If you want to know something about

yourself, sit on your bed one night and

say, "What's one thing I'm doing wrong

that I know I'm doing wrong that I could

fix that I would fix?" You meditate on

that, you'll get an answer, and it won't

be one you want, but it'll be the

necessary one. When you're trapped, some

of it's your own inadequacy. What you

can do to begin with is every bloody

thing you possibly can do to put

yourself in the most virtuous and

powerful negotiating position possible.

Wherever I go in the world, [music]

people come up to me, and they often

have a pretty rough story to relate.

It's an awful thing because you see,

even in the revelation of their triumph,

the initial depth of their despair.

So, I wouldn't change that.

But, it's not nothing.

It's certainly not just happiness.

It's better than happiness, but it's

almost unbearable.

Quick one. Can you do me a favor if

you're listening to this and hit the

subscribe button, the follow button,

wherever you're listening to this

podcast? Thank you so much.

The conversation

you guys have been waiting for.

I say that because of the thousands and

thousands of messages I've had since I

announced that Jordan Peterson, the man

himself, all the way from Canada, came

here to sit in my kitchen

and have a conversation with me.

And what a conversation it was.

One of the most moving moments in the

history of this podcast takes place in

this conversation.

And I think the thing that people love

about Jordan Peterson is his unrelenting

desire to just say what he believes to

be true,

not what he believes to be correct,

not what people want to hear,

not what people will be happy to hear.

And it's because of that, it's because

of his pursuit of truth,

that he's managed to change millions and

millions and millions of people's lives.

That is absolutely no understatement.

So, without further ado, I'm Steven

Bartlett and this is The Diary of a CEO.

I hope nobody's listening.

But, if you are

then please keep this to yourself.

[music]

[music]

Jordan,

um first I feel I feel like I owe you a

debt of gratitude and I want to say

thank you for the the impact you've had

on my life and I'll I'll point at the

the specific impact you've had on my

life. Um

I and you asked me before we start

recording why this podcast had been

successful. One of the reasons is

actually something I've I've gained from

from reading and listening to your work

and that's this real commitment to

trying to be your true self and trying

to be your truth.

This podcast wouldn't be successful and

I wouldn't have been successful in terms

of um pursuing myself had I not

understood the the importance of truth

across all facets of life and in my

relationships, which was a real pivotal

thing for me.

Mhm.

And that's thanks to

changed in your relationships as a

consequence of that?

So, um

W-

I I believe it's really difficult to

truly connect s- with someone if you're

not b- speaking and being your truth and

I I wasn't. I was I I think I was

wearing a mask in my relationships in

the context of I didn't express how I

was thinking and feeling. I was trying

to be who I thought my partner wanted me

and at the point when I like I let down

the mask and I started speaking my

truth.

Unex- actually as I was departing from

the relationship the relationship got

stronger than ever before and it was

like we were never actually connected

until I was being true with her, with my

feelings, with what I wanted, with my

life. And since then, I I would

categorize my relationship as being the

strongest thing I've ever seen in terms

of a romantic connection with someone.

And so, when you were starting to talk

in your relationship in a more truthful

manner,

what did that mean that you had to

admit? I mean, you just said that part

of it was a disconnect between who you

were trying to be and who you really

were. So, that's a persona issue, right?

So, you think maybe and everyone has

this proclivity to some degree as

they're deeply

um self-conscious and uncertain. And so,

instead of allowing the person they're

with to connect with that underlying

uncertainty and inadequacy, they

act out a persona. And then the problem

is is that well, perhaps the person

falls in love with that persona,

but there's no real connection there.

It's it's an artifice.

And you know, having said that, one of

the things that Carl Jung, the great

psychotherapist, said about a persona is

don't be thinking that you're better off

if you never formed one.

So, for Jung, it was a voyage from

say, undifferentiated self in infancy

and so forth, through persona to

authenticity. Because you have to act

out your ideals to some degree, right?

And

and and you have also have to formulate

a avatar of yourself in some sense

that's a mediator between you and other

people in casual social encounters.

Like, you don't want to walk into the

bank and have the teller tell you about

his or her day when you say, "How are

you doing?" Right? I mean, now and then

that can happen, but generally it's too

much intimacy too quickly. And so, you

need this this functional shell. But,

the problem arises when

that functional shell is all that there

is. And then the real person underneath

is just desperate and and unhappy

because

nothing of what's being acted out

reflects a true underlying reality.

What is the consequence, the long-term

consequence of acting? So many people,

especially because of the worlds I live

in on Instagram and social media, we we

kind of build out these personas and

then we almost follow the implicit

instructions that come with those

personas.

Well, that's the problem right there is

that well,

that that I'm trying to get a hold of

the Disney people at the moment because

I want to do a lecture series on

Pinocchio because I think Pinocchio is

brilliant work of art.

Um

and

if you're a puppet and an actor and

Pinocchio is both at times in that

movie, both a puppet and an actor. So

why an actor? Like why is there why is

there something wrong with being an

actor? Well, the first question is,

well, who sets your role?

And then the second question is, who's

pulling your strings? So you've put on

this front that is there to make you

popular and sexy and desirable and to

mask from yourself your own

inadequacies, but that's a role. Well,

who wrote it and for what purpose?

And so Jung said for example that we all

acted out a myth and whether we knew it

or not. And you know, maybe you're

acting out a tragedy. May maybe you're

acting out narcissus.

You don't know

because you've put that you've put that

on yourself in an attempt in some ways

to deliver to people what they want or

more accurately to look as though you're

delivering to people what they want. And

it's not nothing to do that, right?

Because at least you're attempting in

some sense to adapt to the social world.

Someone who's really infantile and

dependent, someone who's never left

home, part of their problem is that they

haven't crafted a persona.

So you don't want to denigrate it

entirely, but it's no substitute for the

real thing and it turns out that

not only is what we want from each other

the real thing,

but that's also the adventure of your

life. And so, if you aren't

truthful, and that means unfortunately,

especially at the beginning when you

start to be truthful, it means

deeply coming to terms with your

inadequacies in humility.

So, it's very painful. Without that, you

don't have the adventure of your life.

You have the role that has been

that you've

ac- acquiesced to. And that'll take all

the meaning out of your life.

The adventure of your life. You say,

"Imagine who you could be." And then aim

single-mindedly at that. Um I encounter

these young people who appear to know

who they could be, or they they've

imagined who they could be, but for

whatever reason, they seem to choose the

certain misery of their current

situation, the job that's sucking their

soul out, or that relationship, um over

the uncertainty they'll encounter as

they go on the adventure of their life.

So, what would I say to these young

people who always say to me, "Steve, I I

want to do this." But you can see them

stifled by fear because it's like

Yeah, well, it's like make a plan, man.

It's So, when I was

doing my clinical work, which I I did a

lot of career work with my clients both

at a beginner level, I would say, like

really a beginner level with people who

had no employment whatsoever, no history

of employment, who were undereducated,

and who lacked every skill you could

possibly imagine. These were people who

were really in dire straits, up to

people who were operating at the top of

their profession, but who could still

strategize forward. And so,

for example, let's say you're at a dead

end in your job. Okay, so,

"I don't find my work meaningful." All

right, so that's a problem statement.

Like, "Well, why not? I find the work I

do repetitive and boring and without

spirit. I have a bad relationship or a

neutral relationship with my boss who

doesn't know who I am.

Um I have problems with co-workers." All

of that needs to be differentiated,

right? And analyzed in detail. So,

we might say, for example, let's say you

believe that you're undervalued at work.

And maybe you are.

What you need to do is you have

something to say. And

we would have to figure out what it is

that you have to say. But it would be

some variant of

I'm bringing more value to the table

than I'm being compensated for.

And that's demoralizing me. And it's

also not good for you, you being my

boss, because if I'm actually more

valuable than is being recognized, then

the fact that you're not valuing me

properly means that I will become

demoralized, I won't work properly, and

you won't get the best out of me. So,

it's bad for both of us. And

if your boss is, in principle, not

amenable to such a discussion, then what

you should seriously consider doing is

finding another job.

Okay, so let's say we're going to set

you up for this. Okay, this isn't like

next week's enterprise, man. This is

your life.

So, the first thing I would ask is,

well,

do you have your resume or CV in order?

Well, I haven't typed it up for 3 years.

Well, what do you think about bringing

it up? Well, I'm pretty nervous about

that because there's some holes in it,

and you know, I didn't do so well in

college, and I'm kind of embarrassed

about my resume. It's like,

okay, bring it in. Let's go through it.

Let's Let's Let's at least update it.

Let's look where the holes are. Let's

look at where the inadequacies are as

far as you're concerned, right? This

isn't my judgment, it's your judgment.

Let's walk through those judgments and

see if they're warranted, because maybe

you're just too guilty and ashamed and

self-conscious and anxious, and you're

not

you're looking at your resume more

critically than someone else would. And

maybe there's some holes that you need

to rectify. You know, you're you're at

you you were two courses away from your

BA, and you dropped out, or something

like that. Well,

maybe we need 6 months to address that.

And at least, even if you can't be fully

educated, you could be taking some

courses online. And so when you went to

a new job interview and they said, "What

about this hole?" you'd say, "Well, I I

came to terms with that 6 months ago and

in an effort to rectify it, I'm taking

the following courses and here's my plan

for completion." That's a really good

answer.

And anyone with any sense who's

interviewing

will accept that as an indication that

although you're not perfect and who is

that you have a good plan and that

you've thought it through. Like that's

the kind of answer that

in all likelihood will cement your

candidacy for the position. Okay, so now

you're going to go to your boss. Well,

you have to have your CV and your resume

in order.

And you have to be able to stand on it

solidly and which at least means that

you're prepared to address the

inadequacies in a credible, realistic,

believable, and truthful manner.

All right. Now, what you do is

apply for like 10 jobs.

You don't have to take them.

But maybe you have to go to an interview

or two or three or four and maybe

there's a bunch of opportunities out

there for you that you didn't even know

about.

And maybe someone offers you a job.

And so now now you can go to your boss

and say,

"Here's the situation I'm in here at

work.

Um here's my evaluation of the problems

in relationship to me. Here's what I

could do for you if you gave me a 40%

raise and the opportunity to progress,

but I'd like to see a plan for that and

um I've been looking for other

opportunities before conducting this

discussion and I have some."

Mhm.

Well, then if your boss treats you with

contempt at that point and doesn't

listen, then perhaps he or she is a

little more narcissistic than might be

optimal and it's time to find a new job.

But this isn't something you do

trivially and

so when you're doubtful, say you're

trapped.

You ask yourself, "Well,

"Why am I trapped?"

That's a hard question, right? Because

some of it's your own inadequacy, a lot

of it, and all of the part of it that

you can deal with is your own

inadequacy.

So, even if it's unfair, you know, even

if you're hemmed in for any number of

reasons,

inappropriate

like ethnically predicated oppression,

let's say, or maybe you live at you're

in a a workplace with that really is

sexist in some fundamental sense.

Well,

that's not good. It's not just, it's not

fair, it's it's not meritorious, all of

those things. Man, maybe you shouldn't

be there, but

what you can do to begin with is every

bloody thing you possibly can do to put

yourself in the most virtuous and

powerful negotiating position possible.

And you have to think like a snake in

some sense

to do that. You got to get the details

right. You have to be prepared to bite.

And and you have to have your eyes on

the prize, so to speak. And people

aren't taught this sort of thing ever,

really. They're not taught how to

negotiate. They're not taught how to

goal-set. They're not taught how to

conceptualize appropriate success in

some broad sense. In some sense, that's

what the humanities are supposed to

teach people.

So,

on that point of understanding my

inadequacies or someone's inadequacies,

I really believe um that it's really

difficult to undergo self-development if

you don't have self-awareness. And I was

I was really trying to understand from

your writings how someone is to build

their self-awareness. It's almost like

the unknown unknown. If you don't have

it, how do you build the thing?

I know a good exercise for that.

It's like a prayer in some sense. In

fact, I would say it's proper prayer. If

you want to know something about

yourself, sit on your bed one night and

say to yourself, you got to mean this.

Like, you got to be desperate. This is

no game, this.

It's like,

"My life is not everything I want it to

be and perhaps it's not everything that

I need to be. And by need I mean my life

is so unbearable that

the suffering that's attendant upon that

is make me nihilistic, cynical, bitter,

resentful, homicidal, genocidal,

in the unable to have a good

relationship, pro-

prone to punish people for their virtues

because of my jealousy,

uh

driving the proclivity to see evil

everywhere except within my own heart.

Like these are problems, man.

And

you ask yourself, you sit on the bed and

say, "Okay, man, I'm ready to

learn something. Like what What's one

thing I'm doing wrong that I know I'm

doing wrong

that I could fix

that I would fix?" It's like

You meditate on that, you'll get an

answer.

And it won't be one you want, but it'll

be the necessary one.

You know, and it it's often

something that will point you to small

things.

So Carl Jung said, "People in the modern

world don't see God cuz they don't look

low enough."

And so imagine you're in your messy

bedroom.

You know, and you're sitting on the edge

of the bed trying to have an honest

dialogue with yourself and the little

voice says,

"You know, it's pretty disgusting in

here." And you think, "Well, I'm way

above such trivial niceties as

organizing my room."

It's like

Well, that's pride. That's arrogance.

If you're above

organizing what's actually yours,

how in the world are you ever going to

organize anything else? And so you get

on your knees and you think,

"Well, it's time to

you know,

take a brush to the toilet."

And maybe that's where you start.

And so and that works. Like that works.

You start making those micro

improvements, like real

micro-improvements, real on-the-ground

actual micro-improvements to things you

know that are wrong,

you'll improve unbelievably rapidly.

Well, you're talking about this sounds

to me a little like um

an overdose of arrogance and also the

need for humility. Do you think the

Western world suffers from arrogance

because of our

our our relative um

privilege and luxury that we kind of

overlook?

well, that's a temptation, right? I

mean, when the when the left radical

lefty types go after people for their

unearned privilege, they have a point.

Now,

the point is

the existentialists called it

thrownness,

which is not

that's a Heideggerian term.

And thrownness is the fact that

we kind of experience life as if we're

tossed into it, thrown into it, you

know, you're you're male and not female,

you're

you're Hindu and not Christian, you're

tall and not short, you have an

arbitrary range of talents and an

arbitrary range of limitations, none of

which in some sense you chose.

It's the cards you're dealt. Now, some

of those are cards of privilege.

You know, maybe you're born intelligent,

maybe you're born symmetrical, maybe

you're born healthy. Um maybe you're

born into a culture where it's much

easier not to be absolutely deprived,

maybe your parents are rich.

And so,

all of that in some sense is unearned.

Now, along with that comes a good dose

of existential guilt. Because at the

same time, and this is true for anyone,

regardless of their cultural background,

the

ground we walk on is soaked in the blood

of historical atrocity.

And so, that's on you

because, you know, people think, well,

who's the Nazi? Well, it's the fascist

or it's the or who's the radical

communist? It's the

radical left-wing ideologue. And the

fundamental truth of the matter is

that's best dealt with as a spiritual

matter. Is the adversary is within.

Really.

Most profoundly. And so you have to take

the responsibility for that historical

atrocity onto yourself. I was talking to

Guy Ritchie this week about his movie

King Arthur. It's quite an interesting

movie in many ways.

And when Arthur, who could be the hero,

takes the sword, he's so overcome by

visions of his murderous uncle that he

can't pick up the weapon.

Well,

think about that. Now, you have weapons

at your disposal,

but they've been used by your murderous

uncle.

I dare you wield them?

And the answer is

maybe it's easy just to leave the sword

on the ground because you do want to be

responsible for atrocities going

forward. And don't think you couldn't

be. And don't think you might not enjoy

it.

And so

the way you pay for your privilege is

with your virtue.

I mean that most particularly. You have

these opportunities and this existential

guilt. And the way you expiate that and

atone is by doing your best to live the

best possible life you can manage, to

speak the truth, to treat people with

respect, to abide by the principles of

the dignity of the individual, and to

put your house in order.

And that's how you pay for your unearned

privilege. All of us.

And we all have our privileges and our

and our curses, you know. All of us have

that. That's why it's not useful to be

envious of people.

You know, you see some You're a young

man, you see someone drive by in a

Ferrari with a blonde, and you think,

"My god, he's got everything." And you

know, the woman in the car is a

prostitute who's got a cocaine addiction

and her her life is just one catastrophe

after another. And he's had to lie and

cheat his way into this position, and

he's afraid that everything's going to

come crashing down on him, and that's

what you're jealous of.

And it's just not that

profound.

You don't want someone else's fate. Man,

your fate's enough. And your adventure's

enough. It's plenty. It's more than you

can ever fully realize.

And so that's also part of the reason

that we all believe that the individual

has some intrinsic dignity. It's Don't

be so sure that your position and your

room is so damn trivial. It might be

your attitude towards it that's trivial.

And if you're in dire straits and dire

circumstances, just look at how much

opportunity you have to make things

better.

So, not that it's easy. I You don't even

want it to be easy.

No, so

On that point of you you don't want it

to be easy. I really contended with this

idea of struggle and chaos in my life

and the role it plays. And once upon a

time I thought I was trying to

rid my life of chaos and struggle. I

thought that's why I was trying to get

rich and get the Ferrari and the blonde.

I thought that would create a life free

of free of struggle. But then I looked

at some studies and I saw heard about

this thing called gold medal depression

when Olympians come back from the

Olympics and they've lost their

orientation. And then the day when

someone offered to buy my company for a

eight nine no nine figure number, and it

filled me with this emptiness and this

dread. And I and I and I tried to

understand the role that struggle would

would would have to play for me to be a

fulfilled human being for the rest of my

life.

Yeah, well, that the the observation

with regard to your company, that's a

that's a great observation. I mean,

we're built to walk uphill.

And when you

reach the pinnacle of the hill, you want

to stop and appreciate the vision, but

the next thing you want is a higher hill

in the distance because

it's the uphill climb that it's it's

from the uphill climb that we derive our

value and I mean this technically. So,

almost all the positive emotion we feel,

especially the the the the emotion that

fills us with enthusiasm and that's to

be filled with the spirit of God, by the

way, because that's what enthusiasm

means.

That's

experienced in relationship to a goal.

And so, in some sense, and this is part

of the religious enterprise, you want a

goal that you can never attain.

Right? So, you can always move closer to

the goal that recedes as you move

towards it. You think, "Well, that's

frustrating." It's like Sisyphus pushing

the rock uphill, but it's not because as

you pursue that goal, you put yourself

together and your life does get better

and richer and more abundant. That's why

the highest levels of virtue and goal

are in some sense transcendent. You want

them to be above everything you're doing

so you can continually move towards

something that's more sublime and

better. That's what you are. You're

You're here to live, not to

not to sleep. And the problem with the

vision of mai tais on the beach is that,

well, first of all, that's an envision

that's a vision of of drug-induced

unconsciousness. Second, it's only going

to work for about a week. Third, you're

going to be a laughing stock in a month

and depressed and aimless and and

goalless. It's no, that's not It's It's

You want a horizon of ever-expanding

possibility. And so, it does happen to

people as they cuz they've staked their

soul on the attainment of an

instrumental goal. And it it can be a

pretty high-order goal. It was in your

case. But then you think,

"Well, I've Now I'm there. Now what?"

Well, the answer can't be

"Well, I'm going to live in the lap of

luxury and never have to leave the What

do you want to be? A giant infant with a

gold with a gold bottle? You never have

to do anything but lay on your back and

suck. It's like

Well, you see the problem with that as a

as a

as a conceptualization, it's no, you

want to be

like an active warrior moving uphill

with your sword in hand and

that's that's dynamic, that's exciting

and that's why so many young men

disappear into video games. It's that's

all acted out in the video game.

So, they have to act that out in their

own life. Not that I despise video games

cuz I don't, but they're not a

substitute substitute for life. They

might be good training under some

conditions for life.

So,

One of the things I was also really

really keen to ask you is about the the

what's happened in the world over the

last 2 years. One of the shifts we've

seen in the business world is this move

to remote working and I hate it and I

hate it for a variety of reasons because

I feel like there's very few

institutions in in our in my life where

I have a chance to meaningfully connect

with with people. Dating has become

screens, socializing has become screens

and the office, the institution of the

office in my life was one of the places,

especially as a younger man, where I got

to meet pretty much 90% of my current

best friends and also

partners and and I really worry about um

sitting behind a Zoom uh

doing my work um for for the for the

next 10 years. What is your take on

remote working?

Well,

I like it and I don't like it. I I think

it's very difficult for us to understand

our embodied environments well enough to

duplicate them in a healthy and

comprehensive manner

in the virtual world because we just

don't understand what it is that we're

doing when we actually do things rather

than represent them. So, for example,

I've thought a lot about online

university. Okay, so then you could

imagine

Well, you can certainly imagine online

lecture courses.

Uh and you could say, "Well, the fact

that they can be delivered on a large

scale

very inexpensively is a virtue. You can

bring the knowledge to a very large

number of people at a low cost, so why

not do that?"

And so that's half the university, and

then you could say, "Well, imagine that

you generated the system of universal

tests, which is a possibility, and that

means you could bring accreditation to

everyone at a low cost as well, and

that's that. Universities are online."

But that presumes that you know what the

university is, and you don't, because

well, here's some other things the

university is.

An excuse for young a credible excuse

that's socially sanctioned for young

people who have not yet established a

career goal to adopt an identity of

upward striving for 4 years away from

their parents while they meet a new

group of friends.

Like that might be 90% of the university

for all we know, because it's certainly

the for me, for example,

when I went to college,

I I left home when I was 17, and I left

a small this small town I had grown up

in, and in many ways I left the peers

that I had been associating with. Now, a

couple of them came to college with me,

so I had a toehold there, but I made an

entirely different group of friends, and

they were friends whose goals were quite

radically different from the friends

that I, let's say,

in some sense left behind.

Well,

the reformulation of my peer network

might have been the most important part

of of the first part of my education.

Now, I was fortunate at this place, it

was called Grand Prairie College, I had

seven professors.

Seven, which is really good, who really

loved to teach, and so I also learned a

lot in the formal sense, but while I was

doing that, I was also negotiating

Well, how much partying do you actually

do?

Cuz zero isn't the right amount, but

every goddamn night till 3:00 in the

morning isn't the right amount either

because you have to balance that in some

sense with practicality and upward

striving. And so, and and how do I live

with other people? My roommates. So, I

had one roommate who's a really good

friend of mine still, and he walked a

thousand miles with me this year when I

was ill, literally.

So,

um I really like living with him because

he was tough guy, worked in lead

smelters, and

he was a cowboy, and he was a tough guy,

4 years older than me, about 3 years

older than me. He'd come back to school

after bouncing around through these like

tough working-class occupations, and he

had his feet on the ground in lots of

ways, and

I really liked him as a roommate because

I'd buy some groceries, and

then he'd buy some groceries, or I'd

make dinner, and he'd make breakfast.

And none of that was ever explicitly

negotiated. He was just very aware of

this reciprocal It's reciprocal

altruism, technically. He was very

good at

We were both good at tracking our mutual

obligations and fulfilling them. So, we

had a very peaceful relationship. I

lived with him for a year, and and then

a little bit in different at different

times and in different places. And I I

learned to

live with a whole variety of roommates.

I've had many roommates. Uh

We had a kind of a frat house in the

first college I went to, and I think

anywhere from six to 20 people lived

there depending on the week, you know?

It was really It was ridiculous. It was

way too much fun.

And that was also a problem, but

when I look back on that time in my

life, I certainly can't reduce the

educational experience to

virtual classes and virtual tests.

That's Maybe that's 10% of it. And we

don't know how to replicate those

environments that are so formative,

especially in in their everydayness, you

know, cuz you live with your roommates.

That's a 24-hour thing.

And so,

the problem with virtualization is that

we don't understand our environments

well enough to be certain that we're not

excluding something vital when we

concentrate only on what we think

conceptually is important.

Now,

I meet with my son pretty regularly for

a project we're working on, which is an

app that will teach people to write

while they write and use it. So, we're

quite excited about this, but I meet

with him virtually once a week. And it's

actually very efficient. He's on the

screen, we can see our project in front

of us, we can do mutual editing of some

of the of the underlying material,

educational material. There's a real

place for it, and

I have a cottage up north in Toronto,

where we've set up a studio like your

studio here, although ours isn't quite

as impressive,

but I can

have an

interview and discussion with anyone

anywhere in the world, even in a foreign

language, and that's like unbelievably

remarkable. But but

that doesn't mean that

we know how to virtualize reality or

that we should flee into it, right? And

these new technologies, they're

unbelievably radical, and they're very

hard to master. And so, we all have to

be careful and try to keep our feet on

the ground to some degree when we're

using them. So, for example, now, I've

really only figured this out in the last

3 months,

I get up and I I do a series of

exercises that my wife taught me that

are based in the Kundalini yoga

tradition. That's real helpful,

flexibility and breathing exercises.

That reduces my anxiety during the day,

I would say about 25%.

And then I try to

reserve some time either for writing

or I'm working on a number of artistic

projects and so I'm going to do one or

or those for a couple hours in the

morning and then maybe a walk or

something with my wife and breakfast. I

breakfast during all this.

And then I can turn to

the sort of connected world, email and

the podcasts and so forth and so there's

this balance between privacy,

introverted privacy let's say, and

disconnect from everyone

except for my wife and then uh

contemplated

reconnection with the virtual world.

That seems to be working out pretty

well. Um you want to get a balance of

that that's actually to use a terrible

cliche sustainable, right? So you want

to hit your projects hard

but you have to

leave in that

not with entertainment but with culture

because those are not the same thing.

Um entertainment is an approximation to

culture. And you need to leave in that

with culture that's beauty and drama and

art and all of that and then with

intimate relationships and friendships

and

well, it's very difficult to get the

balance of all that correct and

it's very difficult to do that

virtually. So but I certainly wouldn't

forego the technology and neither would

the rest of us. It's like people

complain about their phones but they

carry them with them everywhere they go

and I'm not cynical about that. The

phone, it's not a phone. God only knows

what it is.

But it's definitely not a phone.

And so it's not surprising that since it

just appeared and it's so insanely

powerful that we don't know what to do

with it and that might even wreck

everything. Like God only knows, Twitter

itself could bring civilization to a

halt. We we don't know how to manage the

unintended consequences of our

technological prowess.

And that's exactly it. That's it's the

we we invent technology often it seems

for efficiency or to increase

productivity and it's almost impossible

because of that ignorance to what the

um the unintended consequences might be

to predict them ahead of time. So, we we

optimize

doctrine of conservative political

philosophy, right, is

beware of unintended consequences. It's

like, "Oh, no, this thing will just do

what I want it to do and nothing else."

Like

No, even Marx knew that wasn't true.

Marx Marx developed the concept the

concept of alienation. You know, we get

alienated from our the products of our

effort. That's part of the reason he

didn't like factories and

uh

and and fair enough, you know, because

factory work, which is repetitive, in

some sense destroys our artisanal

relationship with what we produce. Now,

the the problem with Marx's analysis is

that

yeah, but it's pretty damn efficient and

it lifts people out of absolute poverty

really quickly. So, but that doesn't

mean that and existential philosophers

after Marx developed the concept of

alienation to quite a high degree.

And technology does alienate us

because of its artificiality and its and

its and its coldness and its mechanistic

nature, all of that. And

well, we have to contend with that

wisely and

then you ask, "Well, how do you contend

with things wisely?" And I would say,

"Well, don't pollute your thoughts with

deceit.

You compromise your own wisdom.

How are you going to make intelligent

not intelligent decisions wise

decisions? That's why you shouldn't lie.

It's like

you're warping the mechanism that

orients you in the world. Do you really

want to do that?

This is a brutal world, man, and I've

seen this in my clinical practice.

People whose houses are built on

foundations of sand and the wind starts

to blow and the floods start to rise and

they are in such trouble.

Such trouble. If you're lucky

and something terrible comes your way

and you're reasonably honest and your

relationships are in good order, maybe

you won't end up in hell.

And and I mean hell. I don't mean death.

There's lots of situations you can get

yourself in where death would be far

preferable to what you're going through.

So, you you need to be afraid of that.

It's like, don't lie. I In my clinical

practice, in 20 years,

working with every sort of person you

could imagine, I never ever saw anyone

get away with anything even once.

So,

yeah, we're all subject not least to the

judgment of our own conscience. Try to

escape from that.

Cuz

no one can escape from that.

Over the last 2 years, the world has

gone through this this pandemic. For a

lot of people, this is the first time um

espe- for a certain generation, this is

the first time they've experienced such

unpredictable tectonic um

uh destabilization in their lives. Like,

we I didn't even believe society was

something that could close. I didn't

believe the tech There was I didn't even

know there was tectonic plates under my

business that could shut down my

business, right? And also in your

over the last 2 years, you've undergone

some really, you know, I don't even know

what the right adjective is to use to to

Tectonic's not bad.

I We'll go with tectonic then. Um

tectonic, you know, unfortunate um

challenges, I'll say, and in your life,

but also, you know, with your family.

What are the lessons we learn from

the the pandemic and from that type of

tectonic suffering about what actually

matters in our lives?

Well, we'll see with regard to the

pandemic because

although in some sense it is in some

ways over, our reaction to it is by no

means over. And part of the reason that

we overreacted, I would say, so

precipitously to it is that we were

unprepared for such things in our

naivety. And then we rushed to imitate a

totalitarian society in the immediate

aftermath of the pandemic emergence. And

that's something that everybody should

think about a lot. And we're not done

with all that totalitarian nonsense yet.

A lot of that's driven by

well, fear and naivety. I mean, 50% of

Democrats in the United States believe

you have a 50% chance of being

hospitalized with COVID and 25% of

Republicans believe the same thing. And

you can point a finger at people and

laugh at their ignorance, but you should

really ask, well, why is this

overestimate

of that magnitude and what does that

mean in relationship to policy? And I've

had conversations with people advising

at the highest level of government, in

particularly in Canada, who've told me

flat out,

and they're very reliable sources, that

none of the COVID policy for the last

year was driven by reliance on science.

It's all opinion poll.

And that's really pernicious because

well, who's asking the questions and how

did they set up the answer and who's

answering and in what emotional state?

And so, to what degree are we led by

considerations of short-term

propitiation of unwarranted fear? Well,

that's no way for free people to live.

It certainly won't work in the long run.

We're already seeing tremendous supply

chain disruptions and likely the

emergence of an inflationary pressure

that we haven't experienced since the

1970s in the aftermath aftermath of the

oil shocks. And none of that has sorted

itself out yet. I believe that we will

conclude that our response to the

pandemic caused more death and misery

than the pandemic itself.

And we have no end game in sight.

Another thing I asked

the people that I was speaking with is

like,

"When is this over?"

"Well, we don't know." "Well, what would

over look like?"

"Well, we don't really know."

And now what you see is this

insistence on about a monthly basis that

a new and radically different variant

has emerged. And

this virus Viruses mutate all the time,

but this virus particularly mutates, and

there are small mutations and

medium-sized mutations, numbers, let's

say, and also effect, and and

larger-scale mutations. When is that a

variant? Well, how about whenever it's

convenient for the pharmaceutical

companies? Think, "Well, that's

cynical." It's Is it now? The biggest

lawsuits in the history of the American

judicial system have been levied against

the largest pharmaceutical companies on

a regular basis for the last 20 years.

And since when

have has it been a proposition of the

political left that pharmaceutical

companies necessarily have our best

interests in mind? Now, I'm not

particularly cynical about

pharmaceutical companies. I think they

have a hard job both in terms of

research and development and marketing

and sales. And they're going to do what

they can to market and sell.

But that doesn't mean that they are now

to be the arbiters of all public policy

because our politicians are too cowardly

and incompetent to do anything but

devolve their responsibilities to

so-called experts, domain experts.

Politics is not public health.

That's medicine.

Politics is

the art of

analyzing the entire situation and

charting a course forward all things

considered. And for politicians to trot

out the experts and say follow the

science just means that they've

abdicated their own responsibilities.

And I think it's appalling.

I mean, I'm not convinced that the

evidence that masks work is

scientifically credible. It's certainly

at least doubtful. And that's just

masks. I read a paper the other day

suggesting that

to prevent the transmission of one case

of COVID, you have to lock down a

thousand people.

Like, how is that justifiable?

Especially given that the mortality rate

of COVID is actually quite low, unless

you have a pre-existent health problem,

particularly obesity, and although old

age also qualifies as it does for most

uh diseases, but not all.

And with regards to, let's say, the

issue of child vaccination, it's like

children have an unbelievably tiny

chance of

dying from COVID. I don't think there's

any scientific justification for

immunizing children under 12.

Now, at least it's debatable, and I'm

not a domain expert, although I'm a

decent scientist, and I know how to read

the research material.

And so,

well, we'll see what we have to learn

from these tectonic shifts underneath.

And you know, you might ask yourself,

well, was that a tectonic shift in dire

physical necessity because the COVID

virus was genuinely so dangerous, or was

it an indication tectonically of our

absolute inadequacy in the face of even

a moderate existential challenge?

And maybe it's a little column A and a

little column B, you know.

So,

I have to ask the question, if if we

were to make

you Jordan Peterson the president of the

world, and these were your decisions to

make, do you know what you would have

done um

differently, or in response to this

virus emerging in Wuhan?

I would say, well, thank you for the

offer, but I decline the position. And

the reason I would say that is because I

think the right solution to the more

serious problems is to be found at the

level of the individual.

So, I don't think

if I wanted to pursue what I regarded as

the ultimate goal, I the ultimate goal

for me is the encouragement of the

individual. And that's not a

that's not essentially a political

enterprise. It's essentially a

theological enterprise. And politics has

to be subordinate to that. And so, I've

debated throughout the entire course of

my life

whether I would adopt a political

career. It was my initial ambition when

I was very young, 14 I would say.

But when push came to shove at every

decision point in my life, if I had to

choose between

working on the encouragement of the

individual and pursuing a or pursuing a

political career,

um

I always chose the

the former.

And that's happened every time the

decision has come up.

I remember being approached by people in

Canada to

involve myself more deeply in a

practical role,

um and also publicly as a political

figure, but

I'd rather do what I'm doing.

I'm in contact with people working

politically all the time, both on the

people in the middle, people on the

right, people on the left. I'm agnostic

about that because I know full well that

conservatives have something to say, and

left-leaning liberals have something to

say. That's basically predicated to some

degree on their temperament. So,

conservatives tend to be more

conscientious, so that's orderly and

industrious, dutiful, patriotic, uh

willing to make and keep verbal

contracts, reliable, capable of

implementation at the level of detail.

So, that's kind of conservative virtues

there, but they tend to be lower in

creativity, openness to experience. They

don't think as divergently,

and their

conscientiousness tends to constrain

their creativity.

Whereas the liberal types, they're high

in openness to experience. That's the

creativity dimension, but they tend to

be lower in conscientiousness,

particularly orderliness. And so, what

that means is

those with a liberal temperament tend to

be creative {slash} entrepreneurs, and

those with a conservative temperament

tend to be managerial and

administrative. That doesn't mean they

can't run

businesses. Well, you want a

conservative person to run your

business. You might want a more liberal

person to pepper you with

off-the-wall ideas. You know, and then

if you're going to run an enterprise,

business, or a society,

there has to be a continual dialogue

between people of different

temperaments, so that we can keep the

ship of state, let's say, tracking to an

ever-moving destination. That's why free

speech is so necessary. It's not another

right. It's the right.

So, because none of us know what's going

on in the final analysis, cuz the future

is different than the past, really.

We have to talk about what to do all the

time.

Because even if we made wise decisions

in the past, that doesn't mean that we

can

mindlessly replicate those decisions

right now in the present to deal with a

changing future.

So, I want to help encourage people to

become the sort of people who can engage

in that free dialogue. And I think

that's the best way forward, especially

as we all become more technologically

powerful. It's like,

you better be smart enough to use your

iPhone.

And that's pretty damn smart, let's say

wise, cuz that's no trivial gadget. And

if you're not careful with it, it will

turn on you.

It will build authoritarian

presumptions into our artificial

intelligence systems, for example.

And then look the hell out.

So, if you're going to have

a hydrogen bomb,

you better be wise enough to wield it.

On that point of the encouragement of

the individual, we all have people in

our lives that we want to encourage.

We hope.

Yeah, we hope, right? And um

we sometimes fall foul of trying to

force our own bias, our own intention

for them on them. What is the best way

if I've got a friend in my life or a or

you know, partner that I want to

encourage to

Mhm.

come out of their place of despair into

a better place, how do I effectively do

that without overpowering them or

stifling them or making them feel

inadequate, which is sometimes the

consequence of trying to change someone

you love?

Mhm.

Well,

example's good.

Mhm.

But then, I would say disabuse yourself

of the notion that you know what is best

for this person.

You don't Not only do you not know, you

actually don't want that responsibility.

For two reasons.

Let's say they do what you say,

and something good happens to them.

Well, whose victory is that?

Yours or theirs? And if it's yours, did

you just steal it?

And then let's say they fail

following your advice. Well, they

pay the price for that.

And you can skip away merrily and say,

"Well, I should have spoke more

carefully." It's like, you don't mess

about with people's destiny. You do not

know where they're headed. Now, having

said that,

you do what you're doing in this

interview, in this podcast.

You ask people questions.

Real questions, you know?

Like, "How are you feeling?"

"I'm not doing so good today." Well,

you know,

"What's up? What's going on?"

And you can't think, "Well, I'm going to

ask questions to lead this person in a

particular direction." Cuz that's the

same game, the same instrumental game.

You have to see

what it is that you want to know. Cuz

see this, when people ask me questions

after my lectures, you know, now now and

then,

or during a Q&A, now and then people

will get up and they'll ask a real

question. It's part of the ongoing

dialogue. Something struck them. They

stand up. There's something they really

want to know. It's an honest question.

And that goes real well, but

not infrequently, someone stands up with

a little prepared speech that's packaged

as a question. So, I get this from

Christian traditionalists fairly

frequently. They get up, and they ask me

about my religious convictions, but

really want they want to do is corner me

into admitting that I should accept

Jesus Christ as my savior and and join a

particular, let's say, uh

um denomination. It's not a question.

It's just a manipulation.

And so, your questions, like your

statements, your question should be

honest. And

if you ask people questions, and you

really listen,

they will untangle themselves.

And that's partly why people love to be

attended to, you know?

Like

if I meet people on the street, you

know, I ask them their name. They're all

usually flustered when they come up to

me. They don't really want to interrupt

me, and and then they're flustered. And

the first thing I do is shake their hand

and ask them their name. And I listen,

you know? Not that good at remembering

names, but

I listen to it. And And they know how to

say their name. And so, it kind of

settles them down. And then it sort of

marks them out as a person against the

background, eh?

And then, if I really pay attention to

them and listen, they will tell me

something in like 10 seconds that I need

to know.

Cuz they are They have something to say,

you know?

And then, if you listen, people tell you

what they have to say, and then you get

wise, because you collect all that.

And so, you want to help someone.

Well, first of all, you would decide

that

you're aiming towards help, right?

And And that you do that in the spirit

of ignorance. This is what every good

clinician learns is I don't know where

you're headed. I don't know what's wrong

with you.

This is a hard problem, man. It's like,

what's your problem?

I don't know what your problem is.

So, let's find that out first, and then

let's find out

One thing you can ask people, this is

actually useful in an argument with

someone you love. They're they're upset

with you.

What are your preconditions for

satisfaction?

Now, I wouldn't state it like that. It's

like,

if I could give you what you wanted

right now in the context of this

argument, and I wasn't doing it in a

manipulative way, what is it that I

would have to say or do that would in

principle satisfy you?

And that's a hard question, you know?

And the person might say, "Well, I think

you should apologize and about this, and

you know?" And I And then I will say,

"What words should I use?"

And they'll say, "Well, if you loved me,

you'd know." And I would say, "No, I'm

stupid and ignorant, and I don't know

what the right words are to satisfy you.

So, why don't you give me a hand with

that, and I'll utter them inelegantly

and awkwardly in a good faith

demonstration of my commitment to peace,

and that won't be so good because maybe

it would have been better if I came up

with it myself, but maybe next time I

can do slightly better."

And that works. It It

requires the person who's after you

to think through

the question even of

whether there's anything that could be

said or done that would satisfy them.

And if the answer to that is no, well,

probably the relationship is over. But

certainly,

the person that they're accusing has

been put in an absolutely impossible

position.

But usually,

almost inevitably,

if the person meditates on it for a bit,

there is something that would satisfy

them that can be negotiated as long as

they're willing to give you the

opportunity to do it,

you know, stupidly and badly.

So,

listening, man.

Jimmy Carr, I talked to Jimmy Carr two

weeks ago. He's a comedian. Yeah, he was

it was real interesting.

Um, he said comedy is the most

dialogical of

of the entertainment forms. And I

thought, well, what do you mean by that?

Because you're just talk

It's a monologue, right? Now, I do

monologues, but I pay attention to the

audience, right? I'm always talking to

individual people in the audience and

watching the reactions and listening to

the audience as a whole. So, even though

it's a lecture, let's say, or a talk,

I'm watching the audience and

responding. So, we're in a kind of

dance. Well, Carr pointed out that

comedians before they hit the road, and

this is virtually in invariably the

case,

they have their new routines. So, their

their their corpus of potentially funny

jokes,

and then they do 200 shows in front of

small audiences. And

the audience either laughs or doesn't.

And if you're listening, you collect all

the jokes that people laugh at. If you

do that 200 times, you have nothing but

hilarious material.

But you listened.

And then you can go out on the road. And

that was very interesting to me because

humor is a mysterious

phenomenon, experientially and

conceptually. And it's sort of

precognitive and instinctual, but it's

also extremely sophisticated. Then

there's an element of transcendence

about it, right? Because you can laugh

at yourself. And that's in some sense

the highest form of humor.

And so, it's so interesting that we can

criticize and elevate ourselves at the

same time. And that we find that

intensely pleasurable.

And so, a good comedian collects ways to

do that and shares them with the

audience. And he's listening. And so, if

you want to help someone,

the best way to help someone is not to

give them advice,

but to listen to them.

So.

I had a guest actually come on this

podcast Jimmy Carr. Jimmy Carr was on

two weeks ago and we had a great

conversation about

um happiness and the nature of

happiness. And the guest before Jimmy

Carr wrote in my diary, which is a

tradition we have now where all the

guests that come on write a question for

the next guest. So, there is a question

in there for you. But, the guest wrote a

question um which changed his life,

which is um are you happy? And I, from

reading your work and understanding your

position on happiness and it not being

the thing to aim for, which really

struck me because I thought, you know,

[clears throat]

I thought life was the North Star of our

lives was to try and be happy. I guess

my question is

What I was going to ask you that

question?

Aim to be good and pray for happiness.

So, the question I was going to it was

pretty much that. Is what is a better

question for me to ask you if I'm

checking in on you? Because we ask that

question with good intentions, are you

happy? [clears throat]

What's a better question for me to ask

Jordan Peterson?

How are you doing?

How are you doing?

Hm?

How are you doing?

Hm?

Brilliantly and terribly.

[snorts]

That's

You know, when you listen to a profound

piece of music,

one that sort of spans the whole

emotional experience,

it's not happy.

Happy is elevator music and

probably you just shouldn't listen to

that at all.

Right? And And you think, why? Well,

it it's harmless, it's treacly, it's

sweet.

Uh

simple, it lacks depth, it's shallow,

that's a problem.

Um

It It have that deep sense of awe and

horror, I would say,

that is characteristic of the best of

all music. You know, you listen to some

mis- simple music, so-called. Hank

Williams is a good example, you know,

the

blues cowboy from the '50s who died of

alcoholism when he was 27 and whose

voice sounds like an 80-year-old man.

Simple melody, you know, but

there's nothing simple in the song and

and in the voice.

It's deep, you know, it's like the

blues. It's It's like black blues in the

States from the '20s and it was

certainly influenced by that tradition.

There's this

admission of a deep suffering

at the same time as

you get the

beautiful transcendence of the music.

And that's meaning, you know, that's

awful in the most fundamental sense, but

you need an antidote to suffering and

it has to be deep and you know, deep

moves you tectonically and it's not a

trivial thing.

And but that's better than happiness.

And maybe if you're lucky, while you're

pursuing that and while you're immersed

in it, you get to be happy and and you

should fall on your knees and be

grateful for that when it happens, you

know, it's a gift. It really is a gift.

And it comes upon you unexpectedly, your

happiness, you know.

But

you aim to climb uphill to the highest

peak you can possibly envision.

And that's that's better than happiness.

Why did you include terribly?

Well, for example, now when I go

wherever I go in the world, people come

up to me and they're usually

I wouldn't say they're happy to see me.

They're often in tears,

you know,

and they often have a pretty rough story

to relate, you know, they were suicidal

or nihilistic or homicidal or

trapped,

desperate.

You know, and they tell me that real

fast.

And then they say, I've overcome that to

a large degree and thank you for that

and

and you think, well, that's really

something to

have that happen over and over.

In some ways you might think, well, how

could anything better possibly happen to

you than to have people come up to you

all over the world, strangers, and open

themselves up like that, like they're

old friends, so quickly. But, at the

same time it's an awful thing

because you see

even in the revelation of their triumph,

the initial depth of their despair.

So, I wouldn't change that.

But, it's not nothing.

It's certainly not just happiness.

It's better than happiness, but it's

almost unbearable.

God, tears again.

[gasps]

[laughter]

It's been quite a

2 weeks in the UK.

It's been amazing.

It's been amazing. Such a great country,

this country.

Such a profound place and it was so

wonderful to see Cambridge and Oxford

and

to be welcomed by the students and

I saw the queues around the block and

the the reaction you got. I watched the

talk in in Cambridge and

um it was so wonderful to see because

it, you know, I know that you don't do

what you do for credit. That kind of

seems to be the you know, the antithesis

of the the pursuing your truth and doing

it for the in the cause of truth, but um

it was so wonderful to see someone that

I know has had such a profound impact on

so many be received in such a way. We

have a closing tradition.

One of the you know, I don't know be

this, but one of the the really great

CEOs in our country, young guy has built

a multi-billion dollar company, really

great guy, sat here yesterday and I

actually told him for the first time who

he is writing the question for and I

couldn't believe his face. Oh my god,

that's the one person I want to have

dinner with. This is probably the most

successful young person in our country.

Mhm.

And he was And so he knew who he was

writing the question for. So, the

question that the previous guest wrote

is for you. Is

Why do you do

what you do?

To see what will happen.

Some programs you you cannot predict,

right? You cannot predict how they're

going to end. You have to run them.

Well, you know, I believe that truth

will save the world.

I believe that.

So, you speak truthfully.

And you watch what happens and you take

your consequences.

You know, and maybe you hope and have

some faith that in the final analysis

things will work out in your favor, but

perhaps they will and perhaps they

won't, but

that's faith, eh?

That's faith. It's Faith isn't believing

in things you regard as ridiculous.

Sacrificing your intellect.

It's

a decision. You know?

Will truth, beauty, and love save the

world?

Well, you could find out.

Thank you doesn't seem to quite cut it

for the impact you've had even on me and

also for giving me your time. I know you

understand the tremendous value of time.

I've I've seen it so much in your work.

So,

I'm going to say thank you, but I'm also

going to make a commitment to do

something which I think is more

important, which is just to be truthful.

And I think with the platform I have in

the years I have ahead of me, maybe

that's the greatest good that I can do

to the world. So, because you've come

here, that's a pledge and a commitment I

want to make to you as my highest form

of thanks that I can give in a karmic

way. Hopefully, that will make the world

a better place for for everybody.

Well, at least it will

help

ensure that you won't make the world

worse place.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

[laughter]

Much appreciated.

A huge honor, thank you.

Thank you so much.

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