664 Jordan Peterson on Responsibility and Meaning

“TREAT YOURSELF LIKE YOU ARE SOMEONE RESPONSIBLE FOR HELPING.” It’s common for people to question why they are here. This question can lead to depression and a sense that the world is a terrible place. I’ve sure you’ve experienced that feeling, and you may even be going through it right now. During these times you’ll commonly replay events in your life where you felt out of control or like everything was going wrong. That reaction comes from a lack of purpose and responsibility for yourself. You’re lacking the goals you need to feel complete. Instead, start making a road map for your life: the things you want to achieve, the family you want to have, etc. It doesn’t have to be a perfect map. In fact, it won’t be. No one has the ultimate road map. But any direction is better than no direction. Without a start, you’re just going to stand there watching the world pass you by. To dive further into this I’ve brought in a special guest: Dr. Jordan Peterson. Dr. Peterson is a professor at the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist and the author of the million-plus selling 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Jan 2018, Penguin Books), which has been a Number 1 bestseller in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, the Netherlands and Brazil, and which is now slated to be translated into 40 languages. He has become super popular in the last two years for his lectures which he records and puts on YouTube. I had such an interesting interview with him that had so much important information, I actually split it into two episodes. In this episode of The School of Greatness, we sit down and discuss why we admire sports figures, how any aim (even a bad one) is crucial for you to feel fulfilled, and a mindset tool you can use to motivate you to do hard things. Learn how you can find the strength to live life you didn’t know you had, on Episode 664. Some Questions I Ask: How do you embody something in a shift of view? (7:23) Why is there so much conflict in the world? (8:14) A clear conscience is different than happiness? (11:06) When we’re watching sports, what does it do for us? (15:51) How do you fix your past traumas you can’t let go of? (21:22) What do you mean by being reasonable with your goals? (23:18) Why is it better to have a bad plan than to be in “No Man’s Land”? (27:15) What are some examples of weaknesses people might have? (28:42) What are three weaknesses, you know right now, you can still work on? (29:29) Does a rationale mean a meaning? (37:14) In This Episode You Will Learn: How Dr. Peterson’s simplifies his philosophy (6:16) The relationship between responsibility and meaning (9:56) Why people are so interested in sports (13:13) The reasons you need a noble cause (17:37) The purpose of memory (20:17) Why you need to be able to answer the seven questions (25:54) What you have to do to move forward (31:06) Why you should be exercising (32:48) The reason people get stuck searching for their meaning (39:12) Plus much, much more... Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 664 with bestselling author Jordan Peterson.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:32Lewis Howes?

  Winston Churchill said, "The price of greatness is responsibility." We have Jordan Peterson in the house, and for those that don't know, Dr. Jordan Peterson is a professor at the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist and author of the hit book 12 Rules for Life, An Antidote to Chaos, which has now sold over one and a half million copies in about six months since it came out. This is taking over the world. There's so much media, news, and attention around Dr. Peterson. And I'm so excited that we had an opportunity to connect and really dive in deep on some things that I haven't heard him talk about from a lot of the interviews he's done. He got extremely vulnerable a couple of times,

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  and we are doing a two-part series on this. So make sure to listen all the way to the end and listen to the second part as well, as this may inspire you and open you up in a whole new way. His YouTube channel features his university and public lectures. He's got hundreds of videos, over 1.2 million subscribers, and over 60 million views over there. His popular podcast is always in the top on iTunes in the higher education category. And he's considered a main thought leader in belief systems and human psychology. And today, we talk about why taking responsibility for your life is so important,

• 1:57Lewis Howes?

  also why sports figures are so admirable, and what we can learn from them, why having a vision or some type of aim, even a bad aim, lessens our

• 2:10Lewis Howes?

  Suffering in life, the risk of wandering in no man's land with zero purpose and a mindset tool to motivate you to do hard things. This, I'm telling you guys, is a powerful episode. Make sure you listen all the way to the end. Make sure to share with a friend, LewisHowes.com/664 and tag myself and Dr. Jordan Peterson over on Instagram to let us know that you're listening and what you're getting out of this podcast. Before we dive in, give a quick shout out to the fan of the week. This is from Joshua Grimm, who says, "Lewis, thank you so much for what you do. I've always daydreamed of what it would be like to have a few moments to pick the brains of the most influential people, and you provide

• 2:53Lewis Howes?

  that gateway. Your interviews and questions with all the people you meet are so moving. As a music lover, I have had to change my driving habits for the better, and now I have made a habit of listening to you and your interviews on my morning commute." Thank you. So Joshua Grimm, thanks for being the fan of the week. Means a lot. And if you guys haven't left a review yet, you can over on the podcast app or on iTunes and just leave us a review. We've got over 3,200 five-star reviews now and they keep coming. So thanks so much for all your reviews.

• 3:28Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness Podcast. We've got the legendary Jordan Peterson in the house. Good to see you, sir. Very excited about this. You've got a book out called 12 Rules for Life. Make sure you guys check this out. You probably already got it, but if you don't, I'm telling you, go pick it up right now. And Antidote to Chaos, you've had so much attention over this last couple of years, and I've been digging into the research and just been fascinated by everything that you've been up to. And I just love your stance on the vision you have for humanity in terms of how we can all live better lives. And I think you simplify a lot of things in this book. Which some things people don't like to simplify. They like to complicate. And I think that's what's gotten you a lot of attention.

• 4:12Lewis Howes?

  Is that you try to really simplify a lot of these things.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Well, I try to make everything concrete, so that it's actually implementable. I mean, there's a lot of high-level abstractions in the book. Because it ranges up into the theological and the philosophical. But it's always grounded in what you can actually do in your life practically. You want to bridge that gap from the highest abstraction down to the lowest level of behavior, so that it becomes implementable. And that's how philosophical concepts take on their meaning. Right, because they have to. They have to have some impact on the way you see the world and the way you act in the world. Or they're not fully realized, they're not understood. Because partly what we mean, I would say, when we say that we understand something. It's kind of a strange phrase to understand something. But it means to be able to embody it in a shift of view and a shift of action.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  And then you've got it, it's graspable, it's in your hand.

• 5:01Lewis Howes?

  Embodied something in a shift of view?

• 5:03Speaker 01

  Well, they're the same thing, because perceptions are very tightly linked to your actions. Because of course, when you're acting, you're aiming at something. You have to be devoted towards some aim, some target. We play that out in sports all the time. That's why sports are so entertaining for people. It's because they dramatize the idea of aim. And not only of aim, but of the pursuit of excellence in pursuit of that aim. That's the game. And the reason it's a spectacle and the reason that people participate in it is because it dramatizes something absolutely essential about life. And so, you want to take philosophical abstractions and you want to use them to to structure your aim. And then your perceptions organize around that aim. And then you act it out, and then you've got it.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Then it's become part of your life. It's not just a philosophical abstraction that floats free in space.

• 5:54Lewis Howes?

  Why is there so much conflict in the world? Is it because there's so many different perceptions that people have? On what they think should be right?

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Sure, well, part of it is, part of it, of course, there's conflict because we have real problems. And so, life is actually difficult. Independent of the, of psychological foolishness, let's say. Independent of the obstacles that we put in our own path.

• 6:16Lewis Howes?

  It's already challenging.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  It's already, it's already fatally challenging. Right, life is the ultimate challenge.

• 6:21Lewis Howes?

  We will die.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 6:23Lewis Howes?

  So there is a challenge, yeah.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Yes, well.

• 6:26Lewis Howes?

  Uncertainty, fear, pain, all those.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Yes, all the thing, all, everything that goes along with suffering is a challenge. And it's, it's, it's the full challenge. Because it takes everything you have. And so, part of the reason we disagree is because there are complex problems to solve. And then, we also disagree because we're willfully blind and because we're more ignorant than we should be. And we're not everything we should be. And we tilt towards malevolence from time to time. And we betray each other and ourselves. And so, we take a bad lot in many ways and make it worse. Now, not always, obviously, and we don't have to. But that's sort of the baseline that we're working against. I think people are most disappointed in life when they're disappointed in themselves. You know, they see that they've made things worse than they had to be, even though the baseline can be pretty brutal.

• 7:11Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  So, yeah, and so the book and all my lectures, I suppose, are put forward in an attempt to take the high-level philosophical abstractions and to make them into something that's actionable.

• 7:22Lewis Howes?

  And to take the next best action in your life to improve your life. So we don't have to suffer as much.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Well, and hopefully also so that people around you don't have to either. So one of the things I've been talking to my audiences about is the relationship between responsibility and meaning, which is, what would you say? It's a, it's a constant refrain in the book. It's one of its underlying messages, let's say, or themes, is a better way of thinking about it. If you start with the presumption that there's a baseline of suffering in life and that that can be exaggerated by, as a consequence of human failing, as a consequence of malevolence and betrayal and self-betrayal and deceit and all those things that we do to each other and ourselves that we know that aren't good, that amplifies the suffering. That's sort of the baseline against which you have to work.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  And it's contemplation of that often that makes people hopeless and depressed and anxious and overwhelmed and all of that. And, and they have the reasons. But you need something to put up against that. And what you put up against that is meaning. Meaning is actually the instinct that helps you guide yourself through that catastrophe. And most of that meaning is to be found in the adoption of responsibility. So if you think, for example, if you think about the people that you admire, well, you think about when you have a clear conscience first. Because that's a good thing to aim at, which is something different than happiness, right?

• 8:43Lewis Howes?

  A clear conscience is different than happiness.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  It's better.

• 8:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Because you're not like guilting yourself, you're not feeling bad about yourself.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  That's right. You feel that you've justified.

• 8:52Lewis Howes?

  Clean.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  You've justified your existence, right? And so you're not waking up at 3:00 in the morning in a cold sweat, thinking about all the terrible things that you've involved yourself in.

• 9:00Lewis Howes?

  What you said to someone that you shouldn't have said, or how you acted, or lied.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  Or what opportunity you lost, or the things that you've let go that you should have capitalized on, and all of that. And so if you think about the times when you're at peace with yourself with regards to how you're conducting yourself in the world, it's almost always conditions under which you've adopted responsibility, right? At least, the most guilt, I think, that you can experience, perhaps, is the sure knowledge that you're not even taking care of yourself. So that you're leaving that responsibility to other people. Because that's pretty pathetic. Unless you're psychopathic, and you're living a parasitical life. And that characterizes a very small minority of people. And an even smaller minority think that's justifiable.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  But most of the time, you're in guilt and shame because you're not... Not only are you not taking care of yourself, let's say, so someone else has to, but you're not living up to your full potential. And so there's an existential weight that goes along with that.

• 9:59Lewis Howes?

  So you suffer even more. When you don't take care of yourself, or take the best actions, or do the work that you know you can do, and you rely on someone else to support you financially, emotionally, physically, whatever, you know, home, whatever it may be.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, because you're not only not being what you could be, you're interfering with someone else being what they could be, right? So you're not only a void, you're a drain.

• 10:23Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Jesus, that's a catastrophe.

• 10:25Lewis Howes?

  Because we usually don't even know it when we're in that situation because we're in a depressed state, or we're...

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Or we don't want to see it. You know, you wake up at 3:00 in the morning and you know. And then you think of the people that you... So you admire yourself, or perhaps you can at least live with yourself when you're taking responsibility, at least for yourself.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  And so that settles your conscience, but then if you look at the people that you spontaneously admire. And so the act of spontaneously admiring someone is the manifestation of the instinct for meaning. Right? And this is partly why people are so enamored of sports figures. Because the sports figures are playing out the drama of attaining the goal, of attaining a certain kind of, let's say, psychological and physical perfection in pursuit of the goal. That's the drama. And to spontaneously admire that is to have that instinct for meaning latch on to something that can be used as a model. And then that model should be transcribed into something that's applicable in life. You know, and you really like to see in an athletic performance, you really like to see someone who's extremely disciplined and in shape,

• 11:28Speaker 01

  do something physically remarkable. And to stretch themselves even beyond their previous exploits, because you really like to see a brilliant move in an athletic match. But you also like to see that person ensconced in a broader moral framework. So that not only are they trying to win, and disciplining themselves in pursuit of that victory, and then stretching themselves so they're continually getting better. But they're doing it in a way that helps develop their whole team, and that's good for the sport in general, and that reflects well on the broader culture.

• 11:59Lewis Howes?

  They're a great leader in their team, they're positive, they're good sportsmen against their competitors. They're not negative towards the other people, they're lifting them up too. Like the ultimate human.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  That's right, so that they can work for their own improvement in a way that simultaneously works for the improvement of their team and for the sport. And then to the degree that that spills over into the broader culture, so much the better. So that's all being dramatized in an athletic event. And it's really, it's not philosophical, it's concrete, right? It's dramatized in the world, and that's what the games represent. And so, well, and it's partly because, well, in some sense, life is a game.

• 12:37Lewis Howes?

  It is.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  The analogy is that in life, like in sports, you're setting forth an aim, and then arranging your perceptions and your actions in pursuit of that. And that you also generally do it while cooperating and competing with other people.

• 12:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  That's also the game-like element as well. All of that's dramatized in athletics.

• 12:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  That's like philosophy for people who aren't philosophical. And I'm not being smart about that tonight. It's like it really is philosophy for people who aren't being philosophical. Because it's played out. And you can see it too. You can see the spontaneous appreciation for the human spirit manifest itself when you see people rise to their feet spontaneously in a sports arena when they see someone do something particularly remarkable. See an athlete who's extremely trained, stretch themselves beyond what you'd think is a normative human limit. And everyone celebrates that like spontaneously. So it's quite something to behold.

• 13:31Lewis Howes?

  And so take me back to responsibility and meaning. When we're watching sports or someone do this act, what does this do for us with in terms of responsibility and meaning?

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Well, it helps us figure out what we can imitate.

• 13:44Lewis Howes?

  Gives us a model.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Yes, it's a model.

• 13:46Lewis Howes?

  Gives a model of something that I respect.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Well, even what philosophy is, or even theology for that matter, is an abstract model. Like it's laid out in words. Now, the problem often is is it becomes so abstract that people don't know how to bring it back down to embodiment.

• 14:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Yes. Whereas something like like the drama of a sports event is sort of midway between philosophy and action. It's not entirely abstracted because it's not only coded in words. It's acted out.

• 14:12Lewis Howes?

  Visual, you can see an example of what just happens. And you can try to reverse engineer how they did that.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  Well, yes, exactly. Well, at least you, the fact that you admire the person means that you might start to try to act like them. And maybe that would mean, maybe that would mean that you start to discipline yourself with regards to a particular sport. But it might also be that you start to mimic or are at least affected in some way by their sportsman, sportsman-like behavior, right? Which is the ground of a certain kind of ethic. Because if you can play well with others, which is sort of the hallmark of a good sport, then that actually means that you're a reasonably sophisticated and civilized person. It's really important to learn to play well with others. There isn't, that's the ground of ethics.

• 14:55Lewis Howes?

  And if you can do it there in that setting, then hopefully you could translate it into life setting.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Well, right, that's exactly right.

• 15:00Lewis Howes?

  That's the goal.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Well, that's what you hope for. Yeah, that's the goal of this. If the goal of the game is to put the ball through the ball into the net, then the goal of having games is to produce people who can take proper aim no matter where they are. That's exactly what we're trying to do with athletics. So I've been talking to my audiences a lot about that. And there's more to it too, because if the background of life is... There's an ineradicable component of suffering, and that's complicated by, let's say, malevolence and the proclivity of people to betray themselves and others, which complicates it, makes it worse. Then if you don't have a noble aim, and if that isn't imbuing your life with sustainable meaning,

• 15:45Speaker 01

  then you fall prey to all the catastrophe, this pain and the anxiety and the anger that that suffering generates, and that makes you bitter.

• 15:53Lewis Howes?

  Because what I'm hearing you say is that... And correct me if I'm wrong, we must have an aim in our life, no matter what stage of life we're in. And if we don't have some type of aim, even if for a few months of an aim of going somewhere or direction, the suffering's gonna be even more suffering.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Pointless.

• 16:12Lewis Howes?

  Because we're already gonna face the greatest challenges in life. We're already struggling.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  That's right. There's no way out of that.

• 16:18Lewis Howes?

  Adversity is coming no matter what.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 16:20Lewis Howes?

  If we have big goals, or a small little goal, or whatever it may be, but it's gonna be less suffering if we have an aim.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, and it's worse than that even, because the suffering is pain.

• 16:32Lewis Howes?

  There's zero meaning.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Well, the suffering is pain, and the suffering is anxiety and uncertainty, and the suffering is hopelessness. But the consequence of all that is that you get bitter. And when you get bitter, you get mean, and you get cruel, and you start to hurt yourself and other people. So it's not only that if you don't have a goal, you suffer. It's that if you don't have a goal, you suffer, and then you get cruel, and bitter, and resentful. And then you start to actively try to make the world a worse place. And so, because you can't suffer pointlessly without becoming bitter. And you can't become bitter without becoming cruel. So you need an aim. The question is, then the question, of course, is what you should aim.

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  A bitter aim.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, a better aim, that's for sure. So then the question is, what should your aim be? And we have a program. It's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about today. I have this website called selfauthoring.com. And that program helps people write about their life. And so, there's a past authoring program. To establish your aim, you have to know where you are. It's like you're trying to orient yourself on a map. You can't orient yourself on a map unless you know where you are. You also have to know where you're going, right? So those are the two relevant things. The Past Authoring Program helps people write about their lives. So it's a guided autobiography. We ask people to break their life up into six epochs, six sections, and then to write about the emotionally important events in those epochs

• 17:52Speaker 01

  and to detail out why the positive things happened and why more of that could conceivably happen in the future and to detail out why the negative things happened and to try to understand why with an aim to not replicating them in the future. Because the purpose of memory isn't to remember the past. The purpose of memory is so that you figure out what went wrong when something went wrong, so you don't duplicate it in the future. So that's the purpose of memory. And the Past Authoring Program can help people catch up. And you know you have to catch up if you have memories that are older than about a year and a half that still cause you emotional pain when you think about them or if you dwell on them, they come spontaneously back to mind. It means you haven't... It means that there's part of your life that you haven't mapped out properly

• 18:36Speaker 01

  and it still has emotional valence that's gripping you. You're still holding on to that story. Or it's still holding on to you. Interesting. You haven't let it go. Yeah, well, you haven't been able to navigate your way through it. There's a pitfall there that you fell in and you don't know how to avoid similar pitfalls in the future and that's why your brain won't let it go. Because it's saying, that's what the anxiety systems do. It's like, this happened to you, it wasn't good. This happened to you, it wasn't good. This happened to you, it wasn't good. Fix it, fix it, fix it, fix it. That will never go away unless you fix it. How do you fix it? Well, you have to figure out why it happened, right? That's the first thing, is like, how did you... How was it that that situation arose to pull you down? And that's not simple. That's why, well, that's why we have the writing program. Because it's complicated to think it through.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  But if you face it and you meditate on it, let's say, and you do this voluntarily, there's a pretty high probability that you'll be able to decrease the probability that will be repeated in the future. So the second part of the program helps people do an analysis of their virtues and their faults. Same sort of idea. What's good about you that you could capitalize on? What's weak about you that you need to fix so that it doesn't bring you down? Right, and that's the present authoring, but the future authoring program is probably most relevant to you and your listeners, because you're interested in helping people establish aims. And so, we already talked about the fact that you need an aim in life, or that's where you derive your meaning, and without that, things go to hell, as literally as that can be taken.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  And so, but it's not easy to ask people to say, well, it's easy to ask them, "What do you want in your life?" It's a very hard question to answer, because it's too vague and grand, eh? So, we help, in the future authoring program, we help people break that down. It's okay, so here's the situation. So, you put yourself in the right frame of mind. So, what's the right frame of mind? It's like rule two in this book. Treat yourself like you're someone responsible for helping. You're someone that you are responsible for helping. So, what that means is you have to start from the presupposition that despite all your flaws and insufficiencies, that it's worth having you around, and that it would be okay if things were better for you. So, you need to take care of yourself, like you're taking care of someone you care for.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  So, there's a bit of a detachment in that. And then, the next thing is, okay, so now look three to five years down the road, okay? You get to have what you need and want, assuming you're being reasonable, and that you actually want it, which means you're willing to make the sacrifices that would, that would make it possible.

• 21:00Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean by reasonable?

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Well, within your grasp, that would be something.

• 21:04Lewis Howes?

  What if something is out of your grasp, but you still push hard enough?

• 21:09Speaker 01

  Well, then you need, then you need an incremental plan, right? You need to break that goal down into steps.

• 21:15Lewis Howes?

  Not some crazy goal within a year, that's like, you haven't even done the work to master a skill yet. Yeah, I got it.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, that's it, and you can have a high-end goal, and more power to you if you do, but you need it.

• 21:24Lewis Howes?

  The timeframe, yeah.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Well, you need a pathway to it.

• 21:26Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  If it's 10 stories up, above you, you need a staircase to get there, right? And so, you have to build the staircase too. And so, in the future authoring program, so you're asked, first of all, okay, here's, you get to have what you want and need, that's the proposition, but you have to aim at it, you have to define it and aim at it. So, then the first thing is, okay. If you could put your family together the way you wanted it to be, what would that look like? And so that might be your siblings and your parents, but that also might be, you know, your wife or your husband and your kids, assuming that you're at that point in your life. If you could have the family you wanted, what would that look like? Right, okay. Career, same thing. You get to have the career or the job that is within your grasp, necessary and suitable for you if you were taking care of yourself. How are you going to educate yourself?

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Because you're not as smart as you should be. There's a lot more things you need to know. So you've got to keep learning and moving forward. So you need to plan for that. How are you going to take care of yourself mentally and physically? Right, so how are you going to avoid the catastrophic temptations, for example, of drugs and alcohol? Because that pulls a lot of people down. You need a plan for that. You're going to be a social drinker? How much are you going to drink? How much is too much? What about your drug use? You've got to regulate that so it isn't a pitfall. How are you going to use your time meaningfully and productively outside of work? Because you need to plan for that. So that's... And there's one other that slipped in my mind at the moment. Yeah, I think there's seven. Initial question. Intimate relationship, of course. So you have... Do you want a long-term, stable intimate relationship? And if you do, then how would you like that to lay itself out?

• 22:57Speaker 01

  You've got to have a vision for that. Because if you don't have a vision, you're not going to aim at it. And if you don't aim at it, then you won't even see the opportunities when they arise. That's the thing that's so cool. I wrote about this in chapter 10, which is be precise in your speech. It's a chapter about the fact that aim structure your perceptions. So for example, once you aim at something, your brain, literally, the perceptual structures in your brain and your visual cortex reorient themselves to calculate a pathway to the aim. And then what they show you in the world is obstacles to that path and open pathways to the path. That's actually how the world reveals itself. Just like when you're driving in a car and you have a map and you aim at a particular place,

• 23:40Speaker 01

  then all the things that are related to that place show up in the world. It's exactly the same thing. Yeah. Because you are traveling through time and space, right? And you need a map. And so, so after you answer these seven questions, and you're encouraged to do it badly, because you don't have to get perfectionistic, just complete it, right? Because a bad plan is better than no plan. Gives you something to improve. So even if your aim is vague, and even if it's off-target, if you start aiming, and you see you're off-target, then you can shift, and you can make it more precise.

• 24:10Lewis Howes?

  And start to recognize what you don't want in that.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly, exactly.

• 24:13Lewis Howes?

  Say, "Oh, I thought I wanted this, but I don't. So let me re-navigate and figure out what I do want." And you might have to try a bunch of things.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Well, you will have to. You can be, that's why you shouldn't get perfectionistic about it. You will absolutely be wrong, but you won't be as wrong as you would have been if you were aimless. So, there's a bit of humanity.

• 24:29Lewis Howes?

  No man's land is worse than going somewhere.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  No man's land is worse than a bad path. That's exactly right.

• 24:36Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, I like that one.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  That's a good one, that's a good one, and it's right, it's right. You don't want to be in no man's land. Why did you use that phrase? Because that's right, that's exactly right.

• 24:44Lewis Howes?

  I think, um, for me, the idea of walking around aimlessly is like, the worst idea in the world. It's like zero purpose, zero mission, zero certainty at all. It's like walking around in no man's land, aimlessly.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  But it's funny too, because in no man's land, everybody's shooting at you. Because that's a military term. And no man's land is the space between two enemy positions. You bet, so if you're aimless, you're also at a place where everything is shooting at you. Yeah, so it's a very good metaphor that came to mind. Yeah, well, that's why, that's why we remarked on it, that's very, very cool. So then we say to people, "Okay, look now, okay, now you've thought about this for a while. It's nice to do this over a couple of days too, because then you get to sleep on it, and that helps reorient yourself." So, then, okay, now you, write for 20 minutes, don't worry about grammar or spelling. This isn't a, this isn't a composition exercise, right? You get to have what you want three to five years down the road. What does your life look like, hypothetically? Write it out, write it out. Okay, so then that's the first part.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  The second part of the exercise, so now you've got your thing to aim at. Think, "Well, I'm motivated, because I got my thing to aim at." It's like, you're not as motivated as you could be, because you don't yet have your thing to run away from. Because if you really want to be motivated, you want to be going somewhere and you want to be not going somewhere else. Which typically is a pain, right? Yes, a pain or anxiety, yeah, some domain of suffering and guilt. I don't want to feel this anymore. Yes, exactly, exactly. So, so the other thing we ask people is, okay, now take stock of your weaknesses and imagine that you let them multiply. You got hopeless and you augured in and things were as bad for you as they could be in three to five years. What are some examples of weaknesses that people might have?

• 26:25Speaker 01

  They lie, they procrastinate, they avoid, they're grandiose, they're narcissistic, they're undisciplined, they're nihilistic, they're aimless, all of those things. Got it, yeah. Right? Victim mentality. Victim mentality, they take the quick way out, they pursue impulsive pleasures, they sacrifice meaning for expediency, they don't take care of their basic responsibilities, they fight stupidly with their parents, they don't, they don't negotiate properly with their spouse, they're bitter at work because they haven't said what they have to say, they haven't thought through what they're doing tomorrow, they drink too much, they smoke too much, they take too many drugs, they don't regulate their, their... Work out, yeah. Yeah, so there's like... Got it. And everyone knows, man, everyone knows. And everyone's got a set of weaknesses that they know about. And so, we say, alright...

• 27:09Speaker 01

  What are some of your weaknesses, like three weaknesses that you know right now you can still work on and then three things that you think are really... Well, a lot of things, a lot of things are things that I've taken care of in my life. Like I used to smoke when I was a kid, I smoked a pack a day, I used to drink a lot, I didn't work out. Like, I wasn't nearly as disciplined as I should have been. I wasn't as careful with what I was saying. Your words were loose. And I suppose my most likely negative outcome probably would have been, I really like to drink, like alcohol is a really good drug for me. Is that why you did your thesis on that? Well, partly. It was mostly because the opportunity came up for me to investigate drug and alcohol use. But I came from a little town in northern Alberta, it was a heavy drinking town and that could have been a real trap for me. Right. So anyway, so we have these people, you say, okay, now you know your weaknesses...

• 27:54Speaker 01

  And you know what particular hell you would descend to if you allowed yourself to descend into it? Because you've probably had a taste of it. It's like you really let that go. And you're in a terrible place in three to five years because you haven't done what you should do. What does that look like? It's like everybody writes that down. Write it down, so you know. Because one of the things you want to have behind you, let's say you have to do something difficult, like go confront your boss. It's like, well, maybe hope isn't enough to encourage you to do that. You think, if I don't go confront my boss carefully, intelligently, then I'm gonna hate my job and then I'm gonna drink more. Then I'm gonna end up in that little hell place that I designed for myself. It's like, oh, I'm not going there. I don't want to talk to my boss, or I don't want to confront my wife, or my husband, whatever it is, or my father, or my children for that matter. But if I don't...

• 28:39Lewis Howes?

  Then I'll resent myself, or resent the situation.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  And I'm gonna end up going down this terrible pathway. It's like, because sometimes when you're moving forward, you have to do something difficult. And you might think, well, why bother? And the answer is, also, I don't end up in hell. How about that? Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, there's that.

• 28:56Lewis Howes?

  Because it's deep. If you don't experience the pain now, or the difficulty now, you're gonna have a deeper pain later.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's life.

• 29:04Lewis Howes?

  Much deeper pain later. And that's why I think that you mentioned at one point is like, putting ourselves in structured pain, like structured sense of feeling pain throughout the day, whether it be the tough conversation. I don't want to do that, it's painful, but I'm going to because I know afterwards, it's gonna probably feel better.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  It's a bit of a sacrifice, right? So you sacrifice stability in the present for a gain in the future. That's the big discovery of human beings. Sacrifice works.

• 29:31Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. And were you a big athlete growing up?

• 29:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:34Lewis Howes?

  No?

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Well, I was a small kid and I skipped to grade eight. Although I skied and I went cross-country skiing. It's individual sports, mostly with my dad.

• 29:42Lewis Howes?

  You'll understand then, in order to improve as an athlete, or in any sport, you have to put yourself through daily pain.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 29:48Lewis Howes?

  If you want to achieve that model of excellence, that you watch someone playing basketball as a child, and you see someone living this model. It's gonna be fifteen years of deliberate pain.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a discipline.

• 30:00Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I worked out for a long time with weights, you know.

• 30:03Lewis Howes?

  So you know, you felt it every day. You didn't wanna push through the pain, but you knew that would get you a greater result.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, and it's easier not to do it than to do it, but not in the long run.

• 30:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  You know, I've really seen the benefits, for example, for weightlifting, because I've watched people, because I'm fifty-eight, fifty, how old am I, fifty-six?

• 30:18Lewis Howes?

  You look great.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  You know, I'm getting older, and I've really noticed the difference between people and, when they age, um, between people who laid down a good physiological platform when they were young, and those who didn't, because by the, if you haven't worked out weights particularly, I would say, you start to get pretty soft in your thirties, and your cardiovascular system starts to go, and really early. The other thing, too, is the best thing you can do to maintain cognitive ability, it's exercise. So if you're fifty, both cardiovascular and weightlifting, if you're fifty, you can restore your cognitive function to the level of a thirty-year-old through exercise.

• 30:54Lewis Howes?

  Your, your mental function through physical activity.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, your brain is a very demanding organ, and if your cardiovascular system is compromised, then you get stupid. And so, yeah, it's really.

• 31:04Lewis Howes?

  The less you move, and the bigger you get, the more stupid you become.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, well.

• 31:08Lewis Howes?

  The smaller your brain gets.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Well, you compromise, you compromise its function, because the brain is, it's, it's, it's the organ that uses more, it's, it's very metabolically demanding. And so, if you're not in good physical shape, then one of the things that suffers most greatly is your cognitive function. And so, that's quite an interesting thing, to see how tight that linkage is. So in the next part of the program, we have people, now it's okay, now you got your vision.

• 31:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, even if it's a bad one, it's still okay.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  That's right, well, it's better than no vision at all, right? It's something that you can improve. Well, think, you're trying to get through a territory you don't understand, and here's your option, no map, a map that's not so good, but has some things about it, or a great map. Well, obviously, the great map is the thing you want, but the, the map that's something is way better than the map that's nothing. Plus, as you explore, because of your map, you could start to fill in the details.

• 32:00Lewis Howes?

  And you start to learn, and you start to overcome stuff, and you start to master skills on your journey, right?

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Uh huh, yeah, well, that's the other thing, too, is like, let's say you, you aim at something, and you. And you develop some skills along the way. And then you get like a third of the way there and you think, oh, that's not for me. It's like, well, yeah, fair enough, but now you've still got the skills you developed. You know exactly why it's not for you now, instead of vaguely. You don't have to keep going after that way. Exactly, exactly. Well, and you have a rationale. Yeah. And then you can bring that wisdom back, even though it's not perfect. You can bring it back to your next plan. And so. And take responsibility for the next steps, yeah. Yes, yes. And so as you plan, you get better at planning, which is the crucial thing. So then we say to people, take your positive vision and make it into eight stateable goals, right? So and then rank them in a hierarchy because you need to know what.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  Like a top goal and then incremental goals. Yeah, and, and, and that, well, that's the other thing is break the goals into incremental goals so that you have a reasonable probability of succeeding. So, because what you want to do, this is also what you want to do with a kid. You don't tell your kid, here is an impossible thing, why don't you go out and fail? You say, here's something worth going after. Here's a step you could take that would push you beyond where you are, but that you also have a reasonably high probability of succeeding at, right? They called that. Within a timeframe. Within some timeframe. That's the other thing. You have to parameterize it with regards to timeframe. That's right. And that puts you in the zone of proximal development. And that's a, that's a concept that was generated by a guy named Vygotsky. He was a Russian developmental psychologist and a smart one.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  It's where the idea of the zone comes from, to be in the zone. And when you're in the zone, you're expanding your skills at, in a manner that's intrinsically rewarding because you're succeeding. And so you want to set, if you're good to yourself, you think, okay, I need to set a goal. But I need to set a goal that someone as stupid and useless as me could probably attain if they put some effort into it. Right. And then you got, then you've got it perfectly because it's not so high that it's grandiose or impossible, that you fail necessarily and then justify your bitterness. It's like, well, I could do, well, that, because that happens to people. Happens all the time. Yeah, it's like. See this all the time. You know, it's like, it's, yes, exactly. Well, I set a goal and I didn't attain it, so I'm not going to set any more goals. Right. It's like, no, you set a goal that was inappropriate.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  For the timeframe, yeah. That's right. You didn't calibrate it properly. And, and you're playing a trick on yourself because you wanted to fail so that you could justify not having to try. And being a victim. Hmm, which isn't helpful. You're still gonna be a victim. It's like, there's no way out of that, man. So, you know, because life is this, life is a challenge that in some sense can't be surmounted. So there's no way out of your problem. But there is certainly proper ways of dealing with it. Yeah. And so you lay out. Those eight, those eight steps. Yeah, yeah, lay them out. And then the next thing is, okay, you need a rationale for them because you're gonna have doubts and other gonna, people are gonna put up obstacles. Is that a meaning, you mean? Is that a meaning? A rationale means a meaning? Yeah, yeah, justification. Yeah. It's like, okay, so what sort of justification is a good justification for your goals? It's easy.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Why would it be good for you? Okay. Why would it be good for your family if you attain that goal? Why would it be good for the broader community? Because if it's a good goal, it should be good for you. That's fine. But if it's a really good goal, it should be good for you in a way that's good for other people. Win, win, win. Yes, exactly. And you, and if you're gonna decide what your goals are, why not set up the ones that benefit the largest number of people simultaneously? Yes, if you can do that. You should start with your own concerns because you have to take care of yourself. Basic needs first. Yes. Put your own oxygen mask on, then put your child's oxygen mask on. Yeah, right. As you build up the basis of competence locally, you might develop enough skills so that you can expand that outward. And it also gives your goal a certain amount of nobility.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  And so if someone challenges you and says, "Well, why are you doing that? That seems stupid." You can say, "I'm doing that because it helps me take care of myself, but it benefits my family and here's the reasons why. And this is the repercussions out into the broader community." And like, people aren't, people who are putting up objections and doubts aren't, aren't armed to deal with that kind of response. Yeah. And then when you have those doubts in your mind that plague you, which they, and. Go back to your reason. Go back to your reasons. Your why. That's right. Say, "Why, why am I doing this? Oh, yeah, it's because, well, I have to take care of myself because otherwise I'm pathetic and useless and bitter and cruel. And then I'm going somewhere terrible, so that's a bad idea. And here's how it would help my family and here's how it would help the community. And that's a good enough set of reasons for, unless I can think of better ones." Right.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  If, without better ones, that's good enough. Because I think the question comes back to, someone could go down the rabbit hole and say, "Why, why am I doing this? And why is this meaningful for me?"

• 36:43Lewis Howes?

  And I think a lot of people go back to, well, why am I here in the first place?

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 36:47Lewis Howes?

  Why am I here? What is the meaning of my life? And is this real? Or is this just some dream world?

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Well, then people do go back to that.

• 36:57Lewis Howes?

  And then they get stuck on that.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:59Lewis Howes?

  Like, none of this even matters, because why am I even here?

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Well, the thing is, is that that's a self-defeating set of propositions in some sense, because the consequence of being stuck there... The reason you're stuck there to begin with is because you're not very happy about the fact that life is intrinsically tied up with suffering, because you wouldn't be asking that question to begin with. Okay, so if you let that pull you in and take you down, all it does is make the suffering worse. It's not helpful. And then the cascade that we talked about happens. You suffer stupidly and pointlessly. You get bitter, you get cruel.

• 37:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  You make everything worse. It's like, that's your answer, is it? You're gonna make everything worse. It's bad enough, you're gonna make it worse. Mostly, people won't do that consciously.

• 37:38Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  So you think, well, what's the alternative? Well, here's one. If you have a sufficiently noble purpose, the suffering will justify itself. I think that's empirically testable, and I do believe it's the case, because I've watched people do very difficult things, like people who work in palliative care wards. So all they're ever dealing with is pain and death. And they can do it. They get up in the morning, they go to work, and they take care of those people. They lose people on a weekly basis, and yet they can do it. And what that shows is that if you turn around and you confront the suffering voluntarily, you find out that you are way tougher than you think. It's not that life is better than you think. Life is as harsh as you think. It might even be worse. But you are way tougher than you think, if you turn around and confront it.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  And so then what you discover is that there's a spirit within you that pursues, that can pursue something meaningful, that has the resilience and the strength to contend properly with the catastrophe of existence without becoming bitter. That's actually the central... So, and I would say that's one of the central themes of 12 Rules for Life, is that make no mistake about it, like... The first noble truth of Buddhism, life is suffering. This is true, and it's worse than that because it's suffering contaminated by malevolence. That's the baseline, but and so that's very pessimistic. But the optimistic part is that you are so damn tough, you can actually not only deal with that, you can improve it. It's like, hmm, oh, well, that's a horrible situation, but it turns out that I'm armed for the task.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Well, that's, that's a great thing for people to know. And I do believe, I think the fact that we're armed for the task is even more true than the fact that life is catastrophe contaminated by malevolence. We're stronger than things are terrible. So, and things are pretty terrible. So that means we're pretty damn strong.

• 39:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  Yes, it's a very good thing to know, and it's not naive optimism. It's a very different thing. It's like, no, things are terrible. They're brutal, and you are so damn tough, you can't believe it.

• 39:40Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this first part of a two-part series with Dr. Jordan Peterson. The next part will be coming up very soon. Make sure to share this with your friends, lewishouse.com/664. All about responsibility and meaning. Again, when we do these things, we are able to live a greater life. When we take responsibility and we find meaning for our life. The next part is all about pain and suffering and how to handle the pain and the suffering that we face in our life. There's some incredible research and studies that he's gone through, and he's going to share with us in that specific episode. So make sure to share this with your friends, lewishouse.com/664. Connect on all the show notes there.

• 40:24Lewis Howes?

  The full video interview is there as well, and all the information to his book and his online course as well about self-authoring. You're going to want to make sure to check both of these out. And remember, as Winston Churchill said, "The price of greatness is responsibility." You have an opportunity to live a greater life when you find meaning and take responsibility for everything in your life. I'm excited about this. Make sure to share with your friends, lewishouse.com/664. Part two of this interview is coming out soon. Stay tuned. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.