Ep. 1 - Tucker Max: Buckle Up, We've Launched

Transcript

Discover your inner Santa and get the chance to win magical prizes for you and your loved ones this Christmas. Coca Cola is offering you the chance to bring home the magic and win weekly cash prizes. Simply buy and scan a Coca Cola for your chance to win. Promotion starts 4th November and ends on January 2nd. Entrance must be 18 plus. IOI residents only. Find out more at cocacola.ie. A few years ago, I had a relatively unknown author named Jordan Peterson on the podcast. To be honest, before I read his first book, 12 Rules for Life, an antidote for chaos, I didn't really know who he was. Now I knew a lot of people did know who he was, but I didn't. And I read the book, and I thought it was really good and really good advice. And the chapters are almost overly simplistic, but then when you read the book, you see why they're overly simplistic. But there's some very good advice titles, like, do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them or make friends with people who want the best for you. Now obvious these are almost cliches. They're so obvious. But then he tells really deep stories and reasons and historical reasons, psychological reasons why these things are true. And I guess at the time, he was controversial because, you know, there was stuff going on with Canada where you were required to use certain words to describe transgender. And his whole point from the beginning was he did not want the government to tell him what words to use. He it had nothing to do with sexual politics or anything like that. As as far as I know and to this day, like, from my conversations with him and people around him, and you see this from his writings, he's just he's very scared about anything that looks like the beginnings of fascism. Like, in in 19 thirties Germany, when they started or in 1984 by or George Orwell, when they start mandating the words you use, that could be a slippery slope. And so but I don't wanna get into the political side of it. And, again, I didn't know this really about him when I did this interview. I wanted to use Jordan Peterson as for what he was, which is he was a psychologist and a therapist. So for one and a half hours or so or however long this podcast is, this is me using Jordan Peterson as a therapist. So I hope you enjoy. If you have any further advice for me, please tweet it. I'll say one thing. I forget if that this happened in the podcast or right afterwards. I said to him, so, you know, you were just interviewed by Joe Rogan, now me. How can I learn? What can you teach me about podcasting? And he said, you know, you should definitely you're good, but you should definitely have more confidence. And I've taken that to heart. And another thing that happened was I remember and this might be related to the confidence issue. Some, the studio where we did this interview was at the comedy club that I owned at the time, and this comedian well known comedian was passing by and said, woah. How did you get Jordan Peterson on your podcast? That always struck me. Like, didn't he think I should have that that was possible? Like, who's Jordan Peterson? Well, let's find out. This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. I've got Jordan Peterson in the house. Jordan, I've seen you everywhere. You've you're you're a titan in Tools of the Titans. You're you're, I've been on Joe Rogan's show. You have a new book, 12 Rules For Life. And, I don't wanna say you're, like, a professor at Toronto a professor at University of Toronto because that's so much I don't want I hate to use the word smaller than what you are, but, like, you you have tens of millions of views on your YouTube channel. Your lectures are super popular. You've also been extremely controversial for, again, what I think are smaller issues than what we're gonna be talking about here, the 12 rules for life. I almost think it's weird that it was so controversial. You've been over these issues, but that's how you kinda first got known. But I also think and this is a long way of doing an intro. I also think you live, like, the ideal life. Like, you think about things, and people pay attention to them, and you get paid for it. What could be That's pretty weird. What could be a bet what could be a better life? And and, also, who the hell are you? Well, I can tell you one thing that's better than that. It's something that's been happening to me a lot, more and more, and really happened a lot when I went to London. It was most most obvious there, I would say, so far is that now when I go places so I went to London, and, my wife and I went out to a grocery store the 1st day we were there to pick up a few groceries. And and, so we went to a grocery store, and this young guy came up, and he said, I've been watching your videos for, like, the last year or so. I've watched, like, hundreds of hours of them, and, it's really helped me straighten my life out and put it together, and that things are way better for me. Thank you. It's like, yeah. Hey. Great. You know? That's wonderful. And then I went to the electronics store next door to get a little plug for my computer, and young guy came up and said, I've been watching your videos for the last year, and, like, things are way better for me. And wherever I go now, there's people come up, and that's what they say. And imagine imagine so this is a situation. So imagine you could you could you could have what you wanted if you went traveling. You could just conjure it up. You might think, well, I'd like people to come up and say that the things that I've been doing have been extremely helpful to them and and that they've made their lives better, and they would just do that wherever you went. And so that's what's happening. There's nothing better than that. That's ridiculously good. Well, let me ask you about that because, and and there's there's many layers here. Like, I wanna talk about your 12 rules for life book. It's as we're recording this, it just came out, and I think it's a a fascinating book and an important book. And I also wanna get a little more into your background, But 2 things I wanna unpack from what you just said, and I apologize if I interrupt too much. But, No. It's it's something I'm very prone to. So we'll have a little competition and see who does it more. So so what were the and then I also wanna hit your controversies. But what were the things that you think you said to them that helped their life? Because, ultimately, there probably was nothing you act I believe there's nothing you actually said to them that they they were probably ready for some message, and they heard that message on your videos, and then they acted. But what do you think that message or mess set of messages were that actually helped those people who are coming up to you? How would you boil it down? There's chaos to confront. There's order to reestablish, and there's what's the last one? I had a nice formulation of it this morning. Well, that's a good start. That's a good start. And you mentioned chaos and order in your book. Yeah. Let's start with those. Because Oh, and the world would be a lesser place if you didn't do it. Okay. So Those are good things for people to know. Right. So so your point your point is, correct me if I'm wrong, if you just live the ordered standard life that society tells you to live Yeah. That would be a boring and maybe not useful life. Well, it's it's good. It's better than not doing that. You know? I mean, it it's good to it's good to be disciplined. It's good to be it's even good to conform. It's not as good as the alternative, which is to conform and to push at the same time. So give me give me an example of, like, let's say, let's say someone's listening to this, and they say to themselves, you know what? I I went to school. I went to graduate school. I've been at this job for 20 years. I'm kind of have this simmering chronic low depression. And you've dealt with depression, so you understand the various spectrums and levels I'm talking about. What do you say to that person who wants an injection of a little bit of chaos, a little bit outside their comfort zone? What's something to practice maybe? Well, the first thing to practice is, I would say, I'm not trying to evade the question either, is to figure out what you should practice. You might say, well, let's get in touch with your dissatisfaction. It's like something isn't quite right in your life. So that means you're probably resentful about it. You're probably angry about it. You're upset by it. You're bored about it. Something like that. So what is it? What what do you find unsettling? And then even hypothetically, what might, what might the antidote to that look like? If you could have what you wanted, what would it look like? Well, that's extremely useful. And then, well, then you can start thinking about what you could practice. I mean, I think a lot of people might be out of touch though with like like, you even recommend in in your book. First thing or one of the first things is take stock of your life. Mhmm. What do you believe in? Who are you? What's going on? And I think that's something that's very attractive. Like, when I read that, I think to myself, oh, I wanna take out my list and take stock of my life. Like, this is what I believe in. Yep. This is who I am, but it's it's it's hard because there's deeper and deeper levels. I think a lot of people don't know how to answer that question. Yeah. Well, I think you could start you could and I I do outline this in the book to some degree is a lot of this you can start small with. Right. It's like there's some things around you. There's here's a couple of things that are happening for sure. There are things that you are saying that you know you shouldn't say, so you could just stop saying them. And some of those are things you could just stop. So there are things you were saying that you know not to be true, and you could stop saying them. That's unbelievably useful. Like like, what's an example for the typical person? What's a what's a stereotypical example? Oh, maybe you're saying things to please your wife that you don't mean. Maybe you're saying things to your friends to make them like you. Maybe you're saying things to your boss to smooth things over, and you know that they're they're just they're just not you. And so it's funny. So they're in a weird way, they add up. Like, you might you might be able to rationalize, well, I have to say this to my wife, or I have to say this to my boss, but across everybody, they add up. Well, and across time. Right. That's the thing is that lot the reason that people generally say things that they don't mean is so that they gain a short term advantage, which is they don't there's no conflict, for example. I'll say what you want to hear, then we don't have to have conflict. Well, that's fine. That'd be a fine solution if it worked across time, but it doesn't. It takes you down. And, you know, a 1000 decisions like that hurt you a lot. And each of the decisions can just be a little decision. You don't say what you want to your kids. You don't say what you want to your wife. You don't say what you want to you. Then you don't even know what you want. Well, then what? Because you see there's a real problem with this, and and this is the fundamental problem. I tried to lay out the the phenomenological landscape of of humanity in this book. What's the number? Yeah. Well, it's life as experienced. You know, you think, well, what's reality? Well, there's material reality, but that isn't really the reality you live. You live a reality that's full of emotions and motivations and and and personal experiences. That's your reality. I would say, what's the structure of that reality? What's the fundamental structure of the human lived reality? And it's something like, well, suffering. That's part of it because we're finite and limited. But it's suffering that's tainted with malevolence because some of that suffering is unnecessary. You cause it. Society causes it. It doesn't have to happen. That's the live world we live in. It's harsh, and it's cruel. It's like, okay. So you're stuck with that. That's the bottom line. So how are you gonna deal with that? Well, if you deal with it badly, let's say by lying, by not getting what you want, then you're gonna suffer, and it's gonna be brutal. And there's nothing in that that's good. Not only is it tell the truth, you're gonna suffer. Well, but that that's where things see, that's where things get that's where things get strange. It's like you have to choose your pathway of suffering. That's one way of thinking about it. And you can choose the suffering that's associated with deceit and arrogance and resentment and bitterness, or you can choose the suffering that's associated with truth. And the thing about the suffering that's associated with truth is that that transcends the suffering. It starts to make things better. And and it's real. It's real. Like, deceit makes life worse, especially the malevolent part of it, and truth makes it better. So I I agree with you, but let's look at at at and I'll I'll tell you why I agree with you. But let's first, look at examples from your own life. So so you you I don't I I forget what year this was, but when, in where you were teaching or in Canada, they everybody started using, transgender pronouns, and this was one of the first controversies you were involved in. You were basically They made it law that you had to use them. Yeah. And you were basically saying, oh, I'm gonna stick with he and she and what you were comfortable with and what you felt was true to you. Well, it was it was deeper than that, I would say. The fact that it was about transgender pro pronouns was just a was just a sideshow in some sense. The government decided that it was okay to compel speech. Now they had the reasons. They said, well, we need to bolster the identity of these people who've been oppressed. We're going to tell you how you have to address them. It's like, no. You're not. You're not going to tell me how to use my language, and that's that. I don't care what your g*****n excuse is. That's not happening. Now and then people said, well, you must be transphobic. You must be racist. There's all these things that I must be. It's like, no. I'm just not letting anybody mess around with my words because they're mine. I live by them. I put my soul into them. No one's playing around with them. And so that's what caused the controversy. And the controversy was well, it was twofold. 1 was, well, maybe this professor is this horrible racist, and we should find that out. And fair enough. You know? And, maybe he's crazy because he's or or he's an extremist because he's criticizing a Canadian piece of legislation, and Canada is a pretty stable state, so we better find that out. But but but there was what another thing. There was something else to it too, which was, well, maybe I'm just not letting people put words in my mouth because there's nothing. There's no way I'm letting that happen. I know what happens when that starts to happen, and it's not good. So I'm not going there. And I think the reason it was controversial is because I actually said no, and I meant it. But did you feel pain when the controversy I mean, at some points, everyone's attacking you. Right? And it's somebody let's say a 1,000 people are attacking you for something. Somebody's going to randomly hit a button that goes back to you being 3 years old and your mom yelling at you. Yeah. Just randomly. So it must have some parts must have been extremely painful of that controversy. So the things that people were saying about you, the things that people were accusing you of, things people are probably lying about. If you have any sense, when a thousand people go after you and they accuse you of things, you start thinking, well, you know, it's possible some of those things are true. And probably some of them are true because, like, you're no saint. So how do you how do you deal with that? Oh, well, I mean, I'd thought through what I said very carefully, and I'd thought it through, I would say, for decades. And I'd thought it through as far down as I could think it through, and that actually happens to be a fair ways down. And then I also had my family around me and my friends. And so when I was going through this, I talked to them. I said, well, look. Here's what I said. This is why I said it. Like, here's how I said it. This is what people are saying. What do you think about that? And they'd say, well, you know, I think you got this part right, and you were a little bit too angry there, and, you know, maybe a bit flippant there, and, like, so you gotta modify that. And so we were we were feeling our way through it very, very carefully. But I'd also thought through the consequences. Like, I know. I've taught people to negotiate in very difficult situations. The first thing that you have to do if you're going to negotiate is to be able to say no. You can't negotiate with anyone unless you can say no. And no means I'm not doing this. And it also means I've thought through what you could do to me to get me to do this, and I'm willing not to do any of those and to take the the penalty that goes along with that. And so if you're willing to do that, then, well, then you can't be moved. And I think the reason this became a spectacle, let's say, is because I said, here's something I'm not moving about, and I meant it. And I actually meant it. So because I'm not I know what happens when the government starts enforcing its requirements for speech, and it's not good. Like, I've studied that. I studied that intently for decades. I've been lecturing about it for decades, about right wing fascism and about left wing authoritarianism. So I understand how how those things unfold. And part of that is because part of that is the corruption of individual speech. Do you think this happens all the time in society? I mean, essentially, I feel like there's language and then there's allowable language. So in every few years, it sort of changes depending on what the topic of the year is, like, whether it's Republicans versus Democrats in the US or whether it's, you know, Harvey Weinstein versus a guy who smiles at you at work, and they get somehow conflated together. Do you think society is constantly trying to restrict the language of its members I I think or beliefs? I think that taboos move around. They never disappear because taboos are part of the difference between everything jumbles together if there are no taboos, and that that's just not tenable, but they move around. I think that there is always a battle about what people are allowed to say, partly because people are interested in control, they're interested in tyranny, and they're also often afraid of the truth. So if they can have inconvenient truths not uttered, well, that makes life simpler, hypothetically, or it doesn't. But And you put it nicely in in in your book that people need to kind of and and you've said this in other places. People need to kind of clean up their own house before trying to change the world. People should make their own bed, for instance, before going out there. Yeah. Well, that that's a rough chapter. That's chapter 6. It's set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world. And in that chapter, I write about one of those topics that no one wants to talk about. I wrote about the Columbine kids and and the high school shooters. I understand those people. I wrote about, Karl Panzram, who is one of the 20th century's arch criminals who wrote an autobiography explaining exactly why all he did was distribute murder and rape and mayhem wherever he went. He had his reasons and arson. He had his reasons. They were good reasons. Right. And you like, even with the Columbine guys, you describe them as they basically had their core system of beliefs. Yeah. They took stock in themselves, you know, and they had a core system of beliefs that led them to do what they Yeah. Do. So They believe that being so we talked already about the fact that human existence is limited and tragic and and and tainted by malevolence. It's like and they felt that that was unreasonable. It's like those those conditions of existence are unreasonable. So I'm going to take revenge against it. Revenge against god is what it is essentially in the final analysis. It doesn't matter whether you believe in god or not. But that's what it is, is they look and they say this. It's not like I'm inferring it. All you have to do is read what they wrote. They said, look, I looked at the structure of human existence and found it wanting. And in my estimation, it should be eradicated. And if it can be eradicated painfully, so much the better. And to top it all off, after I engage in some eradication, I'll do myself in just to show how little I care. It's like there's a satanic impulse behind that. It's the only way to describe it. Right. And, again, I I feel like, you know, just like the there's sort of the good and the bad of somebody coming up to you and saying, thank you, professor. You've you've changed my life. And because one of those kids one of those people who come up to you could be a Columbine shooter, and because they could take from you your work, okay. This is my core belief, and I've cleaned up my room. And this is what I believe, and I'm going to now act on it, because I don't know why. Think that's where you get if you clean up your room. So, you know, that's the other thing about chapter 6. It's like, well, what's the alternative? I know why people think that way. They have the reasons. Life is can be unbearable. There are plenty of things to be resentful and angry about, and you could even make the case. I just debated with this guy who calls himself an antinatalist. He's a philosopher and in South Africa, and he wrote a book. I think the book was called Better Not TO Be, something like that. But his claim is that conscious existence is so so so painful and so so brutal that we should not work for its furtherance. We should end sentience. We shouldn't have children. It's wrong to bring children into the world. Why? Because they suffer too much. And that that's a powerful argument. Same argument that Ivan Karamazov uses against his novitiate brother in the Brothers Karamazov. It's like, what kind of god would produce a world where the suffering is this intense? It's like that's a good argument. Well, what do you do in the face of an argument like that? I said, well, if things are so bad for you that you can barely tolerate them, do everything you can to make them better before you complain because maybe you're wrong. Maybe you just haven't put yourself together enough. It's like, well, may may and I And you and you suggest take the take the small if if you can't figure it out, go smaller. Take the smaller steps. So but some people don't know that it sometimes, you have to get into that practice of taking that first small step. They don't know how to do that. Oh, they do. They also don't know in some sense that it's even possible. I mean Right. Because they've been beaten down so much. Like, you know, they Maybe they never had a good example. Right. Even one. Like, look at look at look at kids who grew up, let's say, in juvenile detention Yeah. And they're raped repeatedly throughout the entire 15 years they're there. Yep. That's Karl Panzram. And and yeah. So so that all they've seen is is, the worst horrible form of of life what life has to offer. I have a friend like that. I have a friend like that. That's exactly what happened to him, and he had a terrible time of it. He was brutalized horribly from the time he was his life his life story is unbearable. He was brutalized terribly from the time he was 5. He had measles, small or measles, chicken pox, and mumps at the same time. He's a native American guy. And then he was in the hospital when he was about 5. He just about died. And lots of his people did die because of such things. And then when he got out of the hospital, he wasn't he wasn't an English language speaker. He spoke his his native tongue. He was waiting for his grandparents on the dock. They were gonna come and take him back to to where he lived. And instead the bus picked him up, took him to a residential school in Canada. And it was one of the horror show residential schools. And he was like brutalized for like 8 years. Couldn't even speak the language. And he just had a terrible time of it. Like, he was just tortured, starved, you name it. And when he came out, he was just a mess. He said he didn't know which way was up. He didn't know if it was male or female. He didn't know anything. And he half did himself in with drugs and alcohol, but he put himself together when he was about 40, 35, started to carve, and became a very good artist. And he's put his life together a lot. So, you know, even people who've had those terrible experiences, they they can come out of it. And he's something, man. He's he's a deep guy. So I think in some cases, you're right. They can come out of it. Yep. In some cases, they can't. Yeah. And and not even the ones who are brutalized from early on. Sometimes people just fall apart midlife. Yeah. And they say, oh my gosh. Nothing nothing good is ever gonna happen to me. Because you're right. Life it's not just let's even let's even make it milder. It's not just that life is suffering with malevolence. It's just life is hard every and it's every single day. Like, it never ends. Well, we could add that to it too. It's grinding. It grinds away at you as well. Yeah. It was true. Chronic, low level, like, I gotta get up. I gotta the boss is gonna yell at me. Yep. I gotta take care of the kids. Yep. I don't love my wife or husband or whatever. Yeah. So what again, a lot of these people, if you say to them, well, no, you can change things. Just start Yep. Making your bed better or whatever, they're gonna say, no. No. The the initial reaction is to defend. No. No. They're gonna defend their limitations. You know, there's that saying, if you defend your limitations, then they're yours. Well, they they don't generally if you don't get accusatory. Like, so if I'm working with someone in in my clinical practice, I certainly don't say, well, look. Your life is miserable, and it's your fault. It's like, I don't start with that at all. It's like, it's no bloody wonder your life is miserable. It's amazing that it isn't like that all the time for everyone, but but it's not the way you want it. So let's see if we can jointly discover ways that you can put things together. And then it's a matter of very, very careful problem solving. So what's what's an example where you helped where and, again, not just from the I mean, there's 2 problems. There there's 2 examples of problem solving. 1 is there's the people you don't know. So there's the periphery people who they watch your YouTube videos, and they indirectly received help from what you said. They started their own problem solving, and you changed their life, and they came up to you and said that. Then there's the, people you you see in your clinical practice where you're able to really put your ideas in practice Yeah. And help people. So so, again, what what what's a specific example where you've helped someone where it seemed inconceivable to them that they can be helped? And then what do you suspect also helped these people on the periphery? Well, if you're if you're trying to help someone who's in a rough situation let's say you're trying to help them with their relationship. You might say you ask them to start watching themselves so that you can gather some information. So that they call that collaborative empiricism. That's a behavioral psychology technique. It's okay. Let's take a look at your relationship for a week, and all you have to do is figure out when it's working and when it's not working. Just keep track of that for a while. Or when it's working horribly and it's when it's working just not too bad. Maybe it never gets to good. Let's start distinguishing between those two things so that we have some some real sense of what happens when things are not good. Well, my wife ignores me at the dinner table, or my wife ignores me when I come home, or all we'd ever do is fight or something like that. We think, well I think you just described all my marriages. Well, then then we start slow small. It's like, well, how would you like it? How would you like your wife to greet you when you come home? Well, I'd like I'd like her to stop what she's doing and come to the door. It's like, well, ask her under what condition she'd be willing to do that and let her do it badly. It's like, say, look, like, we're not getting along so well. And I got this idea. Maybe if one little thing we could do is just change the way we greet each other when we come home. You're watching TV. I'm watching TV. We walk into the house. Neither of us pays any attention. It's just it's not good. So let's let's try this for a week because you make it small. Right? Let's try it for a week. When one of us comes home, just shut the TV off and say, like, how was your day? And listen for 10 seconds, something like that. Let's see how that goes. And, like, you can you if you're willing Carl Jung said something very interesting that I really liked. He said that modern people can't see God because they won't look low enough. I really like that. And this is this this is this is a concretization of that. It's like Tell me what that means. It means that people underestimate the importance of small things. They're not small. How you how your wife says hi to you when you come home, it's not small because you come home all the time. Like, how does you what does your dog do when you come home? It's like it's happy, man. Comes to the door. It greets you. Wags his tail. It's like, hey. And you're happy. It's like, there's my dog. It's so happy to see me. But it and you think that's not such a big deal. It's it's just you coming home. No. You come home 3 times a day. So we could do the arithmetic. Let's say let's say you spend 15 minutes a day coming home. Something like that. And then it's every day. So that's 7 days a week. So that's 70 105 minutes. So let's call it 90 minutes for the sake of the arithmetic. 90 minutes a week. So that's for 6 hours a month, 72 hours a week 72 hours a year. So you basically spend 2 8 2 40 hour work weeks a year coming home. That's roughly 25 let's see. That's one 25th of your total time. It's about 3% of your life. You spend about 3% of your life coming home. Fix it. And, you know, it's interesting because Let's fix 30 more things. This is the second time. Right? So this is the second time you brought up the fact that it's not any one moment or any one thought. It's the fact that these things add up and that and then that becomes your life. Well, and you just said too when when we were talking about this. You said, well, it isn't just that life is tragic and and miserable and malevolent. It's that it grinds away at you. Yeah. It grinds away at you 50 different ways. Okay. Fix them. Fix them. Like, here here's an example. Let's say this happens to couples a lot. They don't sort out their their food preparation arrangements. So neither of them really take responsibility for it. The husband is aggravated and irritated because he feels he works enough, and it's not really his job in the kitchen. It's sort of a feminine role. He feels sort of demeaned by it. He doesn't really know how to cook anyways. And the wife thinks, to hell with it. I'm not doing this because, like, it's a traditional role, and I'm just being oppressed. And, and so fine. So then what? Well, so no one really buys groceries properly. Or if they do, they buy second rate food. And then no one really cooks. And if they do, they serve it cold, badly prepared, and in a hostile environment. It's like fine, except that's 6 hours a day. Okay? So that's 42 hours a week or a 160 hours a month. It's like that's 4 it's 10% of your life is misery. It's like fix it. So then you think, well, how would I like the food to be prepared? Well, let's say it's good nourishing food served by someone who's pleased to prepare it to hap to people who are happy to receive it. That would be nice. It's like, say thank you for Christ's sake when someone makes you something to eat and mean it. And don't whine about having to cook in the kitchen because someone has to do it, and you should get your act together so you can do it with some joy. It's like, really? Forty things like that and your life is fixed. But they're all they're all the trivial things that we do day to day. It's like the things you do day to day are not trivial. Your holiday, that's trivial. Your adventure, that's trivial. Your mealtime, that's your damn life. So get it together. You think, well, what else? Well, there's no romance in my life. It's like, okay. When was the last time you took your wife out to a movie, to a date? We don't date. Why not? Well, we did that when we were first going out. You know, we got married. We don't have to date now. It's like, really? So that's what you're gonna tell me. You don't want any romance in your life. That's your solution. So so then I get a maybe I get the couple to agree to go out on a date. They're not happy about it because it's like, well, this dating is just stupid. It's And they're out of practice. And they're out of practice. Maybe they were never any good at it. Plus, they don't like each other very much. So they go out on a date, and then they both come in. Maybe they talk to me and they say, well, we took your advice, and it didn't go very well. I think, so that's your solution, is it? You're gonna come back here and you had one miserable date. You're both really bad at it. And now you're gonna throw it in my face and say, that sucked. You're stupid, and there's no solution to this problem. We win. It's like that's what you want for the rest of your life. It's like go on 40 dates and know that you're both idiots, you know, just like everybody else. And that maybe you could get half decent at it. So by the 20th date, it's kind of enjoyable some of the time. And then maybe by the 40th date, you're not so bad at it. And then you have it for the rest of your life. It's like, yeah. That's something worth aiming at. In these examples, you assume that people are married. You've been married forever. Many people can't find a spouse, or they say, oh, there's no one out there for me, or I don't know how to meet people. Well, there isn't, and there's certainly no one good out there for you because if there's someone good out there, they're gonna take one look at you and run. It's like so, you know Particularly me. No. Probably not particularly. But but but So what would you say to that person? I mean, I'm I'm now just, like, throwing, like, life problems at you and seeing what you say. Yeah. Well, I the first thing I would do is ask for the specifics. You know? It's like, okay. So we'd go over your relationships and say, well, tell me about a relationship you had that worked for a while. I don't care. It might be a brother or sister, could be a child, could be a parent, could be a lover, whatever. Tell me about something that worked, and then tell me about something that didn't work. And then let's see if we can figure out why the thing that worked worked and why the thing that didn't didn't. And that gives us a a starting point. Right? We wanna do a careful analysis and then think, well, then what do you want from a relationship, and where do you think the pitfalls are? And and we talk a little bit about the traditional element of a relationship too. It's like, well, you know, it's not easy to have a marriage if if you're not staying within the bounds of the tradition to some degree. Mostly when men and women get married, one of the things that sustains them is having children. Because it's like, well, what else are you gonna do together? Well, not have children. Okay. Fine. But, like, what's your alternative plan? You need a you need a joint venture. You know, because in a marriage there's a domestic issue. It's like how the hell are you gonna get along in the household? There's a business issue. How are you going to integrate your economic life and your productive life? There's a romantic issue. There's an adventure issue. All those things have to be thought through and and sorted out. And then with any luck, you can and there's a spiritual element too. And what you have to do with communication. It's so funny because it sounds like these are also important as an individual. There's a spiritual issue. There's a Oh, yeah. Romantic issue. There's a business issue. You know, all these things have to be dealt with as individuals as well. One of the things we've developed I did this with my colleagues. Daniel Higgins and and Robert Peel were the 2, co co, constructors. Daniel's been working on this for, like, 15 years before he may worked on it for 15 years before we made any money on it, but we put together this program called self authoring. And what self authoring does, it's a it's a practical life improvement program. So the first thing it asks you is, okay, imagine you're gonna treat yourself like you were someone worth caring for. That's hard, man. But just imagine that for a minute. So imagine you like yourself and that you would do something for yourself so that your life wasn't as miserable as it as it could be. You know? Just that. Alright. So now let's let's take stock. It's and so, if you could educate yourself the way you think would be useful, what would that look like? What what what does your career look like 3 to 5 years down the road? What about your friends? How do you want them to treat you? Intimate relationship, children, time you spend outside of work. What about temptations like drugs and alcohol, for example? Like, what's your attitude to that? You wanna, you know, drink 6 drinks a night or 10 drinks a night and degenerate into cirrhosis in 10 years? Or do you wanna have a couple of social drinks? Or, like, what's your plan? How are you gonna regulate that? Because that's a that's a pitfall that people often fall into. So Right. Because, again, it's it's the thinking short term versus long term. So one drink doesn't kill you, but Well, it might even be good. And Yeah. You know, maybe maybe having 5 drinks on the weekend with your friends is fine, but, like like, let's have a plan about it here. But but, also, you have to consider if you do 6 years of 5 drinks a night. Yeah. Right. You know, then there's like, everything you could kinda look at, like, what what does this look like if it if it's ongoing and current? If it iterates. Yeah. Yeah. That that the iteratability is a real issue, and and that that's something we can return to. So he said, okay. Well so just just sketch out what that might look like if you could have what you wanted. Don't get too picky about it, and don't assume that that's what's gonna happen. Don't get too self critical about your choices. Make a bad plan. That's a good start. Then the next I like to make a bad plan. Make a bad plan, man. You can do that. And so In in in sorry to interrupt. Yeah. In in chess so I'm a competitive chess player. In chess, there's a saying a bad plan is better than no plan at all. It's very very important. To learn from. To learn. Yeah. If you make a bad plan and you implement it, then you make mistakes, and you learn from the mistakes. So a bad plan successfully implemented is self improving. And you can make a bad plan. Anybody can do that. It's way better than no plan. So that's rule 1. A bad plan is better than no plan. That's a good one, man. Okay. So now the next thing we have you do in this exercise is okay. Now look. It's 3 to 5 years down into the future and you have what you need and want. What does that look like? Assuming you're taking care of yourself, this isn't some pie in the sky dream. It's like you're a real person. This is a real plan. It's a real vision. You get to have what what would make your life justifiable to you that what would justify your life to you. Well, what does that look like even in principle? Okay. Sketch that out. Fine. You got 15 minutes. Sketch it out. Make all the mistakes you want. Don't worry about it. Sketch it out. Then we do the next thing, which is alright. Now you know your weaknesses and your character logical flaws and your and your susceptibility to temptation and your resentment, your bitterness. Okay. That takes the upper hand and augers you in. You're in hell in 3 years. What does it look like? Well, everyone knows that. They write that down and think, oh my god. Yeah. Oh, yes. That would happen. Yeah. So they make this so now you've got 2 visions. You got a little vision of heaven. You got a little vision of hell. Now you can run away from the vision of hell and you can run towards the vision of heaven. You've got some motivation. Well that works like a charm. We've been doing that with university students. And it increases the probability that they'll stay in university about 35%. 30 to 35%. And it really works for the guys in particular because it works better on men. It really works for the guys who are doing the worst. It's like make a plan. Make a plan. Because they have a societal pressure more, I think, to to have a plan. Well, I think I think they have the luxury of not having to have a plan. Like, you know, if you're if you're a guy and you haven't got going by the time you're 40, it's like, well, you're probably screwed, but not for sure. You could still have a career. You could still have a family. If you're a woman and you haven't got going by the time you're 40, it's like no family for you. The pressure's on if you're female to you you gotta get yourself together by the time you're 35 because you're just you run out of options. With guys, it can be so they have the luxury of of less necessity, but they also have the pathology that goes along with it. So so I think guys are more likely to not grow up, but it's also that in our culture we've got this terrible confusion between tyranny, male power slash tyranny, and male competence. And the radical, especially on the radical left wing, point the fingered men and say, you're a tyrant. It's like failing to distinguish between competence and tyranny. And then when any competence manifests itself, they crush it out like it's tyranny. Well, that's not helpful. Not in the least. So let let me ask you this question. You you you I I agree with you, but I sort of feel like it happens on both sides. Like, I feel both sides call each other out. There's no communication in the middle. I mean, what you're what you're saying sounds like, you know, Ayn Rand's, you know, main characters in her books. But, it's not just an all left or all right thing. I think both sides are tyrannical. Well, the Ayn Rand thing's a good comparison because the problem with Ayn Rand is there's 2 problems, is that all her good people are the same person. There's no diversity among them. All the bad people are the same people, and all the good is in the good people, and all the bad is in the bad people. Well, that isn't how life works. Like, there's that and that's the difference between Atlas Shrugged and Crime and Punishment. Yeah. You know? I mean, I like the Atlas Shrugged. They're fun to read. They're romances. They're adventure romances. They're fun to read. And she's got a point. Like, she was she was a critic of a collectivist society. Fine. She had she had her reasons, man. She escaped her family escaped from the Soviet Union. But the problem with Ayn Rand is that, she doesn't portray the battle as a battle within. She portrays it as a battle between competing sets of ideologies, and that that's just not accurate. Like, it it's it's accurate, but it's insufficiently accurate. I guess, though, in Atlas Shrugged, there's the almost indoctrination of the main character, I forgot the woman's name, where she's competent from the begin I I I feel actually her books are books about because I don't have the the political understanding of her background. I sort of feel her books are about competence. Mhmm. And there's a competent group of people and an incompetent group of people. Yeah. And then there's the people who are mostly competent, and they get indoctrinated into full competence. And I I think that's another interpretation of her books, and I agree with Well, I would say that's the positive part of her books Mhmm. Is that is the distinction between competent and incompetent. Which doesn't necessarily have to be all left or all right. Again, it gets back to your what I appreciate in in your book, 12 Rules for for Life, kind of having some like you said about your controversial stance earlier, you had thought about something for years, and you thought you really felt deeply for decades. So you have so you you built up this core truth inside of you that you were able to express. And so if somebody didn't have the same level of coming from the core that you had, it wasn't going to affect you. Now you might not be right. You could be, for for instance, totally wrong. Maybe your court maybe you had to do a century of thinking for all you know. But, you know at least that you're where you're coming from. And I think a lot of times people don't know where they're coming from. Well, that's also why they should start small because people know where they're coming from about some things. Right. You know? They know where they're coming from about some things. So I would say you should you should start from a place where you know where you are, you know? And you can tell. Like if someone's if someone's continually bullying you and there's something that has to be said, you know what you have to say. You might not be able to say it, but then you have to figure out, okay, well, I have put myself in a position where I can say this. And it's a problem. You know the problem. You know the solution. That doesn't make it easy. It doesn't make it obvious. It doesn't make it without risk. None of those things. These are real problems. It's like what I say about dragons. You know? The dragon's a mythological figure. So well, go out and confront the dragon. It's like, yeah. Go out there and confront the dragon. Yeah. Wait a minute, though. It can eat you. It's no joke. And I've been I've had many people in my clinical practice, in my life in general, who've been swallowed by the dragon. It's not something I would recommend. It's not good. Okay. So these are real problems. They're not they they can't be solved just with heroic hand waving. But but but I feel the alternative so so let's say eating you know, going out and fighting the dragon is the metaphorical equivalent of, you know, I'm unhappy in my job for the past 15 years. I'm just gonna quit and Yeah. Do my dream. Yeah. No. That's a bad idea. That yeah. That's the other extreme. That's really bad. And and I think people don't know how to take the small steps along the way. Like, I think that's really the hard part. To talk to too, and that's the big problem. Lots of people have no one to listen to them. You know? Right. Well, then They'll say, well, quit whining about your job, or why don't you do something about it? It's like, no. Someone comes to me and says I'm unhappy with my job. It's like, okay. Well, let's see if we can do something about that. It's like, how long have you had your job? Year. It's the first job I've had in 5 years. I've only had it for a year, and you're 30, let's say. It's like, no. You don't get to quit that job because you've only had it for a year. You've got no credibility, man. Like, you quit this job. You're not gonna get another job. No one's gonna employ you. You're stuck for a year, at least. You gotta be in that job long enough so you've got some credibility. So we'll say, look, we'll make a 5 year plan. We'll make a 5 year plan, and we'll get you in a way better position in 3 to 5 years. So but first of all, you gotta work hard at this job, and you gotta gain some credibility because otherwise you're not going anywhere. Now if you can come up with a better solution than that, no problem. But for now, that's what it looks like for me. Okay. So what do we have to do? Well, do you have your resume put together? No. I haven't updated it for, like, 3 years. It's like, well, go update it. Well, I don't want to. It's like, yeah. No kidding. It's pain to update your resume. Go home and open it. Just look at it. That's your job for this week. Go home and open your resume. Don't even write it. Can you open it? Yeah. I think I could do that. Okay. Go open it. Come back a week later. How was that? Well, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It's like, yeah. Right. Okay. So fix it a bit. Do a do a do the next draft. Assume you're gonna have to draft it 8 times. Do the next draft. Bring it to me. We'll go over it. They bring it in. We go over it. They start putting the resume together, and we start looking for holes. We start looking for educational opportunities. It's like, well, we gotta put your resume together. Now you gotta figure out how to go have an interview. You any good at it? No. Well, we're gonna practice that. It's like, what have you got to offer? Well, I don't know. Well, that's not a very good story. But that's a really great answer. I don't know what I have to offer because that very good story. It's not a good story, but it's a great answer because Yeah. Many people don't know the answer to that question. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think they don't know how to even find take small steps to find out either what they're good at or what they wanna do. Yeah. Well, with some people, you have to start much smaller than that too. It's like, I would say to someone like that is if you don't know what you should do, then start by figuring out what you should stop doing. And this I've never seen anyone who can't do this. K. Watch yourself for a week. Notice when there's something that you know you could set right, that you would set right. Just notice that. Something bugs you that you could fix, that you would fix. Bring back a list of 4 things that like, let's start with your room. There's something about your room that isn't as good as it could be. So go home and look at your room and see what bugs you. And they come back and say, well, you know, there's this pile of clothes in my closet that I haven't looked at I haven't done anything with for 6 months. You know? Because sometimes people are in terrible chaos. Right? They're these are just yeah. They have piles of laundry in their room that haven't been done for, like, 2 years. It's like, well, sort through one pile this week. Just sort through it. That's all. Don't do any more than that. That's good enough. Could you do that? Yeah. K. Go do that. See what happens. Come back and tell me. As they go home, sort through it. And they think, oh, well, you know, that wasn't so bad. So I could do that. But I feel like, okay. The pile of clothes, that's that's that's an easy one. Right? They what's wrong with the room? Oh, there's a pile of dirty clothes. Yeah. That's clearly something wrong. Yeah. Sometimes it's more nuanced, I feel. Like, oh, my room is clean. I don't really know what's go what's going wrong. Sometimes this has happened to me. I don't really know what's going wrong, or I'll rationalize very deeply what's going wrong. Well, then I would say, guess. Tell me a bunch of bad theories about what might be going wrong. Tell me 10 of them. Lay them out on tables like like cards. Well, I can let's say I can tell you what's going wrong, but I have a rationalization for it. Tell me the rationalizations too. Then let's analyze them because they probably have a kernel of truth, but let's let okay. So here's 10 things that might be going wrong. Here's my pile of rationalizations. Yeah. I don't like my my my house. The air conditioning doesn't work, but I don't have the money to hire a plumber or air conditioner guy or whatever to fix it. Yeah. Well, some look. Sometimes you sometimes you find people who are so trapped in a chaotic circumstance that they have nine reasons like that. You know? My air conditioner doesn't work, and I don't have the money to, to pay for it, and I don't have the education to get the job. And, like, there's 10 things that are stopping it, standing in the way. And that happens in romance, that happens in business, happens in career choices. Well, and sometimes look. Sometimes too, you find people who are so stuck you can't help them out. Okay. It has happened to me rarely, but it's happened. So, like, that's the dragon issue. It's like sometimes you're just in the belly, and that's that. You're done. That's horrible. You're done. That's rare, but it happens. You think that's rare? Yeah. I I think it's rare. I think When you were in the middle of it, you can't get out of it. When you were in the middle of, let's say, your deepest depression I know look. I've experienced great depression in the past. You have, when you were at the bottom of that, did you feel like there was nothing you could do to help? You would see people walking around smiling, and you wouldn't even be able to understand Well, deep deep deep deep deep with deep depression, that's virtually the definition of that. Yeah. You know? And, I mean, I'm also not saying that people don't find themselves in situations that they can't fix. That happens. You know? Like, I have clients who developed a terminal illness while they were working with me. It's like they have pancreatic cancer. It's like, well, then then what do you do? You try to make it no more hellish than it has to be. That's what you've got. And that's actually a lot more than nothing. Yeah. You know? I mean, I I had a real object lesson in this with my father-in-law, Dale Roberts. He his wife, my mother-in-law, developed frontotemporal dementia when she was about 55. And and that's, you know, neuro degenerative neurological diseases, they're pretty much up there with the worst things that that can happen to you. There's lots of terrible things that can happen to you, but those are bad. And so she lost her language function over time, took about 10 years. She couldn't couldn't talk by the end of that, and eventually she got to the point where she couldn't get up out of the chair by herself, and then he had to put her in a home. But I watched him. He was kind of a man about townie. He was kind of a drinker, a partier, real extroverted guy. Not the sort of person at all that you would think of as as naturally gravitating towards a nursing role. Jesus, man. He was a trooper. He took care of her like you wouldn't believe. It was just phenomenal. And if if he would talk to us sometimes about what was going on with with my wife's mother and we would offer suggestions, like we told him to get an electronic display that she he could put on the fridge that would tell her over and over where he went if he stepped out or what time it was and that sort of thing and had alarms put in the house and all sorts of things. And he would be on that right away. Like, if you could offer him a solution that was gonna make it less awful, he would implement that right now. And you know, he took a situation that was pretty damn brutal, and he made it he made it at least bearable. And but there was more than that. More than that happened because of it, you know. Because he turned out to be such a attentive caregiver for his wife, his kids liked him more. You know? It showed a side of him that no one had seen it. So his kids got closer to him. And so what he did brought the family together. And it brought it more together and brought it more together. Like, my wife straightened there was a bunch of reasons why she straightened out her relationship with her father completely, but that was definitely one of them. And then I was there when she when she died, the week she died, you know. And my wife is where she worked volunteered in palliative care ward. She's a tough cookie and and has been through a lot of rough things. And her sister works as a palliative care nurse, and the other one was a pharmacist. And, they came together at their mother's deathbed, and they were really helpful. Like when she was thirsty they put water on her lips and they'd, you know, cool her brow, and they weren't fighting over her remains in the in the death room. They were together and it made it well. And the whole family became closer together. Now she died, say, it must be 6 or 7 years ago, and she's gone. And there's a big hole there as a consequence of that, but everybody's closer. And so there were benefits to be had. Well, I think I think, I mean, often when a death in the family occurs, also the opposite happens because everyone's so conflicted internally, but can't express it. Yeah. They all end up fighting, and then they're fighting over the will, and they're fighting about the funeral. Then you turn tragedy into hell. Yeah. And tragedy is one thing, but hell is something else. Yeah. And I think I think I mean, it's great we're talking about it, and it's so great people are listening. But I think when people are in the middle of it, just like, well, I'm gonna suggest when you were in the middle of your depression, I don't know what you're experiencing. But sometimes it's hard to know then that it's even happening. That it's hard to know when you're visiting through hell that this is what hell looks like. Well, I would say there's a difference between depression and hell even though depression can be really bad, like, really bad, like unbelievably bad. Hell is fighting with your siblings over the will at the deathbed of your mother. That's hell. Depression is just misery. Right. And hell is like like when when when a thousand people write you, let's say, hate mail over something you say, and 1 or 2 of them, you know, happen to hit the right button, that that affects you. That that feels like hell to me as well, because then you question your your core beliefs. The core is shaking a little bit. Yeah. And and Well, that's especially hell if if they if it hits you somewhere that where you have violated your integrity. Yeah. Because if you think, well What if you rationalize violating your integrity? Like, for instance, let's say, take on the transgender thing. You you had a you had a bigger picture, which is that, my speed my free speech shouldn't be limited. And free speech in general leads to author you know, an authoritarian societies and so on. But let's say someone was actually offended by you not doing this, and so you have to balance that a little bit that you have this bigger, broader vision, but also there might be individuals who are really hurt. Now your point might be, it's okay Oh, I would balance it. I mean, I in my clinical practice, I've talked to every sort of person you can possibly imagine about every sort of thing, you know. And if I had a transgender client, I've had plenty of clients who had problems that were just as complex socially as as being transgendered. We deal with that on an individual level. No problem. I'd I'd have no problem dealing with it in an individual level. It was when it was mandated by law that I had a problem with. It's like Right. And so but I bet you a lot of the people who were attacking you weren't as smart as you and so were personally offended, or or they just went on the attack because they were angry small people Yeah. And you became Or not, or they were hurt, or they were or they were confused, or I'm only that 90% were just angry people, and you became the object of their rage. Yeah. There was definitely some of that. There was no doubt there was some of that. And so and so and so that's difficult to like you say, fighting the dragon, you know, you could have also just not been controversial and not had all that hate directed towards you. So what what drives you to like, do you Oh, well, I read the policies. Like, I read the I well, what there was a bunch of a bunch of proximal reasons that I made my initial video. One was that I had had 3 clinical clients in the last 2 years and the 2 years before that who had been bullied into a state of poor mental health by social justice warriors at the workplace. 1 in a bank, 1 in an educational institution, and one working as a counselor. And I thought 3 is a lot. Like, that's a lot. So so by by them standing up for their beliefs against some societal rules, they were bullied to the point where they were depressed or anxious or suicidal or whatever. Yeah. Exactly. And and they were very different people. I think I I think I need to be in your clinical practice. I think, I have to talk to you after the practice. Yeah. So that was rough, but I noticed that. And then, one of them in particular was and then, I'd been talking about the rise of political correctness with a colleague of mine who's pretty leftist guy, but a reasonable guy. And he said, well, you know, this is all very bad, but it's no wonder people don't speak out about it because they feel that the price they would pay personally compared to the advantage that would be gained socially is disproportionate. And and and when are they right? Well, they're almost always right, but except except that it depends on your span of apprehension. Because I know what happens if you don't say what you believe to be the truth. And it's so corrupt. I see. Okay. That's not good because that's what you've got. Like, in the final analysis, like, what my what my stepfather or my my father-in-law had to deal with his wife's dementia was his character. That's what he had. So his character that he knows as a person he as a a persona of he's a person in love, and this is what a person in love does when the people they care for are hurting. Well, that and all the things that he had practiced doing. Like, the fact that he was able to step up to the plate when it was necessary meant that he had made a lot of really good decisions and hadn't made a lot of really bad decisions. Like, he wasn't resentful. He didn't say, oh my god. Why? I'm sure he did from time to time because everyone would. Like, why is this happening to me? Isn't this so unfair? Isn't the whole world corrupt? He didn't rage around. He didn't immediately put her in a home. He only put her in a home when he actually could not take care of her anymore. At some point, you have to stop because there's no point in you dying along with the person. It's just not helpful. Right? It's it's hard on everyone, it's worse. So where when's the line? Well, he he put her in a home when he couldn't lift her out of a chair anymore. When's the line on, let let this happens in family relationships all the time, where your parents, siblings, whatever, are insufferable, they're rude to you, they're cruel to you. When's the line when family is no longer worth putting up with? Well, you know, there's a line in the New Testament that deals with such things. Don't cast pearls before swine. And what it means is that if you're offering and no one is receiving, then leave. And that's right. It's right. It's harsh. There's a rule in my in my book. It's, make friends with the people who want the best for you. It's about exactly that. It's like winning to walk away. You know what? I think, actually I mean, all the rules in your book are important, and I think that, actually, is one of the most important. Because I think, isn't it a tenet of, you know, positive psychology, for instance, you know, of of a tenet of well-being? The number one is community. And what's community? It's not just hanging out with anybody. It's hanging out with the what's community? It's not just hanging out with anybody. It's hanging out with the people who want the best for you and you want the best for them. So I think that's it's almost like primal. There are some things that are primal. Like, the we always it's an evolutionary point of view, and you talk so much about I love how in this book you interweave evolution and the Bible, actually, and and other historical texts that have withstood the test of time because somehow they're they're encoded in our DNA the fact that they've survived for 3000 years for a reason. So, you know, the tribe in in our modern society is our friends and our community because we get to choose our tribe to some extent. This is this is so important. I think this is primal. I think finding your core integrity, if you can, or even taking small steps, like taking a list and taking stock of yourself. Yeah. I think this is this is primal for for well-being. What else what else? I mean, obviously, you have 12 rules here, and I think, actually, it's also primal for people to come up with their 12 rules because you even sort of suggest that these are your 12 rules. It's not necessarily everybody's 12 rules. So what Yeah. And and there there it could be a different 12. Yeah. Although, I like your 12 rules. And and you have funny, names on on some of them. But I think, like, telling the truth, again, getting to your your your core integrity, be precise in your speech. Maybe you could describe a little bit what you need. Here's a good one. Well, let's say you're arguing with your wife. Okay? Ask her what she wants. Like and so here's that question. We're arguing. There's something I could do that would give you what you want. What is it? And maybe she'll say, well, if you really love me, you'd know. It's like, sorry. I'm stupid just like you. I hardly know what I want. How the hell am I gonna figure out what you want? And even if I should know, it's gonna take me a long time to learn. So you're gonna have to clue me in because I'm I'm clueless. What if she doesn't know the answer? Because she's just as clueless as you. Then we have to then we have to figure out what the answer is. It's like we're having an argument. You want something? We better well figure. At least what are your conditions of status we have a rule in our house. You know, a couple of them. 1 is, if you're complaining, announce your rules of satisfaction. It's not so if you if you don't like something I'm doing, you have to tell me what it is that I could do that would work so that you would shut up and go away. So let's say let's say let's say she responded, I want you to make double the money you're making. Okay. Okay. Sure. So so so usually, it isn't it it doesn't happen that dramatically. She might say, we don't have enough money because it wouldn't be out it wouldn't be that thought through. We don't have enough money. It's like, okay. Well, we'll have to decompose that then. It's like money for what? And how much are we lacking? And what are we gonna do about it? So so what you're saying is you want to sit down and have a serious conversation about money and solve this problem. It's like, okay. I can do that. I can sit down for half an hour, and we can start having that conversation. I mean, usually when people are fighting, especially when they're, like, just sort of pecking at each other, the conditions for satisfaction are more specific than that. But that's really useful. It's like, what do you want? And the other rule is I like this rule. It's like, if I give you what you want, you have to shut up and quit bothering me. Because, you know, the other thing that often happens is someone will be arguing with you, and you'll admit they're right, and you'll offer them what they want. And then they'll keep arguing with you. You You know? They wanna keep hammering you. It's like, no. If if you win, you have to stop beating me up. But and and I I agree with this in all these specific situations, but I can always think of counter situations. Like, what if she doesn't like the fact that you talked to Sally too much at the party last night? Oh, that'd probably take 3 months to have that conversation. Oh, yeah. Because there's lots to there's a lot to sort out there. It's like, okay. What are so fine. You don't like how I talked to Sally at the party last night. Alright. So you want us to stop going to parties? No. I I don't think that's it. I want you to behave differently. Okay. What are the rules? No flirting. Is that the rule ever? No flirting. That's a rule you wanna apply to you too. You wanna never flirt with anyone again in the rest of your life. It's like, well, no. There's still some playfulness. It's okay. Let's figure out what the hell are the limits. So this is the this is the be precise in your speech, which is slightly different than honesty. The honesty involves that initial answer of what is what is bothering me. Because often, people won't be honest about that either. But let's say they're honest about that. They have to flail around for a long time before they can even figure out what they're upset about. Mhmm. Yeah. It's hard. Oh, yeah. The precision in speech is you can't hit a target list. You aim for it. So you wanna be precise. What do you want? Exactly what do you want? So if I'm working with a client, for example, and maybe they're making $40,000 a year, it's not enough money. It's like, okay. How much money do you wanna make? Exactly. I wanna make a $120,000. Okay. How long? How long are you gonna give yourself to make that? It's like, well, a year. Well, it's possible. You're gonna have to, like, turn yourself inside now inside out to manage that. How about 4 years? You're gonna make a $120,000. So okay. Well, now we got a name. Let's see if we can put together a plan. But I feel I feel problems are more complex than that. Like, let's say let's say that person in that example is married. Okay. But if I don't make it within a year, I'm gonna lose my house, and then I'm afraid my wife's gonna leave me. Okay. Well, then what you do in a situation like that is you go through the catastrophe. It's like, okay. What's the worst case scenario? Lay it out. I'm gonna lose my house. My wife's gonna leave me. Okay. And I'm gonna now live in a in a one room place, and no one's ever gonna like me again. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's probably going a bit too far. But what I would start with there well, I would start there with, okay. Well, let's walk through what happens if you lose your house. What are you gonna do? Because you need a plan. Look. Sometimes people do come and see me, let's say, or are on the ragged edge of disaster. Right? And so there's just no there's no fixes immediately. There's no quick fixes. Then what I do is say, okay. Well, you can see the tidal wave coming. In a minute, it's gonna be on you. How the hell are you gonna swim? That's what we have to figure out. I think that I think that's that's a good point that I think everybody wants the quick fix because, obviously, that will Well, yeah. Make the plane pain subside immediately. Yeah. But but understanding that there's no quick fix, being honest about it, and coming up with some small incremental solution that makes you feel a little better can also subside the cortisol. Or that actually makes it better. You know. And and lots lots of times too, you're you're in a situation Leonard Cohen described, there's no decent place to stand in a massacre. Sometimes people come and say, look, I'm screwed, and I can either do this awful thing or this awful thing or this awful thing, and I can't see an alternative. It's like I go through it with him. It's like, yeah. You're screwed. You've got 3 bad choices. There's no other choices. No matter what you do, you're in trouble. So fine. So let's go through the choices, the poison. Let's figure out what we can what structures we can put in place to to make it less horrible. You know, maybe you're going to court because you molested your son or some g*****n thing. Like, you're screwed. You know? It's like, okay. We're gonna make this the least amount of awful possible for everyone. Well, it's still gonna be awful. There's no way out of this. It's it's a terrible conundrum. But but you can still I learned a while back why hell is a bottomless pit. And it's because no matter how bad it is, there's some stupid g*****n thing you can do to make it worse. And that's for sure. So, you know, you say, well, I'm in hell. It's like, okay. Fair enough. Like, let's see if we can stop it from getting worse. It's interesting because I I feel like, for instance, when I'm most anxious about something, the absolute the the correct thing to do is twofold. One is realize that my brain is operating out of, some anxiety that's being triggered as opposed to, let's say, out of my core Yeah. Truth Yeah. And then doing nothing. Mhmm. Because as long as my brain is not operating from my heart or operating out of some wherever anxiety is produced in the brain, then I'm not gonna make a good action. Yeah. Well, that sure. That happens to people too, and that that would be, I would say, more characteristic of people who are high in trait neuroticism. So they have a tendency high in trait neuroticism. So What does that mean? Well, your the degree to which you feel imagine that your body is always trying to respond to uncertainty and threat, and there's plenty of it. And some people respond to uncertainty and a unit of uncertainty and threat with a small amount of physical preparation. Because if something uncertain happens, you need to do something. Well, what? Well, you don't know. It's uncertain. So you prepare to do everything. Well, imagine that it's a little bit of uncertainty and you just massively prepare for a catastrophe. Well, you might be right. It might be a catastrophe. Yeah. Like, let's say you feel a little chest pain. You might think, oh god. I have serious heart disease. Exactly. Exactly. So, like, why not freak out completely and immediately rush to the hospital? It's like, yeah. Yeah. Why not? Well, it's an unsolvable problem, because sometimes you're right when you catastrophize. And sometimes and some people are wired to catastrophize more than others. So that's pure genetics does that. So well, if you happen to be in that category, then that that's that requires a different clinical approach. That means that you wouldn't be treated so much for the problems that you have. You'd be treated for the excess anxiety that you're experiencing. There's lots of ways that that can be dealt with. Exercise helps. The one thing I always recommend to people who are excessively anxious is, on this first thing I'd ask you is, what do you eat for breakfast? So what do you eat for breakfast? A cookie. Okay. So I can tell you this. You'll cut your anxiety 50% if you change the way you eat breakfast. So eat a protein and fat heavy breakfast and eat twice as much as you want and do it every day. And you'll find you will not believe how much difference that will make to you. Is that really true? Oh, absolutely. And and a cookie is the worst thing you could possibly eat for breakfast. So partly because so let's say you have a hyper reactive nervous system. It sounds very probable given the sorts of things that you've said today. So you you react with a lot of preparation to rather small signs of threat and uncertainty. Okay. So you sleep. You wake up. You stress yourself. Your body hyper produces insulin, takes all the sugar out of your blood, and then you're in a hypoglycemic crisis. You won't fix that till you sleep again. So what you need to do is you need to get up in the morning. I would also recommend get up at the same time every morning. You can go to sleep whatever you want. Get up at the same time. Pick a time. I don't care when it is. Pick a time. 10 o'clock, 8 o'clock, whatever. So you you wrote this in the book, and I questioned you know, it's different from, let's say, Arianna Huffington's book on sleep where she recommends 8 hours as I mean Oh, 8 hours would be good, but but, like, I'm doing minimal interventions here. Okay. Okay. It's like you're not gonna get your whole life together. Yeah. We're not gonna aim at that. If you wanna do 2 things that will really change your levels of negative emotion, it's like, first of all, get up at the same time because you should stabilize your circadian rhythms. Because if you're more emotional and more prone to to psychological pain and and anxiety than a typical person would be, you don't want it. You might have unstable circadian rhythms. And the best way to stabilize them is to get up the same time every day. That would be a help. And then I would say, before you do anything, eat. Don't look at your email. Don't look at your phone. Nothing. Get up. Eat. So I'm not hungry in the morning. It's like, who talk this isn't enjoyment. I don't care if it tastes like cardboard. That has enjoyment will come 2 years from now when you're starting to become accustomed to eating breakfast for now and just try it for a month because then you'll know. I know what'll happen. You'll be way less anxious. And what'll happen is you'll notice that things don't bug you as much. You know, something will happen and you'll think, I'm not reacting to that as much as I usually do. And then you'll also notice, I reacted to that, but I recovered faster. That's what'll happen. And I I I bet that if you did that for a month, you'd find your anxiety levels drop 50%. And then that might put you back in a more normal range, maybe not. Maybe you'd still be higher anxiety than normal, and then there's other things that could be done. So but that you just I've had people it's so funny. People will come, and they're just anxious and and and paralyzed. You know? I says, well I think that's a common no. It's like, well, you're starving. Okay. So let's fix that first. Well, that won't work. It's like, let's try it for a month. I think I think there's a disconnect like, somehow in our society, there's a disconnect between food and the and the concept that food is fuel that runs the body and the brain. I mean, 25% of our calories a day is burned by the brain. So Especially if you're stressed. Yeah. So we need food as fuel, and I don't know if people really think of it that way. Yeah. And you don't wanna use carbohydrates. You wanna use fat and protein. So that's the other thing. Protein, fat heavy. Stay away from the sugar. Don't eat any carbohydrates in the morning. Eat bacon and eggs. Eat cheese. Eat peanut butter. Don't eat don't eat bread. Don't eat cake. Don't eat cookies. So so let me ask you. So you've and this is this is I've had clients I said, well, I won't cook breakfast. It's like, okay. That's fine. Go go to the bloody pharmacy and get a case of Ensure, which is what you drink if you're diabetic. Drink to Ensure when you wake up in the morning. It's like, that'll only take 10 seconds. It's it's it's not a full meal, but it's a hell of a lot better than nothing. Start with that. Whatever will do it, man. Make a make a milkshake with with peanut butter and milk and drink that, but try it. It'll believe me, you won't you won't believe how much difference it makes to you. So so, and this this veers slightly away from what we're just talking about, although I'm definitely gonna follow all that advice. How does someone someone's listening to this, and they're thinking, man, this guy's so smart. I'm gonna read his stuff. I'm gonna watch his videos. You you have people coming up to you in the street saying, oh, you changed my life. What did you do to to do this? That's a pretty good life here. A clinical psychologist. Right. And a professor and an author. Yeah. But the clinical psychologist part really matters in this. It's like I've read the great clinicians of the 20th century. But not only that. You've done serious studies of the Bible. You've mentioned Crime and Punishment and Ayn Rand books, brothers Kerma Kermaazov. You know, there's more than just getting a PhD in psychology. You're also a a a huge reader, You know, and I think that's great because that allows you almost to absorb the lives of others in just a book as opposed to living their lives. Yes. Right. And so there's lots of internal work you've done, but then you also put yourself out there. You do these YouTube videos. You you go on these podcasts. Like, it seems like there's a a method to the madness a little bit. Like, you wanna be out there. You want Well, the method is the the reason for the method is outlined in the first book I wrote and the second book. It's like, well, life is brutal, and and and and there's evil. Fix it. Fix it. And so what You got nothing better to do, man. So what what are you what are you fixing? I'm fixing Why does it make you happy when the guy in the morning comes up to you? Because I know what the alternative is. What's the alternative? Hell. Is is some someone not coming up to you saying irrelevant? Is that hell? No. No. That's just not as good as it could be. Auschwitz, that's hell. The Gulag, that's hell. Yeah. We we've already been there. It's like we don't need to go there again as far as I'm concerned. And you feel also bad enough. For me, that was Solzhenitsyn thought Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian author. He thought the most important thing that happened in the 20th century was the Nuremberg trials. And he thought that and I think he was right. The reason for that is he thought that, well, you know, Nietzsche announced God was dead and so so much for transcendent good. It's like, okay. So much for transcendent good. It was a pipe dream anyways. Well, what's the problem with that? Well, now there's no up. That's a big problem because what the hell are you gonna aim at? If you've got nothing to aim at, your life has no meaning. So it's actually a big problem. Okay. So we got rid of transcendent good. Well, so then we have what happened in Nazi Germany. We replaced it with transcendent evil. It's just as good. It's like if you know that something is absolutely unspeakable, well, then you know that there's there's there's evil. Soon as you know there's evil, you know there's good. It's the opposite of that. That's what I've been searching for. So there's this story that that that happened in Auschwitz at Camp Guard. And this is I spent a lot of time trying to understand this. So, you know, you you get taken to Auschwitz. You're in a bloody train car. You're packed in there with a bunch of other people. You're all starving to death. It's so cold in the train car that all the people on the outside freeze to death. So they're just solid corpses by the time you get to Auschwitz. All the little kids have, perished. All the old people have perished. Hebron's half starved. You're taken away from your family. You're not even around people that speak your language, then you're dumped into this city sized compound. You're just screwed. You think that'd be good enough for your enemies, but that's not good enough. So then the guard comes up and maybe you're looking still like, you know, you you're not dead yet. You know? And so there's still some misery to be extracted from you. And so the job that's put forward for you is, here's a 100 pound wet sack of wet salt. It's like, how about you carry that to the other side of the compound? That's a city. Right? It's not like 200 yards. It's like a mile. Carry it to the other side of the yard. When you're done, carry it back. It's like, okay. So my question is, who would do that to someone else? That's the first question. And the second question is, what can be done so that that doesn't happen again? Yeah. Well, so that's what motivates me is the first is that's evil. That that's the the infliction on of suffering for the point of the suffering. That's the thing about that people don't understand about the Nazis. That's art. It's art of pain. And the Nazis were unbelievably good at that. And you don't understand that at all unless you know that that's about you. Not as victim either, although also about victim. It's like you're the guy who did that. You're the guy who did that. You should bloody well fix it. So so so You don't want it to happen again. Right. So so, basically and this gets back to all all of what you've been saying, we've been talking about. It gets back to the individual deciding what is a core value for them, taking stock of themselves so that they know when they veer from that, even in a small way, that that can add up across various dimensions, does add up Inevitably. To add up. Either evil or depression or a wasted life Yep. Or a wasted marriage or disappointment or whatever. Even shining less light in the world. It's like, you know, one of the reasons that young guys, I think, but young women too, have been, happy with what I've been talking about online. And, you know, it isn't that people come up and say that I've saved them, let's say. They say that they've been watching my videos and the videos have helped them, and I don't wanna take responsibility for the content of the videos. You know, like, I've read all these clinicians. I I know what they meant, and I'm synthesizing it and offering. It's not like I'm generating all this information, you know, out of nothing. I'm not at all. I'm putting forward the wisdom that I found. But, I tell people, look, you there's a lot of darkness and you have some light. And if you don't reveal all the light that is within you, then the darkness wins. And so you've so you're so you feel it's kind of a side effect then, these people coming up to to you. You enjoy it, but the real the real thing is, like, you have a I think it's amazing. I don't know if I enjoy it. It's too intense. No. And I You know what I mean? It's I I agree. And I get it, you know, to some extent because of these podcasts. I'm sure I'll get it from this podcast. And then I get worried. You know, it's I remember a conversation for between Eckhart Tolle and Wayne Dyer where, Eckhart Tolle basically is talking about awards and bad things and the difference. Yep. And he said both are hot potatoes. Right. You know, both, you can't get attached to either. And it's very hard because I want people to come up to me and say, hey. I I love it when people come to me and say, hey. I enjoyed that podcast you did with Jordan Peterson. That's a good thing. But I worry I get, addicted to being relevant as opposed to having that core integrity. Like, the the real reason I did this is because I enjoy talking to Jordan Peterson, and I'm learning from Yeah. Well, you should be worried about that. You should be worried about that. It's a big worry. Right. But but but as you just said, though, hey. It's fantastic when it when it happens. So it's easy to get addicted to that feeling of of fantasticness. Yeah. Well, it's easy to to to take too much personal responsibility for that in some sense or to attribute it to yourself too personally. Which I never do, which I always make sure I remind myself, and I say to them, you did it. Yep. Well, that's that's and that well, that's the thing too is that that it's a funny it's a funny thing to tell people. It's like, get your act together and say, well, that really helped. It's like, no. What really helped is you decided to get your act together. It's like I'm happy to be the medium whereby that message was transmitted. Wonderful. Hooray. But, like, I feel I don't feel a sense of accomplishment when someone comes and tells me about the fact that they put their life together. I think what I think instead is, wow, isn't it great that they decided to put their life together? And and I really do think that because I actually do believe that because I thought, you know, there's the Holocaust Museum in Washington and in Berlin. I think they both have the same motto. Maybe it's only the one in Washington. Never forget. It's like, okay. Fine. Forget what? What's the lesson of the Nazi of Nazi Germany? That there shouldn't be Nazis. It's like, okay. Well, those Nazis shouldn't have done that. It's like, that's not the lesson. The lesson is that we were the Nazis. That and and and that's fascinating because I haven't heard it quite in that way before that it starts with the individual. And I think, I mean, look. The book is 12 rules for life, but I think there's there's really important you you slice up into different ways, I guess, several a few important things. One is core honesty. Being able to speak precisely and coming from this core honest part where you've really thought and taken stock and even written down what your beliefs are, who you are, what your values are, and and so on. And then I think there's another core philosophy, which is, hey. Don't hang out with the Nazis or the people who are trying to control you or the people who are trying to say no to you in in whatever way, in in a negative way in a way that you view as negative. Hang out with Yeah. There's a there's an easy way of summing that up is you should hang around with the people who who want the best for the best in you. And and and I think and I think a a third thing is small steps or even bad steps are okay. Mhmm. So so personal Bad steps are good. Personal improvement doesn't mean run next year's marathon. It means run down the block if you've never run before. Like, personal improvement can happen in many in many dimensions. Trajectory trajectory is everything. Right. And so so and I think and the book is fantastic because I think you attack these different areas from the the twelve rules. But then, also, even within each chapter, there's, stories that you've experienced, stories from the Bible, stories from other books, stories from patients' experiences, stories from history. I mean, it's just fascinating to encapsulate all of these ideas of how to live a a a life filled with more contentment and well-being inside the context of developing these rules that are integral to to you personally. This is how no one can affect you because your these are your personal beliefies. So, and and and, again, I'm not taking I'm not saying don't have 12, have 3. I'm saying you attack these sort of fundamental concepts of of community, honesty slash freedom, and improvement across these 12 rules and your story. And I think I think this book is gonna be a huge book. I also think people should write their own 12 rules. That's part of taking stock. My guess is, as you were writing this, it was so much fun to have not to make your rules almost as simplistic as possible, like, take your pills. You know? I guess it's the one of the last things I asked. Why don't people I this is why I didn't understand the chapter. Why don't people take their pills? Because they don't think that they're dessert they deserve care. People look at themselves and they think well, especially when they look at themselves personally, and they think, Jesus. Other people to take their pills, though. They won't take but they won't take their own pills. It's because it's it's often easier for people to care for someone else than it is to care for themselves. You know, people have see, the problem is you know yourself better than you know anyone else. So you know how deeply you are flawed, and you know where you've missed the mark, and you know and you know where you where you've done bad things, maybe even terrible things. You know all that. You think, well, how the hell why would I take care of someone like that? Well, everyone falls short of the glory of God. That's a good way to start. It's like take care of yourself. You could be better than you are. You're not so good. You know? Fair enough. Just like everyone else. And I and I think We've got some problems, but, you know, you should still have some mercy for yourself and some care for yourself. And you could be more than who you are, and it's important that you are. It's really important that you are. I think that's a key thing is that you can be more than who you are. Yep. And, again, it's back to the individual. I it's not like I'm gonna be more than who I am by always subscribing to what society tells me to do. I have to first clean up my room. This is your own this is your own rule. It's like, according to your own standards, you could be more than you are. Good enough. It's like, start. Start. See what happens. You'll be so far along the road in 5 years, you won't believe it. Incremental improvements, they're deadly, and and they're lasting. That's the other thing. You know, you make a foundation. It's 1 brick at a time. I I I I think it's really true. I I I resonate so much with this book because I think I'm an example of it where it's worked. So these twelve rules are are valuable. They're they're, I think, instrumental in having a wife a a life of both well-being and meaning, and I think you've done such an amazing job of fashioning your own life according to these rules. You've stuck to your core integrity throughout as evidenced in a 1000000 different cases in your videos, in your controversies, in your books, in the podcast I've heard you on. So 12 Rules For Life by by Jordan Peterson, I think will be a classic or should be a classic. Thanks so much for for coming on the show. I hope hope was it a fun time? Did I was I a good interviewer? It was just fine. You've been interviewed by the best. So It was just fine. Okay. Compare it. Like Well, we had a real conversation. Yeah. And I and I I here's where my anxiety is. You've been interviewed several times by Joe Rogan. He did a great job with you. Okay. Where where how can I how can I improve? Give me one, advice for improvement. And I think Joe Rogan's one of the best. I think that you a little more confidence would be good. Alright. Alright. I'll I'll I'll know. I mean, there's utility and self criticism. Yeah. But, you know, it can it can move too far, and I think you're better at this than you think. And so but I would also say that's associated with the anxiety that we talked about, and the best cure for that might just be to eat breakfast. I'm I'm I'm eating scrambled eggs tomorrow. Yeah. Try it. Eat more. Eat more. Okay? With all the fat and bacon? Oh, it's better. Fat's good for you. It's not bad for you. That's not true. Fried and grizzled and all that. I love bacon. Thank you. Eat all the bacon you want. Try it for try it for a month and see. You'll see. You'll you'll be calmer. No doubt about it. Alright. I will. Yeah. K. Thanks once again, Jordan Peterson. And if you like this podcast, please listen to it. Subscribe to it on Itunes or Stitcher. Thanks for listening. Write in. Tweet us. What's your tweet? What's your Twitter? At Jordan b Peterson. At Jordan b Peterson. Tell Jordan how much you like this, and thanks for listening. Thank you. No problem. No problem.