Jordan Peterson: STOP LYING TO YOURSELF! How To Turn Your Life Around In 2024!

Sometimes it can feel like men and women in relationships want entirely different things, like they're struggling to communicate and connect on the same level about the same set of priorities. Jordan will now explain exactly why that is.

But outside of the context of a relationship, all of us struggle in our lives for a variety of different reasons. And what Jordan's particularly good at is telling anybody who's right now listening to this that is struggling in some way, or finds themselves in a situation where they're struggling to get out, and climb out of that situation step by step, how to do that. How to turn that situation into the greatest success of your life. And that's why I loved this conversation, and why I think you're going to love it too.

And before this episode starts, I've got a 10-second favor to ask you that are listening to this right now. 62%, roughly, of people that listen to this podcast haven't yet hit the subscribe button. If you could do me any favor at all, it would be just to hit that subscribe button. It helps this channel immensely. And if you do that for me, I promise with my team to do everything we can to make this show better and better and better for you. Do we have a deal? Enjoy the [Music] episode.

Jordan, we had a conversation before, and it reached tens of millions of people. And as I went through the feedback and the comments of that conversation, I found one that really stood out to me. Someone said, "I had just days of will left in my body. I felt like a failure. I hadn't reached the potential I knew I had in me, despite effort. I couldn't become the person I was so desperate to become. And then I found Jordan, and his unfiltered words pulled me from my darkest moment, just in time. Now my life is in my hands once again, and I've built a career and a life I'm proud of. So thank you, Jordan. We may never meet, but you've saved my life, and my children still have their father because of you." It is one hell of an impact that you've had on just that single person's life. How do you receive such incredible feedback from a stranger you've never met?

Well, when, when you were reading that, you know, I mean, it, it's obviously a very positive thing to hear. But my mind immediately went to why that's the case. See, I've been in the fortunate position of being able to synthesize and then communicate a centuries' worth of clinical research and experience gathered by very many extremely intelligent and careful people. And then on top of that, whatever I've managed to gather being reasonably educated in the broader sphere of the humanities and sciences, let's say. And the effect that this individual is attributing to me as a consequence of that, right? I've been successful because I've been a conduit of good ideas, and I have the ability to synthesize a lot of information and to communicate that to people in a way that's understandable.

The, the person who made that comment, you know, they were struggling for one reason or another. And one of the things you do with people who are struggling is you make the simple even simpler. Because then they can get a toehold. You know, like if, if they're really barely able to move. I had one client, you know, he was, he had a hard life, man. He was like 85. He'd fallen off a ladder and broken his neck, and they had permanently fused it. So he was basically like this. He could hardly move. He was so depressed, he literally couldn't get out of bed. You know, it was awful. And he was in chronic pain because of his broken neck. And so, you know, the first thing I did with him was get him to sit up for like 30 seconds. That was it. That's where he had to start. You know? And after I, I worked with him when he was in the hospital, after two weeks, he was walking down the hall and able to sit up and read for, you know, five or six minutes. And he got out of the hospital, he went home. But he had to start with the simplest possible steps. And hey, man, you start. This is the definition of humility, in some ways, is that you start progressing where you can start.

I think about this a lot because there's a lot of people that are objectively or subjectively down and out in their lives. That's how they feel. And it's often too intimidating to present them with the idea of climbing Mount Everest today, a proverbial Mount Everest. Like, "Just pick yourself up, go to the gym, work out, be healthy." Right? And that, yeah, no, that's not going to happen. It's like putting them at the foot of Mount Everest. But the small commitments we keep to ourselves are often really undervalued because they seem so trivial. Like you saying, "Well, that's the casual contempt." That's another aspect of that.

Well, one of the really difficult things to learn when you're down and out is how far you're down. Because it's humiliating. You know, I was ill recently, and when I started to recover, I couldn't really, I couldn't really button my shirts. I had to learn to do that again. I did, I had forgotten how to put my hands on a keyboard. I didn't know where to put my hands. I had to learn to type again. Now, I hadn't lost all the knowledge, and it came back quite quickly. But, and the reason I'm saying that is because one of the impediments to people who've really taken a blow in their life is that things have fallen apart around them so badly that where they have to start is humiliating even to consider.

The rule, it's a pretty straightforward rule when you want to get back on your feet. And the rule is: you have to make the task small enough so that you'll do it, no matter how small that is. You know? And that can, I, I've worked with people. I mean, one of the things I've become well known for is my advice to start by cleaning up your room. But I had plenty of clients who couldn't. They couldn't go home and clean up their room. They hadn't cleaned up their room for like 20 years for all sorts of reasons. Maybe because every time they did try to do anything positive in their family, no matter what it was, they were immediately punished and undermined. And so if they even went home and dared to start cleaning up the room, they'd face resistance within the family that was just a manifestation of the 50,000 times they'd been discouraged in the past. But also a move that would upset the insanity that characterized the pattern of familial interaction. And so actually, when, if they even made a move to clean up their room, what they were doing simultaneously was confronting the dragon in the family that had made every single person in that household insane for like five generations, right? So it looks simple, it's not bloody simple.

And so in a situation like that, you cut it down so that maybe the first thing they do is clean up, like maybe they look inside one drawer and see the mess that's there and just look at it for a minute and think about how they might reorganize it if they were going to. When people are very down and out and they decide to make a move forward, in some ways they're facing the whole panoply of problems that confront them in the guise of that single problem. It's all lurking behind it. Right? It's like, you know, they see the tip of a reptile's tail outside a gigantic closet, let's say. And they look and they think, "Well, that's just the tip of a tail. What harm can it do me?" But it's connected to the whole damn beast. And the advantage to that is that if you make that first step forward, you're actually advancing in the face of all that opposition. The disadvantage is that the first task seems so small that you literally have to be on your knees to be humble enough to lower yourself to take that first step. You know, "God, is that all I can do? I'm so useless." You might even be more useless than that because you might fail at it.

I had lots of clients who would come back. You know, we'd make a deal that they would do something simple. I remember one client, such a comical story in a terrible, dark way. You know, he was an overgrown infant. And he was 30, he was still living at home in his messy, you know, high school room, under the thumb of his mother. Conveniently for him, 'cause then he never had to do anything. And he had managed to entice some girl into sleeping with him, and she got pregnant. Now he's going to have a son. And had enough sense to come to me and say, "You know, I'm kind of a wassail, and I've mucked up my life, but maybe I'd like not to destroy this kid. So is there something I could do to put myself together?"

So, you know, we talked that through. We negotiated, which is what you do with a client if you're sensible. You know, you lay out the problem first. Okay, what the hell's wrong with you? Do you think? You have to listen and listen and listen while the person unfolds everything that might be wrong. They put all their cards on the table. And then you sort through and you think, well, some of that, even they'll figure this out themselves. Some of that's not really the central issue. And so you imagine they lay all the cards on the table, and then you kind of get rid of 90% of them. It's a symptom. It's a symptom. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's, it doesn't really bother me now that I've talked about it. That doesn't seem key. I think I'm really done with that. That isn't interesting to me. But they'll still have to lay it all out. And then you focus on the problem. And then the next thing you think is, ask them, is something... This is great general problem-solving strategy. Is, okay, if this could be better, as far as you're concerned, what would better look like? And then they have to lay their cards on the table about that. So you do the same thing. And now you have the diagnosis. That's the problem statement. And now you have a hypothetical, uh, cure, let's say. And now you need a strategy, right? And that would be the steps in between the problem and the final destination. Then you break down the steps until you find a step that they, that the person will take. You have to do that experimentally.

So the first step for him was to vacuum the carpet in his, in his room. And so this is literally what he did. He brought the vacuum. It was a stand-up vacuum. He brought that into his room, but he only got it to the threshold. And then he left it 45 degrees across the door, leaning, and he walked over it for a whole week. And so then he had to come back and tell me, you know, and he was embarrassed. He said, "You know, I got the vacuum cleaner just to the doorway, and I left it there. And then instead of bringing it into my bedroom, I just, you know, I put an obstacle in my own path and stepped over it for a whole week." It's a very humiliating thing. 'Cause he knew that his life was on the line, and he knew that his son's life was on the line. And he knew that he was one useless bastard for not being able to bring that vacuum cleaner into the room. You know? But the proper interpretation of that, in part, is, well, you got the bloody thing out of the closet, didn't you?

You know, so what we did was renegotiate. This is called, technically, this is called collaborative empiricism. It's a behavioral approach for clinicians. And the, the collaboration is, well, as I said, what's the problem? Diagnosis. What's the potential solution? The person has to be on board with all this, right? I mean, they have to be the people who decide that's the problem. You can't enforce that on them. They have to discover it for themselves. And the same with the solution. And the same with the strategies. It's like, I don't know what's right for you. I'll listen. We can jointly explore what might be the right vision for you. And then we can break that down into a strategy. But you, you have to be on board with the strategy. You have to feel that this is right for you. It's absolutely 100% crucial that it's voluntary. And then we'll say, "Okay, well, maybe this is a solution. Why don't you go implement it? Come back next week after having attempted this. Let's see how it went." You know? And sometimes people come back and say, "Well, you know, that went great, and it started me, and I did three other things, and, you know, what, we seem to be on the right track." And sometimes they come back and say, "Nope, that didn't work at all." Like with the vacuum cleaner. And so then you have to think, what you do in that situation is make the task smaller. If you make the task small enough, I've never seen anyone not be able to progress if they made the task small enough. But, you know, that can be pretty humiliating.

Now, the upside is that once you've taken that first step, you've looked the beast in the face, and you'll start progressing, not linearly, but exponentially in speed. So what's cool is that it doesn't really matter how small that first step is, because it'll start doubling. And anything that doubles grows unbelievably quickly. And so that's a very useful thing to know, too. And that, that's true when you're learning anything new. It's like, you'll feel like an impostor, you'll feel like a fool, 'cause you are. And you'll think, "I'll never get there." And, and it might, the destination might look very distant. But if you take a sufficiently small first step and get the ball rolling, you can be cruising along at a pretty good rate, generally faster than you'll think.

What's going on in one's psychology there? Is it building evidence of your own capabilities and capacity? Definitely. What seems to happen when you expose people to small but challenging tasks, it does two things. It makes them more skilled, because now they're actually dealing with the problem, and so they're acquiring the new perceptions and the new behaviors that are mastery. So they're actually expanding their domain of conceptual structures and actions. That's, that's both conception and skill. But at the same time, they're seeing themselves as the actors that can change the direction of their life.

For example, when you do exposure therapy with people who have phobias, agoraphobia is probably the best example. So agoraphobia is a condition where people will become so terrified, generally, of life that they, they often literally can't go outside their house. If they go outside their house, their anxiety levels climb to the point where they have a panic attack, which is like the complete disinhibition of the fight-or-flight system, very overwhelming experience. People will go out and they'll have a panic attack, and then they'll avoid where they had the panic attack. But then the probability of the panic attack starts to spread. So that wherever they go, they have a panic attack, and then they end up stuck at home. And it's quite a common condition.

Now, the people who develop that are generally women. And that's because women are more sensitive to anxiety than men. They're generally women who had an over-dependent relationship with their parents, maybe particularly their father. They're generally women who went from their father to an, to a boyfriend who was either overbearing and overprotective, or who was enticed into becoming that by the dependency of the person of the sufferer. And then, so imagine you're a dependent young woman, you haven't learned to stand on your two feet. Every time you had a problem, you were taught to seek authority, you sheltered behind the protective walls that someone else had established for you. You married someone like that. Now he's, he died, or you're getting a divorce, or, so that wall is starting to come down, okay? So all that existential panic starts to rise. You start panicking when you go out, and you end up at home, unable to move, also thinking you're the only person in the world who's suffering that way.

And so what you do is you find out, you, you do a problem analysis, and you find out their core fears. And what agoraphobics are often afraid of elevators. And that's quite convenient because, you know, there are elevators everywhere. So you can start having them confront their fear of elevators. So how do you do that? Well, if they're really terrified, you say, "Well, let's look. Why don't you come sit by me and, uh, let's look at some pictures of some elevators." And you say, "Look at the elevator. Okay, now imagine being 20 feet from it. How are you feeling?" They'll tell you they're nervous, you know, they're afraid they're going to get trapped in the elevator, they're afraid they'll have a heart attack, they're afraid that they'll be in there with other people who are watching them panic and have a heart attack and being humiliated.

So the, the two big categories of fears for people are like painful death and then public humiliation. And if you have a really good anxiety fantasy, it's that you're going to undergo a painful death in a very humiliating way. And so that's what they imagine happening in the elevator. So it's not exactly that they're afraid of the elevator, right? They're afraid of death and humiliation. And the elevator is a portal to the realm of death and humiliation. It's like, "I'm afraid of an elevator." Okay, how afraid can you? Could you look at an elevator from a 100 yards down the hall? Well, like, if it isn't 100 yards, then 125 yards. Like, you'll find some threshold that the person can tolerate. Okay, so now you're at the threshold where their, the magnitude of their confidence is precisely matched with the size of the apparent dragon, right? So, and they feel that it's like there's a place where their fear will, they'll say, "That's close enough." It's like, "Okay, now you're on the edge. You're on the edge." So now we'll dance on the edge. We'll move your foot forward. Okay, so let's move a foot forward. Okay, anything negative happening? Well, I'm feeling a little nervous. Okay, well, let's just stand here for a bit. Keep your eye on the elevator. Don't, don't hide, because you can avoid by just not looking. And we do this all the time. We look away. And the bigger the dragon, the more we're likely to look away. You know, people don't, people don't like to look at. And you can understand why people will avert their eyes from atrocity, right? And they'll certainly avert their eyes from the thought that they could participate in atrocity. And you could think of that as the heart of darkness. It's, it isn't because you could look at the fact that you could take glee in the commission of atrocity. And no one wants to look at that. While you start, and you have to look at that. You have to look at that in the final analysis. But one step at a time, you know?

And, and you can do that with any problem, literally any problem. Break it down, break it down, break it down. Public speaking, anything, going to the gym, anything, anything. A small dose, you know, a small dose. And it's, it's, it's so fun to do this with people. It's the same thing you do when you're, when you're, when you're encouraging your, your young child. And that's a primary source of gratification for human beings is putting someone on the edge and encouraging them. And so you do that as a clinician. So I loved being a clinician because, you know, people say, "Well, how can you, you know, how do you tolerate listening to people's problems?" Well, first of all, they're not your problems. You have to understand that. Because if they're your problems, you're still in that person's problems from them, you know? Because you could come to me, especially people who are, you know, very unsophisticated, they can come and talk to somebody like a, a well-experienced clinician, someone whose breadth of knowledge exceeds theirs by a substantial margin. And that person can just give them advice. But then they go act out that advice, and then that's not them. They have to come to it themselves.

This brings me to a point about trying to help people in your life. Because we all have people in our lives that are struggling in some way. And our knee-jerk response is to get in there and fix, solve. Well, this is a problem that men often have when they're dealing with women. Yeah, yeah. They leap to the problem-solution phase. And they also do that, in some ways, to avoid. And this is what annoys women. Because what the women want, and they don't even know this, but this is what the women want. Women are more sensitive to threat than men. Okay? So they're looking for predators. Now, predation detection is an intuition. Anxiety is an intuition. Something's wrong. Okay, what? Well, then you guess right. So imagine the threat system has sort of got something in its sights, but it's a, a sense that something's not right. But it's not fully fleshed out the picture, because serpents are camouflaged, right? So the threat is hidden. Well, what the woman wants is to lay out all the things that might be wrong. Okay, well, the guy doesn't want that. Because first of all, you know, maybe your wife is upset about something in relationship to your children, and she doesn't know what it is. So now she has to go through everything she thinks that might be wrong. Well, even for you to listen, that's going to be rough, because some of those things are going to be about you. And so you just have to shut up, and you have to let her put her cards on the table, understanding now, she has to do it in good faith, right? She can't be using that opportunity to skewer you. And so these things are tricky to manage. But you want to listen to her lay all the cards on the table. Now, the advantage to that is now you know where all the hidden snakes are. Now, if you do that, what you'll find out, and so will she, is that most of the things that she's worried about, she's not actually worried about. She won't know that until she lays them out on the table and can see them. And then both of you can triangulate to the actual problem. And then you can negotiate a solution and offer help. But if you jump right to help, the reason you can't do that is 'cause you, you probably have the problem wrong.

So, so back to your question about helping. One of the most effective things you can do to help people is to listen. And there are technologies of listening. And so the first one is, don't assume that either you or the person who's talking knows what the problem is. It's so hard. Once you have the problem specified, you've solved like 95% of the problem. It's re, that diagnostic move is really hard. Are we sure we're addressing the most crucial issue? You have to have your sights focused right on the center point of the cross, right? Like in a, a gun sight. It's like, are we aiming at the right target? And then you can start negotiating problem, solution. And so, so it's, but you can develop the patience to do that. Once you understand that that initial active listening is in itself the most helpful thing you can do. Just listen.

And then how do you listen? Okay, so if I'm listening to you, there'll be times when what you're saying doesn't make sense. And so then I'll just say, "Well, you're saying this now, but you said this five minutes ago." And if you listen a lot, you can learn to track conversations across a very long span of time. And that's quite fun. "You said this, but then you said this, and they don't like, they seem contradictory to me." You're not accusing the person, you're saying, "I see an inconsistency in the way you're formulating the problem." And they'll sort of startle a little bit and then try to rectify that. They'll check you out to see if you're insulting them or trying to play a game of moral superiority first. But if it's just an honest question, then you're actually helping them lay out a description of the situation that's not internally contradictory.

Okay, so, and the great podcasters do this. You see this with Rogan. You know, all Rogan does is ask stupid questions. Mmm. And the way he does that is by consulting with his own ignorance in humility. Rogan is listening. He's thinking, "I'm a stupid lunkhead, and I don't understand this. What do you mean?" And the, what's that's brave, because he's exposing his own ignorance. But it's, it's honest, because he doesn't understand. But it also unites him with his audience, because especially with someone like Rogan, the probability at this time that if Rogan doesn't understand the gist of the conversation, that 95% of his audience doesn't understand is, it's like 100%.

The importance of listening can't possibly be overstated. Listen. Ask questions until you understand. And by doing that, you also help the other person clarify the situation. It is so hard to do. And I, I think we have to just pause at that step, because it is, as you said, you said like, "That's 95% of the challenge." It is so hard to do in relationships, in work. I've sat literally at this table with a colleague of mine about a year ago, and she was telling me, she works in one of my companies. She was telling me that she's unhappy in her role. And I remember sitting here, and she gave me a bunch of reasons why. And I kept asking and asking questions. And after just 30 minutes of asking the questions, she had decided that, in fact, everything she had just said was not the issue. And then it related back to a much more fundamental issue of just meaning in her work.

Well, see, see, okay, well, that's very important. That's very important. Jung called that a circumambulation. Okay, so now imagine the threat system is going off, right? Saying, "Something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong." But it's just, it's an, it's a primordial predator, predator detection instinct. That's what's being triggered. It isn't high-res. It isn't capable of high-resolution conceptual formulation, not to begin with. Something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong. Okay, what? Maybe this, maybe this, maybe this, maybe this, maybe this. Okay, now what happens is the, the maybe circle and spiral, right? And as you lay them out, you spiral inward to the gist of the matter. But you have to see, because you could imagine while this woman is explaining her problems to you, she's talking about things about the company and her relationship with the company that might be unsettling to you. So you're sitting there thinking, "Well, she's laying out her problems. Maybe you're getting defensive. Well, that's not true. The company's better than that. That's an unfair accusation." So you're feeling on the spot. Plus, you want to jump in with your, you know, with your solution, because you want to show that you're bigger than the problem that she's showing. Maybe you're secretly attracted to her, and you want to be a white knight. I mean, there can be 50 things you're sitting there thinking about what you're going to say next, 'cause you want to play dominance. Or maybe you think that's what you should do, because you're a boss. And it's like, there's a lot of things that'll interfere with listening. But, but so you learn, you say, "Just shut up. Ask stupid questions until really, until the person that you're listening to has specified the problem."

Now, if you're very fortunate, both of you will converge on that. It'll just become clear. "Oh, you, and you pointed this out. This is what that's really all about." Now, the person may be discovering too, that they were resistant to that conclusion. They, you know, because the fundamental threat is more key to their self-esteem, that to their conception of themselves, than allowed them to be comfortable before they get to the actual point, which is where they're going to be most vulnerable. They're going to throw out a bunch of screen concerns just to see if you can be trusted with something that will reveal their vulnerability. And they're even doing that to themselves. It's like, "Dare I tell the truth about this situation? Because I betrayed myself before." So maybe not. You're so right. They, they test you on the way to the truth to see if, how you'll respond. Yes. And they're testing themselves too. And, you know, and you can facilitate that. See, if you facilitate that by calm listening, then you're modeling the fact that whatever the hell they have as a problem isn't so terrifying that you have to avoid it and run away. Yeah, right, right.

It's so interesting what what was actually revealed. Because this person that works on one of my marketing teams in a different company, where there's a CEO, said to me, um, "It's the work she they were doing that was causing them the, the issues, and that's the reason they wanted to leave, etc." And I asked them the question after about 30 minutes, "When was the time you were most happy in in the business?" They revealed to me that the time they were most happy was when they were with me overseas at the very beginning. And what that really revealed, at its essence, was there had been a change in the proximity to me and the real meaning of the work. And they now felt like they were doing trivial things. Their happiest time was when they were right next to me, doing the most important stuff, right? The, so the most difficult problems they were solving, the most difficult problems when they were most challenged. And they were, they were so really, the fix wasn't what they thought it was. The fix, and they're now, they actually text me. I sent the message to one of my team members last night saying, "I just don't want to keep their identities." Let's say they were with me in Canada. They text me, "When they were most happy, they text me last night saying, 'I feel like Canada Jenny again.'" And all the adjustment that had to be made was getting them back close to bigger challenges. So they wanted to be closer to the front line, as it turned out.

When Freud first developed psychotherapy, he developed this technique of free association. Okay, so all free association is, and this is what Freud, this is why people put Freud, put people on the couch and sat behind them. See, if I'm face to face with you, and I'm laying out the problem space, just what you're signaling to me by your face might stop me from fully revealing the truth. Because maybe you'll raise an eyebrow, or there'll be a micro-expression of disgust or contempt, or you'll look away. Or because I'm going to be evaluating you to see how you're reacting morally to my revelations. So Freud just hit himself. He, and I, I don't think that's strictly necessary, but, but, but it's a very wise intuition. And you can imagine how it would be helpful. So now, I think the counter to that is, you can signal to someone who you're talking to, like, open reception of the message they're receiving. It's just that. And kids love this, right? One of the things kids are doing all the time is testing you to see if you're paying attention. And they will modify their behavior in any way imaginable to get attention. There's no, it's because there's no difference between attention and love, by the way. Like, there's no difference. And so I don't think you have to hide yourself from your client. But that's why Freud did it.

Now, what Freud noticed, and the psychoanalysts noticed, is that if you let people free associate, the topics that they picked would be linked to one another. "That reminds me of this. That reminds me of this. That reminds me of this." Now, obviously, because people aren't just emitting random noises, there's a reason the things they're revealing are linked. There's some implicit similarity that they're striving toward. Now, often what'll happen, if you listen to your wife, for example, she's laying out a bunch of problems, and it'll spiral. It'll remind her of something. This happened with Freud. If you got to the gist of it, it would remind people of something that happened to them much earlier in their life, and often something that was traumatic.

So, a trauma is a problem you encounter in your life that's quite deep, so that it unsettles you that you do not resolve. So it's like, imagine that in your bedroom, there were holes that you could fall through into, you know, into trouble. And so you want to make a map of where all the holes are so that you can walk through the landscape without falling into the pit. Now, it'd be better if you just fixed the holes, but, but at least you have the landscape mapped out. Well, a trauma is a, a trauma is a hole that hasn't been filled in. And so maybe you, if you had a trauma when you were four, hit a wall, and because you couldn't resolve the trauma, that's no different than not maturing in relationship to that problem. So what you have at hand there are the only the tools that you developed by the time you were four. Now, then you might encounter a situation where that's reminiscent of that. So, for example, someone might say, "I had a problem with my boss. I have a recurring problem with my boss." And so you listen to him. He says, "That reminds me exactly of what my father did when I, you know, in this situation when I was a kid." And so the reason the person is reacting to their boss in a negative way is because they're using the same conceptual structure that they used to construe their father when they were four.

You'll see this in marriages all the time. Like, if you have a recurring problem with your partner that's, that's that you really can't understand. Now, it might be your fixation at some developmental stage that's the problem. Like, she's interacting with you in a way that elicits your 13-year-old self consistently. But she also might be reacting to you in a way that elicits her 13-year-old self. And so then, but if you listen to her, she'll get to that, and then she'll tell you the story. And then sometimes she'll be able to figure out what to do about that herself. Or sometimes you'll have to discuss it. But it almost always results in tears. Almost always. And I think the reason for that is, think that what happens is when people break down in tears. So children cry quite often. And they cry when they encounter an impediment that they can't surmount. And I think what tears do is dissolve you to the state of neurological plasticity that characterizes early childhood, so that you can learn. Now, people don't like that, right? That reversion. It's humiliating. But, you know, you have to break. That's the crying. The crying is an indication that the current conceptual structure is insufficient. It has to die. Then the tears come, right? And then now you're prepared neurologically to learn something new. And that'll be whatever comes out of the discussion. And that'll replace that old conceptual structure that's outdated and immature with a new, somewhat fragile conceptual structure, right? And then the person will try that out a couple of times. Like maybe you, this is something where you have, it's like something that's just come out of a cocoon. You have to be very careful when you negotiate with your partner, because, you know, maybe they'll decide that they'll try a new tactic that you, you have both agreed on. But the first 30 times they implement that new tactic, first of all, they won't do it very well because it's new. And second, if you punish it, it'll kill it right away. Yeah.

So you're describing my relationship very accurately. Because I am someone who in the mid, so what's my, my sort of attachment style? I grew up in a household where my parents were very, were at each other a lot. It was fighting, arguing. So I learned very early on that relationships are like prison, right? So I wanted commitment. I ran from commitment my whole life. I met someone who had an opposite attachment style, where whenever things get a little bit rocky, she wants to like latch on, in a sense. Like she really wants to make sure that I, she's got my attention. Yeah. For example, I could come home and say one word that shows that I'm focused on my work, and then suddenly she's like fighting for my attention. That makes me want to run. And that makes her want to chase, right? Right. And so then she'll, you know, she'll get triggered, and then she'll kind of retreat and be, it's quote unquote, like the word "sulking" is often used. Um, so we came up with a system where I said to her, "When you feel triggered by me not giving you the attention you want, and you end up spiraling, can you just try and tell me as soon as possible?" Yeah. Instead of like, the seven-hour silence. Um, so that was the mechanism we came up with. And then the first time she did that, I was, as you said, very conscious of making sure I didn't react badly to it or get triggered by it. Right. So you're describing the process I've been through entirely. Yeah.

Well, this happens. This happens to everyone. And those, those sulks, let's say, that's, that's a non-verbal threat response, right? Right. And you want to replace that with a more differential, practical, and more immediate strategy. You know? And so, you know, one of the things that I've seen, for example, with my wife, is that, um, the periods of time where she gets upset shrink and shrink and shrink and shrink, because she can get from the problem to the verbalizable statement of the problem and the solution way, way faster. But that, that takes just from continual practice, continual attention. It's like, "Oh, I'm upset. Okay, well, what am I upset about? Here's a bunch of things that I might be upset about. Okay, which of those are focal?" Like, this is something you can learn, you know? But you have to, you have to admit you're upset. And you also have to understand that you don't know why. Because one of the things that'll happen in a marriage, with any close relationship, with any relationship, is like, well, if you and I talk, and we hit a pit, it's, I would rather that it's your fault. Because then you have to take the conceptual structure, and you have to allow it to die, and you have to cry, and you have something to learn. And it's you, and it's an indication that you're insufficient. It's way more convenient for me if it's you. Plus, I get to feel moral superiority and like I have myself under control, and that I've, you know, mastered the universe. And also, women also, in some ways, want that from men, because they want the men to be competent. And so men will pretend to be more competent than they are. It's like, you want to find out what the problem is, because then you can solve it. And one of the things you have to consider is that you're, you're the problem. Maybe you're not, but maybe you are.

Now, you might say, "Well, why should you undergo the cataclysmic revelation that you're the problem?" And the answer is, 'cause you could stop being the problem. Like, that's the payoff. Because you might say, "Well, why, why attend to your wife? Why fight?" And the answer is, "So you don't have to fight again." See, I know this. So I'm a very agreeable person. I don't like conflict. Like, I'll do almost anything to not, to paper it over. Though that's the thing, to fix it. But the reason that I'll engage in conflict is because I know it isn't a theory. I know that conflict delayed is conflict multiplied. And so if I do have a problem with someone, I want to note it, get it on the table, fight it through to the bloody bottom, fix it, and move on. And there's a, you know, that's that's a lot of emotional stress and complex reconceptualization and retooling. And people would rather avoid that, you know? Because, you know, you come home from work, and your mind is on something, whatever the hell it is. And then this like snake pops up, and you think, "Do we really have to deal with this now?" It's like, "Well, maybe. And if not now, when?" And that's something you can also negotiate, you know? Like, I can give you an example of that.

So there was a time, a very long time, where my daughter was insanely ill and suffering brutally and deteriorating at the same time. And that's overwhelming by definition, because a problem you can't solve is overwhelming. And then, so the question arises, well, how do you deal with the problem that's overwhelming that you can't solve without making it worse? One of the things that Tammy and I did was we made rules. It's like, we didn't talk about Michaela after 8:00 at night. It was just off the table. Because we knew, well, are you going to, are you going to go to sleep? Are you going to need some sleep tonight? Like, if we're going to battle this for like decades, we better not wear ourselves out. Okay, how not to? Well, let's make some rules. They're like negotiating rules. And you, you can do this. This is good advice to the degree you can give people advice about a relationship. Here's something to understand about your marriage, okay? You are going to have to listen to your wife 90 minutes a week, okay? And you might as well just get that through your thick skull. Now, why? If you listen to her enough, you can make peace and you can play. So there's a huge benefit. If you don't listen to her, that will accumulate, and you'll listen to her in divorce court, like you will eventually listen. And at some point, you'll pay for the privilege of doing so, right? Because there'll be other people involved, and then the backlog will be so high that you might never escape from it.

Why don't men like to listen? Well, well, often because the insufficiencies are pointed at them, you know? And, and sometimes, especially if the woman, let's say, and this can go both ways, let's be sure about this, but we'll, we might as well revert to the stereotypes. And I think it's fair because women are more threat-sensitive, so they're more likely to bring up problems. Now, that's the disadvantage is they bring up problems that don't exist because that's a false positive. But the advantage is they bring up problems before you're sensitive enough to see them. And so this is very important. If you think about the role of women, is the woman is closer to the infant than you, okay? So you're, you know, doing whatever the hell you're doing, you're concentrating on your career, you know, you're not, especially when the infant's under a year old, you're a step removed. Now, and good, you can be dealing with the external world, but she's concentrating on the little kids. And one of the things you want to hear from her is what the hell's wrong with the kids before you're wise enough to see it. Now, the price you pay for that is she might be short out about things that don't exist. So, you know, and this is especially true if your wife is high in neuroticism. And it could be true if the husband is too, but as I said, that's the more stereotypical situation.

So why listen? To get to the signal. Now, will she get to the signal? Yes. Although she might not be very good at that, and it might take a lot of listening. But if you listen long enough, she'll get better and better at it until she'll get like, really good at it. And then the time between the emergence of the problem and the solution will just, it'll collapse to the point where it's virtually immediate. Now, that can take, that's a very high level of mastery. That can take a very long time. But then, you know, you also want to put forward to your wife and yourself the proposition that you're better than you are. Which is, well, "I can, okay, I get the problem, I can solve it." It's like, "No, you probably don't get the problem. And even if you did, it isn't necessarily the case that you could solve it." And so you have to put up with the fact that you're going to have to be dragged through the mud, uh, because she's going to point to, you know, maybe her kid's upset because you're a tyrant. And you probably are a tyrant to some degree, you know, clomping around overconfident and all that. And so she's going to poke you. Well, maybe you're this, is how you're stupid. And maybe this is how you're stupid. And maybe this is how you're long list of potential ways and actual ways.

You could be stupid, so you have to listen to that. Now, your wife has to act in good faith. You know, one of the things that Tammy and I did when we first got married, because I, I thought a lot of this through before we got married, I said, "Look, you know, if we're going to do this, you, you have to tell me the truth. I don't care what it is. You, I'll tell you the truth, but you have to tell me the truth. I don't care what the truth is, but it has to be true, right?" And so that's without that, you get nowhere, and you can't trust your partner either.

And so your partner has to be all in. That's why you have a marriage vow, because the marriage vow is basically this: "This is the vow. No matter what you tell me, I won't run away." And that's a vow, man, because when someone unveils their whole heart, they unveil themselves all the way down to hell. It's not pleasant. It's awful. And so they need to know that you will not run away. And that's a vow, because what do you know? Look, the person's always going to be thinking, "Always, if you really knew who I was, you wouldn't love me. You wouldn't be with me." And you know, hey, fair enough, 'cause people are full of snakes. And if all those snakes were revealed, perhaps the logical thing to do would be to run.

And so then you might not, you might say, "Well, why not run?" It's like, well, you want to run from everyone for the rest of your life? You want to forgo the advantages of a permanent relationship? And you're full of snakes too. So you're both making a bad bet. And so you make the bad bet based, based on the idea that if you are faithful and you are truthful, that you can resolve the issues. And you can. It's a good deal.

Resolving issues. Much of what you've talked about stems back to childhood trauma and things that happen in our, our formative years. I often wonder, those holes in the bedroom floor you describe, the early traumas, can we? They're often in the bedroom floor, by the way. Yeah, you bet. Can we ever fill those, or can we just put planks of wood over? Oh, no, no, no. You, you can't put planks of wood over them. You have to fill them. And what you do. Oh, and, and you can do this. You know, let's say you were bullied repeatedly when you were a kid, okay? You're probably still being bullied, because if you didn't, being a bully victim is a stable trait.

So the great analysis of bullies that have been done, Dan Olus in Sweden did this. He was a great psychologist. He analyzed bullying behavior and bully-victim behavior. So he defined bullying very carefully. You're a bully if you use power disproportionately. So like, if I'm 12 and I'm picking on someone my own size, I'm not a bully, right? Because there's a, the risk to me is commensurate to the risk to them. That's just aggression. That's just competition. And even if it's violent, it's not bullying. A bully is when I'm 12 and you're eight, or when there's two of us and one of you, or when I get you in a position where you're completely vulnerable and can't defend yourself. Disproportionate use of force, right?

Bully victim is someone the bullies will check out. Imagine a bully comes into a room full of kids. He'll poke at all the kids, and one of the kids will manifest a disproportionate emotional response. Well, then it's like he just zeros in on that. And those are often kids who are higher in neuroticism or who are fragile for other reasons. And then that can become permanent. And both the bullies and the bully victims have a negative long-term developmental trajectory. The bullies tend to become criminal and alienated on that front, especially as they move into high school. And the bully victims tend to become depressed, anxious, and dependent.

If you have a partner who's been a bully victim, for example, that's going to be brought into your marriage. And then one of the things that's going to happen is every time you try to have a dispute, which is to actually think and solve a problem, they're going to see you through the bully template. They're going to treat you like you're a bully. They're going to accuse you of being a bully. They're going to bring up all the times before when you acted like a bully. And then you're going to have to defend yourself.

And part of the reason that people can't listen is because they also don't know how to defend themselves. It's like, especially if you're, "Here's 15 pieces of evidence that you're a bully." It's like, can you counter those? Maybe? What if you're not very articulate? You know, it might take you two weeks to think up how to argue yourself out of that. Plus, you're going to be doubtful about it, you know? So those are very complicated things to work through. But you can listen. If you listen, the person will dispense with some of their accusations by themselves. The accusations that can't be dispensed with, though, now those are questions.

You know, maybe your kid's upset when they, he or she's interacting with you, and your wife says, "Well, you're too hard on him." It's like, "Well, are you?" Well, it's time for you to go away for like a week and meditate on that, right? And that's, that's soul searching, right? You're going to go down to the bottom of your hearts like, "Well, are you a bully? Are you a bully like your father was a bully? You know, are you a bully like a friend was a reprobate that you admired and tried to copy was a bully?" You know, you have to see, because maybe you are. Maybe you should stop. But then you also have to figure out how you would be if you weren't being a bully. Then your wife can help you, you know?

And this is another good rule for couple conflict. Like, let's say I'm unhappy with you. Say so. I come and tell you. You can ask me, "Okay, what do you want?" "If I could give you what you wanted, what would it be?" "Well, I don't know." It's like, "No, sorry, I cannot hit a target you won't specify." Let's discuss it. At least we got to have a target here. And so this is also, if you're an employee, you got to know this. If you're an employee, you're going to your boss with a problem. Why do you go with a solution too? You know? And if you're the sort of employee who goes to your boss with a solution, you'll rocket yourself up the hierarchy. If you're in a halfway decent business, you will rocket yourself up the hierarchy so fast you can't believe it, 'cause you'll get a reputation as the person who can solve the problem.

So, and you know, and you can actually play with this in, in, in your marriage. Because one of the things that you can do, for example, is, well, let's say you say something that irritated your wife, okay? And then you can say, "Okay." She'll say, "Well, that really bothered me." It's like, "Okay. It's an open question. Why?" Maybe she's too goddamn sensitive, and maybe you're too much of a son of a... It's like, who knows, right? But you can ask her, "Okay, if I had said what you wanted me to say in that situation, what would I have said?" Now, that's a hard question. She has to think about that. It's like, "Well, what would, what would have worked?" And then she'll say, you know, "Well, maybe you could have said this." And then you can say, "Okay, let me say it now." Then she asked. And but it's sort of like, "Let me say it." It'll be sort of fake. It'll be a first-pass approximation. You're putting words in my mouth. But let's assume that I'm trying to do something better, stupidly and badly, to begin with, you know, with an eye to mastering it over 50 repetitions. So, but I'll start by just saying it. So she'll tell you what to say, and you can say it.

Now, if you're absolutely 100% unwilling to say it because you think it violates your conscience, that's a whole different issue. That means there's a deeper discussion to be had. But maybe you could try it, you know? You could try it out for size. And maybe she could see if that sort of satisfied her. And now you've got a rubric for, for how that interaction might go in the future.

Let's make it concrete. You come home at the end of a workday, okay? There should be, there's a right way of doing that that you have to negotiate with your wife, you know? Maybe she rushes to the door and meets you with all the problems of the day, okay? That's probably not a great strategy, you know, 'cause you're already up to here, you're tired. So is she likely from whatever she was doing? Maybe, maybe she was at work too. You can't meet each other when you're both tired every single day for the rest of your life with nothing but a ball of problems. Partly because if you do that 50 times, you're going to view the person as just a, a bunch of snakes that are coming at you. That's not good. Even if the problems that are being pointed to are real.

You know, you might think, "Okay, so you come home after work. What would be the best way for that to unfold?" And you have to negotiate that. And I would say, "We, you know, let's parameterize that a bit. You're probably hungry." Well, you don't want to talk to someone. This is another great rule: Don't talk to your partner about something complicated when they're hungry. It's not going to work. So maybe you come home, you have something to eat, you kick off your shoes, maybe you take 10 minutes for yourself, and then you can talk. But you, you want to get that right. Or maybe you come home, you meet each other at the door, she gives you a hug, you have something to eat, you relax for a minute, maybe you have a shower. But then you've already negotiated about when you're going to have a conversation, and you're going to be prepared for it.

Now, people do this in their business. You don't just randomly discuss a bunch of problems at your business. If it's running reasonably well, you have a meeting. It's parameterized. You kind of have an agenda. You have to do that at home. You have your, your home is also a small business, and it has to be run like that. And you have to spend 90 minutes, at least 90 minutes a week, with your wife just running the damn business. And I can tell you, if you don't do that, you'll never get to the play, ever. 'Cause maybe you'll, you know, you'll be interested in each other, and you, you want to spend some time together, but there's a bunch of problems brewing. And your wife will definitely do this. Will absolutely happen is that when you're trying to be interested in each other, these things will come into her mind and distract her, and she'll bring them up. And then you'll get pissed off because it's like, "Well, we're supposed to be having fun. We're supposed to be attending to each other. Why are you bringing that up?" And the answer is, "Well, we're together, and these are problems we haven't set aside time to deal with them."

The reason you should listen to your wife is because if you listen to her enough, she'll tell you what's wrong and what she wants. And then you can fix what's wrong and you can give her what she wants.

In your practice, have you ever encountered those holes in the bedroom, those childhood traumas that you realized at some point when you stared into the patient's eyes, they could never solve? Yes. Yes. Yeah. A bottomless abyss. Yeah. It's awful. Yeah. I was in situations where, you know, I, I get to the bottom of it, I thought, and then it was like Dante's, so Dante's Inferno. For everyone who is reading, listening, you should read that book. Dante's Inferno is a topography of hell. So underneath every problem is layers of problems, right? Right to the bottom. For Dante, the worst problem was betrayal, right? And the reason betrayal is the worst problem is like, if you and I want to have a relationship, we have to trust each other. And betrayal is the violation of the trust upon which relationships are predicated. So it blows apart everything. So the lowest level of hell for Dante, the bottom of hell, was filled with betrayers. And that's, that's childhood sexual abuse. Like, it's the ultimate betrayal, right? It's the, it's the, a child sexual predator is someone who takes the role of guardian to be the wolf, right? It's the worst form of betrayal. And so it just devastates children. Because they're actually faced with the problem of malevolence at a very early age. And they, what they, it's like, you're four, and now you see the bottom of hell. Well, that's trauma. And the only, the way you treat that, by the way, is you walk people through a topography of hell. That's what you do.

And you can do that. Well, let's say you were abused when you were a kid, okay? So what's your problem? Well, your problem is you've seen into the heart of darkness. That's your problem. And just blew you into pieces. Could people really be like that? Is that my father? Right? Is that my uncle? How could he do that? Well, that's you're gazing into the face of malevolence itself. You have to develop a philosophy of good and evil. It's a religious philosophy, essentially. Because a philosophy of good and evil is a religious philosophy. Those are the same thing. You have to, you have to develop a philosophy of evil. And then you have to understand how you combat that. And that's very complicated.

Now, how do you combat evil? With truth, with love, with beauty. You have to start to embody that, you know? Or maybe it's even worse. You're traumatized because you did something like, brutal, seriously brutal, and maybe you enjoyed it. That's a very common pathway to post-traumatic stress disorder for people. And that post-traumatic stress disorder occurs when you have a very large hole that you know gapes large enough to swallow virtually everything that hasn't been fixed or papered over. You do that by finding your way out of hell. And that's what happens in, in The Inferno, too. Dante is guided through hell by Virgil, who's the spirit that guides you through hell. That's a good way of thinking about it. So, and every problem, if the problems your wife brings to you, especially if they repeat, there are levels underneath that. And at the bottom, there's a betrayal. Something like that. There's some bit of hell in there somewhere. And so, and sometimes, you know, if you go all the way to the bottom and you solve that bottom problem, you'll solve a whole bunch of peripheral problems.

So, in there's a movie, Apocalypse Now. That's about a journey to the heart of darkness. And that's what the book is about, Conrad's book. And there's a documentary called Heart of Darkness that describes the making of Apocalypse Now. And the people who made Apocalypse Now, which was a movie about a journey to the heart of darkness, it had an effect on them while they were making the movie. And all of the people that were acting in the movie and directing and producing and financing all went on a journey to the heart of darkness inside. And it virtually killed them. One of them had a heart attack. One of them went completely broke. Like, they just had a catastrophe when they were making this movie. They fell into its archetypal clutches. Heart of Darkness is the name of the documentary. It's fascinating.

Have you been on that journey yourself? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sort of. I would say in some ways, permanently. When I, when back when I was 20 something like that, 20, I started studying atrocity, right? And so I was, I've always been interested in the Holocaust, Auschwitz in particular. But it's a very particular interest, like evil Nazi Germany, Auschwitz prison guard, prison guard who enjoyed his work, right? Because my, my question was, how could you be an Auschwitz prison guard who enjoyed his work? Now, one answer is, well, you're just like a demon from another planet who's so unlike me that I don't even have to worry about it. And that's a very convenient answer. But it's not true. Many, many, many, many of the people, not all, many of the people who were involved in the Nazi atrocities were perfectly ordinary people. They were just like you. And you think, "No, I wouldn't do that." It's like, that's not what the evidence suggests. The evidence suggests that the vast majority of people in Nazi Germany went along with it. Now, not all of them were dragged into the abyss itself, but plenty were. And if you think you wouldn't have been one of them, that just means it's highly likely that you would have, because you have no idea what you're capable of.

There's a great book about that. It's a terrifying book called Ordinary Men. And it's about the initiation of a police battalion from Germany who went to Poland after the Germans marched into Poland. Now, these were ordinary men. They were policemen, middle-aged, who had grown up before the Nazi propaganda mill got going, okay? So, so they weren't indoctrinated Nazis from, like, the time they were four. They're just ordinary middle-class guys. Plus, their commander told them in Poland, when they were starting to do military work, even though they were civilian policemen, that they could go home, that they didn't have to do this job, and that there would be no repercussions. And in fact, out of the battalion, a number of men, right at the beginning, said, "I'm not doing this," and they went home. Most, the vast majority went along. Now, why? Okay? So now these policemen are in Poland, and they've been told a story, which is that, you know, Germany's at war, and the reason for that is that evil Jews have conspired up a, you know, a conspiracy, and they've united the Western world against us, and they're a fifth column within the country. And your patriotic duty is to root them out. Now that we're in Poland, and you're saving the Fatherland, and there's going to be dirty work associated with it. And do you really want to leave all that to your compatriots, you know, your companions, your, your guys? 'Cause like, if you and I are together, and someone that we're working for presents us with a dirty job, and I say, "Well, I'm not doing that," well, then I leave it to you. So there's a kind of betrayal that's built into that.

Now, the guys that left thought, "I don't care, I'm not doing this." But most people didn't. And part of the reason they didn't do it is because they were loyal to their, to their peers. By the end of this, which took months, these guys were taking naked, pregnant women out into the middle of fields and shooting them in the back of the head, like, and becoming violently ill because of doing so, and tearing themselves into shreds internally, like, sick, sick at heart, but doing it. And that's a, it's a terrible thing to look at. And I started looking at that, like, it's 40 years ago now, you know? Was shocking.

And so what did I discover? Well, I discovered a lot of things. I discovered that the road to totalitarian hell and atrocity is paved with lies. Like, lies are the pathway to hell, really, like practically and metaphysically. And so one of the things I decided, this was in 1985, was that I was not, I was going to stop lying. What does that mean practically? Lies ruin your life. There's so, you will not accept a white lie. You won't. Well, look, a white lie is worse than, better than a black lie. But look, if you're really telling the truth, you're serving truth at every level of analysis simultaneously. It's right. So if, if my words are landing properly, they're going to be the words that work now, and tomorrow, and a week from now, and a month from now, and they're going to work for me, and they're going to work for you. So a true statement has levels of application. And a white lie is a statement that's true at one level and false at another.

Now, you might not be able to, maybe you don't have the wherewithal at that moment to come up with the statement that satisfies all the truth conditions at every level. And so you default to the best you can manage. You know, your wife says, "Do I look fat in this dress?" You know, or maybe she says, "How do I look in this dress?" And you think, "You don't like that dress." And you know, the easy thing to do is to say, "I love it, dear. Whatever you want." Or, you know, "Of course not." But that's, and that's a white lie. But that's not the optimal answer. Like a better answer to that is, um, "Don't ask me questions like that." And then you can have a discussion about it.

See, the thing is, I've done, I've bought a lot of clothes for my wife. I like clothes shopping for my wife. And I tell her how I think she looks. And the advantage to that is that if I tell her that she looks good, she knows I mean it, right? I'm not muddying up the water. And if I have to say something, I mean, it's not like I, the number of times that I've told her that I'm not happy with the way she's presenting it, like, it's, it's virtually, that virtually never happened. She actually has extremely good taste. And so it's just an example. But if you're forced into a situation where you have to tell a white lie, there's snakes somewhere that you haven't dealt with. And maybe the best you can do, and that's Leonard Cohen, the poet, said, "There's no decent place to stand in a massacre." You may have already compromised yourself to the point where, in that situation, the best you can do is a lie. But that means that you shouldn't have bloody well been there to begin with.

And the antidote, in many respects, is honesty further upstream. Honesty with yourself and others further upstream. You can get yourself in positions where all of your options are bad. And what that means is exactly as you pointed out, you did something upstream, man. Now, one of the things you do in therapy is you find out what people did upstream, you know? And you'll find this in your discussions with your wife. There'll be a problem, and as you circle towards it, you'll see, "Oh, this is where I made a mistake. Right? This is what's wrong with me." And then you can even, you can even find out, if you look, you can, you can go back into your past and you can think, "Oh, yeah, that's when I made that decision. I knew when I made it, it was a bad decision." You know? And your life is full of the consequences of decisions you took in the past that put you on the wrong path.

And you said we were talking about repairing things. What you do is you go back to where you made the mistake. You figure out what the mistake was. You know, there's this cartoon trope that there's an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. Well, you come to a crossroads. That's also where you meet the devil. Go this way or that way. If you go the wrong direction, your life will be, then the consequences of that bad choice. And then that will tangle you up, and then you'll suffer for it. Then you have to figure out, "Okay, what's the suffering? What's the problem? When did I make the bad choice? Which road should I have taken?" That's how you fix a trauma. You, you replace the road you did take with the road you, you should have taken. And now you have a road forward. And once you have a road forward, the trauma is no longer traumatic because you have a road. Your brain brings up the past because you have not specified the proper road forward. You go back into the road you took that was the wrong road. You find out what the right road was. Now you've atoned. You've confessed. You've repented. And you have specified the proper pathway forward. And that's what you do when you negotiate a solution to a problem with your wife too. Here's what we're doing. Here's the problem. Here's what we did wrong. Here's what we'll try to do in the future. And if that new future map works, that past trauma will be rendered irrelevant.

As you know, because I've sent thousands of messages, these conversation cards sell out exceptionally quick. So here's the deal I'm going to make with you. If you join the waiting list, which is in the description below, you will get sent access to buy these conversation cards one hour before anybody else. They're in limited supply. So if you really do want to get your hands on them, please do add your name to the waiting list in the description below. And you can find that waiting list at theconversationcards.com. But I'll also include it in the description below wherever you're listening to this episode.

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I was looking at our past conversation and I thought it would be interesting to see who the audience were, that their demographic and the age group were 20 to 40 year olds, really 18 to 40 year olds. My question to you is, in their lives, in that demographic's lives, what do you think the biggest challenge is? Because your both your kids, Julian and Michaela, both fit into that, that category as well. What is the greatest challenge that that demographic face?

Well, the biggest challenges we had with our kids was, see, I think the big, biggest challenge I had in my generation was negotiating the years between 13 and 15, something like that. But my sense is now, the biggest challenge to young people is negotiating the transition into adulthood, into adulthood identity. And I think that's partly why we have this terrible war in our culture about what constitutes identity. And I think the reason that identity has become such a problem is that our concepts of identity are unbelievably unsophisticated, narrow, hedonistic, and self-serving. So the identity groups that have popped up are all, you could say, whim-based identity groups. They're sexual identity, say, or something arbitrary like sex, like sex, or race, or ethnicity, something arbitrary. But the sexual identity groups are particularly interesting because the idea that that's your identity is predicated on the notion that there isn't anything more vital to you than your, than the immediacy of your sexual behavior. Well, you're not a sex machine. You're not a short-term sex machine. That's not what a human being is. So if you revert to that, all you're going to do is produce, like, anxiety, hopelessness, and misery. It's not a good solution.

So then you might say, "Well, what's the solution?" And the solution is something called a subsidiary solution. It's like, so what's your identity? Well, you should get your act together and take care of yourself. So you have to integrate yourself. You have to integrate across anxiety and hatred and pain and jealousy and fear and hunger and lust and all the, that plethora of spirits that wage war within you. It's a lot. It's a lot. You have to bring that into a unity, okay? And one of the things Nietzsche said, the famous German philosopher, was that every drive attempts to philosophize in its spirit. So all those subordinate spirits that war inside you will try to dominate. "I'm only my anger," or rage, that's the protester type, you know? "I'm only my sexuality." "I'm only my, my, my appetite." That's the consumer model. But all that has to be integrated. And then you might say, "Well, integrated into what?" Well, integrated into a structure that serves all of those spirits simultaneously and harmoniously across a long time. That's maturity, okay? But that doesn't happen in isolation.

So then the next, there's stages above that, okay? So the next is, maybe you've got your act together enough so that someone can tolerate being around you. So that, so there's enough left over from you so you can play with someone else. So you establish a relationship, marriage, let's say. You invite someone else to join forces with you. You produce a united vision, okay? So now there's you, and there's you as husband. And it's the joint interplay of those that's now your identity, okay? And so now you have a role, and you have obligations and responsibilities and opportunities, you know? You say, "Well, I'm constrained by my marriage." You know, "There's all sorts of things I can't do." Which really means I can no longer, in the most primitive way, it means I can no longer immediately gratify my short-term whims. Although it could also be more complex in that I don't get to pursue the things that I need to pursue, which means you haven't negotiated with your wife very well. Like, if your marriage is a prison, you have, you're either very immature in what you want, or you haven't negotiated properly.

If you've done it well, you've got your individual unity established. And then there's a unity within the marriage that's better. And why would it be better? Well, you could learn to love someone, and that would be better, because getting outside yourself decreases your anxiety. So we know, as psychologists, one of the things that was learned 20 years ago is that there's no difference between thinking about yourself and what you want and being miserable. Those are self-consciousness and negative emotion are so tightly tied together that they're statistically indistinguishable.

Does that not raise the question about the decline of religion? Absolutely. Well, that's the next level. It's like, okay, so there's you. Now you're a husband, right? And so your identity is those two things in lockstep. But that's not enough. Now maybe you're a father. Now you have kids. Now you have a whole another level of responsibility and opportunity to flesh yourself out and support, support, and love, right? So now, and then, well, you, so you've got your family together. That's not enough. You've got the community to serve. So you want to serve the community. And then community scale, you know, maybe you're good in your local business, and you have a local business organization, and you're good in that. And then, well, then there's the town level, and the city level, and the state level, and the country level. And then, you know, "America is one nation under God." That's the ultimate level of this hierarchy of identity. And that's what should be served most fundamentally. That's a definition. Okay? God is that which should be served most fundamentally. It's a definition. So when you're thinking that B is better than A, what you're saying, even if you don't know it, is that B is a step from A on the road to God. That's what you're saying.

The medieval definition of God was something like, "The sum of all that is good," or "The essence of what is good." And so if you believe that there is a good, then lurking behind that is the spirit of all that which, all which all of that which is good. That's God, by definition. Now, you can debate forever about what that is, but it is something you live in relationship to. Like, that's inescapable. That's absolutely inescapable. And you might say, "Well, I don't believe in God." And then I would say, "Well, do you believe in good?" And you'll say, "No." I say, "Well, then you can't act, because you act towards a good, or you're not motivated."

I called Simon Gunning, who's the CEO of Campaign Against Living Miserably, a big men's health charity here. And I said, "Give me the updated stats." He said to me, "19 to 35 year olds, which is that demographic that are listening to this predominantly, um, are twice as likely to report being in crisis than any other group." And there's a reason. It's a very straightforward reason. It's, it's literally this: the more you are focused on yourself, the more miserable you are. It's as simple as that. But that's society now. These days, we're very, I know, well, we're in crisis. Well, and there are terrible forces pushing us in that direction. You know, like I could attribute this to the idiocies of a degenerate Protestant liberalism driven by postmodernism. But you could also just as easily point to consumerist capitalism. It's like, it's all about you. It's all about what you want. Worse, it's all about what you want right now. Worse, it's all about what your basest appetites want, regardless of cost, right now. Well, that, that's the same as being two years old. It's, there's nothing about that that's. And why do you think that's you, anyways? It's like, since when did what you are become what the most idiotic part of you, who cares nothing about anything else and any other people, wants right now? Why is that you?

How about this, though? So this is where I'm trying to make a distinction. Is responsibility a good thing? But but with responsibility, sometimes comes this idea that it's about me. My outcomes are about me. It's all about me. My success and failure are a consequence of me, me, me, me. Yeah. Well, that, right, right. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, that's why the classical Christian philosophy has always been that you cannot infer someone's moral worth by the level of accomplishment. So the aristocrats would have said, the Roman aristocrats would have said, "Well, look at me. Like, it's pretty obvious, speaking to a slave, say, it's pretty obvious that I'm better than you. First of all, I can slap you, and there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it. And you have to do what I tell you to do. And I've got all the money and all the stuff, and I can make all the decisions, and I have all the power. Clearly, that's evidence that I'm morally superior to you."

But didn't they believe that a God had granted them that superiority to some degree? So didn't they often believe in fortune as the sure, sure? Of course they did. That just made it even better. It's like, it's a, the fact that I've got the power is a reflection of the fact that the cosmic order is clearly on my side. And we believe that less now because of the decline of religion. So we now think that our outcomes are more determined by our own actions. Yes. But lurking underneath that is, is there's a hidden God lurking underneath all that too? It's just that the God has become subjectivity. It's something like that. When God talks to Moses out of the depths of the burning bush, he says, "I am what I am." And that's what every degenerate Protestant liberal says now: "I am what I am." And they also say, "And if you don't go along with it, the consequences for you are going to be pretty damn dismal. Use my pronouns. Adopt my identity. Play the game that the worst part of me insists on, or else." And it is a consequence. I, I said Protestant liberalism for a reason. Like, as we've moved away from God, we've moved into a radical subjectivity. Now, the problem with that is that a radical subjectivity, especially one of impulse, is unbelievably immature and counterproductive. It just doesn't work. Any more than a room full of two-year-olds works.

What's the better idea? This subsidiary structure. It's the adoption of voluntary responsibility. May, way more complex identity. It's like, you know, take on the load. Pick, take someone in your life. Make a permanent relationship work. Work it out. Have some kids. Serve your society at all these different levels. Strive upward. What's up? Okay, here's the definition of up: a better solution unites more situations and people across broader spans of time.

Is this why this brings me to you're doing Peterson's Academy, which is an online sort of interactive learning platform you've designed, which is kind of seems like it's taking on the, this typical university structure. I, I was on there, I see people can sign up right now. But why are you doing Peterson's Academy?

Well, um, curiosity. Um, I'm curious about virtually everything. I started putting my lectures on YouTube because I was curious, "What'll happen if I use this?" You know? So, curiosity. But then the more deliberative answer is, I'm in a very fortunate position because I can meet pretty much anyone I want to meet. And the people I want to meet are almost always interesting thinkers, let's say, or people who have done interesting things repeatedly in their lives. And so I can find those people. And some of them are very charismatic, and they have lots to say. And they, I am providing them with a platform to say those things. And we can do it at extremely high quality and very, very low cost. And we can distribute that to everyone. And I am an educator. I'm a professor, or at least I was. I'm still a professor emeritus. And I, it's time for the, for what we've been doing in universities for all these centuries to be made available on a mass scale, because it can be done very well, and it can be done, and it's entertaining to do. And there's no reason not to do it. Okay? So that's all on the positive side. And then there's a sense of humor aspect to it too, because it became impossible for me to work in a university. And so I thought, "Fine, I'll go build my own university." 'Cause I thought, and maybe there's something arrogant about this, when the university came after me, there was part of me that thought, "You think I need you? It's like, I don't think so. I think you need me. And if you don't want me around anymore, we'll see who needs who." Now, like I said, you know, I was irritated and peeved, and maybe there's something arrogant about that. But let's reconfigure it.

So here's one of the experiences I've had bringing these professors down to Miami. This is especially true with the professors from Cambridge and Oxford. Like, some of these people, man, they are deadly. You're lucky to have a conversation with them. They've been thinking a long time. They're super smart. They're wise. They know their field. They're great communicators. These are stellar people. And their universities treat them terribly. No respect. They let their students walk all over them. They pay them abysmally. They treat them as if they're pawns of the administration. It's sickening. And so I invite them down to Miami, and we, we make them a good, good financial offer. And we treat them like people we're very pleased to have there. And we hope they'll come back. And they have a really good time. And they deliver. And we say, "Look," they say, "Well, what, what function do you want this course to serve?" You know, because maybe they're worried that there's a political agenda or something like that. And our rule is, "We picked you for a reason. You know what we're doing. You tell us how to get the hell out of your way so that we can enable you to teach the course you've always dreamed of teaching. We will provide you with the audience you've always wanted," which will be people, because they have a live audience. The live audience members, we select them because they want to come and listen, which is what you want for students. And so we want to have the dream experience for the professor. Come talk about what you love to people who want to listen. Plus, we'll provide you with maybe enough financial security so you don't have to be concerned about your damn university anymore. Which is also something I'm quite pleased. Now, I don't know if we can deliver on that. But even the initial, we give them an advance, like, like with a book deal. And even the initial advance generally is a sizable sum. It depends to some degree on their following, right? Because we do some economic calibration. But I would love to be in a position where I could take, like, the best thousand lectures in the world, bring them on to Peterson Academy, give them financial independence, because that would be really amusing. And then to bring what they have to say to to everyone for, like, for almost no cost.

You first, you've taken a first-principles approach to trying to build a university, bringing the best professors together, giving them the freedom, making sure they're not, they're not censored in any way, giving them the audience and the remuneration and appreciation they deserve. When does this university, Peterson Academy, launch? Early 2024. We already have 30 courses, uh, recorded, something like that. I'll put the link to the university in the description below on, on this episode. But also, you can just search Peterson's University online, and it comes up the first thing.

We usually have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest in the diary. But, um, I wanted to ask you my own question because it was quite pivotal to our, it was really informative, and the honesty you brought with it in our last conversation really changed my life in a number of ways. How I'll tell you after I ask you a question, okay? Okay. The question is, how are you doing?

Good. Good. You know, I, I still have a lot of pain, so that's annoying. But not anywhere near as much as I did have when I was really sick. So, like, I almost always feel like I have a relatively serious flu, achy. It's some neurological problem, and I have no idea what it is, and neither does anyone else. But, but I'm not anxious at all, and my head is very clear. And I have such a ridiculously interesting life that the, the leftover trouble is basically irrelevant, you know? I wish it would go away, but whatever. It's not that big a problem. So, and I, I mean, I just have an absolutely miraculous realm of opportunity in front of me. It's crazy. Every day I have is so interesting that it's almost unbearable. And I would tell people who are listening, you know, you might want that for yourself. Let's say you might want to have that. And I can tell you, you can. One way to increase the probability that things will unfold for you properly is to, is to not lie. It's just stop lying, period. Stop saying things you believe to be untrue. Stop doing things you know to be wrong. Just start with that. You'll get closer and closer to the truth. And the truth is, the truth is the adventure of life. That's the advantage to the truth. You have the world on your side. But obviously, because if you're lying about things, you're opposing reality. Who are you? Who are you to oppose reality? Good luck.

Unbearable. It's almost unbearable. Your life is so exciting and so full of opportunities that it's almost unbearable. Yeah, yeah. It's like an action-adventure movie all the time. It's crazy. It's crazy. You know, wherever I go, I can talk to whoever I want, essentially, you know? I'm going from country to country. People stop me on the streets. They're happy to see me. It's like I have friends wherever I go, really. It's crazy. And people, you know, they feel they know me because they've been watching hours often. And they do know me. You know, I don't know them, but they certainly approach me on good terms, you know? And so, and I go, I just was in nine different countries. And I have a team of people who set up meetings for me, like dinner meetings and so on, in these countries. And they're always people, they're well-placed people in the political realm, in the cultural realm. They're hyper-interesting people. And, you know, so I meet 30 people like that every second day in, in different countries all over the world. And so, and then I have these podcasts, and I can basically phone anyone I want who I would like to talk to, and they'll talk to me. And so, you know, three times a week, I get to sit down with someone who's like a bloody genius, and for 90 minutes, they'll tell me a whole bunch of things I don't know. So that's superbly interesting. And so, and, you know, my books are selling like mad, and I'm writing another one which I'm really interested in. And, yeah, it's great. It's ridiculously interesting. And you can, I truly believe that people have that at hand. They have, you have that at hand. That's there for you.

Jordan, thank you. My pleasure. It's always good to talk with you. It's always good to talk with you too. And it's, you've given me a gift, as you did last time, in so many ways. So thank you so much for making the decision, 'cause I, you could be anywhere. So if you to come here, that, that, that honor and that, that decision is not lost on me. So it means a lot to me. Thank you so much for the work that you do.

Yeah, well, I'll tell you, just so you know, too, it's like, there's a reason I'm here. You know, I have a team that, because I do have a lot of requests, and when you have more requests than you can possibly fulfill, there's a certain pain in that, because there's the requests are almost always of some quality, you know? So we triage, and we're looking for people whose podcasts have reach, and who have been successful, and who will conduct a straightforward and honest interview, and that will, you know, that are aiming up, and that won't play games. And there's a reason I'm here. And the reason I'm here is because of the work that you've done. So, right. It's no favor. I'm glad to be here, but I'm, I'm here because this is the right place to be right now. So congratulations on that.

Thank you so much.

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Ah.

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