene practice because sometimes you should switch goals rather than rectifying inadequacies. But you can fool yourself then and that's not good. And that's not good. And if someone is goalless, lazy, unmotivated, not sure what they want to do, what would be a few key steps to get started to turn their life around or to find the motivation for something greater than where they're at? Well, I think a fair bit of that's probably to be found in, you can find it in shame, you can find it in guilt, you can find it in conscience, you can find it in anger, you

can find it in interest and engagement and beauty. There's lots of pathways. If you're angry about something in the world, well, you know, that's an indication that that's, in some sense, your problem, right? It's speaking to you in a moral sense. This shouldn't be that way. Well, maybe you're the person who should do something about it in some manner. Maybe it'll take your whole life to figure out how to do that. But it's bothering you for a reason. So the negative emotions can be a pathway to transformation. I'm not trying to romanticize them.

They can crush you completely and leave you with nothing. Yeah. Right? For sure. And they can go badly astray. But shame, that's a good one. What am I ashamed of? Well, can you fix any of that? Because you might ask yourself, let's say you're so ashamed and so crushed that you're nihilistic and you can't see any hope for life. You're just done. You might think, well, what if I was less ashamed? Like, I'm not going to jump off the bridge today i'm going to wait a year i'm

going to not i'm going to work on these things that i'm ashamed of and and just see like does my life improve enough so that i'm not so bitter about it now or i'm not so hopeless about it now and my experience has generally been that that works it works and. And then some of its practical knowledge too. It's like you can get a really long way with very small changes, incremental changes. Yeah. Micro habit changes. So aim low. Don't have big goals or big transformation.

Well, you can, but the problem with a big goal is that it's daunting enough so that it might paralyze you. And there's a high probability of failure. And so imagine that you're your own child. Okay, now imagine you love this child. And you would like him, we'll say him because it's you and I talking, to succeed. Now, you have an ideal for this child. You would like him to grow up to be the best he can be, better than you, the best man he can be.

That's what you want for your son if the good part of you is talking. Yeah. You definitely want him to be better than you are, but you want him to be the best he could be if your vision is unclouded. Okay, but then you offer him a goal. It's like, well, do this. Well, can he do it? Well, if he can do it without a second's thought, there's no challenge in it. There's no developmental impetus. It's not in the zone of proximal development. You want a goal that you can do, but that requires some improvement on your part. Because you want to attain the goal,

on your part because you want to attain the goal that's satisfying but then you want to make yourself into the thing that can attain goals that means so you want to push yourself yeah you have to try to push yourself a bit further yeah yes and and and there there's an ample psychological literature that suggests that that's where maximal motivation is to be found interesting so you're you're pursuing a goal, but you're also pursuing the goal of transforming yourself at the same time. You're doing both of those at the same time. Do you need to know that you're transforming yourself in order to attain the goal? Or do most people just think, I got to take these steps to make it happen, but they don't realize they're becoming better human beings. It depends on what you mean by realize. They have the sense of satisfaction

and confidence that would indicate that, although they might not be able to make what that means explicit. But I would say it would be better to make it explicit. It adds one other dimension of possible motivation. How do you think people lose confidence? We're talking about gaining it, but how does someone, how could someone like yourself, who's accomplished so much, who's got millions of followers, who, you know, is financially successful, has a great marriage, how could someone lose confidence once they've built it? Illness. That'll do it.

That's one way. Death of someone. Loss. I mean, there's lots of ways of having the rug pulled out from underneath you. Moral error, as the stakes get higher, as we already discussed, the consequences get larger. Ingratitude, that's a big one. You can succumb to the temptation to believe your own egotism. That's a big mistake. There's lots of ways that things can go sideways. That's for sure.

So it sounds like, you know, we start off with a lack of confidence when we're pointed at you're inadequate in this thing. And we go down a journey of, you know, building ourselves and overcoming the challenges and diving into the fear to have these small wins to build confidence. And then the more successful we become, the more we succumb to losing that confidence again. No, I wouldn't say necessarily that you become more susceptible to that. But you asked, how can that happen? How can that loss occur? I think, I still believe that, you know, genuine accomplishment,

but it's always ethical accomplishment. I believe that to be the case. Genuine ethical accomplishment is the best source of security, but it's not unerring. When you mean ethical accomplishment, do you mean? Doing something good, right. Whether people know about it or not, just good and right for yourself. Is that what I'm hearing you say? Or does someone else need to acknowledge that this was good and right? Or does someone else need to acknowledge that this was good and right?

I think if you've done it for yourself, that's good. But if you do it and other people are in on it and along for the ride, that's also good. Sometimes that's better to bring people along. If it's just a matter of them acknowledging it, well, there's value in that too. I mean, people say, well, you shouldn't care what people think of you. It's it, well, there's value in that too. I mean, you know, people say, well, you shouldn't care what people think of you. It's like, well, of course you should. Psychopaths don't care what people think of them.

Now, you shouldn't care so much what people think about you that you're willing to lie to maintain whatever it is that you think they value. Like, there are places beyond which that becomes counterproductive, clearly. But of course, well, I mean, I read the comments in YouTube particularly, and I pay attention to them.

And if, you know, 30 people say something like, here's something I do, and I probably did it to you. When I'm interviewing, I do. And I probably did it to you.

When I'm interviewing, I interrupt more than a certain percentage of my audience would like. That's my comments. It's like, just let them speak. You interrupt too much. So I just try to shut up more now. Do you know the joke? What's the joke? Knock, knock.

Who's there? The interrupting cow. The interrupting cow the cow sorry it's a stupid joke but it's a stupid joke anyhow so you know i read those and that's what people think and and then i i think okay i should probably try to interrupt less but i get excited and and then with zoom there's a lag and that makes it harder. But I do pay attention and you should pay attention, I think. When, you know, I hear a lot of people say, don't let the opinions of other people hold you back from taking action on your goals. Because I think a lot of people will listen to other people's opinions and they feel scared to do something based on someone saying, I told

you so, or you couldn't do this, or you're not good enough. How do we overcome that? Those opinions that keep us playing small, that hold us from putting our creation into the world or going after what we want? Well, generally someone else's comment is unlikely to bring you to a halt unless you value that comment so imagine you're going to pursue a goal but you're full of doubts and so 40 of you is doubts and 60% of you is pursuing the goal. And then five or six people object and they object using the doubts. Well, that's going to be really hard on you. So how do we overcome the self-doubt? Well, partly what that means is you probably haven't thought it through completely.

Like, what are you doing and why? And if you have a bunch of doubts and they haven't thought it through completely. Like, what are you doing? And why? And if you have a bunch of doubts, and they haven't been addressed, then you're vulnerable at that point. And it may be that your goal is not everything it could be. And it may be that your strategy isn't fully fleshed out. And so you have to have a conversation with your doubts and take them seriously and see if you can construct a goal that you're on board with. A doubt pops up because someone criticizes you. It triggers a doubt. And you look at the doubt and you think, okay, here's the doubt. And this is why what I'm doing, you know, maybe won't work.

But then you think, but this, I've thought this through and I've thought this through and I've thought this through. And that all works. And so, no, that isn't going to stop me. You know, so I look and I think, well, I'm writing something. Why? Well, I want to figure out this problem. I want to think about this problem. Why? Well, it's an engaging problem, but it's a problem that many people seem to have. So that discussing it and figuring it out seems to be useful. Why? Well, because the more of us who take problems seriously and try to address them and communicate about them, the fewer problems we might have and the less suffering there'll be.

And suffering doesn't seem to be a good thing, unnecessary suffering. Maybe we could work towards it and maybe that's what I should be doing. And that seems to be what's ethical and that's it. And you might say, well, what if you doubt that doing what's ethical is right? Well, it's not that easy to construct an argument that supports the idea that having more unnecessary suffering in the world is good. Mm-hmm. Right. So I would say, you know, you want to put yourself on firm moral foundations.

People talk about morality all the time. This is what you should do or you're a bad person. It's arbitrary. You know, it's got this ring of patriarchal tyranny. But that's based on a misapprehension of what morality is. It's like, do you want to be tortured by your conscience? How pleasant do you find it to be tortured by your conscience? It's horrible. How horrible? Is there anything worse? It's excruciating. horrible. How horrible? Like, is there anything worse?

It's excruciating. Yeah. I don't know if there's anything worse. I mean, if you've got to live with it, yeah, for as long as you have it. Yeah. Well, I think that's a universal experience or near universal experience. So you live ethically when you're not violating your conscience. Right.

Well, there isn't anything better than that. That might not be good enough. It might not even be good. Like, let's say you manage it. Things can still come along and take you out sideways. But the purpose of living ethically is so that you have some peace. Yeah. And it's peace. Yeah. And it's real.

Yeah. The ethical torment and the peace that emerges as a consequence. Sorry, I want to interrupt you. No, no problem. What is the biggest doubt you face at this stage of your life, and how are you working to overcome it? The biggest doubt I have is whether or not I'm going to be healthy enough to continue. By far, that's, it's, and it's a continual, it plagues me continually, continually, every second.

Really? I'm so ill. are you uh navigating that um well i i with great care yeah and and effort i mean i i wake up at eight uh even though i'm not, my sleep is not restorative at all. It's disrupted and I don't know why. So I sleep, but it's not restorative. I've had my sleep monitored, so I don't go into deep sleep. I get up at eight, period. I sauna for 45 minutes. I walk seven miles. I work out. I write.

I do my work. I stick to a very specific schedule. And I hope that that's, that I can manage that and that I'll improve across time. Yeah. So, but we'll see. Yeah. But it's touch and go all the time. Yeah. So, but we'll see. Yeah. But it's touch and go all the time.

Yeah. Is there anything you, any skills you wish you would have developed in your 20s that you didn't develop sooner? Maybe you have them now, maybe you don't. I've really thought about that.

I've really thought about that recently. What would those few skills be that you wish you would have developed and you wish everyone would develop? Well, when my health fell apart and I was in the hospital for multiple hospitals for long periods of time, you know, I stopped doing everything I was doing. And everything I was doing was difficult everything I was doing was difficult. My clinical practice was difficult. The professorial job was difficult. The company I was running was difficult. The writing was difficult. The podcasting and interviewing was difficult. The lecturing was difficult. It was all difficult. And I'm not complaining about the difficulty. I actually loved that. That was fine. I'm not complaining about the difficulty. I actually loved that. That was, that was fine. I'm not complaining about it at all, but because it was difficult, I have to be

in really good shape to do it. And so then I wasn't in really good shape. And so because I wasn't really good shape and everything I had done was difficult, I didn't know what to do. And I couldn't get back on top of things because it was like trying to jump into a car going 200 miles an hour. You know, it's like, well, what I did, what I started doing back in December really is when I started working again, although I had been writing to some degree over the last two years. I started doing podcasts like this and they're not easy yeah you have to be again i'm not complaining i love doing them they're really interesting but you have to be engaging and you have to be sharp and you have to not say anything stupid

you can't be too emotional and you can't be angry and um or that has to be very controlled and you have to not say anything stupid. You can't be too emotional and you can't be angry. Or that has to be very controlled and you have to pay attention and focus and you have to line people up and it's technically difficult. You have to advertise it. You have to get the social media right. You have to monitor the social media. You have to stay up on current events

and you have to see who you're going to talk to. And it's complicated. And I have people helping me and they're helpful and great but but there was no well I'm gonna go five there's no beginner have a YouTube channel that a million people watch right so and it's something you can really screw up publicly and catastrophically yeah so it was very daunting. Very. What I should have done

when I was in my 20s and 30s is that I should have cultivated some activities that were less demanding. Look, I went to a baseball game when I lived in Boston. It was the only baseball game I think I ever went to.

No, I've probably gone to two or three. But it was the first time I'd gone to a baseball game, a professional baseball game. I thought, Jesus, baseball. Who would go watch that so bloody slow? It's like nothing happens. It is slow. It's so slow.

It's nothing happens. And I have like 50 other things I should do. And I went there. And then I realized I was looking at all these people. And I thought, they're not even paying any attention to the baseball game. They're like talking to their friends and they're drinking beer and they're eating popcorn. And then I thought, yeah, that's the point, fool. That's the point.

They're going there for that. Like you get to talk to your friends now and then someone hits a baseball and you can look at that and that's kind of interesting and you can eat popcorn and it's like they're relaxing they're they're not you know climbing mount everest they're just relaxing right and you know one of the things i've learned this is a good thing to talk about it's really dangerous to be casually contemptuous what does that mean well i I've seen many professors who are contemptuous of business people. Right? Well, they don't have businesses, and they're angry that the business people can make all sorts of money.

And that's a whole skill set they don't have. And so maybe they'd have to feel inadequate about that if they thought about it. And then I've talked to lots of business people who regard professors as in the ivory as in the ivory tower and, you know, an easy job. It's like, yeah, well, you try lecturing and see how easy it is about a complex subject and publishing. It's not easy. It's really hard, just like your job. Casual contempt stops people from investigating things that might be good for them. You know, and, and well, when I realized that about the baseball game, I thought there's, there's no contempt, no contemptuousness here, like clue in, clue in, clue in. There's something here that,

that these people aren't just stupid and going out to a baseball game because they're stupid. You know, it's very easy for us to call people who are doing something that we're not doing stupid it's like don't be so sure about that you know and it would have been better for me if i would have had a wider variety of skills that weren't so high intensity i play ping pong with my son that works out good probably could have had another sport or two. I could have had some leisure activities that I got good at. Music might have been good. That weren't so demanding.

See, what I tried to do, if I saw something was difficult, I wanted to master it. I was driven to do that. Just to see how far I could go in these multiple directions. And that left me vulnerable to one thing. It left me vulnerable to being in a situation where I wasn't healthy enough to manage it. So you think if you would have had these other leisure hobbies,

things that you did for fun and play, you wouldn't be potentially potentially the situation or? Well, it would have been easier to get going again. That's for sure. It would have, I think, you know, I'm, you know, I'm trying to sort it out. But someone asked me the other day, you know, do you regret the pathway that you've taken? And that's a question that's worth considering. And the basic answer is, well, I don't know, I guess, in some sense, because if you become extremely ill, especially if it isn't clear why, you don't know what you might have done to contribute to it, because you don't know what it is. And people say, you know you went on this 160 city tour in a year maybe that was too much it's like it didn't seem

like too much i really enjoyed it actually right you had fun i heard it was great dave told me all about how amazing it was and every night a new city and it was great but it but it was also very intense. And I did expose myself to a lot of misery. You know, meeting people, so many people, so many thousands of people. I opened myself up to a tremendous amount of misery and longing and pain. And that was very emotionally impactful. But I can't say with certainty that what the consequence of that was. I mean, I'd worked as a clinical psychologist for decades, and I had to deal with people who were in trouble all the time. And that was actually an extraordinarily positive enterprise, because although I was

dealing with very serious issues, and people were in in trouble they were on a good path and getting better and we were collaborating in that so it was lovely enterprise i loved it i loved it in deep conversations meaningful conversations devoted to making things better it was great so it's tough to know i guess then yeah well i i don't know yeah it's i to know, I guess then. Yeah. Well, I don't know. Yeah. It's what I have observed, however, you know, so I've been opening up my day to work more and more. So now I work from three 30 to six fairly intensely every day. And I started one day a week and then it was two and then it was three. And then I could see, was i better when i was working or was i better when i wasn't working and the answer was clear i was better when i was working and it wasn't just clear to me it was clear to the people who were watching me right

and so it looks to me that that also indicates that it probably wasn't the work that hurt me. I think it's possible that just too many things happened at once. Yeah. That's possible. It certainly distracted me. Right. And so maybe I wasn't paying attention to the exactly the right thing. So, but, but I don't know. I can't't i don't know yet and maybe never will so that's that's one skill you wish you would have developed in your kind of your 20s what's maybe two other skills you wish you would have developed sooner that's pretty much that's that's as far as i've got with that line of thinking yeah um what do you think of the skills that people should start to develop in their 20s in general to make them better human beings, more potentially

open to success financially, relationship, health-wise? What are two or three things that everyone should focus on in their 20s? Well, it certainly doesn't hurt to be in good physical condition so we can walk through it. Stop drinking too much. How do you know if you're drinking too much? You regret what you do when you're drinking. It's interfering with other important goals.

It's causing you financial distress. It's getting you in trouble with your friends or your family. It's getting you in trouble with the police. Okay? So stop abusing substances if you can, right? If you see that they're hurting you. And alcohol is particularly pernicious in that regard. So physical health.

Are you in decent shape? Are you strong and coordinated? And if you're not, well, you'd be better if you were. You'd feel better. You'd be more effective. You'd live longer. You'd be less sick. And you really see that mount up.

If someone's been in shape once in their life, they age way better. And it's also a really good way of maintaining your cognitive ability. Like, you know, you hear about those exercises that you can do online to make you smarter and keep your cognitive ability intact. Those don't work.

There's no evidence that they work. People keep saying that they make you smarter or they maintain your cognitive function. Psychologists have studied that for 50 years, hoping that one of those things will work. Trying all sorts of creative tacks, they don't work. Exercise works. Cardiovascular and weightlifting.

You start to decline in your fluid intelligence at about the age of 25. And it's a linear trend downhill and it can accelerate as you get older. It's just like this, quite ugly. If you exercise, you stave that off. So that's really useful. Maintain your relationships and foster them. So when I look at successful people, and foster them. So when I look at successful people, they're really good at something.

They're reliable, right? You can count on their word. They're generous, and they have a wide, wide connection network, which becomes more and more valuable as you get older. So it's one advantage that older people really have over younger people. They have a connection network, and a connection network is huge. Well, you could be connected to a thousand well-connected people.

Okay. That means you are connected to the entire world, right? It's unbelievably valuable. And that's one of the things that's so absolutely remarkable about the situation that I'm in right now as far as one of the great benefits. The access. I can contact pretty much anybody and they'll talk to me. It's like, really? That's so cool. I'm interested in infrastructure for reasons I won't get into, but I'm interested in infrastructure development.

I think it's a good method of wealth transfer. It's a good solution to the problem of inequality and employment. I reached out to a leading expert on infrastructure last week to see if he'd talk to me. I thought, I don't know anything about infrastructure except that it's worn to a frazzle and we should do something about it. You know, he agreed to talk. Having a connection network is of inestimable value. Reliability, generosity, you can work on both of those. Philosophical sophistication, it's very useful because it orients you properly.

You have a sophisticated sense of the world. You find, for example, that doing things for other people is actually more rewarding than virtually anything else you can do. You know, when you hear you should be of service to other people. Well, if you actually watch yourself, you pay attention to yourself, and you do something that helps someone else, and it genuinely helps them, I defy you to find another experience that is that satisfying. experience that is that satisfying. It's actually quite stunning how satisfying that is. And so that's a very useful thing to realize. Why is helping another person the most satisfying thing for probably most people when they're, if they're, you know, out of their ego of like, I want to buy

more things to make me happy in this moment. Why is that such a satisfying thing for human beings? There's no better strategy for, there's no better life strategy. I mean, imagine, I could give you a quick sort of technical example. So imagine I take two people and I say, okay, I'm going to give you $100 and you have to give some of it to the person right beside you. And they can either agree or disagree with the split, but if they disagree, you don't get anything. Okay, so a classical economist would say that the person should take the $100, offer the person next to them a dollar, and the person should accept it because why not? They get a dollar instead of nothing.

And that's the solution. But what happens is that if you don't offer that other person something close to $50, $50, they're likely to tell you to go to hell. And then you get nothing. You get nothing too. You think, well, why would people do that? Because they just reject $50 and who cares? And the answer is, well, we don't just play one game with other people. We play a repeating game.

And so imagine we did this. So imagine it's a crowd and they're all watching you. And I offer you $100 and you have to share it with the person next to you. And you say, would you like to take $70? And the person says, well, I'm not sure that's fair to you, but if it's okay, yes. But then everyone else sees that. And now they all have an opportunity to pick who they're going to play with next. Well, you're not going to get picked last, are you?

Remember what you told me? You didn't want to get picked last i did not okay so what you did was you turned yourself into an athlete a machine that was always okay great so but imagine we expand that game yes and we say you want to be the person that everyone wants to play with yep well then all you have in your whole life is invitations to play. And how are you going to be that person? Be productive, straightforward, generous. Make everyone else better around you and they're going to want to play with you. Absolutely.

So there you go. And then you get to play. Yeah, exactly. Well, how is that not the best possible deal? Yeah. It's clearly see so so the reason if if the ethical argument is put properly it is by far the most compelling argument it's like if you want to have everything you could possibly want and more then be a good person

the better a person you are the more likely that is to happen. That doesn't mean that you're completely protected against getting cut off at the knees. But there's no better strategy. That's it. And you can even think about it selfishly. And I talk about this to some degree in Beyond Order. Let's say that you want to to be selfish you think that's

the best possible strategy why should i care about others okay let's say you should only act in your own best interest well then it's like well what's your best interest well what does interest mean and what does you mean? What's in your best interest? Your best interest. Three mysteries. What's your, what's best, what's interest? Okay. Well, there's you.

But you aren't just you right now. You're you and you tomorrow and you next week and you next month and you next week, and you next month, and you in five years, and you in ten years, and you when you're a pensioner. You're a community of selves stretched across time. And so if you were enlightened and selfish, you would act in a manner that would benefit that entire community across time. And I don't think that's any different than acting on the best possible part for other people. I think they're the same problem. So I think as soon as human beings discovered the future, we were no longer singular individuals.

We're instantly each a community. And then the community ethic prevails. And the community ethic is, I want to win in a way that makes you win. That's the best possible victory. If I win and no one else wins, then what's the point? Well, you think it's a zero-sum game. It's either you or me.

Or maybe I want the comparative status. But I would say even if you want the comparative status, let's a zero-sum game. It's either you or me. Or maybe I want the comparative status. But I would say even if you want the comparative status, let's say you're motivated by that, what would confer upon you, even hypothetically, more status than to be the most popular person while being chosen for games? I mean, you think about that. Just think for a second.

Because it struck me me that biographical piece alfred adler who is the psychologist that i talked to you about earlier he said one of his claims was that many people have a like a stark memory that sets the course for their life that's true a few A few moments, an instance. And you have exactly that. So Adlerian psychology would be of great interest to you, I suspect. Interesting. But partly, you see, what happened was you had a true revelation.

You thought, if I'm being picked last, something is wrong. And that's absolutely right. It's unbelievably right and you played it out first in the athletic domain but you have to start somewhere right so that's a good place to start yeah jockle was telling me when we talked this week he's this tough character man you know and he could have and i'm not telling tales out of school here he could have been a criminal no problem and he knows that perfectly well but he's got i'm not saying i'm not saying that as a slur on his character partly because i believe the nichian dictum that a lot of

morality is just cowardice whatever he might might be, he's not a coward. And just because you obey the laws doesn't mean you're moral. It just might mean you're afraid. In any case. So the question is, well, what socialized this brute? Well, he was taught in the Navy SEALs. Take care of your team. That's your fundamental purpose.

And he noted, and we had a long discussion about this, the successful guys, man, you know they've got your back. Wow. Right. You know that above all yeah and if and if if if you aspire to a leadership position among those brutes let's say and you aren't someone they know to have your back they're not following you're not going to make it yeah you're not going to make it and so that's this is why the discussions of power that are so prevalent in modern culture bother me so much. It's like, you think male hierarchies are predicated on power? You really think that? They are when they've gone rotten. But when they're not rotten, that's not what they're predicated on at all.

The capacity to exercise power, that's really important. You need that. It has to be part of you for you to be admirable. It's like you could be a badass son of a bitch. Yes, I see that. And that way I'm somewhat intimidated by you. And that's actually a testament to your moral virtue that you have that potential for power and harness it to this broader good, well, that's unstoppable. And a real functional hierarchy, that's what it is. Yeah. I've got about 14 minutes to be respectful of your time until you've let me know that that's our time we've got. So I want to ask a different question and get to the final few questions to be respectful of time. And before I ask this question around money and the psychology of money,

I want people to make sure they get this book, Beyond Order, 12 More Rules for Life, and make sure you pick up your other book as well, which is amazing, which is 12 Rules for Life, An Antidote to Chaos. But make sure you get a copy of this book or a few copies and get them for your friends because it'll be extremely life-changing when you start going through this. I haven't heard a lot of people talk to you about money. Maybe I've just missed it and maybe you've talked about it a bunch, but I haven't seen it. That's a good question.

Yeah, definitely. I don't want to make assumptions, but if I was making assumptions, college professors aren't typically multimillionaires. Am I fair to say that's semi-accurate, that if you're a professor, you're not making millions, you're not this financially abundant human. You have maybe a good salary, but you're not bringing in financial abundance at the next level. And I'm not going to try to assume where you're at financially.

Before, you became more famous in the YouTube and the media sensation and the books. But I'm assuming that you've accumulated a lot more money than what you had, let's say, five years ago. How have you learned to manage the mindset around the wealth that has come to you, the level of wealth that has come to you? How have you managed it? How do you deal with it now as it keeps coming in? I'm assuming more comes in with every book and success. And what were your thoughts about money before this level of money came to you? I'd never made any bones about being an evil capitalist. But I'll give you an example. So I built this, I told you about this software, the online program that helps people write out their past and their present and the goals for the future. We tested the future part of that to see if it worked

and it worked quite well. It was effective. And I sell it. Why don't I give it away? Well, because that's not the right price. Pricing decisions, money is very very complicated and pricing is very complicated pricing is value it's like well is the right price for something zero well probably not first of all because it doesn't take zero to make it right or sustain it

like there's an infrastructure customer infrastructure. There are people working on it constantly who could be making new things. If you can't sell it, what makes you think it's worth anything? If you can't sell it, what makes you think you've got your communication right? You can use price as an indication of whether what you're doing works. If no one will pay for it, maybe it's no good. Or maybe you're not talking about it properly. So I wanted to make things that would work, that would work in the marketplace. It was a challenge. There's the challenge aspect of it too. So I never had contempt for money.

And money for me was always, well, it challenge that's one thing and for many people who are motivated by money money actually serves as a challenge it's like can i can i make more of this it's it's a competition in some sense like a game um because you might think well they want all the It's like, yeah, sort of, no. You kind of, if you're sensible, you sort of max out on things pretty rapidly. Can I buy so much and use it so much? Well, yes. And I'm not hedonistic in a manner that money would aid in some sense. Of course. Partly because I'm not 16.

You know, I'm 60. So what am I going to do with it? And I've also learned, be careful what you buy because it's not clear who owns who when you buy something. Like I knew this very rich couple and they had like six houses. Well, the poor woman, the female member of the couple, all she did was worry about the houses. Like one house is bad enough because it's always falling apart.

Six big houses fall apart all the time. Oh, man. So, you know, and you think, well, poor her, she had six houses. It's like, yeah, yeah, I know, the problems of the rich, right? Don't we all wish we had those? Yeah, fair enough. But there's still a point to be made there. I put together a financial team. I also had to abandon my supervision of my financial affairs because I couldn't manage them. But fortunately, I had put together a team and people stepped in to manage

it and and that's gone as well as could possibly be expected under the circumstances yeah and so and that that is a source of security and I have accountants who do taxes and I hate doing my taxes. Everyone does, but maybe I hate it even more. It seems to bother me a lot. In any case, that's one thing that having this money has been useful for me is that I don't have to do my taxes now. I have experts who can do that, but I've farmed it out to people and hopefully not too carelessly. for someone that wants to attract more wealth, gain more wealth, make more money, what do you think needs to happen psychologically for them in order to create

that beyond the actions, the doing the solving the challenges? Oh, well, a big part of it is well well, discipline. Like hard work, what is it? You work 15% more hours, you make 40% more money. Interesting. I think that's the data Warren Farrell accumulated. It's part of the reason men make more money than women, because they work slightly longer hours, but it actually produces a disproportionate return.

People who make money aim at it, generally speaking. You know, I'm not talking about people who inherit wealth, but it's pretty easy to squander money, you know, even if you inherit it. I'm talking about earning it. If you don't have it, you want to make more, yeah. Yeah, well, conscientiousness, which is dutifulness, industriousness, orderliness, amount of time, effort put in, that makes a difference. It makes a difference.

I would say if you're trying to produce a product and introduce it into the marketplace, there are things you should definitely know. The product should work. It should be reliable. You have to put your customer service in place. If you despise sales and marketing, you're making a massive mistake. That's casual contempt. It's really hard to sell something. Hardly anybody is a good salesperson. It's an extremely demanding job and you can, you know, oh, he's a salesman. It's like, yeah, you try it.

Yeah. Oh, I wouldn't sell out well that's because no one ever offered you the opportunity to sell out if you have 10 opportunities to sell out and you reject all of them it's like great claim moral victory until someone until you're in that position you're just not of interest that's why you're not selling out you have to understand the marketplace you have to communicate with your customers. It's complicated and difficult. So don't despise the necessary components, right? All of these things are important. The product, the engineers, the people who work on it, the creative inspiration, that's the entrepreneurial end. Make the product,

on it, the creative inspiration, that's the entrepreneurial end, make the product that's extremely necessary. All the communication strategies, those are crucially important because if you have a product and nobody knows about it, then who the hell is going to buy it, no matter how good it is. So you despise the things that are necessary to your success at the expense of your success. So you got to reframe the way you think about those things. You know, you have to look at it. It's like sales. It's like, okay, well, you're not going to sell anything then.

Yeah. So that's the end of that problem. So, or maybe, you know, you have moral qualms about engaging in the capitalist enterprise. Well, you know, good luck carrying that along with you. You know, and if you, maybe the qualms are well, are merited. It's like, okay, put aside a percentage of what you make to do something, you know, what would you call it? Clearly not self-centered and generous with.

You can do that. I mean, the products that I'm selling, some of them are, what would you say? They have less ethical impact than others. I do do some merchandising. Why? The merchandising of me was taking place anyways.

You might as well do it yourself, yeah. Well, I got my son involved in it. I thought, well, you know, there's a market. People want this. We might as well put up a genuine place. I mean, lots of the merchandise that's being produced related to me. I leave it alone. I let people do that.

I don't bother them. I don't bother them. I don't chase them down. If they can make a living, you know, putting my quotes in acrylic blocks or making posters, it's like, that's fine as far as I'm concerned. But we have some things, posters and so on that, and people want them. So if they want them, I don't see that it does any harm. You know, you might think it's kind of cheap you know what you know you know what i mean it's like yeah it's it's like the disnification of philosophy but i am interested in community i'm interested in communicating with the public

this is sales and marketing you know most academic work languishes yeah that, that's true. Well, I don't have contempt for my readers, listeners, and viewers. I like them. I hope they do well. If they want a poster of the 12 rules and they find that useful, hey, okay.

If they find a lobster tie funny, good, it's fine with me. And there's a bit of you know there's a bit of humor to it and and i can use that and so can my message a little bit of levity would be wonderful yeah where where can people get uh see some of your your stuff what's the best site to go to oh if you just go to youtube channel there's a little bar underneath it. That's J BP merchandise. I mean, it's absurd, right?

There's also that element of absurdity, which I, I kind of, and a surreal element to it that I find kind of interesting and, and, and ridiculous and perplexing and, and hallucinogenic. It's very,

very strange. It's all fun. You know, it's all fun. You know, it's all fun. I want everyone to go buy a lobster tie and posters and the book. I want everyone to get Beyond Order. Get a few copies for your friends as well. I've got two final questions.

Before I ask the questions, Jordan, I want to acknowledge you for a moment because I know you went through a lot of, you're still going through a lot of pain and challenge and adversity since the first time I interviewed you a few years ago to now. And I also know that you went through a lot of pain and adversity with your kids, with your daughter specifically, and other challenges that have happened in your life. And I acknowledge you for continually showing up in a time of uncertainty, in a time of maybe a loss of hope at different moments, in a time of physical pain, in a time of lack of sleep continually and non-restorative sleep. The fact that you continue to show up and serve is truly to be acknowledged. And I'm so grateful that you take the time to come on my show and

share this knowledge because I know the impact it'll have in the service of the message and all the work that you're doing for your own content and everyone else's that you're being on. I'm really grateful that you've decided to continue to show up. Well well whatever i might be doing for other people they're certainly doing that for me so i'm grateful to have the privilege yeah the immense and staggering privilege of being attended to yeah it's amazing you know um it's so, so I don't, whatever I might be, uh, what would you say? Sacrificing for it.

I'm gaining equivalently. I've had so much support from people. It's just absolutely staggering. And so we appreciate you and you're making an impact on our lives and we hope you're balancing and taking care of your health as well. That's the most important. I asked you two questions in the last interview that I'd love to ask you again. I'm not sure if you're going to remember them,

but I want to see if you have the same or different response. The one question is hypothetical. It's called my three truths question. I would like you to imagine that many, many years away, you get to choose the last day on earth for yourself, but you eventually got to go and you accomplish everything you want to create into the world. You see your work come to life, the impact, the family, everything happens and it's magical, right? But for whatever reason, you got to take all your work with you. So you got to take Beyond Order, all your content, your videos, podcasts, it's all got

to go with you to the next place. But you get to leave behind three truths, the three lessons, the biggest lessons you've learned in your life that you'd want to share with the world. And this is all we would have of your content left behind. What would you say would be your three truths? I would say have the faith, strive to manifest the faith necessary to make things better rather than worse.

Better rather than worse. Pray that you have enough terror to be frightened out of your own deceit. and strive to be grateful regardless of, regardless. That would be... That's good enough. I think one of your rules is be grateful in the suffering, right? In spite of.

That's the last rule. And the one that I've wrestled with most, I would say, over the last, especially the last two years. Yeah. That's probably got to be the hardest to find the gratitude. Yeah. Well, you know, people have their reasons. I outlined them in chapter 11. Why are you bitter?

Well, here are the reasons. Oh, well, those are real reasons. Yeah. No wonder. You know, you listen to someone tell you about their life. It's so typical, so frequent. Catastrophic occurrences, you know, and yet people stumble forward positively. And it's a miracle and a lot of that is it's see that chapter be grateful in spite of your suffering it's really a chapter about in some sense about faith and courage and it's it's an act of faith and courage to be grateful because there's reasons not to be and so it's like it's a decision. It's not like you make the decision and then you've got it, you've done it right, and then you have it.

It's a constant ongoing decision. And the temptation to not, to be ungrateful, to be bitter, it's always there and compelling, rationally compelling. It's easy. Emotionally compelling. Yeah. But it makes everything worse. Oh, it's so true.

It's so true. It's like eating candy. You know, it tastes good for a moment and then you feel sick for hours. So you said you had three questions? No, this is my final question right now. Okay. So my final question right now. Okay.

So my final question is, what's your definition of greatness? The capacity to utter and abide by beautiful truths. Jordan Pearson, thank you so much. Make sure you guys get the book, Beyond Order. Subscribe to Jordan's podcast, YouTube, everywhere else online. And Jordan, it's been a pleasure, my friend. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you very much for being here thank you very much for the invitation and thank you to everyone who's watching and listening much appreciated

my friend thank you so much for being here I hope you enjoyed this episode again if you haven't listened to part one yet go back and listen to that right now lewishouse.com slash 1093 if you want to go to their show notes for part one or just go on apple podcast or spotify or wherever you're listening back one episode so you can hear the full conversation and again if you enjoyed this please subscribe to the school of greatness over on apple podcast and leave us a rating and review let us know the part you enjoyed the most from this interview with jordan and share this with a friend you can copy and paste the link wherever you're listening to this podcast

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messages sent to your phone, sent to your text every single week from me, then text the word podcast to 614-350-3960 to get on my special texting community list where we send updates and surprises as well as inspiration every single week. Again, text the word podcast to 614-350-3960. Now I'll leave you with this quote from my friend Nick Vujicic who says, life isn't about having, it's about being. And when you look for happiness in mere objects, they are never enough. Look around, look within. I hope you enjoyed this episode

and I want to remind you if no one's told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. I'm so grateful for your time today and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.