The courage to be disliked by Ichiro

Kushimi and Fumitaki Koga became a

best-selling book in Japan and has sold

over 10 million copies worldwide for a

very good reason. And that reason is it

addresses a part of human nature that is

one of the most common sources for why

people lead unhappy unfulfilling lives

and how you can rewire your thought

patterns to avoid getting caught in

these mental traps and societal

pressures that typically result in us

getting to our 60s and 70s thinking damn

why did I waste my life doing [ __ ] that

I didn't want to do and in this video

I'm going to summarize the five most

important takeaways from the book for

some background the format of the book

is basically this young guy who's not

happy with how his life is going. So, he

goes to visit a philosopher and the

majority of the book is like a back and

forth dialogue between the young guy and

the philosopher. And the philosopher is

actually based on a real person, 19th

century Austrian psychiatrist by the

name of Alfred Adler. Not a lot of

people have heard of Adler, but if

you've heard of Sigman Freud and Carl

Jung, Adler is basically the lesserk

known third musketeer in this trio of

psychologists. Now, we'll give you some

fair warning. Some of the concepts from

this book are pretty controversial. I'll

call those out when we get to them, but

as long as you kind of take them with a

grain of salt and keep an open mind,

when you really think about them, they

can be pretty life-changing. And the

first big lesson from the book is

whenever you have a dilemma that

involves other people, you should start

thinking in terms of separation of

tasks. So imagine like two circles that

aren't touching. Anything related to

what you do, what you think, how you

feel, how you react, that goes in one

circle. These are your tasks. what other

people do, how they think, how they

feel, how they react, that goes in the

other circle and those are their tasks.

These two circles of tasks are

separated. You are 100% responsible for

all the tasks in your circle. And this

is the important part. You are 0%

responsible for all the tasks in the

other circle. And this feeds directly

into the next lesson, which is that many

problems in life, the root of them is an

interpersonal relationship problem. One

person intruding on the tasks of another

person. So, let's say someone asks you

to spend half your Saturday helping them

with a favor, like helping them with a

backyard landscape project or

babysitting their kids, but you were

already planning on staying in on

Saturday to work on your YouTube

channel. Your goals and desires are

totally valid. You want to become a

successful YouTuber. you already have a

9 to-ive job and your weekends are the

only opportunity you have to escape that

9 to5. The book explains that you should

get in the habit of feeling comfortable

saying no completely free from worry

about how other people might react. So

if the person asking you for a favor

starts feeling anger or disappointment

that you turned them down, that's inside

their circle of tasks, not your circle

of tasks. So it has nothing to do with

you. You are not responsible for keeping

everyone satisfied. Let's say your

parents are pressuring you to go into a

certain career or pressuring you to get

married as fast as possible. These are

truly enormous life decisions. So, you

have to take agency in choosing for

yourself what will make you happy here.

And if your decisions stress your

parents out, that's their task to figure

that [ __ ] out, not your task. You are

not responsible for them feeling

stressed for you not letting them play

Sim simulator with your life. This

philosophy can also be really freeing

when it comes to dating. So, you know,

if you see someone you like and you want

to ask them out, you are 100%

responsible for making a move, but you

should feel zero worry about the outcome

because whether they say yes or no,

that's part of their circle of tasks.

You're not responsible for it. You have

no control over it. You've done all you

can do, which is ask them out. And this

ties directly to the next lesson, which

is that you are actually creating

emotions to suit your own goals, which

is contrary to the popular idea that

people are often controlled by their

emotions. I know this is a pretty tricky

one to wrap your mind around, but the

book uses these good examples. Let's say

a mom and her daughter are arguing about

something, and the mom just starts

screaming at her daughter, and in the

middle of the argument, the phone rings,

and it's someone from work. Immediately,

with a snap of a finger, the mom's voice

changes to a very polite tone while she

talks to her colleague for a few

minutes. The book argues that you can't

say the mom's emotions caused her to

yell and scream, because if that were

the case, she wouldn't be able to

immediately change tone in less than a

second when someone from work called

her. Instead, the book says that the mom

had a goal of making her daughter submit

and fabricated the emotion of anger to

allow her to scream to try and achieve

that goal. If she had the ability to

instantly control her tone when someone

else entered the picture, she also has

the ability to control her tone and

speak calmly with her daughter. The same

thing with like if you're at a

restaurant and the waiter spills coffee

on you, you might start yelling at him

out of anger, but you can't say that

it's because your emotions got the best

of you because you were able to control

yourself by not picking up the knife on

your table and hurling it at him. The

book again argues here that you likely

had a goal of making the waiter feel as

uncomfortable as he made you feel, and

so you fabricated the emotion of anger

to allow you to shout at him. Now, this

is one of those controversial ideas from

the book, and I'm sure it may not be

100% directly applicable to every single

situation in the world, but I think it

is a really useful paradigm shift for

your mindset. And if you really

internalize it, it can give you a lot

more control over your actions and

ultimately lead you to better life

outcomes. Now, the next lesson takes the

previous lesson, the idea that you're in

full control of your emotions, and

really just pumps it full of steroids.

If you thought the last lesson was

controversial, you'll want to buckle

your seat belt for this next one, which

is that the past does not define the

future. And on this point, the book goes

as far as to say that even trauma does

not exist. And I know this is insanely

controversial because you can

immediately think of a hundred different

scenarios like people suffering abuse

when they were young or victims of

violent crimes. But I think this point

is really more of like clickbait to get

someone interested in thinking deeper

about the idea. And the main idea is

that more often than not, people hold

such a deep inner belief that their past

determines their present and future that

it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy

even when it didn't need to be. So, you

know, obviously people can have some

really negative experiences, and some

people really do experience way more

negative things than other people, but

the book argues that nothing is

determined purely from those

experiences, and we're free to assign

different meanings to how those

experiences impact us. So, for example,

let's say two people have the exact same

experience where in 8th grade they had

to do a writing project, which was to

write an epilogue chapter for the book

that they read in class. and the teacher

read their work, got up in front of the

entire class, and ripped it in half in

front of everyone, slammed it down on

the kid's desk, telling them to start

over. One of those kids might feel so

mortified and think that they're

completely just horrible writers, and

never try to go into writing again. But

the other kid might take that experience

and think, "Huh, well, that was weird.

Clearly, that teacher has some perhaps

unresolved trauma of her own. I'm just

going to keep writing because I like

doing it and that's in my circle of

tasks. If she didn't like it, that's in

her circle of tasks. And by the way,

this is a true story. It happened to me

in 8th grade. It actually knocked my

confidence to the point where I avoided

any advanced or honors English classes

in high school. But I'm happy to say

that I don't let it impact my life or my

decisions at all anymore. And I'm

actually in the process of writing a

book. And while we're on the topic of

writing, this really blends well uh with

a final big lesson from the book, which

is that freedom from excuses will bring

freedom to your life. The philosopher in

the book tells the story of a friend of

his who has a dream of becoming a

novelist, but never ended up actually

finishing the books. And when he was

young, he would always complain that

he's too busy with his 9 toive job. And

when he was older, he would come up with

excuses like, "I'm not young anymore."

Or, "My family takes up all my time."

The philosopher argues that the real

reason that he never finished writing a

book was that he wants to mentally live

in this fantasy land of possibilities by

not actually publishing anything. It

leaves the possibility open of I could

succeed at this if I really tried and he

never has to face any rejection. And so

his mind conjures up all of these

excuses that let him rationalize staying

in this fantasy land so he doesn't have

to consciously accept that it's just a

fear of failure that's holding him back.

And this lesson I think really ties all

the other lessons from the book

together. Given how controversial some

of these topics are, it's really easy

for someone to just be like, well

actually, you know, some people have a

condition where the neurons in their

neoortex fire a certain way and this

information is scientifically false. But

my main takeaway from the book, if I

could wrap it all up in just a few

bullet notes, was that your mind and

body will naturally walk the path of

least resistance. If others pressure you

to do something, you might naturally be

more inclined to do it to avoid the

resistance of conflict. If there's a

fear of failing your dreams, you might

naturally use your difficult past or

your current difficult circumstances to

rationalize just staying comfortable

where you are because there's a chance

of resistance and rejection. But when

you decide that you have agency in your

life, you have the control, you can do

what you want to do, that you can be in

charge of your emotions, that you don't

have to be a puppet. When you decide to

accept the idea that you have 100% full

responsibility of your thoughts, of your

actions, it frees you from your brain's

natural tendency to make excuses, and it

frees you from wasting your life as a

people pleaser. And I think that's

really powerful. All right, last

important thing. If you want to be able

to go back and review these lessons in

the future without having to reread the

entire book or rewatch this video, I put

together a really nice one-page visual

mind map that summarizes all these

points. If you check out the link in the

description, I'll happily send it to you

completely for free. And if you already

subscribe to my newsletter, this mind

map should already be in your inbox. I'm

also putting links up on the screen to

some other self-improvement book

summaries that I think you'll really

enjoy. If you like this book summary and

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