Latest / Motivation study / Watch This Every Day Before You Go Back To School _ Powerful Back-to-School Motivation

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Watch This Every Day Before You Go Back To School _ Powerful Back-to-School Motivation · Motivation study

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Life isn't fair, is it? It doesn't appear to be
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: very fair. Because, I mean, this is how your story
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: ended in that regard.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know if an adventure is fair. I don't
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: even know if that's what we want. What are we
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: built for? We're built for maximal challenge. And that isn't
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: the way we view ourselves in the modern world. We
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: view ourselves as built for pleasure. We view ourselves as
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: built for consumptions. or for safety, or maybe for egotistical
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: self-aggrandizement and fame. Those are, look, all of those things
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: are better than their absence, let's say.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: What are we built for?
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: I think we're built for maximal challenge. Well, humility is
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: starting where you are. That's what humility is. And it's
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: annoying because, you know, like if your life is a mess,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: then you have to see that you're the person in
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: that mess. And then you have to understand that your
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: first attempt to redress the mess might not be something
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: you're particularly proud of, you know? I mean, I saw
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: this lots in my clinical practice where people would, the
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: first steps they had to take to put things in
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: order were pretty embarrassing.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: It's like, really, that's all I can do?
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: Hey, man.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Uphill is better than downhill. And okay, so it lays
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: out a view of the world. Progress, regression. So even
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: if you have to start small, you accrue success exponentially.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: You accrue defeat exponentially too. That's the abyss that is hell.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: You start going downhill, you go downhill faster and faster.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Start going uphill, you go uphill faster and faster. So
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: even if you have to start small or even painfully small,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: which is highly probable, especially if you're trying to tackle
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: something that's really plagued you, it doesn't really matter.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: What is self-belief in this context? Because so many people
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: are in search of two words. I think that's three words,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: but self-belief and confidence.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: And in this context of that small task, how is
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: that building my self-belief or confidence?
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Well, because you watch yourself do it.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: And that does what to me?
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Well, look. If you see someone, a friend, who is continually,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: incrementally improving, you're gonna, oh, that's admirable. Well, you see
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: the same thing in yourself. You have to develop an
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: opinion of yourself the same way you would develop an
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: opinion of someone else. So now, and I'm not hypothesizing
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: about this, by the way. We know this clinically. If
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I want to truly help you build your confidence, rather
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: than merely readjusting the words you say about yourself, which
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: would be something like self-esteem, which is something that doesn't
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: even exist, by the way. It's just a pathological concept altogether.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: You want confidence, okay? More to the point, you want
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: the confidence that's based in competence. Otherwise, it's narcissistic. Okay,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: so how do you develop that? Well, you watch yourself
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: exceed your limits. And then you think, oh, look at that.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: There's something in me that can exceed my limits. That's
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: your true self. That's a good way of thinking about it.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: And in doing so, you actually realize that limits exist
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: and that you imposed one on yourself in the first place.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Well, that's one of the things you can realize, certainly,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: that also you don't exactly know where the limits are.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh, I exceeded that.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: It's like, okay, well, now what? What's the upward arc
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: of exceeding limits? That's Jacob's Ladder.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: I would say.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: This is the promise of the kingdom of God. That's
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: one way of thinking about it.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: There's no upward limit.
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: No matter the odds, he's completely devoted to this idea
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: that I'm not what.
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: I used to be.
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: And I'm not where I want to be. But I
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: have the opportunity and the privilege and the capacity to develop,
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: to go and become something, to evolve.
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: To move from point A to point B.
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: We have an unlimited amount of potential in us.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: It's called stored up potential.
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: And the only way to unlock stored up potential is
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: to believe.
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: Because when you believe, nobody can convince you otherwise.
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: You are a person of vision and valor and discipline.
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: You got this thing.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: Why not you?
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: Stop looking for everybody else to do it. Stop looking
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: for everybody else to support it. Believe in it, to
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: hand it to you, to point you in the right direction.
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: You have everything you need right now in this moment
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: to take a step forward.
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: So do it. You're talented enough. You're hungry enough. Do it.
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: Do it. All you got to do is take one
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: step and you're no longer where you are and you're
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: no longer where you used to be. Just take a
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: step forward.
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: You got to come to the realization that you're not
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: going back, that you're not going to lead an ordinary life,
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: that you're going to look crazy, that you're going to
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: look out of your mind to most people and that
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: you're not naive. Neither are you cynical. You are determined,
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: you are dedicated and you are committed.
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: It's the crazies.
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: Make history it's the people that are willing to look
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: foolish in front of everybody to accomplish that one day
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: the problem with many of you is that you are
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: surrounded by people who ask you the wrong questions why
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: do you sweat why are you bleeding for it why
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: are you losing sleep over it Some people are never
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: going to get it until you lift the trophy in
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: the air. Some people are never going to get it
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: until you lift the diploma in the air. Some people
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: are never going to get it until you win. Then
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: they're going to ask you, how did you do it?
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: You're going to look foolish. You're going to look like
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: the guy who's lost his mind to your art. If
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: you're going to punch through, if you're going to have
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: an aim and hit it, then there are going to
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: be seasons and chapters and moments in your life where
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: nobody is going to understand why you're not sleeping like
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: everybody else. See, when you step into agreement with a thing,
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: when you see the possibility, when you see what you
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: could be, and you come into agreement with it, and
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: you step into the awareness that says... What I've done
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: has gotten me where I am. And if I'm going
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: to accomplish more and if I'm going to do more
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: and see more and become more, I must give my
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: all to this. I'll look mad if I have to.
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: I'll look crazy if I have to. It is right
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: at that point where I shot the world and I'm
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: going to give it everything I have.
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: Call me crazy now. Call me legend later.
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: Everybody who has ever struggled with believing that it's you,
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: it's always been you. You are the first pick. You
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: are the only option. And there will never be another way.
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: Believe that you're that valuable.
• 7:59
  Speaker 6: When you were growing up in Longview, Texas, is this
• 8:02
  Speaker 6: what you dreamed would happen to you someday?
• 8:05
  Speaker 7: No, ma'am, not at all. Never really thought about it.
• 8:08
  Speaker 7: I don't know what I wanted to do at that time.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Growing up, who were your influences? Did you see someone
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: growing up on TV or the movies who you thought, like,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: that person inspires me?
• 8:19
  Speaker 7: Look, the first step that leads to our identity in
• 8:22
  Speaker 7: life is usually not, I know who I am. That's
• 8:26
  Speaker 7: not the first step. The first step's usually, I know
• 8:29
  Speaker 7: who I am not. Working off of the truth is
• 8:32
  Speaker 7: a wonderfully liberating incentive for me. It's more than a blueprint.
• 8:37
  Speaker 7: It's the blueprint of what to work off of and
• 8:41
  Speaker 7: a responsibility to uphold. And so being a good man
• 8:44
  Speaker 7: is a lot harder for good reason. I'm not going
• 8:48
  Speaker 7: to be most popular. I'm not going to be always
• 8:52
  Speaker 7: most affable. Are you really chasing things that have meaning
• 8:58
  Speaker 7: in your life? Because things that have meaning take maintenance.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: They break down.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: It hurts.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: It sucks. We get bruised.
• 9:06
  Speaker 7: We get older and the black and whites turn to
• 9:08
  Speaker 7: gray and then there's a great word, compromise, we all say,
• 9:11
  Speaker 7: which is such a mature thing to do. And the
• 9:15
  Speaker 7: beauty of ignorance, those things that we believed in. I've
• 9:18
  Speaker 7: gotten away with so many things because of my ignorance.
• 9:21
  Speaker 7: I would be dead 14 times in this life if
• 9:24
  Speaker 7: I wouldn't have been ignorant of the situation I was in.
• 9:27
  Speaker 7: My good man's not looking for trouble, but if it comes...
• 9:31
  Speaker 7: And if he or something he cares about and others
• 9:33
  Speaker 7: were susceptible, a good man does what he can to
• 9:36
  Speaker 7: do to stop that.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: These are the crumbs.
• 9:40
  Speaker 7: They come in the form of regret, guilt, and remorse.
• 9:45
  Speaker 7: You leave crumbs today, they will cause you more stress tomorrow.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: But now that you're here, one of the top actors
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: of the country.
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: It's a good place, huh?
• 9:56
  Speaker 7: Great place, yeah.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Would you change anything?
• 10:01
  Speaker 7: Would I change anything? I'm trying to think. I'm going
• 10:06
  Speaker 7: through my head right now. Where have I sacrificed my
• 10:10
  Speaker 7: own character to get ahead so then to be perceived as?
• 10:16
  Speaker 7: And I know I've done it many times. Being a marketeer, too,
• 10:20
  Speaker 7: you know. gotten away with stuff, played games, and da-da-da-da-da.
• 10:24
  Speaker 7: Kiss the fire and walk away whistling.
• 10:27
  Speaker 8: A little Icarus light.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:31
  Speaker 7: So I grew up only knowing sort of the courage
• 10:35
  Speaker 7: of the persistence. You're resilient, endure, get up, dust yourself off, go.
• 10:41
  Speaker 7: The problem with that, the Achilles heel with that is
• 10:43
  Speaker 7: if you get up and you have the courage to
• 10:45
  Speaker 7: keep on going every time and get up and dust
• 10:48
  Speaker 7: yourself off, You make the same mistakes each time around
• 10:53
  Speaker 7: because you never backed up. To have what I've now
• 10:56
  Speaker 7: learned and still learning is the courage to go, no,
• 10:59
  Speaker 7: I'm going to let some people pass me in the
• 11:00
  Speaker 7: race right now because I'm going to look at why
• 11:02
  Speaker 7: I keep stepping in that damn same pothole and twisting
• 11:04
  Speaker 7: my ankle. The same spot.
• 11:06
  Speaker 9: And that requires, I think, a lot of courage and
• 11:10
  Speaker 9: hope and self-belief and faith in order to do, to
• 11:15
  Speaker 9: let go of something good for the chance of at
• 11:19
  Speaker 9: something that you think could be great, I think that's
• 11:23
  Speaker 9: something that a lot of people wish that they had
• 11:26
  Speaker 9: a little bit more fuel for.
• 11:28
  Speaker 7: It was a big risk, it was a big chance,
• 11:30
  Speaker 7: and it was no guaranteed return ticket. It was a
• 11:33
  Speaker 7: one-way ticket possibly to.
• 11:34
  Speaker 8: One-way ticket to a dead end.
• 11:36
  Speaker 7: Or to something new. But a one-way ticket to a
• 11:39
  Speaker 7: dead end in Hollywood is an act for sure.
• 11:42
  Speaker 8: Here we go. If I stick with it, this will
• 11:44
  Speaker 8: give me.
• 11:45
  Speaker 7: a home base to feel secure in even though I'm
• 11:48
  Speaker 7: stepping away from what has made me, given me significance
• 11:50
  Speaker 7: for so many years and decades of my life. We're
• 11:54
  Speaker 7: not going to get nerves at the goal line if
• 11:56
  Speaker 7: we don't know where the goal line is. We're not
• 11:57
  Speaker 7: going to get down the line and go, oh, a
• 11:59
  Speaker 7: pulled parachute.
• 12:00
  Speaker 8: Even if it's a $ 14 million parachute.
• 12:02
  Speaker 7: Even if it's a $ 14 million parachute. Making that a
• 12:06
  Speaker 7: choice that was inevitable, that there was no pulling the
• 12:08
  Speaker 7: parachute on, sure as hell helped with the endurance of
• 12:12
  Speaker 7: me being away for what was 20 months. That 20
• 12:15
  Speaker 7: months was really hard. And I've said it before, that
• 12:17
  Speaker 7: proverbial bottle on the shelf was looking better and better
• 12:20
  Speaker 7: earlier in the day as time went on. I mean,
• 12:23
  Speaker 7: how many more times could I work in the damn garden, man?
• 12:26
  Speaker 7: I'm like, I'm not a gardener for life. I like this,
• 12:29
  Speaker 7: but I got to come on, man. I did have
• 12:32
  Speaker 7: a real belief, whether I was tricking myself or not,
• 12:34
  Speaker 7: that there's a bigger pot of gold for me on
• 12:38
  Speaker 7: the other side of this if I just out endure it.
• 12:41
  Speaker 7: I'll out-endure this so much. And it became a little
• 12:44
  Speaker 7: like the year in Australia. I started to gain pride
• 12:47
  Speaker 7: and honor with the longer the penance went on of
• 12:50
  Speaker 7: being without what I wanted. I started to be like, well,
• 12:53
  Speaker 7: I'm definitely backing out now, man. I'm six months in.
• 12:56
  Speaker 8: Sends into momentum.
• 12:56
  Speaker 7: All in a year later, I'm like, I'm a year in, man.
• 12:58
  Speaker 7: This is getting good. Okay, come on. And then the
• 13:05
  Speaker 7: scary part was I started to entertain the idea of
• 13:11
  Speaker 7: Damn it. It may just be how it is now.
• 13:17
  Speaker 7: And that scared me. And then I got angry at that,
• 13:21
  Speaker 7: and I'm still in the midst of some anger with that.
• 13:26
  Speaker 7: Which is a bit of that rage thing, which makes
• 13:28
  Speaker 7: me act upon it and go, bullshit. I'm not conceding,
• 13:32
  Speaker 7: and I don't think anyone really wants to concede that
• 13:34
  Speaker 7: that's just the way it is. And if it is
• 13:36
  Speaker 7: the way it is, And the reality is not enough
• 13:40
  Speaker 7: to get off to. Let's go to the dream. Let's
• 13:45
  Speaker 7: flip that script. I want to fight against it. So
• 13:48
  Speaker 7: I flipped it and said, let's go to dreams. Let's
• 13:50
  Speaker 7: go to poems, prayers. These are pursuits of an ideal beauty.
• 13:54
  Speaker 7: These are in between the lines. This is in between
• 13:56
  Speaker 7: the math. This is not academic. This is not intellectual.
• 13:59
  Speaker 7: These are ideals that we pursue. The beginner's mind that
• 14:02
  Speaker 7: we have as a child before we know worse. And
• 14:04
  Speaker 7: I don't want to be ignorant. I don't want to
• 14:06
  Speaker 7: be foolishly optimistic. Let's look to those and believe that
• 14:08
  Speaker 7: we can still make those real. Let that bring rhyme
• 14:14
  Speaker 7: to the reason instead of looking to the reason behind
• 14:18
  Speaker 7: the rhyme. More backbone to hold on and be principled
• 14:22
  Speaker 7: to what I stand for, what I stand against when
• 14:25
  Speaker 7: it becomes easier and easier to just go with the flow.
• 14:29
  Speaker 7: And I'm not ready to go. Let's just go with
• 14:31
  Speaker 7: the flow. I just want to I don't want to
• 14:34
  Speaker 7: pick the wrong battles. I'm trying to be discerning and
• 14:37
  Speaker 7: not picking the wrong fights. Because I like picking fights
• 14:40
  Speaker 7: and going after challenges. But I'm kind of like, man,
• 14:45
  Speaker 7: it's tough duty to win the fair fights. And there's
• 14:48
  Speaker 7: a lot of unfair fights out there. And why do
• 14:50
  Speaker 7: I want to spend my time if I've got 25
• 14:51
  Speaker 7: hours a day picking unfair fights when I'm going to
• 14:54
  Speaker 7: be busting my ass to win.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: The fair ones?
• 14:56
  Speaker 8: Well, also picking fights with yourself.
• 14:57
  Speaker 9: You know, you hinted just there at The difficulty of
• 15:02
  Speaker 9: a negative in a voice, you know, you take things seriously.
• 15:06
  Speaker 9: You care about what you're doing. You want to achieve
• 15:09
  Speaker 9: things in this world, which means that you need to
• 15:10
  Speaker 9: have high standards. You need to posit an ideal. But
• 15:13
  Speaker 9: as soon as you posit an ideal, you then begin
• 15:16
  Speaker 9: to compare yourself to that ideal. And often you find
• 15:18
  Speaker 9: yourself lacking because it's an ideal.
• 15:22
  Speaker 7: So you see every day, every week, every month and
• 15:24
  Speaker 7: every year of my life, my hero is always 10
• 15:27
  Speaker 7: years away. I'm never going to be my hero. I'm
• 15:30
  Speaker 7: not going to attain that. I know I'm not. And
• 15:31
  Speaker 7: that's just fine with me because that keeps me with
• 15:33
  Speaker 7: somebody to keep on chasing. It's going to take punk rock.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Rage.
• 15:43
  Speaker 7: It's going to take getting wild. It's not going to
• 15:48
  Speaker 7: be necessarily logical. It's not going to be tame. It's
• 15:52
  Speaker 7: not going to be whispered.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: I don't think.
• 15:55
  Speaker 7: No emotion gets more shit done than rage.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: For good or for bad.
• 15:59
  Speaker 8: It seems like rage really moves the needle.
• 16:01
  Speaker 7: You know what I mean? And I think that that
• 16:05
  Speaker 7: emotion and that approach shouldn't be thrown out when you're
• 16:08
  Speaker 7: talking about a pursuit of peace or contentment. I think
• 16:12
  Speaker 7: it takes sweat equity. It would take blood being drawn.
• 16:17
  Speaker 7: I don't believe that we're as evolved enough species to
• 16:23
  Speaker 7: just behave as we intellectually can agree we should be.
• 16:29
  Speaker 7: I don't see it happening. We can all agree with it.
• 16:33
  Speaker 7: In an open forum, enough of us go back on
• 16:36
  Speaker 7: our own and make what we're doing.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 16:41
  Speaker 7: It's a good idea. But boy, when we're cornered and
• 16:46
  Speaker 7: what we got's being possibly trespassed on, I mean, it's
• 16:52
  Speaker 7: very primal.
• 16:54
  Speaker 8: Some lines need to be drawn.
• 16:55
  Speaker 7: I believe so.
• 16:57
  Speaker 8: Muddle the rise of not the result.
• 16:59
  Speaker 7: I like that.
• 17:00
  Speaker 9: Model the rise, not the result, because the result is
• 17:03
  Speaker 9: where they're at now. Do not ask Warren Buffett about
• 17:07
  Speaker 9: how long he spends reading the newspaper and poring over
• 17:10
  Speaker 9: old books. That guy was a hustler. He was a
• 17:13
  Speaker 9: hustler when he was young. What did you do when
• 17:15
  Speaker 9: you were at the stage that I am at, not
• 17:17
  Speaker 9: what do you do now? Because I want to get
• 17:20
  Speaker 9: to where you are. That means I don't do what
• 17:21
  Speaker 9: you do now. I do what you did to get there.
• 17:24
  Speaker 7: Don't study the result. What was the person doing when
• 17:26
  Speaker 7: they got there? And everything who's achieved something great was
• 17:30
  Speaker 7: some sort of outlaw. Some sort of hustler. Out of balance.
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: Out of whack.
• 17:36
  Speaker 7: Dark times. Still wakes up in the middle of the
• 17:39
  Speaker 7: night glad they're wearing a mouth guard because they'd have
• 17:41
  Speaker 7: chipped all their teeth with that fucking nightmare they were
• 17:43
  Speaker 7: having about those things they did back then.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: I'm one of those.
• 17:49
  Speaker 8: Without complacency, trust that time is on your side. What
• 17:53
  Speaker 8: do you mean?
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man.
• 17:54
  Speaker 7: Don't get ahead or behind it. I can get in
• 17:57
  Speaker 7: a rush. And I haven't found, look, and I know
• 18:02
  Speaker 7: how to hustle, and let's go. The clock's ticking. We're
• 18:05
  Speaker 7: all behind, all hands on deck. We've got to bust ass.
• 18:07
  Speaker 7: No time for pause. There's no sleep, no nothing. Get
• 18:09
  Speaker 7: the caffeine out.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: Let's go.
• 18:11
  Speaker 7: Sometimes we've got to do that. But that is usually
• 18:13
  Speaker 7: because an unforeseen circumstance has happened, that there's a crisis
• 18:17
  Speaker 7: we've got to deal with, or we've procrastinated and have
• 18:20
  Speaker 7: put myself in that position where we've got to cram.
• 18:23
  Speaker 7: But it's not those two circumstances. We're going to watch
• 18:28
  Speaker 7: ourselves getting ahead of time. And it's on your side.
• 18:32
  Speaker 7: It's a little what I mean about the living longer
• 18:36
  Speaker 7: and living more quality. Time's on our side. And we're
• 18:39
  Speaker 7: forced to think and feel, especially today, with how fast
• 18:43
  Speaker 7: things move, that more productivity, faster pace, more information, faster pace,
• 18:48
  Speaker 7: it's better. We're ahead of time a lot. But time's
• 18:54
  Speaker 7: still moving at the same speed. And they're not given
• 18:57
  Speaker 7: more than 24 hours a day, even though me, like
• 18:59
  Speaker 7: a lot of people, are looking for more. There's not
• 19:02
  Speaker 7: any more unless you just want to change your workday.
• 19:05
  Speaker 7: And some people do. Me, I need my nine and
• 19:07
  Speaker 7: a half hours sleep. If I want to say I'm
• 19:08
  Speaker 7: getting four hours sleep and get five and a half
• 19:10
  Speaker 7: hours more of a workday to be more productive, I would,
• 19:12
  Speaker 7: but not to making that trade-off. It's on our side.
• 19:15
  Speaker 7: It's the Lego set, man. And you sit there and
• 19:17
  Speaker 7: you get in a rush. You don't read the directions.
• 19:19
  Speaker 7: You get to the end and you've got 12 pieces left.
• 19:21
  Speaker 7: And you're like, shit. Because you got in a hurry.
• 19:24
  Speaker 7: You got ahead of time. Instead of just That feeling of,
• 19:28
  Speaker 7: I've checked out what I need to do, and it's
• 19:30
  Speaker 7: all adding up, and this thing's built right, and the
• 19:31
  Speaker 7: foundation's right, and boom, there's the last piece.
• 19:33
  Speaker 8: It fits.
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: Voila.
• 19:34
  Speaker 7: It was with time. Time's on our side. It's not
• 19:37
  Speaker 7: an enemy.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: The end.
• 19:40
  Speaker 7: Death is not the enemy. I do believe that part of,
• 19:44
  Speaker 7: you know, not in a rush to get there, and
• 19:46
  Speaker 7: we can stave, it off sometimes and that can be
• 19:49
  Speaker 7: a screaming fight and partially denial can help us get
• 19:53
  Speaker 7: there I understand that but still it's on our side
• 19:56
  Speaker 7: it's going to happen and since it's going to happen
• 19:59
  Speaker 7: and that's non-negotiable might as well go well I'm not
• 20:05
  Speaker 7: going to rush to try and make more of it
• 20:08
  Speaker 7: than there is I want to try and spend the
• 20:10
  Speaker 7: time I got as well as I can to produce, succeed, achieve,
• 20:17
  Speaker 7: whatever those things are, but also at a pace that
• 20:22
  Speaker 7: I'm me, that I like to dance to. I like
• 20:26
  Speaker 7: the give and the take.
• 20:27
  Speaker 8: I like the reverb.
• 20:27
  Speaker 7: I like the cause and effect of how things are
• 20:31
  Speaker 7: happening at this pace. The rom-com time, that was definitely...
• 20:40
  Speaker 7: Me doing the work I was doing and only being
• 20:41
  Speaker 7: able to do the work I was doing and offer
• 20:43
  Speaker 7: the roles I was getting the rom-coms was eating at me.
• 20:46
  Speaker 7: Because I felt like I could... Life is good, man.
• 20:50
  Speaker 7: I make good money. I feel like I can roll
• 20:54
  Speaker 7: out of bed and do one of these tomorrow morning.
• 20:55
  Speaker 8: Well, that's cool.
• 20:57
  Speaker 7: I'm the go-to guy for this. I was countered by...
• 21:02
  Speaker 7: I had met Camilla, fallen in love. She's now pregnant
• 21:05
  Speaker 7: with her first child.
• 21:06
  Speaker 8: My life was.
• 21:07
  Speaker 7: Extremely vital. And I was alive. Cried harder, laughed louder,
• 21:12
  Speaker 7: felt more joy, all those things. But my work was like,
• 21:14
  Speaker 7: all right. And I was like, well, I wish my
• 21:16
  Speaker 7: work could be as challenging or as vital as my life.
• 21:20
  Speaker 7: And I remember looking in the mirror going, well, be
• 21:22
  Speaker 7: glad right now. Appreciate that it's not the other way around.
• 21:25
  Speaker 7: But can I have my work challenge my lifestyle in
• 21:28
  Speaker 7: this vitality? Yeah, if I do some dramas I want
• 21:31
  Speaker 7: to do, well, those aren't coming. All right, if I
• 21:33
  Speaker 7: can't do what I want to do, let me quit
• 21:34
  Speaker 7: and do what I want to do.
• 21:36
  Speaker 8: Now, that was.
• 21:37
  Speaker 7: Yeah, it was definitely courageous. I did honestly think I'd
• 21:41
  Speaker 7: written myself a one-way ticket out of Hollywood. People close
• 21:45
  Speaker 7: to me, basically almost everybody besides my wife was like,
• 21:51
  Speaker 7: what is your major malfunction, little brother?
• 21:54
  Speaker 8: You got it made.
• 21:56
  Speaker 7: Why are you throwing a jackknife in this? You're tripping
• 22:00
  Speaker 7: yourself running downhill, man. You did it. I had my
• 22:07
  Speaker 7: wife and myself to remind myself of that 4 a.m.
• 22:12
  Speaker 7: clarity that I had in tears when I was like, no,
• 22:20
  Speaker 7: I'm rolling the dice. I'm sticking with it. Yeah, man,
• 22:23
  Speaker 7: I did think I wrote myself.
• 22:24
  Speaker 8: A ticket out of Hollywood.
• 22:25
  Speaker 7: I did look at other vocations, become a teacher, a
• 22:30
  Speaker 7: wildlife guide. I seriously look at those things. But over time,
• 22:35
  Speaker 7: and it was about 20 months, it was gone long enough,
• 22:37
  Speaker 7: had found anonymity enough, was not in your living room,
• 22:39
  Speaker 7: in a theater, in a rom-com. You didn't seem to
• 22:41
  Speaker 7: be shirtless. Where is he? Turning down the $ 14. 5 million
• 22:46
  Speaker 7: offer made people go, oh, shit, what's he up to?
• 22:50
  Speaker 7: You don't just step out of Hollywood unless you turn
• 22:53
  Speaker 7: that down because you've got a plan. You've got somewhere
• 22:55
  Speaker 7: you want to go. And I think that made me
• 22:57
  Speaker 7: more attractive as a new novel idea. But that was, yeah,
• 23:02
  Speaker 7: that risk, I think it's fair to say that took off.
• 23:04
  Speaker 7: fair amount of courage from me.
• 23:07
  Speaker 9: For a lot of people their work feels more vital
• 23:10
  Speaker 9: than their life yeah is that a a shiny object
• 23:15
  Speaker 9: mirage that they need to rid themselves of.
• 23:19
  Speaker 7: If you can and you're willing to yeah look that's
• 23:23
  Speaker 7: part of why I started writing the script flipped on
• 23:27
  Speaker 7: me five years ago I was like I was feeling
• 23:32
  Speaker 7: like my work was more vital than my life I
• 23:36
  Speaker 7: felt like I was going through the motions more in
• 23:37
  Speaker 7: my life, but I was really getting major life experiences
• 23:42
  Speaker 7: through my work. And so that was a challenge to myself,
• 23:46
  Speaker 7: which led to the writing, which was a more direct experience,
• 23:50
  Speaker 7: kind of put a word down without, it's my script,
• 23:53
  Speaker 7: and without my performance on it, without music, without pictures.
• 23:57
  Speaker 7: So that was an inward journey that I'm still on.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Yes!
• 24:02
  Speaker 8: Confidence.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Identity.
• 24:05
  Speaker 7: Testing it out and it can work. Confidence to go,
• 24:08
  Speaker 7: I'm going to try and pull this off. Maybe get
• 24:11
  Speaker 7: away with it. Maybe it won't work. Pulling things off.
• 24:15
  Speaker 7: And I have an innate ability for something that I
• 24:18
  Speaker 7: believe I have the innate ability. And I learned to,
• 24:23
  Speaker 7: the reason behind that instinct and how to, where's the
• 24:27
  Speaker 7: right time, timing. Oh, it'll work, I think, right here.
• 24:30
  Speaker 7: Who's the audience I'm talking to? Oh, yeah, I'm going
• 24:33
  Speaker 7: to make a plan for that cell, if it's all cells,
• 24:37
  Speaker 7: for that transaction or whatever, and bam, it hits and
• 24:40
  Speaker 7: it lands like I wanted it to. Gosh, damn it,
• 24:43
  Speaker 7: was that deja vu?
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: It happened.
• 24:45
  Speaker 7: That's how I saw it. That, I get confidence from that.
• 24:51
  Speaker 7: I don't think it's what the mystics meant when they
• 24:53
  Speaker 7: were like, be disattached. They could mean go embrace, but
• 24:58
  Speaker 7: for highs and lows and pains and pleasures, understand that
• 25:02
  Speaker 7: those outward things are not The things to be attached
• 25:05
  Speaker 7: to for your own identity. It's got to be inward first.
• 25:08
  Speaker 7: Enjoy those.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: Partake.
• 25:10
  Speaker 7: But don't become attached to those for your measure.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Even if the world was conspiring against me and my
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: failure was 95% the fault of external occurrences and other people.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: What did I do that wasn't as good as it
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: could have been? And where did I fail to look
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: so that the probability of my failure was higher? Now,
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: to ask that question, you have to want the answer.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: That's what it means to knock or to.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: Ask or to seek. This is no joke. It's like
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: you have to want to know.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: And it's a very painful thing to do because especially
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: if you had given it your all to the degree
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: you were able and you have reason to be bitter,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: you're going to be searching for the errors that you
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: still made. And discovering your own errors is always extremely painful, right?
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Especially if they're errors that you're in love with. And
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: so you have to be willing to strip yourself down.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: That's what humility means fundamentally. But the advantage is, this
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: is why it's so useful to listen to people. You
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: might find out where you're stupid and then you could
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: stop being stupid. And so one of the reasons you
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: confess your sins, let's say, is because you want to
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: discover where you're insufficient.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: Now, it's painful.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: You know, it's painful to encounter an impediment in the
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: form of someone else's opinion that might show you where
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: you're blind and ignorant or willfully blind even. But the
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: advantage to that is you can rectify the error. And
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: then as you move forward, you're stronger. You know, one
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: of the things I taught my kids, and I hope
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: at least somewhat successfully, was that you should always ask
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: a stupid question. And that doesn't mean the sort of
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: question that someone who wasn't paying attention would ask. If
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: you're listening to someone and you don't understand what they're
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: saying and you reveal that, you're revealing your ignorance, you know,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: and maybe you're in a room full of people and
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: you think you're the only person stupid enough to not
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: get it, which is very rarely.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: The case, by the way. The thing is, though, if you.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Reveal that ignorance to yourself and to the other person,
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: They can rectify it. And if you do that a
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: thousand times, you're not ignorant anymore. If you ask a
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: thousand dumb questions and you listen to the answer, then
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: you know a thousand things, some of them deep that
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: you didn't know before. So that's the advantage to searching
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: your soul, let's say, for unrequited sins and attempting to atone.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: That's not a delusion, right? It's an attempt to set
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: yourself right.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 27:49
  Speaker 10: You write an autobiography because you need to know where
• 27:52
  Speaker 10: you are and who you are right now. Because how
• 27:55
  Speaker 10: the hell are you going to plot a pathway to
• 27:56
  Speaker 10: the future unless you know where you are? And then
• 28:00
  Speaker 10: you need to write about the future because you aren't
• 28:02
  Speaker 10: going to hit something unless you aim at it.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: That's for sure. And lots of times people won't aim
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: at what they want because they're afraid.
• 28:10
  Speaker 10: The reason they're afraid is because if you specify what
• 28:12
  Speaker 10: you want, you've specified your conditions of failure. You know
• 28:16
  Speaker 10: when you fail. And it's better just to keep it foggy.
• 28:19
  Speaker 10: It's like, well, I don't know if I'm succeeding or failing, but,
• 28:22
  Speaker 10: you know, I can't really tell.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: Well, great.
• 28:25
  Speaker 10: Except you can't hit anything you don't aim at. And
• 28:28
  Speaker 10: so the future authoring program is like, it's an attempt
• 28:33
  Speaker 10: to have you articulate your character.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: And so is the past authoring program. Who are you?
• 28:38
  Speaker 10: Important events that have shaped who you are. And, you know,
• 28:42
  Speaker 10: you may find that some of those, some of that
• 28:43
  Speaker 10: writing makes you emotional, I would say. If you have
• 28:47
  Speaker 10: a memory that's more than 18 months old, roughly speaking,
• 28:49
  Speaker 10: and when you bring it to mind, it has an
• 28:52
  Speaker 10: emotional impact, especially a negative emotional impact. It's like part
• 28:57
  Speaker 10: of your soul is stuck back there. And I know
• 29:02
  Speaker 10: that's a metaphorical way of thinking about it. But what
• 29:04
  Speaker 10: I mean is that the reason that you still experience
• 29:08
  Speaker 10: the emotion is because you.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Have not solved the problem that that situation faced you.
• 29:15
  Speaker 10: With it might be a real problem like maybe you
• 29:17
  Speaker 10: got tangled up with someone who was really bad and
• 29:19
  Speaker 10: that's rough man because you've got to come up with
• 29:21
  Speaker 10: a theory of malevolence to deal with something like that
• 29:24
  Speaker 10: and that's no joke but if it still produces emotion
• 29:28
  Speaker 10: it means you haven't solved the problem and and your
• 29:31
  Speaker 10: your brain is still tagging it as threat it's it's
• 29:34
  Speaker 10: a part of your territory that you did not master
• 29:37
  Speaker 10: threat threat threat threat threat and until you take it apart,
• 29:40
  Speaker 10: and articulation really helps that, writing really helps that, then
• 29:44
  Speaker 10: you're not going to free yourself from its grip.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Put yourself together. And then maybe if you put yourself together,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: you know how to do that.
• 29:52
  Speaker 10: You know what's wrong with you, if you'll admit it.
• 29:54
  Speaker 10: You know there's a few things you could, like, polish
• 29:57
  Speaker 10: up a little bit that you might even be able
• 29:59
  Speaker 10: to manage.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: In your insufficient present condition.
• 30:02
  Speaker 10: And so you might shine yourself up a little bit,
• 30:04
  Speaker 10: and then your eyes will be a little more open,
• 30:06
  Speaker 10: and then you can shine yourself up a little bit more,
• 30:08
  Speaker 10: and then maybe you could bring your family together instead
• 30:11
  Speaker 10: of having them be the hateful, spiteful, neurotic, infighting bats
• 30:16
  Speaker 10: that you're, like, doomed to spend Christmas with. So then
• 30:23
  Speaker 10: you fix yourself up a little bit, kind of humbly, because,
• 30:25
  Speaker 10: you know, God, you're a fixer-upper if there ever was one.
• 30:29
  Speaker 10: And then you've got to figure out, well, can you
• 30:31
  Speaker 10: figure out how to make peace with your idiot brother?
• 30:33
  Speaker 10: And probably not, because he's just as dumb as you,
• 30:36
  Speaker 10: so how the hell are you going to manage that?
• 30:38
  Speaker 10: And so then maybe you get somewhere that way, and
• 30:40
  Speaker 10: your family's sort of functioning, and you find out, well,
• 30:43
  Speaker 10: that kind of relieved a little bit of suffering, although
• 30:45
  Speaker 10: it reduced the opportunities for spiteful revenge, and that's kind
• 30:49
  Speaker 10: of a pain in the neck. And so, then you
• 30:52
  Speaker 10: get your family together a little bit, and you're a
• 30:54
  Speaker 10: little clued in then, at least a bit, because you've
• 30:56
  Speaker 10: done something difficult that's actually difficult.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: You're a little wiser, and so then maybe you could put.
• 31:01
  Speaker 10: A tentative finger out beyond the family and try to
• 31:05
  Speaker 10: change some little thing without wrecking it. It's like, our
• 31:08
  Speaker 10: society is complex, and we teach our students that they
• 31:11
  Speaker 10: could just fix it. It's like, Go fix a military
• 31:14
  Speaker 10: helicopter and see how far you get with that.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: It's like you're going to get a do. You're like
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: a chimp with a wrench.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Whack.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, look, it's better.
• 31:22
  Speaker 10: It's like, no, it's not better. Things are complicated. And
• 31:26
  Speaker 10: to fix things is really hard. And you have to
• 31:29
  Speaker 10: be like a golden tool.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: To fix things. And you're not.
• 31:35
  Speaker 10: How do you overcome the suffering of life? Be a
• 31:37
  Speaker 10: better person. That's how you do it.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Well, that's hard. It takes responsibility. And I think, you know,
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: you said to someone, you want to have a meaningful life?
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Everything you do matters.
• 31:51
  Speaker 10: That's the definition of a meaningful life. But everything you
• 31:53
  Speaker 10: do matters. You're going to have to carry that with you.
• 31:58
  Speaker 10: Or do you want to just forget about the whole
• 32:00
  Speaker 10: meaning thing and Then you don't have any responsibility because
• 32:03
  Speaker 10: who the hell cares? You can wander through life doing
• 32:06
  Speaker 10: whatever you want, gratifying impulsive desires for how useful that's
• 32:10
  Speaker 10: going to be. And you're stuck in meaninglessness, but you
• 32:14
  Speaker 10: don't have any responsibility. Which one do you want? Well,
• 32:17
  Speaker 10: ask yourself, which one are you pursuing?
• 32:22
  Speaker 9: I've realized that it's scary when you find a thing
• 32:25
  Speaker 9: that you're going to fully commit yourself to the pursuit of,
• 32:28
  Speaker 9: especially if it's excellence that you're going after. Because There's
• 32:31
  Speaker 9: no more room for your inadequacies to hide. There's no
• 32:34
  Speaker 9: more rejectacy, right? I've committed to this.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: Commit to at least one thing.
• 32:37
  Speaker 9: As hard as you can and see what happens.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: I had a rule with my clients because, you know,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: you might say, well, I've gone halfway down this path
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: and I found out it's wrong.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: Well, how do you distinguish that from just giving up? Well,
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: that's a really hard question, right?
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: It's a moral hazard because it's inappropriate to continue in
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: a direction you now realize to be wrong.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: But it's also.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Inappropriate to give up and use that rationalization as an excuse.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: And how do you distinguish?
• 33:04
  Speaker 8: Especially seeing as we're not transparent to ourselves.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Well, right, exactly. So that is genuinely a moral hazard.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: You can change course as long as the next thing
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: you do is equally or more difficult. Because that's a
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: check against just giving up. So... You want to discipline
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: yourself so you can get yourself organized so that you
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: can go in a particular direction, so that when you
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: find the right direction, you can really go in that direction.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: And that does require an apprenticeship of sorts. And it
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: might not matter in some sense exactly what the apprenticeship is,
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: as long as it is rigorous.
• 33:41
  Speaker 10: Right?
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: And so that's sort of a bridge between moral relativism
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: and moral absolutism.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: There's lots of games you can play.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: It's not that obvious a priori which is the best game.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: So that's kind of a morally relative stance. There's multiple
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: playable games.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: But then the absolute is, yeah, but you have to
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: play one of them. You have to learn to play
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: one of them. You have to become an expert at
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: at least one of them. And then that's not a
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: relative proposition. And I believe that's true. That seems to
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: me to be the case. So you want to commit
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: to something. And then when you commit to something, you
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: require yourself to bring all of your disparate components moving
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: in a single direction, united in a single direction. So
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: it's a unifying act. And then once having been unified, well,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: then you can bring that unity to bear on a
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: variety of different tasks.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: But you have to bring it together first. And that
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: makes sense developmentally.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: You see children start out as a disparate bundle of
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: motivations and emotions, sort of warring with one another. And
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: then they can integrate that into single games that they
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: can play with themselves. And then they integrate that with
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: games they start to play with other people.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: And all of that is integration. It's not subjugation. It's
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: not repression. Not if it's a good game. It's integration.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: You want to get integrated because then you have All
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: the horses that are pulling your chariot pulling in the
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: same direction. And you're much more likely to get to
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: where you want to go then. And also much more
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: likely to specify a good place to go.
• 35:24
  Speaker 9: Do you think that there's a usefulness in having a
• 35:27
  Speaker 9: nemesis to motivate you? I try to avoid making enemies
• 35:31
  Speaker 9: of people or groups or ideas.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: Don't make unnecessary enemies.
• 35:36
  Speaker 9: But there is an extra level of fire that gets
• 35:39
  Speaker 9: lit underneath you. When you're going up against someone, and
• 35:42
  Speaker 9: I miss it sometimes, there's a price that you pay
• 35:44
  Speaker 9: for peace.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, then you just have to look at yourself
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: harder and find the nemesis. Because it's there all the time.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's always parts of yourself that you can overcome.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: If you need something to grapple with, you probably do.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: You can find that. You just look inside. You'll find
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: something to grapple with.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: You know, inadequacy, weakness, susceptibility to temptation, narcissism, pride, envy, revenge, resentment, frustration,
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: lack of faith, all of that. That'll keep you occupied
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: if you really grapple with it. And yeah, I mean,
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: that's an ancient theological question. You know, what's up with
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: the devil? Why does the possibility of evil exist? Why
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: is there an eternal adversary? Why would God construct a
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: reality where an adversary exists? And maybe it's because all
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: things considered, a world with an adversary is a better world,
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: just like a garden with a snake in it is
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: a better garden. These things aren't easy to understand. No snake,
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: no necessity to contend with snakes. So why be awake
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: at all? No adversary, no challenge. Why be challenged? Because
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: maybe you're better for the challenge. And maybe that's the
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: challenge to see if you can be better for the challenge.
• 37:03
  Speaker 8: But that should be internal.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Well, fundamentally, well, if it isn't, you'll find it externally
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: because you'll demonize someone to turn them into Satan so
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: that you can find an adversary. And then that's very
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: unfortunate for you and for them. That's the problem.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: It's just not as big a battle.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: It's like you battle with someone external who's malevolent, let's say,
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: or you think they are. And usually you've got that
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: mostly wrong, but not always. But if the battle is inside,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: which is where it's supposed to be, most fundamentally, then
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: it is the ultimate challenge.
• 37:35
  Speaker 8: And that's the infinite game. The external one.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: The battle between good and evil on a playing field
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: of chaos and order. It's the eternal game.
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: We're built to walk uphill.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: And when you reach the pinnacle of the hill, you
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: want to stop and appreciate the vision, but... The next
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: thing you want is a higher hill in the distance
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: because it's the uphill climb that it's from the uphill
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: climb that we derive our value.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: And I mean this technically.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: So almost all the positive emotion we feel, especially the
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: emotion that fills us with enthusiasm, and that's to be
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: filled with the spirit of God, by the way, because
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: that's what enthusiasm means. That's experienced in relationship to a goal.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: You want a goal that you can never attain. You
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: want a horizon of ever-expanding possibility. And so it does
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: happen to people because they've staked their soul on the
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: attainment of an instrumental goal. And it can be a
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: pretty high-order goal. It was in your case. But then
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: you think, well, now I'm there. Now what? Well, the
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: answer can't be well, I'm going to live in the
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: lap of luxury and never have to leave the faith.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: What do you want to be?
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: A giant infant with a gold bottle? You never have
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: to do anything but lay in your back and suck?
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: It's like, well, you see the problem with.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: That as a conceptualization.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: It's no, you want to be like an active warrior
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: moving uphill with your sword in hand and That's dynamic.
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: That's exciting.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: And that's why so many young men disappear into video games.
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: That's all acted out in the video game. So they
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: have to act that out in their own life.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Not that I despise video games, because I don't, but
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: they're not a substitute for life. We kind of experience
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: life as if we're tossed into it, thrown into it.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: You know, you're male and not female you're Hindu and
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: not Christian you're tall and not short you have an
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: arbitrary range of talents and an arbitrary range of limitations
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: none of which in some sense you chose it's the
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: cards you're dealt now some of those are cards of
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: privilege No, maybe you're born intelligent.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: Maybe you're born symmetrical. Maybe you're born healthy.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: Maybe you're born into a culture where it's much easier
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: not to be absolutely deprived. Maybe your parents are rich.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: And so all of that in some sense is unearned.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: The way you pay for your privileges with your virtue.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: I mean that most particularly. You have these opportunities and
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: this existential guilt. And the way you expiate that and
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: atone is by doing your best to live the best
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: possible life you can manage. To speak the truth, to
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: treat people with respect, to abide by the principles of
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: the dignity of the individual and to put your house
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: in order.
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: And that's how you pay for your unearned privilege.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: All of us. And we all have our privileges and
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: our curses.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: All of us have that. That's why it's not useful
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: to be envious of people.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: You know, you're a young man, you see someone drive
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: by in a Ferrari with a blonde, and you think,
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: my God, he's got everything. And, you know, the woman
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: in the car is a prostitute who's got a cocaine addiction,
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: and her life is just.
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: One catastrophe after another.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: And he's had to lie and cheat his way into
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: this position, and he's afraid that everything's going to come
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: crashing down on him, and that's what you're jealous of.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: And it's just not that.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: Profound. You don't want someone else's fate. Man, your fate's
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: enough and your adventure's enough.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: It's plenty.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: It's more than you can ever fully realize. And so
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: that's also part of the reason that we all believe
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: that the individual has some intrinsic dignity. It's don't be
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: so sure that your position and your room is so
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: damn trivial.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: It might be your attitude towards it that's trivial.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: And if you're in dire straits and dire circumstances, just
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: look at how much opportunity you have to make things better.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: so not that it's easy you don't even want.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: It to be easy.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: Well you need to contemplate your own malevolence because that
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: helps you understand who you are and who you could
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: be and you could be something absolutely brutal and terrible
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: so you need to contemplate your own malevolence so that
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: you understand who you are And that means you have
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: to contemplate malevolence as such, because you're not only who
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: you are, you're who you could be for better or worse.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: And I actually think it's, I think it's a lot
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: easier to start to understand who you could be if
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: you were better. If you deeply understand who you could be,
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: if you were worse and who you might be to
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: the degree that you're blind to that worse presently. So
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: you think, oh my God, I could be that malevolent,
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: a force for ill person.
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: That's horrible, but highly compelling and plausible, given my understanding
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: of my own character. I'm way deeper on the negative
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: end than I thought, much more closely aligned with the
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: forces of hell than I presumed. That's easy to swallow factually, right?
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: You think, yeah, there's evidence for that. It's not so
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: easy to swallow emotionally. It's a bitter pill, to say
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: the least. And so I don't think that you can
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: contemplate the good without contemplating the evil first. I don't
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: think it has the depth. You know, they say that
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. It's something
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: like that necessary fear. It's like, well, I don't want
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: to be a monster. Okay, well, how much of a
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: monster are you? I'm as monstrous as I have been.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: So that's on me, conscience-wise. But I'm also the same
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: being that's been as monstrous as any being throughout history.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: Nothing human is foreign to me.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: Lots of my clients, my clinical clients are too agreeable.
• 43:37
  Speaker 10: And they're generally women because women are more agreeable than men,
• 43:41
  Speaker 10: but not always because I've had agreeable men as clients
• 43:44
  Speaker 10: as well. And what happens is they're resentful and they
• 43:47
  Speaker 10: don't know how to stand up for themselves. And it's
• 43:49
  Speaker 10: because they're very compassionate by nature. And so if you're
• 43:53
  Speaker 10: entering into a negotiation with them, they'll let you win. Well,
• 43:56
  Speaker 10: that's not so good because, you know, you need to
• 43:58
  Speaker 10: win too, especially if you're in an organization of adults
• 44:03
  Speaker 10: where there's there's a struggle right with when you have
• 44:06
  Speaker 10: kids you can let them win especially infants like you
• 44:09
  Speaker 10: have to let them win and that's partly why compassion
• 44:12
  Speaker 10: is so necessary but as a as a basis for
• 44:15
  Speaker 10: negotiation between adults it's like sorry it's it's insufficient you
• 44:20
  Speaker 10: have to you have to be a bit of a
• 44:22
  Speaker 10: monster so that you can say no well let's toughen
• 44:25
  Speaker 10: you up you know let's put you in a position
• 44:27
  Speaker 10: where you can bargain let's teach you how to Assert
• 44:30
  Speaker 10: yourself and stand up for yourself. And that's assertiveness training.
• 44:33
  Speaker 10: And it's a huge chunk of psychotherapy. And you need
• 44:36
  Speaker 10: to learn it. It's like, because part of how you
• 44:39
  Speaker 10: regulate your interactions with other people is to negotiate.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: And you cannot negotiate unless you can say no. You
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: can't do it.
• 44:48
  Speaker 10: And it causes conflict to say no. And if you
• 44:50
  Speaker 10: don't like conflict, which is basically the definition of being agreeable,
• 44:53
  Speaker 10: then you can't tolerate the conflict. And so then you
• 44:55
  Speaker 10: can't negotiate on your own behalf. And so then you
• 44:58
  Speaker 10: keep losing.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: And you're bullied. And, you know, it's not good.
• 45:02
  Speaker 10: Then you get resentful and it's really not good. So
• 45:05
  Speaker 10: you have to develop your inner monster a little bit.
• 45:09
  Speaker 10: And then that makes you a better person, not a
• 45:12
  Speaker 10: worse person.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: It's weird. It's weird. But that's just how it is.
• 45:21
  Speaker 10: If you've been victimized, you're naive and you've been victimized.
• 45:24
  Speaker 10: The way out of that is to no longer be
• 45:25
  Speaker 10: naive and to no longer be victimized. And that means
• 45:29
  Speaker 10: that you see this reflected in the Harry Potter idea,
• 45:31
  Speaker 10: for example, that the reason that Harry Potter can withstand
• 45:35
  Speaker 10: Voldemort is because he's.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: Got a piece of him. He's been touched by it.
• 45:39
  Speaker 10: And the way that you keep the psychopaths at bay
• 45:43
  Speaker 10: is to develop the inner psychopath so that you know
• 45:46
  Speaker 10: one when you see one. But that's a voluntary thing.
• 45:50
  Speaker 10: So it's like a It's like a set of tools
• 45:53
  Speaker 10: that you have at your disposal, which is full.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: Knowledge of evil. There's this old idea that if you
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: look into the darkness enough, you'll find something that compensates
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: for it, right? That emerges out of the darkness that's
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: greater and more powerful than the darkness. And that part
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: of looking into the dark side of yourself is you
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: find the power that enables you to deal with mortality.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: If they've been coddled and their ambition has been squelched
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: and everything about them that's aggressive has been shamed out
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: of existence, that's part of that attraction of that dark fantasy, right?
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: And then they see that aggression manifesting itself and in
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: a creative form. It's not surprising that they're going to
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: try to imitate that. It's part of that desire to
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: bring that shadow out of the shadows and into the light.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: There's two pathways to the development of the shadow and
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: they're tightly allied with one another. The fundamental pathway is
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: truth and that's to face the bitter truth about yourself
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: But to break that down more particularly you might think
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: about that as the capacity to observe your own resentment
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: You're going to be resentful and bitter in many situations
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: because you don't get what you want And if you
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: watch that resentment bitterness, you'll see that it produces fantasies
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: that can be unbelievably dark and that can be very
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: frightening and You might not want to admit to yourself
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: that you're actually capable of having fantasies like that or
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: impulses like that or aggressive feelings like that. But the
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: thing is, is that if those aggressive feelings and impulses
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: and fantasies are integrated into your character, it's like you're
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: opening up a dialogue with a part of yourself that
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: can be very forceful and strong and dangerous. And it's
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: really useful to be dangerous because if you can be dangerous,
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: you often don't have to be. you know, or you're
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: oppressing yourself, then you've got to notice that you're feeling oppressed.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: Then you have to notice that you're feeling resentful and
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: angry and bitter. And then you have to decide what
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: it is that you need to do in order to
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: remove from yourself that bitterness. And that usually means that
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: there's something that you have to say. And then you
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: have to say it because your soul depends on it.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: And not only does your soul depend on it, I
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: would say the fate of the world depends on it. Because,
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: you know, you might be wrong and then you should
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: be straightened out. Maybe you're just being whiny and you
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: have to talk to somebody about that. But It may
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: be that you're actually detecting something wrong, some tyranny that's
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: directed towards you and other people, and it's like your
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: moral obligation to speak up about it. And so many
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: workplaces become toxic, to use a terrible cliche, because the
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: people in them won't speak up for what they actually want,
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: or they speak up too late, and then they're all
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: twisted up about it, and they're torturing other people because
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: they're so unhappy, and so forth and so on. So,
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: practical approach for developing your shadow fundamentally is radical honesty.
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: Why not you why can't you be the person that
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: changes everything the innovator the trailblazer the disruptor the person
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: that makes a decision that i will not be the
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: weakest link in the chain of a dynasty why can't
• 48:59
  Speaker 5: you be the one that makes history Why can't you
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: be the one that wins again?
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: Why can't you be the one that.
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: Overcomes the demons that have haunted a family for generations?
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: Why not you?
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: We're always there for everybody else. And I just want
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: to ask the question, and it's not an invitation into
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: narcissism or to be egocentric or to be.
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: Self-centered, but why not you?
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: Why does everybody else get the best of your time
• 49:34
  Speaker 5: and the best of your energy? Why is it that
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: you are pointed and present and seated in the chairs
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: to support everybody? But when it comes to you, you
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: don't believe. You don't support you. You don't invest in you.
• 49:55
  Speaker 5: You don't believe you. You don't see it for you.
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: You've got to stop waiting for the opportunity to come
• 50:03
  Speaker 5: along and you've got to learn to master the art
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: and the privilege of creating the opportunity.
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: Stop limiting yourself to what can.
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: Come to you and focus on what needs to come
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: from you.
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: There is no storm coming. There is no hurricane. There's
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: no tornado. There's no giant. There's nothing that is going
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: to stop me. I am determined. I am committed. And
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: I don't care if this thing takes everything I have.
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: I'm going after it.
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: If it breaks me, it's making me into something I
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: could have never been. Who you are right now has
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: gotten you as far as you're going to get. You're
• 50:47
  Speaker 5: going to become another person to get there. I did
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: it when you thought I was crazy. I did it
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: when you thought I should have quit. I did it
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: when you thought I should have got more sleep. When
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: you thought I should have went on vacation. I was
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: willing to look crazy. I was willing to look foolish.
• 51:06
  Speaker 5: I was willing to look like I wasn't going down
• 51:08
  Speaker 5: the right path just to.
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: Accomplish what it is that was set before me.
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: What is your purpose? What is your destiny? What is
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: your assignment in this season? Are you completely sold out
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: to it?
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: Are you all in? Have you poured yourself out like
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: a drink offering? Are you willing to die to achieve it?
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: And so let me look crazy for a season and
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: I'll live the rest of my life like a legend.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: If Things could be set up for me the way
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: I need them to be, and if I could be
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: who I needed to be, what would that look like?
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: And you can figure that out for yourself, and then
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: instantly you have a judge. And I also think that's
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: part of the reason people don't do it, right?
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: Why don't people look up and move ahead?
• 52:00
  Speaker 10: And the answer is, well, you know, you start formulating
• 52:03
  Speaker 10: an ideal, you formulate a judge, it's pretty easy to
• 52:05
  Speaker 10: feel intimidated in the face of your own ideal. Then
• 52:09
  Speaker 10: it's really easy to destroy the ideal instead of to
• 52:11
  Speaker 10: try to pursue it because.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: Then you get rid of the judge. But it's way better.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: Lower the damn judge if it's too much.
• 52:19
  Speaker 10: Like if your current ambition is crushing you, you know,
• 52:22
  Speaker 10: then maybe you're playing the tyrant to yourself and you
• 52:24
  Speaker 10: should tap down your ambitions, not get rid of them
• 52:27
  Speaker 10: by any stretch of the imagination. But at least put
• 52:30
  Speaker 10: them more reasonably within your grasp.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: You don't have to leap from 0.1 to 0.50 in
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: one leap, right? You can do it incrementally. And then
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: I would say the idea here is that as you
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: do that, you shape yourself ever more precisely into something
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: that can withstand the tragedy of life and that can
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: act as a beacon to the world. That's the right
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: way of thinking about it. Maybe first to your friends
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: and then to your family. It's like it's a hell
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: of a fine ambition. And there's no reason that it
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: can't happen. Life is definitely difficult. There's no doubt about that.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: And it's unfair and there's inequality and all of those things.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: And people are subject to all sorts of terrible things.
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: But I also wonder if you weren't actively striving to
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: make things worse, just how much better could they be?
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: Make no mistake about it. Like the first noble truth
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: of Buddhism, life is suffering.
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: This is true.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: And it's worse than that because it's suffering contaminated by malevolence.
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: That's the baseline. And so that's very pessimistic.
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: But the optimistic part is that you are so damn tough,
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: you can actually not only deal with that, you can
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: improve it. It's like, hmm, oh, well, that's a horrible situation.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: But it turns out that I'm armed for the task. Well,
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: that's a great thing for people to know. And I
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: do believe, I think the fact that we're armed for
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: the task is even more true than the fact that
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: life is catastrophe contaminated by malevolence. We're stronger than things
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: are terrible. And things are pretty terrible. So that means
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: we're pretty damn strong. Wow.
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: It's a very good.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: Thing to know.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: And it's not naive optimism. It's a very different thing.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: It's like, no, things are terrible. They're brutal. And you
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: are so damn tough, you can't believe it. Why is
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: self-sabotage such a feature? Okay, here's a couple of reasons.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: The first is that there's a lot of responsibility with success, right?
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: So if you.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: If you say yes to things and you do a
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: good job and you bear a large burden, then you
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: have to carry it. And a lot of that might
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: be success. But, you know, failure is a lot easier
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: than success. Plus, you can complain about it and whine
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: about it and be a victim and, you know, garner
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: all sorts of kudos from yourself and others that way.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: So there's that. People have a hard time not having success.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: the kind of contempt that borders on self-hatred for the cells,
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: partly because, you know, we are fragile and mortal creatures
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: and prone to error and malevolence. And we know that
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: of ourselves better than anyone else. And because we know
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: that we're prone to punish ourselves and to think ill
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: of ourselves. And, you know, one of the things I
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: learned from Jung was that the injunction to do unto
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: your neighbor as you would have him do unto you
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: was an equation rather than a statement about how to
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: be nice to people and that you have an ethical
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: obligation to treat yourself as if you're a person of value,
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: even if you don't really feel that, that you owe
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: yourself the same treatment that you would give someone that
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: you cared for and loved. That's a really hard thing
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: to learn. You know, because you kind of have to
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: detach yourself from your knowledge of all your insufficiencies and
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: your flaws and treat yourself with dignity and respect. At
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: least the dignity and respect do someone who's faulty that
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: could conceivably learn. And that's a very difficult ethical lesson
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: to learn. It's easier to beat yourself continually on the
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: back of the head with a club and to feel
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: it's justified given how much you know about how wretched
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: and useless you are.
• 56:15
  Speaker 6: So.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: So let's say there's two reasons. One is that you
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: don't want the responsibility, so it's not really self-sabotage. It's
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: just avoidance of responsibility and consequent failure. And the second
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: is punishment, self-punishment that seems only just given what you
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: know about all your pathology and error and insufficiencies. There's
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: no saying, oh, the world is safe. It's not safe.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: Not at all. It's not safe. The fact that you
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: think it's safe means that you were living in an
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: unconscious bubble that was sort of provided to you by
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: your culture. It's a gift. And now that's been shattered.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: And so now what do you do? Well, the answer
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: is you retreat until you're in your house and there's
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: nowhere you can go. You're the ultimate frozen rabbit, right?
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: And your life is hell because you can't function. The
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: alternative is let's take apart the things you're afraid of.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: Let's expose you to them. you know, carefully and programmatically.
• 57:21
  Speaker 10: And then you'll learn that you're actually tougher than you think.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: You never knew that.
• 57:27
  Speaker 10: And maybe you didn't want to take on the responsibility because,
• 57:30
  Speaker 10: you know, people play a role in their own demise,
• 57:32
  Speaker 10: so to speak. When you had opportunity to go out
• 57:35
  Speaker 10: and explore or withdraw because you were afraid, you chose
• 57:39
  Speaker 10: to withdraw because.
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: You were afraid.
• 57:41
  Speaker 10: So it's not only that you were overprotected often, it's
• 57:43
  Speaker 10: that you were willing to take advantage of the fact
• 57:46
  Speaker 10: that you were overprotected and run back there whenever you
• 57:49
  Speaker 10: had the opportunity. So maybe you're a kid in the playground, right?
• 57:53
  Speaker 10: And you're having some trouble with other kids. And you know,
• 57:55
  Speaker 10: in the back of your mind, I should deal with
• 57:57
  Speaker 10: this myself. But you go and tell your mom and
• 57:59
  Speaker 10: get her to intervene. And you know that that's not right.
• 58:02
  Speaker 10: You know that you're breaking the social contract. But it's easier.
• 58:06
  Speaker 10: And so that's what you do. You run off to
• 58:09
  Speaker 10: an authority figure. and hide behind the great father, right?
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: Roughly speaking. Well, the problem with that is you don't
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: learn how to do it yourself.
• 58:16
  Speaker 10: So then you have to relearn it painfully when you're 40.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: So then you take people out. You say, well, what
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: are you afraid of?
• 58:24
  Speaker 10: Rank it from one to ten. The thing you're least
• 58:27
  Speaker 10: afraid of, we'll call number ten. So we'll start with that. OK, well,
• 58:31
  Speaker 10: I'm afraid of elevators.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: OK, well, let's let's look at a picture of an elevator.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: Let's have you imagine being in an elevator. Let's go
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: out to an elevator and let you watch the terrible
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: jaws of death open, because that's how you're responding to
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: it symbolically.
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 58:46
  Speaker 10: And you're going to do that at the closest proximity
• 58:50
  Speaker 10: you can manage. You find out you go do that.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: It works. You're nervous as hell, especially from an anticipatory perspective. Shaking.
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: You go out, you stop, you watch it happen, and
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: you actually calm down. You do that 10 times and
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: it no longer bothers you. Well, you've learned that you
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: didn't die. But more importantly than that, you've learned that
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: you could withstand the threat of death. That's what you've learned.
• 59:15
  Speaker 10: And then you move a little closer, and then you
• 59:16
  Speaker 10: move a little closer, and then you move a little closer,
• 59:18
  Speaker 10: and finally you're back in what's no longer the elevator
• 59:21
  Speaker 10: from a symbolic perspective.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: It's a tomb, right? It's a place of enclosure and isolation.
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: And you learn... Turns out I can withstand that. And
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: then you're much more together, much more confident.
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: Oh, everyone deals with that.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: Every time you make a status shift as you move upwards,
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: of course you have imposter syndrome because when you first
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: make a transition into a new role, you are an
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: imposter because you're a beginner. You don't know what you're doing.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: And that doesn't mean you're a liar or a fake.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: And it doesn't mean you should presume more knowledge than
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: you have. What did Nietzsche say? Every great man is
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: an actor of his own ideal. And that feeds into
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: the imposter syndrome in some sense. If you want to
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: move to the next stage, at some point you have
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: to act like you're already there when you're just barely started.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: And that's not a lie. You know, it's the willingness.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: It can be, and it can degenerate into a lie,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: especially if you presume more than you know. But if
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: you move, You know, let's say you move from being
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: an undergraduate to a graduate student. Well, all the other
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: graduate students and the professors know that you're just a
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: beginning graduate student. They're not going to expect as much
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: from you as they would from a more.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: Seasoned graduate student.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: So you have some leeway that's genuine, but you are,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: you know, the low-rung occupier of that role. And of
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: course you're going to feel like you're an imposter, if
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: you have any sense, because... You're just barely there. You
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: just made the transition. That's okay. That's not a problem.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: First of all, you have to understand that everyone with
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: any sense who isn't narcissistic feels that. And it's actually
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: an indication of your mental health and your competence, as
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: long as that doesn't become crippling.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: It shouldn't knock you out. I'm such a phony.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: Well, don't be a phony. That's the first thing. If
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: you're dealing with competent people and you admit your ignorance...
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: The competent people never judge you harshly for that, as
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: long as you've been paying attention. So in my classes,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: for example, people were often afraid to ask questions. And
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: so sometimes I would point to people and ask them
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: if they had a question, especially the quieter types. And
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: they'd be afraid to ask the question because.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: They're revealing their ignorance.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: And they would assume they're the only person in the
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: room that's that ignorant, but they're not because they're If
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: they were paying attention and they had a question, the
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: probability that half the class had that question was really high.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: It's different if you're not paying attention. And so you
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: can be ignorant.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: You can be an ignorant newbie and you can even
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: ask the questions that are necessary to ask in that
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: position and sort of reveal your inadequacy. And as long
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: as you're dealing with competent people. And you've been paying attention.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: They're just going to answer your questions. Then you only
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: have to be ignorant once. That's the thing about asking
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: a stupid question.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: You only have to ask it once. Then you're no
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: longer stupid.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: We have this idea in our society, and it's a
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: very profound idea. And that idea is that the ultimate
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: truth is scientific truth. That that tells us about the
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: nature of the world.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 10: And it does that... in a final way, in some sense.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 10: There's no brooking any arguments about it.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: The physicists have got it right, and that's why they
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: can make hydrogen bombs. And that's a pretty good demonstration
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: of their being right. But you don't act as if
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: that's true. And you watch things and pay attention to
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: things and are captivated by things that aren't predicated on
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: those assumptions. And it seems to me that There is
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: a problem of what the world is made out of,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: but there's a bigger problem. And that's the problem of
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: how you should conduct yourself in the world. And that's
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: really what you want to know. People want to know
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: that more than anything. Because you need to know.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 10: It's like, here you guys are in university. It's like,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 10: you don't know what you're doing. I mean, some of
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 10: you know more than others. But you're at the beginning
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 10: of your life and... Life is very complex and chaotic
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 10: and it isn't exactly obvious, you know, what kind of
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 10: relationship you should form or what sort of character you
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 10: should develop or what you're going to do for a
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 10: job or what's the meaning of life.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: That's a good one. What's the meaning of life?
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 10: Well, and, you know, people come to university, at least
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 10: many of them, and that's kind of what they want
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 10: to find out. In my clinical practice is that people
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 10: just have a hell of a time if they don't
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 10: have If they don't slot in somewhere, you know, you know,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 10: you think I got to go to work at nine
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 10: in the morning and, you know, I've got.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: This rigid schedule. It's like it's probably a good idea
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: to be grateful for that, because what I've noticed is
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: that if people pull out from those externally scaffolded systems,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: they drift, they get depressed, they get anxious.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 10: They don't know what to do with themselves. You know,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 10: they're kind of like sled dogs with no sled. And
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 10: we're kind of like sled dogs, as far as I
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 10: can tell. Beasts of burden.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: Like, we need a load, man. We need a load.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 10: The question is, what sort of load do you need?
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 10: And here's why I think we need that. You know,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 10: I've been thinking about how to figure out what's real
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 10: for a long time. And because I'm an existentialist, I'm
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 10: operating under the presupposition that you can tell what people
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 10: believe by watching how they act.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: I don't care what they say. I don't care what
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: their statements are.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 10: About their view of reality, because the correlation, the relationship
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 10: between that and their actual actions is not certainly not
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 10: perfect and sometimes doesn't even exist. One thing I've noticed
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 10: is that people no one argues with their own pain.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: Everyone who hurts. acts as if they believe that pain
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: is real. When you're a naive person, you trust people
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: because you think that people are good. And then maybe
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: someone comes along and hurts you and you think, oh, no,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: people aren't good. I can't trust anyone. And then maybe
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: you're paranoid and you think that people hate you and
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: don't like you and think you're trash and so forth.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: You don't trust people. But then you figure out, Jesus,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: this whole not trusting people isn't working out very well
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: because now I can't get anywhere. And If I ever
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: do meet someone who's trustworthy and I don't trust them,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: then they're not going to get an opportunity to show
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: me that they're trustworthy. And so then what happens is
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: that you replace naive trust with courageous trust, and you
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: put yourself out there despite the fact that people might
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: hate you and don't like you and think you're trash.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: The other thing I would say that's more practical, I
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: think you'd find that you only think that when you
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: run away. My suspicions are if you went out and
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: talked to people, like you'd have to have something to
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: talk about, you know. But if you went out and
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: talked to people, you'd find that those thoughts only bothered
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: you for about 10 to 15 minutes and then you
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: would get over them. You know, a lot of that's...
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: high neuroticism and and that's that in the big five
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: aspect scale that's withdrawal you're experiencing a lot of withdrawal
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: related negative emotions anticipatory anxiety and the best way to
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: overcome that is to not avoid so if you find
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: yourself avoiding social situations then you have to formulate a
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: plan to stop doing that and then over time your
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: confidence will be boosted.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 9: The thing that i realized was that after a while
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 9: if you continue to disprove your imposter syndrome in the
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 9: real world yeah you have a challenge, you're adamant that
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 9: you probably won't or might not or don't deserve to
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 9: get past it, and then you do. After a while,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 9: you have to admit to yourself that your imposter syndrome
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 9: has nothing to do with your capacity and everything to
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 9: do with your addiction about feeling like an imposter.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: Well, and that does change as people age. Generally speaking,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: they become more agreeable, more conscientious, and lower in negative emotion.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: And some of that is that adaptation. You see that
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: you've through various challenges and then you can review that
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: evidence to yourself but also the people around you bolster
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: you because they have confidence in you and so their
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: anxiety doesn't trigger your anxiety and they'll remind you too
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: you know you got this you've done things in the
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: past such a wealth.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 8: Of data you know you've done it so many times.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: And that does help.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, it does help.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: People get more confident as they get older and they
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: accrue experience because of that. But it's subject to that
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: underlying trait variability and sensitivity.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: To negative emotion.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's been good psychometric analysis of self-esteem scales
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: and neuroticism scales. And they're pretty much the same thing reversed.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: And so, are you confident in yourself, self-esteem? You lack confidence,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: trait neuroticism. And so it is harder for some people
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: because it takes more evidence for them to dampen down
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: their response to threat. We're all adapted to some degree
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: to the failure of induction, right? Just because something happened
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: multiple times in the past does not mean necessarily that
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: it will happen the next time.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: It's a very difficult problem to solve, how to regulate
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: negative emotion.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: You know and but i would say that the best
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: way we know is to keep facing challenges voluntarily pay
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: attention at a rate that works for you develop your
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: competence that actually stabilizes the environment around you so it's
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: actually it actually is less predictable and less threatening Plus,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: you accrue that evidence and you get the social support
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: for doing so. That's your best pathway forward.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 6: When you're on your phone and scrolling, and I think
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 6: scrolling itself is the major issue, when you're scrolling, you're
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 6: essentially putting yourself into new context after new context after
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 6: new context, and the brain has to adjust to all
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 6: of that. The circuits in the brain that are required
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 6: for setting and maintaining focus are... inhibited by the process
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 6: of deliberately shifting one's focus over and over and over
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 6: throughout the day.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: If one.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 6: Is constantly moving their attention from one thing to the next,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 6: it undermines the stability of all the circuitry in the
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 6: brain that's responsible for prolonged focus. Now, I partake in
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 6: social media, so do you, but the scroll function is
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 6: a practice of shifting focus The human brain is an
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 6: incredible organ because it's a map of our experience. It
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 6: has certain parts that are hardwired that govern our heart
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 6: rate and control of our heart rate or control of
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 6: our breathing, certain immune functions and on and on. But
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 6: then a vast percentage of our human brain is open
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 6: real estate that is designated as one function or another
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 6: depending on what happens to you during development. But it's
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 6: so important that we understand this because you think, What
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 6: is the ability to think? Well, the ability to think
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 6: is constrained by the number of different senses I'm trying
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 6: to place on a bunch of different things. The challenge
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 6: is that we've brought an infinite number of sensory experiences
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 6: into the thing that you're looking at through the device
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 6: that you're holding.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 9: So the narrowing of your perspective hasn't helped you to
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 9: narrow the distractions?
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 6: Cognitive space is still infinite, even though the spatial limitation
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 6: of where you're placing your attention... is very restricted. So
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 6: the fact that you have so many competing thoughts has
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 6: everything to do with that. Plasticity of the brain, mapping
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 6: of the brain for one particular sensory experience or function,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 6: say swiping or the ability to switch back and forth
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 6: between multiple screens, is always at the expense of some
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 6: other potential function. You can't do everything. The reason I'm
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 6: so bullish about people understanding a little bit of mechanism
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 6: behind the checklist of things to do is that I
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 6: do think that when people understand mechanism, it gives them
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 6: flexibility over the so-called protocols. And I think it also
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 6: allows them to customize those things for themselves.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 8: Let's face it.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 6: If you want to go online now and just say,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 6: what are the top 10 things I can do to
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 6: improve my sleep? And you get a list, you put
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 6: those on your refrigerator, put them next to your bed.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 6: Why doesn't everyone just do that? It's because the way
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 6: that people go about learning information strongly drives whether or
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 6: not they apply that information. The thoughts and by extension,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 6: the emotions, but really the thoughts that you have right now,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 6: your ability to focus right now is strongly driven by
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 6: the inputs you received in the preceding hours.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: And even days.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 6: So one of the things that's really interesting about focus
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 6: and attention, and a lot of habits have to do with,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 6: I don't want to procrastinate.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: I want to do this.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 6: We can talk about exercise, but let's talk about cognitive stuff.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 6: It's very, very clear that if you have a hard
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 6: time getting into a bout of work or even staying focused,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 6: there's a very good chance, I believe, that your breaks
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 6: between work and what you were doing before work was
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 6: too stimulating. I'm a big advocator for boring breaks. And
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 6: I'm a big advocator for silence before and after bouts
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 6: of work for a couple of reasons. Let's think about
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 6: it on the back end. Let's say you're trying to
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 6: learn something or read a book or just do something
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 6: that you're not reflexively doing. You want to create this habit.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 6: It's very clear that neuroplasticity, yes, requires alertness, requires focus.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 4: You need sleep later that night.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 6: I've been beating that drum.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: For a number of years.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 6: It's also clear that reflection on what you were doing
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 6: at some later time, just kind of like post-learning reflection,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 6: walk into your car, sitting on the plane for a second,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 6: thinking about a podcast you did earlier or something you
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 6: heard or a discussion you strongly reinforces the memories and
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 6: the ability to work with the memories of new information.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 6: And this is something that we've given up largely because
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 6: of our smartphones. You're constantly bringing in new sensory information.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 6: All the data, I did an episode on how to
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 6: best study and learn. I went to the data to
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 6: find out, because I have my methods, but that doesn't
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 6: mean they're the best methods. Reading, rereading, note-taking, highlighting, it's
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 6: all fine. But it turns out that biggest lever is
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 6: to self-test at some point away from the material. So
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 6: testing is not just something for evaluation of others. It's
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 6: a way that we should think, you know, yeah, how
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 6: much can I remember about that conversation?
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 7: What was tricky?
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: I don't remember that piece.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: I'm going to go back and look it up.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 6: All learning is, and this will sound like a giant duh,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 6: but all learning is anti-forgetting.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 8: How do we know this?
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 6: Because if you have people read a passage one, two, three, four,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 6: five times versus one time, and they self-test one time
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 6: in self-testing and significantly better learning.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 8: Is repeated recall not repeated exposure.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 6: Yes beautiful right exactly guys like him guys like james
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 6: clear that they have a real when i say unconscious
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 6: genius i mean clearly they put thought into and structure
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 6: into what they teach but the neuroscience supports everything you
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 6: just said which is what he just said and reflecting
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 6: on what you were trying to do or learn or
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 6: solve even if you don't remember even if you're still
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 6: puzzled by it is so vitally important to the anti-forgetting process.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 6: Now, in terms of actually being able to focus, actually
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 6: being able to do work, it's so clear that thoughts,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 6: and this is the beautiful statements and work of a
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 6: woman named Jenny Grow, who's at Duke University, who's a neuroscientist,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 6: been studying sensory integration for.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 7: A long time.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 6: You know, I've long thought about, and I think we
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 6: now understand as a field, what sensations are. So sensations
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 6: are the physical stimuli in the environment, photons of light,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 6: mechanical pressure, odorant, volatile odorants in the environment that lead to,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 6: you know, sight, touch, smell, et cetera. How that gets
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 6: converted into chemical and electrical signals in the brain. We
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 6: understand as a field, we understand sensation. We understand perception.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 6: Perception is which of those sensations you happen to be
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 6: paying attention to.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 6: We understand emotions now more as a subset of something
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 6: that we think of more broadly as states. that are
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 6: set by your autonomic nervous system, how alert you are,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 6: how not alert you are. And then emotions are kind
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 6: of layered on top of that. We know what they
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 6: are neurobiologically and psychologically and behaviors.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: We know what they are.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 6: And then there's the don't go behaviors, the suppression of behavior.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 8: And then there are memories, right?
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 6: But for the longest time, it's been unclear.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: What are thoughts? What are they?
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 6: Are they just like spontaneous geysering up of memories or
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 6: like what's going on there. And Jenny grow, I think
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 6: has the absolute best description of these. If, and this
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 6: is based on experimentation. If we seed some idea. So
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 6: let's say I say to you, think, think.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 4: About a dog.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 6: Um, what kind of dog is it?
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 7: Golden retriever. Golden retriever.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 6: So as you think about the golden retriever, like what
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 6: other things come to mind about the golden retriever it's
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 6: got a little neckerchief on okay red neckerchief great red
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 6: neckerchief like what else about golden retriever fluffy fluffy okay
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 6: so there's a tactile thing okay um jenny grows and
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 6: others data point to the fact that thoughts basically start
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 6: with some seed element some noun some pronoun some thing
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 6: some event and then what the brain does is essentially
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 6: starts to call on more and more sensations and starts
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 6: layering those in more and more prior sensory events. It's
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 6: red handkerchief.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 7: Okay, it's fluffy.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 4: There's a tactile.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 6: And that thoughts really are the layering on of more
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 6: and more sensory memories. And thoughts are really a layering
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 6: of the senses in abstract thought space. Now, this is
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 6: not meant to, you know, make something from nothing, but
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 6: it's so important that we understand this because you think,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 6: what is the ability to think? Well, the ability to
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 6: think is constrained by the number of different senses i'm
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 6: trying to place on a bunch of different things and
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 6: so that's what that's how we navigate through environments which
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 6: is what jenny grow's main work is about how you
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 6: find yourself in space i can't look at everything in
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 6: this garage i have to focus on certain things find
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 6: the phillips head screwdriver go over there and you're discarding
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 6: all the other information now when you think about sitting
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 6: down to do work or to learn something prepare a
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 6: podcast it is so important that you limit the number
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 6: of sensory inputs coming in not just during that event
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 6: but before Because the sensory stimulus that kind of sets
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 6: off this cascade of layering in more and more sensory
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 6: memories and understanding is begun before you sit down to
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 6: read your book. This is why you read a portion
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 6: of a book and then you're like, oh wait, I
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 6: wasn't even paying attention. Your brain is still working with
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 6: the sensory inputs from before. It's not thinking about them consciously.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 6: So this is vitally important. If you go back and
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 6: you look at the history of attention and thinking, and
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 6: I have, you can find these incredible pictures that they
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 6: would give kids who had trouble, probably had ADHD or
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 6: just kind of rambunctious boys in most cases. And they
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 6: literally gave them helmets with two eye holes so they
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 6: couldn't look at anything else.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 8: Like blinkers.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: Hear anyone else.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 6: Used to be, you know, kid with the hoodie on
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 6: and the cap and you'd write. Now in China, they're
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 6: doing some very interesting experiments of having kids stare literally
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 6: at a focal point on the wall for a number
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 6: of minutes before beginning their work.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: Sounds a little extreme, a little military.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 6: But one thing that I've been doing before I prepare
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 6: to do any writing, any podcasting, any work is I
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 6: try and make myself as bored as possible. I try
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 6: and remove as much sensory input as possible. I might
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 6: think about my breathing because it's hard to not think
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 6: about anything. but I really have started to limit the
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 6: amount of sensory information coming into my space. I have
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 6: an entire floor.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 7: Of where I live now.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 6: I live in an odd structure now, but the entire
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 6: bottom floor is a no phone zone.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 7: Once or twice I brought.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 6: My phone down there, but it's a no phone zone.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 6: I'm going down the stairs. There are no phones in there.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 6: I'm trying to figure out how I can have no
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 6: internet there. It doesn't matter if you're in an empty box.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 6: If you are not good at clearing the slate before
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 6: you try and focus on You're going to have a
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 6: very hard time for understandable reasons. In fact, I'm amazed
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 6: that anyone can think at all. I'm amazed that anyone
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 6: can focus at all. I don't believe everyone has ADHD.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 6: I think we've just not understood what thoughts are built
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 6: up from. And once you understand, you go, oh yeah,
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 6: it makes perfect sense. Am I supposed to walk around
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 6: with my eyes closed and not take in any sensory input?
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 5: No.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 6: But am I supposed to take in an infinite number
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 6: of novel items through this device? In fact, Mike Easter,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 6: the author of The Comfort Crisis, told me something super
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 6: scary about The people who developed the algorithms for social
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 6: media borrowed heavily from the casinos. And I didn't realize
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 6: that some years ago, slot machines were like a small
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 6: fraction of the total casino income, maybe like 10, 20%.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 6: Now it's 80%. And it was one guy who watched
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 6: his kid playing video games who realized that the kids
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 6: would play video games for hours and hours and hours.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 6: And what they were playing for was novelty. And so
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 6: they switched the slot machines and casinos to on his
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 6: suggestion to instead of just spooling numbers and fruit or
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 6: whatever it was, because they're now electronic, you can get
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 6: a near infinite number of combinations of novel items and
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 6: people will play while losing for novelty and think they're winning.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 6: The brain is tricked into thinking that it's winning. And
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 6: so at some level, like I love social.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 8: Media, teach on social media.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 6: I partake in it as a consumer and a creator there.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 6: But I think we need to really scruff ourselves and go, okay,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 6: I need to read this book.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 7: I need to write this chapter.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 8: I need to do this drawing.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 6: And you'll notice once you drop into that trench, the
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 6: brain has these attractor states. It's like a ball bearing
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 6: on a flat surface. As you get more into a
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 6: thought trench or activity trench, it's like that ball bearing
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 6: drops into what's essentially a deep valley. And it's actually
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 6: hard to leave. You'll notice you're walking out and unless
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 6: you pick up your phone, you'll still be thinking about that.
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 6: And this is how the brain works. The brain is
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 6: not working in step functions. None of us are supposed
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 6: to do the same thing all day long. And none
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 6: of us are supposed to be able to think and
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 6: focus easily. You just have to ride that sort of
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 6: layering on of thoughts, going from bored to sensory input
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 6: to deeper and deeper. And then work for bouts of
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 6: 90 minutes or a couple of hours. And then give
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 6: yourself a little bit of time, pause, reflect. And it
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 6: doesn't mean you can't have a conversation, but people are
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 6: texting in between. It's unbelievable what we've done to hamstring ourselves.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 6: Against being able to think. The good news is, as
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 6: Goggins would say, nowadays it's very easy to be spectacularly
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 6: good in pretty much any field. You just have to
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 6: do what no one else is doing. Now, he's an
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 6: extreme case, and I have immense admiration for David.
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 4: I mean, he's just so David.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 6: But if you want to be the best in your
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 6: class at anything, best in class at pretty much anything,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 6: it's become so much easier now. You just have to
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 6: not constantly be projecting things out to the world or
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 6: paying attention to what other people are doing.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 9: I've got written on my whiteboard, on my fridge at
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 9: the moment, the five most common deathbed regrets. And it's
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 9: things like, I wish that I'd not worked as much.
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 9: I wish I'd let myself be happy. I wish I'd
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 9: stayed in touch with my friends. It will be unbelievably
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 9: surprising to me if in 40 years time, I wish
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 9: I'd spent less time on my phone isn't on there.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 8: I would bet.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 9: Pretty much everything that I have, that would probably appear
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 9: on average on people's five top deathbed regrets. I wish
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 9: I'd spent less time on my phone. And we can
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 9: see this happening in front of us. And the best
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 9: way that you can tell that this is going to
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 9: continue to happen is that you can reflect on what
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 9: you did over the last week. And one of the
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 9: most common things that you wish that you'd done less
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 9: of over the last week was, shouldn't I, I got,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 9: I got captured. I did a couple of YouTube holes
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 9: or TikTok scrolls or Instagram, whatever's.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 8: And you know that this is happening.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 9: In the micro, spread that across a lifetime. You know,
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 9: I think that very much we're going to look back
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 9: at this and hopefully there is some kind of solution.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 8: Maybe it's Neuralink.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 9: Maybe, you know, we have a way that we can
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 9: kind of ethically engage with technology and get the communication
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 9: and the stimulation and the exploration of different ideas and communities.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 9: But yeah, right now kind of feels a little bit like,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 9: maybe a little bit like when cigarettes first came out,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 9: like your doctor smokes camels, you know, like we didn't,
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 9: nobody knew what the bad effects of this were. They
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 9: didn't know long-term what it was going to cause. And
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 9: I was, I think, incorrectly categorizing people's phone use as
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 9: an addiction. And I think that you said it's much
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 9: more like a compulsion.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 9: And that is a child that's asleep or nearly asleep,
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 9: like compulsively scrolling through their phone.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 6: An obsession is mental. This is a classic definition of
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 6: compulsion is a behavior, but the compulsion in classic OCD
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 6: doesn't relieve the obsession. It actually exacerbates it.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 8: The payoff. Right.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 7: So you're not, it's sort of like an itch that.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 6: You scratch and just get an itches more.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 6: And there is something like that with social, I don't
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 6: want to say social media, but with phone scrolling. Now
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 6: that said, I mean, you know, of my waking hours,
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 6: most of it is spent foraging for organizing or dispersing
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 6: information and much of that is done on the phone
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 6: or computer but i do read books you know hard
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 6: books meaning physical books.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 9: When you're foraging you spend enough time on the internet
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 9: and you do find something that gives you that oh
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 9: wow i never knew about that before and it's that
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 9: um sort of needle in a haystack that you're looking
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 9: through and that is trigger of, wow, I found so
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 9: I can talk about it on a podcast. This is
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 9: really interesting to me. That is the carrot, I think,
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 9: that gets dangled for very many people who want to
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 9: feel better about their social media use and think, well, okay, yeah,
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 9: you know, I wasted 90 minutes, but I did get
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 9: that thing out of it. I read that Substack post
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 9: or I found this new person that I really care about.
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 9: You know, the variable schedule reward, intellectual satisfaction is also
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 9: in that, right?
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 8: It's not just the shock. It's not just the cute.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 6: Also in the library, I love libraries and I'd spend
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 6: so much time when I was a student and graduate
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 6: student and you'd find something. And it's like, I'd look
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 6: around like, did anyone like, did.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 5: You see that?
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 4: Did you see that?
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 6: But since I was a little kid, I was discovering
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 6: stuff in books and then talking about it to everybody,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 6: even if they didn't want to hear. And so I
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 6: was professing from a young age in class on Mondays
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 6: and things. So, so for me, it's hardwired into my
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 6: system by now. And I think that I do think
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 6: that social media holds certain gems. I think we're thinking
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 6: about talking about like mining for gems of social interaction too.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 6: I've gotten to know some people through social media where
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 6: it's really enriched my life. I've reconnected with some people.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 6: It's really enriched my life. It's allowed me to connect
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 6: the dots going backward in ways I hadn't anticipated. And
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 6: I think going forward, if you're asking about the kids
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 6: in the video that you showed me, or you're talking
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 6: about adults or anyone, the success is largely going to
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 6: be determined by who has the most self-discipline.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 5: What if I told you that it's not over? That
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 5: you're not finished? That you've got work to do? And
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 5: that destinies are hinged on the decision that you are
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 5: about to make? What if I told you that what
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 5: tried to break you trained you? What tried to delay
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 5: you disciplined you? And even the isolation that you've been
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 5: navigating has sharpened you? What if I told you that
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 5: you are not late, you are loaded with potential. Average
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 5: numbs your hunger while stealing your assignment. Average brings us
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 5: into prisons and pits and caves where we lose our desperation,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 5: where we are no longer hungry for a quality of life.
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 5: We are no longer desperate for We no longer see
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 5: the light at the end of the tunnel. If you've
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 5: lost that fuel, that faith, that fire, and after everything
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 5: you've been through, it seems as though average is suffocating
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 5: the hope out of you. You did not fail and
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 5: you're not finished. average attracts applause from people who settled.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 5: They will clap for you. not because you are great,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 5: but because you make them comfortable. Your life, your endeavors,
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 5: your assignment should make somebody uncomfortable. It should interfere and
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 5: interrupt this status quo. Sometimes it's just you and God.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 5: Where you got to put the work in alone. And
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 5: you've got to train your body and your mind. You've
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 5: got to bring yourself to peak condition. You've got to
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 5: develop your strength and increase your capacity and your endurance.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 5: And you've got to stretch. And you've got to push.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 5: And you've got to pull. And you've got to leap.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 5: And you've got to run.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 4: And sometimes you will grow weary.
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 5: And there will be days where you don't want to
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 5: get out of bed, where you don't want to eat.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 4: You don't have the energy to think.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 5: And nobody calls you and nobody texts you and nobody
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 5: checks on you. And very few believe that you will
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 5: ever come out of this darkness.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 4: You will never come out of this hole. But you
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 4: have to believe.
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 5: Because it is our beliefs that determine our behavior. If
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 5: I can't change my outputs, it's because I haven't changed
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 5: my inputs. Everything that's coming in, everything that I believe,
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 5: everything that I see.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 4: Will determine what I do.
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 5: If I can't do it, if I haven't done it,
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 5: if it seems impossible and I won't even try, then
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 5: something's off with my belief system. And I just pray
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 5: that after you've listened to me, that something is sparked
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 5: on the inside of you to take a deeper dive
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 5: into who you are. Accept the reality that there will
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 5: be seasons in your life where you will need to
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 5: walk alone. Now is the time to weep and work.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 5: You may be hurting, but work. You may be bleeding,
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 5: but build. You may be tired, but get up.
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 4: It's time.
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 5: It's time to labor with vision and build with conviction
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 5: to give birth to something that will still speak when
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 5: the dust has settled over your bones. Greatness is not
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 5: loud at the beginning.
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 4: Sometimes greatness is quiet.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 5: And it would demand separation from everything that attempts to
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 5: knock you off course. There is no tomorrow. There is
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 5: no plan B. I am completely devoted to my level
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 5: one priorities. To many, it will seem as though I've
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 5: lost my mind. But it is right at that point
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 5: where the world changers emerge. You can hate all you
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 5: want to, but I understood the work that was required
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 5: to put in.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 4: I'm consistent. I'm ambitious. I'm flexible. I'm adaptable. I'm decisive
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 4: and I'm determined. Come on.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 5: I got everything I need to go to the next level.
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 4: And I just want to ask anybody listening to me,
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 4: why not you?
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 10: Well, if you're harmless, you're not virtuous. You're just harmless.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 10: You're like a rabbit. A rabbit isn't virtuous. It just
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 10: can't do anything except get eaten. It's not virtuous. If
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 10: you're a monster and you don't act monstrously, then you're virtuous.
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 10: But you also have to be a monster. Well, you
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 10: see this all the time. Harry Potter's like that, too.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 10: It's like he's flawed.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: He's hurt. He's got evil in him. He can talk
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: to snakes, man.
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 10: He breaks rules all the time. But, you know, he
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 10: has a good reason for breaking the rules. And if
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 10: he couldn't break the rules, him and his little clique
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 10: of rule-breaking troublemakers, if they didn't break the rules, they
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 10: wouldn't attain the highest goal. So it's very peculiar, but
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 10: it's a very, very, very, very common mythological notion.
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: You know, the hero has to be... The hero has
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: to be a monster.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 10: I was at my sister-in-law's house once, and her son
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 10: was running around, he's about four, very precocious, very verbal,
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 10: very intelligent, running around with a knight hat on and
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 10: a sword. So he's engaged in this pretty intense play world.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 10: And when he goes to sleep, he puts the knight
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 10: hat on his pillow and the sword by his pillow.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 10: And at the same time, he's having night terror. So
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 10: he's waking up, and had been for a number of weeks,
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 10: waking up screaming. But he doesn't know why.
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 2: There's some things that aren't going so well in the household,
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: and The parents get divorced shortly afterwards. Okay, so that's
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: what's going on underneath, right?
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 10: And he's also going to go to kindergarten. And so
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 10: he's about to go into the world. And so he's
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 10: coping with this. I'm watching him zoom around as this
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 10: night and thinking that's pretty cool. And that night he
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 10: woke up and it was screaming. And so we're all
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 10: at breakfast the next morning. And I said, did you
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 10: dream anything? And he got really intense. And he said, yes,
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 10: I had a dream. I was out on this field,
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 10: and all these dwarfs came up to me. They were
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 10: only about as high as my knees, and they didn't
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 10: have any arms.
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 2: They had powerful legs, and they had beaks. And whenever
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 2: he moved anywhere, they would jump at him with their beaks.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: And there were lots of them. And everyone just said
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: nothing at breakfast.
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 7: It was like.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 3: Cousin.
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 2: He was right into this story, eh? And then he said, yeah.
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: And then in the background, there was a dragon. And
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: every time the dragon puffed out smoke, it would turn
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 2: into these dwarves. It's like, oh man, kid, you really
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: got a problem there.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 10: You got, you got beet things that are biting you
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 10: and you can kill them and that's fine. But Then
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 10: there's the dragon just puffing out new ones. So it's
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 10: like a hydra problem, right? The old hydra is the serpent.
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 10: You cut off one head, seven more grow. It's not
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 10: a good thing.
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: And it's such a cool dream because it really portrayed
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 2: this class of all possible monsters problem. So you've got
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 2: the specific monsters and that's a problem. So you've got
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 2: to get rid of them. That's not the problem.
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 10: The problem is that there's something in the background that's
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 10: just generating monsters like Matt. And so I said to him,
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 10: What do you think you could do about that? And
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 10: that's a loaded question, right? That's like leading the witness
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 10: in a trial. You don't get to ask a question
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 10: like that because it implies the answer.
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: What could you do about that is not any different
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 2: than saying you could do something about that. Right, so
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: I hinted at that as a possibility. And his eyes
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: lit up. Now, you remember, he's already running around as
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: a knight, eh? So he kind of already knew what
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 2: to do, because he had the whole sword and the hat.
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 10: And he said, I'd get my dad, and then I'd
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 10: jump up on top of the dragon, and I'd poke
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 10: out both of its eyes with my sword, and then
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 10: it'd go right down its throat to the firebox where
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 10: the fire comes out, and I'd carve out a piece
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 10: of the firebox.
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 2: And then I'd use that as a shield. And I thought, Yes!
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 7: Right!
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: Right! Man, it's so smart, eh? Because he got the
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 2: thing instantly.
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 4: So, imagine.
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 10: First of all, he thought, okay, I have to go
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 10: to the heart of the problem.
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 2: And really to the heart. Not to the dragon. But
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 2: right down the damn thing's gullet. Right to the place
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: where the fire was actually being created. Because there, it
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 2: was there you could find the shield. And that he'd
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 2: take this thing that was fireproof and make a shield
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 2: out of it. And so that was just dead, bloody perfect.
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 2: It was so cool. And you think, well, how could
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 2: a kid come up with that? So you could say
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 2: that the kid already had.
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 10: Within him not only the capacity to represent not only
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 10: the monster, but the class of all possible monsters.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 2: And the fact that the problem wasn't monsters. The problem
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 2: was that monsters could continually be generated. It's a way
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 2: worse problem. And then the answer to that isn't to
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 2: kill an individual monster. The answer to that is go
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: to the source of the monstrous itself and defeat it.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: What you might do about a particular monster is hide
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: or go out and get rid of it. If it
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 2: was just an actual animal, right? But that doesn't help
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 2: because there's all the other potential predators that are still there.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 2: And so maybe you can go hunt all them down,
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 2: but that doesn't help either because you can't hunt them
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: all down. It's not very likely anyways.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 10: So instead, what you have to do is figure out
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 10: how to configure yourself so that you're in the best
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 10: possible position to fight off the monsters when they come.
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 10: That's your best bet. All right, so now people are
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 10: trying to figure this out forever.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: They're trying to figure out what's the answer to the
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 2: problem of the class of all possible monsters. And so
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: sacrifice is actually one way that you can tame the monsters.
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: If you think about the monster as.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 10: the set of all negative future potentialities, you make the
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 10: proper sacrifices, those monsters stay at bay. But then there's
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 10: heroism as an alternative too, which means the active confrontation
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 10: of the class of all possible monsters and the building
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 10: of yourself up into the sort of courageous person that
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 10: can do that. One of the propositions of formal logic is,
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 10: it's a fundamental proposition, is that something can't be itself
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 10: and its opposite at the same time. It's like, that's
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 10: true for some sorts of things. It's true for logical claim.
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 10: But it's completely wrong in this particular situation because things
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 10: are what they are and they're opposite at the same time.
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 10: And that makes it very, very difficult to... That's why
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 10: a dragon hoards gold. It's like, What's up with that? Well,
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 10: it'll eat you.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 2: And it will.
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 10: But it has gold. Well, so what do you do
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 10: about that? Because it's paradoxical demands. Well, what you want
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 10: to do is face the dragon and get the damn gold.
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 10: That's what you want to do. You know, in The Hobbit,
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 10: he's called on a great adventure to go and find
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 10: the dragon. And he has to become a thief in
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 10: order to manage it.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: Well, that's pretty weird.
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 10: You know, it's like, well, it's because as a good citizen,
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 10: he's just not enough to conquer a dragon. He has
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 10: to also become a bad citizen in some sense. He
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 10: has to incorporate the part of himself that's monstrous, let's say,
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 10: and develop that and hone it. And that's to say that, well,
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 10: if you're harmless, you're not virtuous. You know, and you
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 10: might say, well, it's too ambitious. It takes too much responsibility.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 10: It's like, yeah, yeah, those are definitely problems. And one
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 10: of the things that I've figured out over the years
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 10: is that if you offered the person the opportunity, you know,
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 10: because people say, well, life doesn't really have any ultimate meaning.
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 10: It's like, let's say it has an ultimate meaning. But
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 10: that in order to experience that ultimate meaning, you have
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 10: to take on ultimate responsibility for what you do. Well,
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 10: that's a heavy price to pay to have a meaningful life.
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 10: And you might say, well, there's no damn way I'm
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 10: going to do that. I'll just go for the trivial,
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 10: pointless perspective, which, you know, is kind of hard on
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 10: me existentially, but it frees me up. I can do
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 10: whatever the hell I want moment to moment. I don't
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 10: have any ultimate responsibility. And so then you think, well,
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 10: that's kind.
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 2: Of a good deal.
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 10: That raises this weird specter of doubt which is well
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 10: when you hear people talk about the ultimate futility of
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 10: life is it because life is ultimately futile or is
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 10: it because they've decided that they would just as soon.
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 2: Not adopt the responsibility and they use that real decision
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 2: which is to not adopt the responsibility they rationalize that
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: by proposing that life is ultimately meaningless.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 10: Because scientifically Deterministically, there's nature and there's culture, and you
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 10: are the deterministic product of the interaction between nature and culture.
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 2: There's nothing else to you than that. That's that. But
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 2: the mythological world doesn't say that it says something different.
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 10: It says that there's nature and culture, and then there's you.
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 10: And the you that's in there has choices and a destiny.
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 10: And that you actually affect the interplay of nature and
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 10: culture in determining your own character. Perhaps the star that
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 10: you're wishing upon is the wish that the hero will
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 10: be born.
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 2: In your soul.
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 3: Something like that.
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 10: You're aiming at an ideal. It's the ideal you. Whatever
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 10: that would be. Well, you can certainly figure out what
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 10: it isn't. That's where you start, as far as I
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 10: can tell. You know what you shouldn't be doing, and
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 10: you could at.
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 2: Least stop doing those.
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 10: Things and then see what happens. And if you ask yourself,
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 10: it's a meditative exercise. And you do this with the
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 10: autobiography to some degree. It's like, okay, sit down for
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 10: ten minutes and have a little dialogue with yourself like
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 10: you actually wanted to know the answer. So you ask, well,
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 10: I'm probably doing something stupid that if I quit doing,
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 10: my life would be better that I could quit doing
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 10: that I would quit doing. maybe it's not a very
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 10: big thing because you're not very disciplined but maybe there's
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 10: something to ask yourself that question man you'll have an
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 10: answer in no time flat like well i should stop
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 10: doing this like yeah i know and i could and
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 10: you know i won't but or maybe i would but
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 10: if i did i know my life would be better
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 10: it's like you can figure that out immediately and if
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 10: you do that a hundred times well You'll be in
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 10: way better shape. So if you don't know what to
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 10: do that's good, you could at least figure out what
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 10: you shouldn't do that's just moronically, you know, pathetic.
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: And you can be sure you're doing like a dozen
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 2: of those things at least.
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 10: There's an idea that the divine element of the individual
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 10: is the thing that uses language, communicative language, to call
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 10: the world into being.
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: And that is what we do.
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 10: As far as we can tell, it's like you make
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 10: a decision, you think it through, you talk it over
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 10: with your friends, you plot a course, and the world
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 10: manifests itself in relationship to your choice.
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: That's why you have rights, fundamentally.
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 10: That's why the law has to respect you, is because
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 10: you've got this spark of divinity in you that's transcendent
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 10: that nobody gets to transgress against.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 2: And you say, well, do you believe that?
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 3: It's like, well.
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 2: You act like you believe it.
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 10: You treat other people like you believe it, or they're
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 10: not very happy with you.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 2: So it depends on what you mean by believe. You
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 2: act it out. Well, you accept it as a proposition.
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 10: I don't care if you accept it as a proposition, frankly,
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 10: because I think the best indicator of what you believe
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 10: is how you act, not what you say. Because what
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 10: do you know about what you know? Hardly anything. And
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 10: so Actions speak louder than words. And if you want
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 10: to be treated properly by someone, what that means is
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 10: that you want to treat them, you want them to
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 10: treat you as a valuable, autonomous entity.
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 2: That's what you want.