Jordan Peterson: "Become The Person You’ve Always Wanted To Be"

[00:00:00]But, you know, so that's one thing that interests people, how to do something successfully. But, a lot of what people talk about is something different, which is I was trying to get from point A to B and it didn't work and now I'm at a place where it didn't work. And so, it's a problem, right? It's like the world's opened up around me, I don't know what to do.

[00:00:17]And the reason you talk to people about that is because they have brains, and so do you, and you might as well have two brains working on the problem if you can. And if you're reciprocal, you know, you're in trouble, you come to me and we talk it out. Maybe I can help.

[00:00:30]And then, because we're playing a iterative game, now you owe me a favor.

[00:00:39]Now, you know, I'm not going to be too restrictive about that, but you know, socially intelligent people are reciprocal. And Ben Franklin once said, "You're new in a neighborhood, what what what should you do to get integrated?"

[00:00:52]He said, "Ask a neighbor for a favor."

[00:00:54]A small favor. It's like like don't "Will you build me a new house?" It's like no, that's not going to work. But, you know, um "Would you watch my Here's my my dog's on the lawn, would you watch him for 2 minutes while I run down to the corner store?" It's like, okay, they can do that. Well, why would you do that? Well, it opens up the possibility of reciprocal exchange. It's very very smart, cuz now they can ask you for a favor. So, you got the you get the trade thing going. And people who are highly social are really good at mean identifying and maintaining reciprocal obligations. So, we use each other as problem-solving resources. And a lot of our communication is exactly that. And so, basically the story you're telling isn't I was at point A and I would went to point B and everything worked. The story is this instead.

[00:01:41]It's half of this.

[00:01:45]>> [clears throat] >> Okay.

[00:01:46]I was at point A, that's the top left-hand corner. I was at point A and I was going to point B, but something didn't work.

[00:01:53]And then things collapsed, you know, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the severity of the event. You're you know, and and the closeness of your friendship so you're telling the story.

[00:02:03]You're not going to tell catastrophic stories to someone on a bus that you just sat down beside unless you have a mental illness. And sometimes it Well, really, it's the truth. Sometimes you'll sit down on a bus and someone who has a mental illness will come and sit beside you and they will immediately tell you horrible things about their life. And the reason for that is they they have to.

[00:02:22]They don't have anyone to talk to. They can't sort out their brains. They're so desperate. They're so ruined. They're in chaos. They're so ruined that they're that the the proclivity to proclaim the chaos absolutely overwhelms them. And you're you know, you just can't deal with someone like that most of the time because the magnitude of the problem they're facing you with is way beyond your capacity to solve. So, it's just awkward. It's not good. Anyways, you say I was going from point A to point B, didn't work. Now, I don't know where I am. I don't know where I'm going and I'm lost.

[00:02:57]And you say, well, in my experience when I was in a situation like this, I did this and I know someone else who in that you know, situation did this and maybe you could try those. Or maybe you just shut up.

[00:03:07]And you let the person talk. And that's often extremely useful. And the reason you do that is because they're thinking.

[00:03:14]Because people think they think, but they don't.

[00:03:16]They talk.

[00:03:18]Thinking is hard.

[00:03:20]Right? It's a very complex abstract cognitive operation.

[00:03:24]And I don't think that there are many more people who can think than there are people who can really read. And that's probably two two to five percent of the population at most. And so, most of the way that people deal with that is that they talk.

[00:03:37]And that's their thinking. And so, they have some ideas about what might be going on, but they're mixed and and muddy. So, they're basically throwing out these ideas.

[00:03:46]You know, did this happen? Is he like this? Is she like that? Is like did I do this? It's like and then they watch you and you know, if you if you're nodding about one, they think, oh well, you know, that seems plausible, and they lay out another, and you go, you don't even notice, and they think, no, that's off the table. I didn't think that was a very good idea, but now I've got some social um what do you call it? Validation. And soon, they talk it out, and instead of having 60 vaguely defined problems, now they have like five fairly tightly defined problems. They're feeling a lot better about that, right? Cuz it's five snakes instead of 60, and maybe they can deal with five snakes. So, you've already helped them a whole bunch just by listening. You know, and then maybe you can be an active listener, and they lay out their story, and you say, well, you said something here that doesn't make any sense with this thing that you said, so, you know, how would you reconcile those? And, you know, it's this dialectical process, and so, the person collapses into chaos, and they come and tell you about it, and then you rescue them, if you can, out of the chaos, and then they pop back up the other side. So, let's say um you're having an argument with your partner, and you say, you're a stupid person, and you've always been a stupid person, and as far as I can tell, as far into the future as I can see, you're going to remain a stupid person.

[00:05:01]So, what are they supposed to do? What are they going to do when you say that?

[00:05:05]They're going to cry, like if you mean it, they're going to get angry, if you mean it, and they're not like you very much.

[00:05:14]And why is that? Well, it's like you it's it's assault, basically. The only way really, the only thing that you can do in a situation like that is walk away, ignore it, respond in kind, or it degenerates into violence. That's it.

[00:05:29]CUZ THERE'S NO DISCUSSION. YOU HAVEN'T LEFT the person anywhere to go. You've gone right to the top of their hierarchy, and said, everything about you is wrong, and worse than that, all the mechanisms that we could use to correct it won't work.

[00:05:42]So, those are fighting words. So, don't do that, unless you want to have a fight. So, then you might say, "Well, what would you do instead?" And the answer is deliver the least amount of information you possibly can.

[00:05:53]And so, let's say you come home and your person is watching TV and you're kind of hoping they'd greet you at the door.

[00:06:00]You can't You shouldn't break down into tears and say, "You're a stupid person.

[00:06:04]You've always been a stupid person and you're going to be a stupid person in the future." You should say, "I have this peculiarity and that is that when I come home, I don't have enough confidence to just be happy. I would like you to come and say, 'Just shut the TV off for 2 minutes, come to the front door and say, "Hello."" And then you can go back and watch your TV.

[00:06:25]Would it be okay if you did that?" And they'll think, "Well, you'll have to pay for it somehow." But then they'll they'll probably do it.

[00:06:34]And so, but the thing is is you got to specify the routine that you want transformed at the highest possible level of resolution and you want to you want to recommend the minimal necessary change that will satisfy you. And so, you can't say, "If you loved me, you'd know how to greet me at the door." Ha, not helpful cuz they're stupid.

[00:06:56]RIGHT? [clears throat and laughter] AND SO ARE YOU. SO, you have to spell it out. It's like, "What do you want?"

[00:07:01]Exactly, what would make you satisfied?

[00:07:04]And then you have to have your person like grudgingly practice that a few times and you have to let them do it very badly and also in a bad temper and then you have to reward them for it and then maybe 3 months later they'll do it properly. So, you need need to know that because that's what people are like.

[00:07:22]It's very hard for them to learn new things and they're very resistant to it, but they're very responsive to reward.

[00:07:28]So, another thing, this is partly what B.F. Skinner figured out. So, when he was training rats and he wanted the rat to do something, one of the things he would do is he put Maybe he was going to train the rat to climb a a little ladder. And I mean, he could get rats to climb ladders and then climb across like the little monkey bars and then spin around three times and then, you know, whack a ball and then eat something. Like he got incredibly complex behavior out of rats. And the way he did that was patience. So, he put the ladder in the cage and the rat would just run around doing rat things and then it would put its hand on the on the first rung and Skinner would give it a pellet. And so, he did, you know, after even once, the rat's going to be like standing in the immediate vicinity of the ladder and then it the frequency with which it's going to go like this is just increased. So, then it does it again, bang, pellet. Well, soon the rat is just going like this, right? So, then you wait until the rat tries the other hand. So, you give it a pellet then.

[00:08:27]Well, then it's going like this. And then, because it's going to get bored, it'll go like this. It'll hit the next stair. Bang, you give it a pellet. Soon the rat's climbing and doing all the little things you want it to do. Now, the problem with that is you have to be patient. You have to wait till the rat does what you want. Okay, that's more relationship advice. Wait till the rat does what you want and then reward it.

[00:08:48]And it's unbelievably useful. And like it's also extraordinarily positive. I mean, I'm being, you know, karmical in in so far as I can manage that about the situation. But people love reward and they love attention. People love attention more than anything else. And so, if you're what will you watch through the day and when your partner does something that's good, say, "Bam, that was good." Or something like that.

[00:09:15]You can be inventive. And then they'll do it more. And if YOU DO THAT A WHOLE BUNCH, LIKE FOR A YEAR, they'll be doing things that are good for you just all the time. But you have to be patient, which is very annoying, and you have to suppress your response to only respond to negative things.

[00:09:33]You know, because what we know about the expectancy models is that a deviation from expectation produces a burst of negative emotions. You know, so you come home and the whole house is clean, but there's like, I don't know, the dog has shed on the rug or something and the person overlooked that. It's like you're not going to see the clean house, you're going to see the rug with the dog fur on it. You're going to say, "Why didn't you clean up the rug with the dog fur?" And they're going to say, "Good luck getting me to clean up the house again."

[00:10:04]And you you know, because the thing is is the exception stands out.

[00:10:08]And what's done doesn't. And the reason for that is you can just ignore what's done because it's done. It doesn't get in your way. So it gets invisible really quickly. So you really got to watch that tendency.

[00:10:19]One of the things Nietzsche said was that if you really want to punish someone, you don't punish them when they do something wrong cuz they expect that. That's not a punishment. They expect that. They might even be relieved by it.

[00:10:32]You want to punish them when they do something right cuz then you'll really hurt them. And so that's something to think about in your if you're in a relationship, man. If someone's done something right, do not punish them. You do that two or three times and that's it, man. You're not going to get them do to do that anymore. So judiciousness. Watch what they're doing.

[00:10:53]If something happens that good that's good, notice it. And you know, if they've done a bunch of things, don't concentrate on the things they did wrong. That's not smart. It It's really hard on them, too. Like this in some sense this sounds manipulative and selfish, you know, because I'm teaching you how to train your partner. BUT >> [laughter] >> BUT YOU SHOULD ALSO TEACH THEM how to train you because it would be really nice if you could come home and the person would say, "Well, what did you do today?" And you say, "You know, here's a bunch of things I did." And they said you they say, "Well, this looks really good and that was great. And why don't you do some more of that?" And you're like, "Oh boy, it was a great [laughter] day." And so you know, you can train them to train you properly, and that's a really helpful thing, especially if you do it over a few years. You know, you can that's how you have a good relationship cuz you're both clueless as hell to begin with. You don't know even what would make you happy, much less what would make the other person happy. And so, you got to figure these things out bit by bit, and then you have to inform each other, and then you have to be patient enough to let your partner do these things really badly. I'll give you another example. Sometimes sometimes I I see couples sporadically in my in my clinical practice. I'm not a couples counselor. And so, but sometimes when I'm working with someone, there's an issue that needs to be discussed with with both people cuz otherwise it's just stupid. And one of the things I often recommend to people especially once they have kids, is that they set aside to use an anachronistic phrase date date nights. Well, everyone hates that idea. It's like they say, "Well, you know, they'll just say that's I'm not doing that." That would be one objection.

[00:12:36]"We're just not doing that. You know, [snorts] that's what we did before we got married.

[00:12:41]Um They'll say, "Well, my partner would never go for that." Um they've got a bunch of excuses why that isn't going to work.

[00:12:49]And so, I've heard all those excuses. I know all of them. And then maybe I convince them, "Yeah, yeah, sure. I know this is stupid. It's awkward. It's it's it's uh artificial."

[00:13:00]"That's okay. Just try it once." So, then they go and try it, and then they come back and they say, "We had an absolutely miserable time. Really, we had a miserable time. We couldn't agree on what movie to go to, and then, you know, she took me to her movie, and I really didn't like it, so we fought all the way home. We're never doing that again."

[00:13:16]And I say, "Well, really? You've got 30 years, 400 days, that's 12,000 days.

[00:13:22]Okay, so, you're not going to do that.

[00:13:24]You're going to spend the next 12,000 days without having any real romantic evenings and interactions with your spouse. That's your plan.

[00:13:33]And [laughter] I like doing I like doing arithmetic with my clients. They hate that.

[00:13:38]They hate arithmetic. It's like, "Well, no, that sounds like a bad idea." I said, "Okay, well, would you like some romance in your life, or are you just done WITH THAT?"

[00:13:47]WELL, REALLY? LIKE, you know, people can go for a long time with no romance at all. Say, "Well, no, maybe we'd like some of that." Well, how much? Once a year. Well, no. Once a month. Well, no.

[00:14:01]Once every 2 weeks. Well, sometimes people are really busy. It's like, "Okay, that beats the hell out of zero."

[00:14:08]Once a week, twice a week. Okay, whatever. We're going to We're going to start with a range, okay? What would a good evening look like? Like, if you could both get exactly what you wanted, what would it look like? Well, then they have to think about that, because the the previous theory was, "My stupid partner should know what I like, and that's what their the partner is thinking, too." It's like, good luck with that, because no, they don't have a clue, especially if they're men, they don't have a clue. So, you have to tell them what you want and how they could deliver it, and vice versa, which is very awkward and horrible, and then you have to practice it for 6 months.

[00:14:42]Cuz, you know, it takes a lot of practice to do something sophisticated really well. And then if you do that, it's like, poof, you got it for the rest of your life. There's lots known about what predicts success in different domains across the lifespan, let's say.

[00:14:56]The first question is, what are the If you're trying to analyze something like business success, um or productive success, what what are the proper domains of category? And so, if you're trying to categorize jobs, for example, which turns out to be quite difficult, the simplest conceptual scheme that's practical, that gets you somewhere, is like a 2 by 2 matrix.

[00:15:20]There's simple jobs and complex jobs.

[00:15:22]That's the first thing that's worth knowing and it's a continuum really. But a simple job is one where once you're trained, you just repeat what you're doing. So So factory line work would be would would be an example of that or or checking out people at a grocery store or restocking grocery shelves or or or jobs like that.

[00:15:43]The best predictors for success in those jobs is conscientiousness, trait conscientiousness. And conscientious people are orderly and industrious. And we don't exactly know why they are. It seems like it's associated, oddly enough, with such things as disgust sensitivity. So maybe people are conscientious because they get disgusted with themselves if they're not useful and guilty. You know, they get guilty if they're not engaging in productive enterprise. And maybe that's a marker for for a kind of complex social responsibility.

[00:16:13]>> Yeah.

[00:16:13]>> You know, but um >> Which sounds like the complete opposite of most entrepreneurs I know.

[00:16:18]>> Well, the That's That's the thing. The entrepreneurs are different. So So for simple jobs IQ, intelligence, predicts how fast you learn the job but not how well you do it once you learn it. And what predicts there is conscientiousness. So you basically, if you're hiring people, you want conscientious people who are That's the most important thing. And then the second most important thing is you want people who are relatively low in trait neuroticism, which is a negative emotion dimension, because they're less likely to be absentee.

[00:16:48]>> Right.

[00:16:48]>> And so forth. So in complex jobs, complex job is one where the demands change on a regular basis.

[00:16:56]And so most managerial and administrative positions are complex jobs because you can't learn the job once and for all. And then the best predictor for complex jobs, the first predictor is IQ. And the second predictor is conscientiousness. And IQ is about three times more powerful than than conscientiousness as a predictor.

[00:17:14]>> Mhm.

[00:17:15]>> And then So that's the first, simple versus complex. And then the second would be the second category scheme would be something like managerial/administrative versus entrepreneurial.

[00:17:26]And the entrepreneurial types actually, they're over with the artists.

[00:17:29]So the best predictor for entrepreneurial success, first is IQ, but second is trait openness, which is the creativity dimension.

[00:17:38]So entrepreneurial types tend to be very high in trait openness. And so that sets them with the artists and also with the political liberals because the best predictor of political liberalism is trait openness.

[00:17:51]>> Right.

[00:17:51]>> So the managers and administrative types, they tend to be conservative. And the entrepreneurial and creative types tend to be liberal.

[00:17:58]And so if you're an entrepreneur, you're going to be a lateral thinker.

[00:18:03]And so you'll be the sort of person if they hear an idea, if you hear an idea, that will trigger off a whole bunch of other ideas. And you'll be motivated primarily by interest in pursuing your ideas.

[00:18:15]But your your downfall is likely to be organizational administrative ability.

[00:18:21]So it's often useful for entrepreneurial types to pair themselves with managerial and administrative types.

[00:18:27]>> Yeah. You are descri- it's like you are describing my soul.

[00:18:30]>> Mhm.

[00:18:31]>> Yeah.

[00:18:31]>> Yeah, well there's there's a tension there there's this weird tension between doing one thing right, which is what you need to do if you're if you've already decided what it is that you're doing, and scanning the landscape for something new to do that would be worthwhile. Those aren't the same enterprises. And so most companies are an uneasy marriage of entrepreneurial and managerial types. As the company gets more and more established, the managerial and administrative types tend to dominate.

[00:19:01]But then that becomes problematic because it means it's more and more difficult for the company to shift laterally when it has to, which is again, I think why so many companies eventually fail.

[00:19:13]>> Cuz they they lose the creative head. Is that what you mean?

[00:19:16]>> Sure, they lose the flexibility. And it's it's funny because they're trying to maximize their ability to implement, but it's very difficult to do that without also simultaneously bearing the cost of narrowing.

[00:19:31]Right? So, the thing is is if if you know what you're doing, you want to hire a conservative.

[00:19:38]If you don't know what you're doing, you want to hire a liberal.

[00:19:40]>> Right.

[00:19:41]>> Right? So, that's that's a way of thinking about it temperamentally. It's also a way of parsing out the political landscape to understand, at least in part, why you need conservatives and liberals.

[00:19:51]>> Yeah.

[00:19:52]>> So.

[00:19:52]>> Well, I mean, I find a business is like a family. And in the past in my company, I've had all under 25-year-old male entrepreneurs. Why did we hire them?

[00:20:02]Because that's what we were like. And people I've found entrepreneurs tend to hire versions of themselves at first.

[00:20:08]And instead of being more self-aware to go, "Actually, I'm chaotic, disruptive.

[00:20:13]What I need is order and um like you said, good administrative skills, conscientiousness." So, you go through that chaos of hiring people too much like you and and having like too much of male energy or too much creative energy. Then you maybe react and hire a lot of administration and conscientiousness.

[00:20:33]And then you maybe lose the soul in your company. And then the creative's trying to drag the the company forward. Feels like he's being getting held back by everybody.

[00:20:40]>> Well, it is. It is. But, the funny >> He's He's needed to hold him back, but they've got to let him go as well or her, haven't they? Otherwise >> Well, that's the that's that's the that's the problem. The fundamental problem is most new ideas are stupid, dangerous, and counterproductive.

[00:20:55]>> And they're the ones that change the world.

[00:20:56]>> [laughter] >> Well, well, well, they are sometimes.

[00:20:58]They are sometimes. But, there's a subset of new ideas that even though new ideas are dangerous and disruptive and often counterproductive and generally don't result in a productive company.

[00:21:09]Some of them are absolutely necessary, and they're the thing you need to do next. And so and and that's a very difficult problem to solve because it's the same it's the it's it's the fundamental problem of innovation. It's like most innovations aren't justified or warranted.

[00:21:26]But some of them are absolutely crucial.

[00:21:28]So how do you distinguish between them?

[00:21:30]And the answer is, well, we we don't know. Uh the part of the way that you do that in a dynamic economy is you let and encourage a whole host of entrepreneurs to produce their ideas, and you let almost all of them fail, which is kind of painful for the entrepreneurs.

[00:21:48]>> Mhm. But but limited company and all those kind of structures are set up to make that more safe, aren't >> Right. Right. Yeah, well, those are those are this is something that's massively underappreciated, I would say, on the liberal left end of the political spectrum is people just don't understand how absolutely revolutionary the idea of a limited company is because what a limited company allows is a limited company allows your idea to die instead of you.

[00:22:15]>> Yeah. Yeah. And that's a big deal because otherwise no one would take the risk would they of creating anything.

[00:22:19]>> Well, they they they That's right. No No one could bear the risk because if you failed, you it would wipe you out permanently. It's like, well, who the hell's going to take that risk? And so the fact that the limited liability is one of the the unbelievable tech can't believe that we ever invented >> that we all just forget about, isn't it?

[00:22:38]Yeah.

[00:22:38]>> It's it's and it's such a merciful innovation. It's like, you mean I I get to fail and no one's going to kill me?

[00:22:44]>> [laughter] >> It's it's it's No one's going to throw me in debtors' prison? It's not going to hang [clears throat] around my neck for the rest of my life? I can actually take a risk? So because the other thing you see often with entrepreneurs is that they fail a lot before they succeed. And so I mean, you have to be pretty damn spectacularly lucky to have your first idea when you don't know what the hell you're doing be a spectacular success.

[00:23:10]>> Or maybe it's a good idea, but you weren't ready and you're more ready >> Or or the marketplace isn't ready or I mean, that's the other thing that people don't really understand is cuz if you're a naive entrepreneur, you think well, all I have to do is make a great product. It's like, no, that's about 5% of it.

[00:23:26]You know, and and that shocked the hell out of me when I started building software, for example, because we assumed that we we we developed software to help people select better employees and we never could sell it except in in very rare circumstances, but we assumed that if we had a product that was validated, we could show that it had the effects that we wanted and that it was more efficient than other products in the marketplace that selling it would be easy. It's like, well, that's just so wrong.

[00:23:54]Selling and marketing things is impossible.

[00:23:56]>> it when people say, "Oh, the product just sells itself." It's just one of those things which are like, "You've not been in business a very long time."

[00:24:03]Yeah, because you've got market forces, you've got your skill set. You could have a great product. You're just not ready to sell it cuz you haven't got enough experience.

[00:24:11]>> Well, and you don't know how to price it.

[00:24:12]>> Yeah.

[00:24:13]>> And you don't know who to talk to to sell it. You know, you can spend your whole life, especially if you're selling to companies, which is virtually impossible, talking to the wrong people and it feels like work and it really is work, but you never end up contacting a real decision-maker and then you can't tolerate the excessive delay. Like you think, "Well, I'm going to go sell this product to a big company because because they can obviously provide me with a massive contract." It's like, yeah, but there's a relationship between the size of the company and the delay in implementation and the delay can be years. And then, what This is what This happened to us all the time. It was very painful. Um we'd get right to the point of signing with a large company and there'd be an internal management transformation and the person that we were dealing with would disappear. It's like, oh no. It's like, now what? We actually had that happen with a really big company in New York. We were right on the verge of signing a contract for use of this self-authoring program that we designed, which helps people plan their lives. And the the week that we were ready to sign the contract, the CEO resigned.

[00:25:19]Gone. Two was probably a year of sales and marketing work just evaporate, you know? And and >> And you don't get paid for any of that.

[00:25:28]You get no You get no reward for getting 364 days down the 365 days.

[00:25:33]>> certainly don't. Well, and it's also really easy for um one of the things that tech incubators do really badly, I think, is they do lots of things really badly, generally speaking, but one of the things they do that's very counterproductive with the people that they train is they they emphasize the development of the company, but they don't force their entrepreneurs to find customers, because your first customer is the most difficult thing you'll ever do as a business person, in in my experience, to find someone who will actually pay you that first time. That isn't your mom.

[00:26:08]That's right. Well, that's right. That isn't a family member. That's an actual customer. And >> [snorts] >> the the other problem that people face when they're trying to sell a new product is one of the reason one of the ways that people decide whether they're going to buy something is whether or not A, they know anyone else who's already bought it, or B, if there's other people in their domain that are already using it.

[00:26:32]And if if your sales pitch is, well, no, this is new and revolutionary, you think, well, that's a wonderful sales pitch.

[00:26:39]It's like it is if you're talking to someone who's entrepreneurial and risk-taking and inter- and interested in revolutionary ideas, but if you're talking to a middle manager in a company, the last thing that person wants to hear is "Well, you could be a risk-taker and introduce this into your company." The person's thinking "I don't want to put my job or reputation on the line for your product, even if it is revolutionary." In part, because if it succeeds, I probably won't be rewarded for its success. So, when we were selling our our employee selection software, for example, we we ran into we were academics or and so, you know, there was lots of things we didn't know about business.

[00:27:21]And one of the things we ran into, which was so funny, we talked to the people who were doing the hiring, and they had a certain budget, which was usually lower than because they had virtually no budget for hiring, weirdly enough. Um so, what we were charging for the product, which was still extremely modest, exceeded their budget. We said, "Well, look, you're going to make a 250-fold return on this. That's that's the pessimistically, it's 50. Realistically, it's 250, and the upper end was more like 500. So, it's a no-brainer to implement this." It's like, "Well, we're budgeted on the cost side." "What do you mean?" "Well, if we if we hire more productive employees, we won't be rewarded for that. We'll just be punished for spending more money." I said, "Well, I thought Well, we can't even talk to you because I'm trying to sell you something that will benefit your company, but for you as the decision-maker, there's nothing but risk in in implementing the new process." So, that just blew me away.

[00:28:16]It's like, "Oh, I see.

[00:28:19]The hiring budget and the productivity budget aren't associated." So, that's like a fatal impediment to to our sales process. So, that was Well, we learned lots of things about about and I came out of the whole enterprise with way more respect for people, especially for people who do sales. Jesus, that's such a brutal job. I thought it deeply about death and the death of my family members and about funerals, and I thought about it partly because I had this weird experience once that I think I told you about where I took one of my clients to see an embalming, which was a very strange experience. And I had a chance to talk to the funeral directors, you know, cuz they have weird jobs, you know.

[00:28:56]There's this idea well, the Freudian idea that people suffer from this terrible death anxiety.

[00:29:01]And there's a whole line of social psychological theory theorizing called terror management theory that's predicated on the idea that we defend ourselves against death anxiety with our belief systems. And like it's a It's Ernest Becker's idea. He wrote The Denial of Death, which is a great book.

[00:29:16]But there's a weakness in it because you see some people who aren't like that, you know, like emergency room nurses aren't like that. And palliative care nurses aren't like that. My my sister-in-law is a palliative care nurse. That's a hard job, right? Because you go in there, you're caring for people. You have And they're in pain. They're on their last legs. You try to make them comfortable. And you have a relationship with them because how the hell are you going to make them comfortable if you don't? And then they go and die on you. And that just happens. That's what happens every day, right? And what's weird is that people can be palliative care nurses. It's like, how do you figure that out?

[00:29:47]Because people can actually thrive in the face of death, strangely enough. And like these funeral parlor directors, they were interesting to talk to because that's all they do, right? They just deal with They deal with death and grief all the time. And it was very interesting talking to them because I talked to two of them. They found their job extremely meaningful. And I asked them, well, you know, does that What does that do to your life? You know, you're saturated with death and suffering. And they're And this is the same answer that I got from the palliative care nurses, that it doesn't undermine your life. It enriches it.

[00:30:21]Now, who would guess that, right? I mean, what the hell? That just doesn't make any sense at all. But what it does is speak to human possibility because God only knows how tough you are.

[00:30:31]You know, I mean, if you read history and you read about what people have done, you think, "Wow, we're pretty tough."

[00:30:36]People are I read uh There is a shipwreck in the Antarctica 100 years ago or so and I read the the story.

[00:30:49]It was not a biography if I remember correctly of the of the captain. I might be wrong about that, but I've got the basic story right. Well, they had a shipwreck in the Antarctica.

[00:30:58]It was and then they were there for a whole year in the Antarctica, you know?

[00:31:03]And none of them died, not one. He didn't lose a single man, not one. He kept the morale high. And then they took this boat that was on the ship and they crossed like 400 mi of the roughest ocean, the roughest frigid ocean in the world. Right? You don't go in that ocean. And then they went to an island and they walked across the island, across these mountains that no one else has ever climbed since.

[00:31:26]And they went to the city on the other side of the island and they got a boat and they went and rescued their compatriots and everyone survived. It's like Endurance is the name of the book.

[00:31:35]You read that book, man, you think, "Wow, people are really tough." You know, and if it's it's ridiculous. So, who knows how tough you are? And maybe you find out by going out to find out how tough you are, right? So, you take on a challenge.

[00:31:50]One that you think you can master. Just it's just a bit beyond your grasp. And you master it and then you're a little tougher and you think, "Hey, that worked out pretty well." And so then you're more of a monster.

[00:32:00]And then you go out and you find another challenge that's even bigger and you think, "Well, maybe I can do that, too."

[00:32:04]And then all of a sudden you can and you get a little bit bigger and God only knows what the limit is of you.

[00:32:11]And you find out by pushing yourself against the world and of course that's what Abraham is doing. Your brain can tell you when you're optimally situated between chaos and order. And the way it tells you that is by producing the sense of engagement and meaning.

[00:32:28]So, let's say there's a place in the environment you should be.

[00:32:32]Okay, what should that place be? Well, you don't want to be terrified out of your skull, like what good is that? And you know, you don't want to be so comfortable that you might as well sleep. You want to be somewhere where you know, you're kind of on firm ground here, but over here you're kind of testing out new territory. And some of you who are exploratory and emotionally stable, you know, you're going to go pretty far out into the unexplored territory without destabilizing yourself. And other people are going to just put a toe in the chaos.

[00:33:05]And you know, that's neuroticism, basically. That's the your sensitivity to threat that's calibrated differently in different people. And more Some people are more exploratory than others.

[00:33:15]That's kind of extraversion and openness working together. And and intelligence.

[00:33:19]So, some people are going to tolerate a larger admixture of chaos in their order. Those are liberals, by the way.

[00:33:27]And and I mean that technically.

[00:33:29]Liberals are more interested in novel chaos, and conservatives are more interested in the stabilization of the structures that already exist. And who's right? Well, depends on the situation. And that's why conservatives and liberals have to talk to each other, because one of them isn't right and the other wrong.

[00:33:51]Sometimes the conservatives are right and sometimes the liberals are right, because the environment's going like this. You can't predict the damn thing.

[00:33:58]So, that's why you have to communicate.

[00:34:01]And that's what a democracy does. It allows people of different temperamental types to communicate and to calibrate their damn societies.

[00:34:09]So, anyways, so let's say you're optimally balanced between chaos and order. So, what does that mean? Well, you're stable enough, but you're interested, right? Because a little novelty heightens your anxiety.

[00:34:23]That wakes you up a bit. That's the adventure part of it. But it also focuses the part of your brain that does exploratory activity. And that's actually associated with pleasure.

[00:34:32]That's the dopamine circuit. And so, if you're optimally balanced and you know that you know you're there when you're listening to an interesting conversation or you're engaged in one. It's a real conversation. You know, you're saying some things you know and the other person is saying some things they know, but the the both of what you know is changing. It's like, "Wow, that's so interesting." You'll have a conversation like that forever or maybe you're reading a book like that or you're listening to a piece of music that models that.

[00:35:02]Because what music does is provide you with predictable forms, multi-level predictable forms, that transform just the right amount. And so, music is a very representational art form. It says, "This is what the universe is like." You know, there's a dancing element to it, repetitive, and then cute little variations that sort of surprise and delight you and and you think, "Wow, that's so cool." And it doesn't matter how nihilistic you are, you know, music still infuses you with a sense of meaning and that's because it models meaning. That's what it does.

[00:35:36]That's why we love it. And you know, you can dance to it and that sort of symbolizes you putting yourself in harmony with these multiple layers of reality and positioning yourself properly. And you like that, too. You know, you'll pay for it. "Oh boy, I get to go dancing." You know, "Oh boy, I get to listen to music." It's like, "What the hell are you doing listening to music? What good is that?"

[00:36:00]Well, you think that's a stupid question. "I don't care about your dopey criticism. I'm going to listen to some music." Right? It There's no rational There's no rational argument against music.

[00:36:10]It's like You just don't even think about it.

[00:36:13]You just walk away from someone who's stupid enough to ask that question. It's like Some things are obvious. We live in a society, you could say. And that's deep.

[00:36:25]That's deep.

[00:36:26]It's not just human society. Like we've lived in a society forever. So, you know, lobsters live in dominance hierarchies and they use their serotonin system, at least in part, to keep track of their dominance position. And so, you can use antidepressants on lobsters when they get defeated and they don't feel so bad from being defeated in a fight. And so, you just think about that cuz antidepressants do the same thing to us.

[00:36:51]We're so bloody social that the circuits that evolved 300 million years ago when the lobsters and us had a shared ancestor are still operating at the base of your brain. That's why status is so important to people and reputation. I mean, that serotonin system governs your emotional regulation, how people respond to you and what they think of you. Man, that matters. That's why you're on Facebook all the time and checking your texts and and and obsessing continually about your online presence, assuming assuming that you're doing that and you know, contacting people frantically and seeing what the updates are. It's like, where where how are you held in the esteem of others? Very, very important and that's because it determines your emotional regulation. It's really important. So, we exist in a society always and the society has two elements, the tyrannical element of the society, that would be the tyrannical king, roughly speaking, a very common mythological theme. You see that in The Lion King, too, right? Cuz that's Scar Um and of course, you see it in the real world with almost continually and then the benevolent king who is the source of all the good things about culture.

[00:38:03]You know, and and you can see these things play out as mythologies in in political terms. So, I would say, for example, the continual harping about the oppressive nature of the patriarchy is part of a myth and the myth is that society's oppressive. It's like, well, yeah, obviously, you know, because you have to be quite a bit like you, and you have to be quite a bit like you, even if you're not, so that you can get along, right? Everybody sacrifices a tremendous amount of their individuality to the common to the common mode of being.

[00:38:39]That's there's a tyrannical element to that.

[00:38:42]But, you know, by the same token, it's the basis of cooperation and the and the stability of society. So, there's more representations. She She's quite the the friendly creature. That's Kali.

[00:38:53]Um I like this representation better.

[00:38:56]Those are heads, by the way, and hands.

[00:38:58]Um so, she sort of represents, well, very complex things. She represents death. She represents transformation.

[00:39:04]Um and this I really like this representation. I think it's brilliant.

[00:39:08]So, imagine that what the people were doing who formulated these representations, what they were trying to do was to make a representation of the domain of threat itself. Right? So, that they could deal with the idea that cuz we can say threat.

[00:39:24]Well, what is that What the hell does that mean? Well, threat is the category of all threatening things. And so, then you can think about threat, and you can think about threat across all those individual instances, and maybe you can figure out how to deal with threat, right? How What's the best way to be in the world so that you most effectively deal with threat? Well, that's sort of like apart from how do you deal with pain, that's sort of like the ultimate question of human beings. You want to be terrified? No.

[00:39:53]So, you want to be in danger? No. So, like you better figure out how to deal with threat. So, first of all, you have to conceptualize it. And so, we'll take a look at this representation. So, that's Kali. She Her hair is on fire. Well, fire, you know, that's that's a numinous phenomena, dangerous, but transformative. She's wearing a headdress of skulls.

[00:40:15]Um she has a weapon in this hand and and uh she has a tiger's tongue. She often has a snake around her waist.

[00:40:23]Um neither none of these do, but she often does. But in this case, the then that's because, you know, it it's a snake. We we've already covered that.

[00:40:32]Well, these things that look like snakes here aren't. You notice how her belly is concave? Well, it's because she's just given birth to this unfortunate person that she happens to be standing on and she's eating him intestines first. And that's a fire ring which he is in and then it's got skulls on the inside of it. It's like, "What's that supposed to do?" Well, partly it's supposed to represent that which terrifies you. It's like, "Yeah, fair enough, man." Cuz I don't imagine you saw all those things in there before I explained them, but someone who was familiar with that image would know what it meant. It's like some poor artist was sitting there thinking, "Well, how do I represent destruction?"

[00:41:10]It's like, bang. Whoa. Okay, we'll put that down and then we won't look at it again. So, and then what do you do with this? You make sacrifices to it.

[00:41:20]And you think, "Well, that's kind of primitive."

[00:41:23]You know, first of all, well, that doesn't really exist. Well, it does if it's an amalgam of threat symbols. I can tell you that. It exists, that's for sure. So, it exists as an abstraction if nothing else.

[00:41:37]Do you offer it sacrifices?

[00:41:40]Well, what the hell do you think you do?

[00:41:42]What are you doing in class? Why aren't you like drinking vodka and snorting cocaine? You know, cuz you could be doing that. Instead, here you are listening to me, you know, slaving away in university. You're young. It's like, "Really, you've got nothing better to do than sit there?" You know, well, what you're willing to forego today's pleasure for tomorrow's advantage. And that's what sacrifice is. And human beings discovered that dramatically first, you know, like we were we were apes for God's sake. We didn't just leap up and think, "Oh, we better save for tomorrow." You know, we it took thousands of years for that idea to emerge. And it emerged in dramatic form, and it was sort of like, well, society is sort of like a god. No, they weren't thinking this through. It's like, if you're going to represent society, well, it's like this masculine god that's always judging the hell out of you, that's everywhere all at the same time. It's Yeah, yeah, that's true, absolutely. And what do you have to do with it? Well, you have to give it what it wants. Why why do you have to give it what it wants?

[00:42:48]Because it'll crush you if you don't.

[00:42:51]And that's exactly right. And if you're lucky and you give it the right sacrifice, then it'll smile on you and you get to have a good life. And that was like that was the major discovery of mankind, man. That was a killer discovery. It was like the discovery of the future.

[00:43:10]You know, we discovered the future as a place.

[00:43:13]And it was a place that you could bargain with. You can bargain with the future. Wow, that's just what an idea that is, you know, it's it's so unlikely. Well, how do you bargain with the future?

[00:43:26]Well, you give it what it wants. And you know, some of that's you maintain your social relationship and you know, you make yourself useful to other people and you shape yourself so that you can cooperate with people and you you don't act impulsively and maybe you squirrel something away for the next harvest even if you're hungry and you know, and then the future isn't hell.

[00:43:50]And you [clears throat] make the proper sacrifices. And so, if you sacrifice to Kali, then she turns into her opposite and showers benevolence on you. And that's Mother Nature, right? It's like, look out for Mother Nature, man.

[00:44:06]You know, 2 weeks out in the bush right now and you're dead and it's not pleasant. And then if it's the spring, you last longer, but the bugs eat you and so that's not very fun either. So, nature, you know, it's bent on your destruction. But if you treat it properly and carefully and make the right sacrifices, then maybe one of her trees will offer you some fruit and that would be okay. And so, believe me, lots of people died trying to figure that out. If you're going to face a threat, if you face it voluntarily, what happens is your body activates itself for exploration and mastery, but if you face it involuntarily, same size threat, then you you you you revert to prey prey mode and you're frozen and that's way, way, way more stressful. It's way harder on your body and so it's better to keep your eye open and watch for emergent threats cuz you all know, you know, what you're not doing quite right and where your life is likely to unravel. You all have a sense of that and the best thing to do is to not ignore that, to pay attention to it, to watch it and to take corrective action early and then, you know, you stay on top of things and things your little trip to the underworld might be a few minutes long instead of a catastrophe that produces post-traumatic stress disorder, knocks you out for four or five years and maybe you never recover. So, and that's where, you know, that's what these kind of symbolic representations mean. It's those are states of being that that that indicate being devoured and you can be devoured by your own unconscious. Jesus, that happens all the time. What does that mean? Well, you know, and it's an autonomous thing in some sense, you know, like if you if you get depressed or if you get really anxious, you don't have any control over that.

[00:45:58]It's like it sweeps up over you and pulls you down. Why down?

[00:46:04]Well, down is where you go when you're sad. You don't go up. Man, I'm up today.

[00:46:08]Oh, that's too bad. No. It's man, I'm down today. And well, that's partly this, and it's partly because this is subordinate, and it's partly because down is closer to the ground and farther from the sky. Like there's all sorts of reasons you're feeling down rather than up. Up is where you're aiming, right?

[00:46:28]You aim up. You don't aim down.