168: 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson

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3. 00:00:12 So I have to say last week was a lot of fun, Mike.
4. 00:00:14 It was.
5. 00:00:15 It was great to hang out with the B-Ligs.
6. 00:00:20 There's only a handful of times, it seems like, when Mike and I get a chance to actually
7. 00:00:24 be in the same room together, last week was one of them.
8. 00:00:27 We did something very fun, which was to put our entire families together for the first
9. 00:00:31 time.
10. 00:00:33 And that was very loud at times, but also very fun.
11. 00:00:39 So it was a good time.
12. 00:00:40 I'm glad you invited us up.
13. 00:00:41 Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
14. 00:00:43 Thanks for coming.
15. 00:00:44 I think it was approximately 12 minutes for Adelaide and Hazel to become BFFs.
16. 00:00:49 It's true.
17. 00:00:51 It's true.
18. 00:00:52 It was a very, very quick adjustment on their part, but it was a good time.
19. 00:00:57 It's good.
20. 00:00:58 I know that one of the things that came from that is my oldest daughter, Emma, was inspired
21. 00:01:05 by your oldest, who I didn't know that Toby was such a game stats nerd.
22. 00:01:13 And he inspired Emma to come up with her own game stats process, but she doesn't own
23. 00:01:22 an iPad as Toby does and decided to do it all on pen and paper.
24. 00:01:28 And I sent pictures of this to Mike, but it's pretty stellar what she came up with.
25. 00:01:33 It's pretty cool.
26. 00:01:35 It is.
27. 00:01:36 Yeah.
28. 00:01:37 And for people who are curious, Toby uses an app called board game stats.
29. 00:01:42 And actually I have it on my phone too, and it's synced to the same library.
30. 00:01:46 So basically whenever we play a game, he logs the statistics.
31. 00:01:52 And we've been playing cribbage a lot lately.
32. 00:01:54 So for example, you can put not just who won, although those sorts of things go into the
33. 00:02:01 stats for like when you play a four player game, you win so much percentage of the time,
34. 00:02:07 right?
35. 00:02:08 You get hundreds of games in there and then you can get some pretty crazy insights like
36. 00:02:14 one of the pieces of metadata that he has for my brother-in-law, Soren.
37. 00:02:19 He's like, hey, Uncle Soren, did you know that when you use
38. 00:02:22 nails as pegs, you're undefeated.
39. 00:02:27 So he logs all this stuff.
40. 00:02:29 And obviously like you have to create your own metadata and it takes time to put that
41. 00:02:33 stuff in, which is why he's the one who actually logs it all.
42. 00:02:37 I probably would stick with it for a couple of days and then be like, this is too much
43. 00:02:41 work, but he logs every single game that we play hundreds of them now.
44. 00:02:46 And the results are some pretty crazy statistics, which he was kind of sharing what we were
45. 00:02:52 together.
46. 00:02:53 Yeah, it was a good time.
47. 00:02:56 I will say that there were a couple points when I noticed he was playing games with his
48. 00:03:00 siblings and then he would lose.
49. 00:03:03 And then he was always just a little bit slow to enter those stats.
50. 00:03:08 That's kind of the joke now is like whenever he loses like, hey, put that one in the stats.
51. 00:03:15 He always does.
52. 00:03:16 But super fun.
53. 00:03:17 Well, we've also got some other follow-up we need to jump into.
54. 00:03:22 But you've got a very special thing coming up and you should talk about this now because
55. 00:03:26 I'm going to join this and I think it's going to be a good time because I could use this
56. 00:03:29 right now.
57. 00:03:31 Sure.
58. 00:03:33 So I have put together as part of my faith-based productivity course a long time ago, this
59. 00:03:40 idea of a life theme.
60. 00:03:42 And a life theme is basically like a personal mission statement.
61. 00:03:46 And over the years I've talked about this and I've even put together like little challenges
62. 00:03:54 and steps that you can use to kind of craft your own life theme because it's hard if
63. 00:04:00 you everyone understands the idea of a personal mission statement, but it's hard to just sit
64. 00:04:04 down and be like, okay, now write it.
65. 00:04:06 Like where do you even start?
66. 00:04:08 And I'm a productivity nerd.
67. 00:04:11 So I've read all these books and I've done all the exercises and I've kind of condensed
68. 00:04:17 down like the ones that have made the most impact for me into there's like five different
69. 00:04:23 steps here for creating your own life theme.
70. 00:04:27 And it's not a secret.
71. 00:04:30 We actually Rachel and I recorded a intentional family episode on this not too long ago.
72. 00:04:35 I'll put a link to that in the show notes for people who want like an overview of the
73. 00:04:41 five different steps, but you just kind of think through like, what are the times in
74. 00:04:46 your life when you've felt the most alive?
75. 00:04:49 And then I encourage people to like think bigger.
76. 00:04:53 So what would you do tomorrow if you couldn't fail?
77. 00:04:58 And then you start to like build out this picture of what your future life could look
78. 00:05:02 like in vivid detail.
79. 00:05:04 So where are you?
80. 00:05:05 Who's there with you?
81. 00:05:06 What are you doing?
82. 00:05:07 That sort of thing.
83. 00:05:08 And from there you think about what are the core values that are guiding your life are
84. 00:05:14 those reflected in that picture of your ideal future.
85. 00:05:18 And then you take all that stuff and you condense it down into a single sentence that encapsulates
86. 00:05:23 your reason for being.
87. 00:05:25 And that serves as a filter for deciding what you want to say yes to and what you should
88. 00:05:32 say no to.
89. 00:05:33 But it also serves as like once you understand the things that you're doing and how they
90. 00:05:37 connect to your life theme, it brings motivation.
91. 00:05:41 So you don't even have to change what you're doing.
92. 00:05:43 I think we kind of talked about this a little bit in the last book on motivation.
93. 00:05:47 Like what you're doing doesn't have to change.
94. 00:05:49 Just your perspective about it does.
95. 00:05:51 So once you identify the why, like it brings meaning to everything that you do.
96. 00:05:56 There's a saying don't follow your passion, but always bring it with you.
97. 00:05:58 That's what a life theme enables you to do.
98. 00:06:02 So I was encouraged in the faith-based productivity community to put together a cohort for this.
99. 00:06:06 And I've been a part of and helped lead different cohorts for different people and different
100. 00:06:10 things.
101. 00:06:11 But I've never actually led one myself.
102. 00:06:15 So I wanted to do this.
103. 00:06:17 This is almost like a mini cohort.
104. 00:06:18 This is not like you invest 30 hours a week, like part-time YouTuber Academy and you publish
105. 00:06:24 six videos and you figure out, you know, your whole niche and things like that.
106. 00:06:28 It's broken down into some pretty simple action steps.
107. 00:06:32 So I thought those five steps could make a pretty cool like five week cohort where we
108. 00:06:36 go through this together.
109. 00:06:39 And essentially what it will be is a live call every Friday for five weeks starting April
110. 00:06:43 28th, where I'll present a little bit of information on like the steps and kind of walk through
111. 00:06:47 how to do it, do some Q and A.
112. 00:06:49 And then basically whoever signs up for this, we're all going to go through this together.
113. 00:06:53 So you do it with a bunch of other people and you share your process along the progress
114. 00:06:58 along the way.
115. 00:06:59 You get live feedback and you can kind of tune this thing in, but you walk out of it basically
116. 00:07:03 with a personal mission statement.
117. 00:07:06 So what the heck do I charge for this?
118. 00:07:08 I have no idea, but these are like five group coaching calls, which I think I'm pretty good
119. 00:07:12 at, you know, having done them previously.
120. 00:07:14 And so I'm going to put this at $97.
121. 00:07:16 I think that is actually pretty, pretty reasonable.
122. 00:07:19 But I have no idea what to really expect from this one.
123. 00:07:22 I just want to start moving in this direction because I think this could be, this could
124. 00:07:26 be kind of cool.
125. 00:07:27 So I have a link which I will put in the show notes that people want to sign up for this.
126. 00:07:32 All the video calls will be recorded.
127. 00:07:34 So if you miss one, you can catch up.
128. 00:07:35 But basically just so you know, it's not an information thing.
129. 00:07:38 The real value of a cohort is that you don't just get the information in a video course,
130. 00:07:43 like a lot of people do and then you never go through it.
131. 00:07:46 You get out of it what you put into it.
132. 00:07:48 And then there's like public accountability as you go.
133. 00:07:50 So that's kind of the whole idea behind it.
134. 00:07:53 But yeah, starting April 28th, five weeks in a row, we're going to be building or revising
135. 00:07:59 our life themes together.
136. 00:08:00 And if you want to join us, there will be a link in the show notes would love to have
137. 00:08:04 you on board.
138. 00:08:05 Well, I know I'm planning to join this.
139. 00:08:08 Hopefully I'm able to make all of them.
140. 00:08:10 I know that, you know, as I was working through one of my follow up action items, which I guess
141. 00:08:16 I can jump into as part of this, I was trying to work through something.
142. 00:08:21 I ended up having a long conversation about it with my wife on our way back from Wisconsin
143. 00:08:26 last week.
144. 00:08:27 But this whole content creation thing that I know you and I have done over time, like
145. 00:08:32 we've I have done this a lot with bookworm, obviously, we're at episode 168, which is
146. 00:08:40 nuts to me.
147. 00:08:41 But I've not really done much for like my writing and such in a very long time.
148. 00:08:48 And I started to play that three C's concept, like the choice connection competence piece
149. 00:08:56 from our last book on that particular topic of content creation.
150. 00:09:01 And there's a couple of things that came out of that for me.
151. 00:09:03 One is like, I don't really have a clear like connection to both myself and other people
152. 00:09:13 on that particular one.
153. 00:09:14 Like, why is it that I'm doing this, which I think comes back somewhat to this life theme
154. 00:09:20 concept, because I don't really have a set, like, here's Joe's mission in life.
155. 00:09:26 Like I have a lot of like here's some to use Mike's favorite term, short term goals.
156. 00:09:31 Like here's what I'm doing over the next couple of years to prepare the church for this particular
157. 00:09:37 technology feat.
158. 00:09:39 And here are the things that I'm trying to do on our homestead of sorts.
159. 00:09:44 So like I know those things, but why?
160. 00:09:48 Like that's the part that I think I tend to struggle with.
161. 00:09:50 So like when I walked through that three C's concept, I identified that as a big pain point.
162. 00:09:56 So whenever you mentioned that you were going to do this cohort when we were together last
163. 00:09:59 week, yes, please, where is the place that I submit an email address?
164. 00:10:05 Because Mike needs my email address for this one, I'm sure.
165. 00:10:08 So yes, I'm excited about that.
166. 00:10:11 The faith based productivity circle community.
167. 00:10:14 So yeah.
168. 00:10:16 Super fun.
169. 00:10:17 Well, since I'm on the topic, I should, I suppose, do the other things because with
170. 00:10:21 it, the action I'm talking to is the work about was to work through these three C's on
171. 00:10:27 three different situations.
172. 00:10:28 Some of my rationale for that was mostly to try to figure out, is this a viable thing
173. 00:10:33 to do?
174. 00:10:35 Is this baloney like that?
175. 00:10:37 That's this, this is Joe's litmus test of, is this ridiculous or is it valid?
176. 00:10:41 And I think I can say it's valid because I think with this content creation piece and
177. 00:10:48 working through Mike's life theme thing and working on like some accountability stuff
178. 00:10:52 with my wife, that's, that's something that I think I'm, I'm, I've had a pretty good jump
179. 00:10:57 start on right now.
180. 00:10:59 So that's one.
181. 00:11:00 Another one was setting up lights for a good Friday.
182. 00:11:04 Now that sounds like a pretty lame thing, but our church is doing a good Friday service
183. 00:11:10 here.
184. 00:11:11 We've not historically done that.
185. 00:11:13 And the specific service requires some fairly advanced, I don't want to say advanced, but
186. 00:11:19 a lot of like lighting challenges with spotlights and zones and things that we don't normally
187. 00:11:26 do.
188. 00:11:28 And there are a bunch of reasons for that, but we decided we were going to do them this
189. 00:11:31 time.
190. 00:11:32 Well, I needed to like set aside some time to go like work on this and do some planning
191. 00:11:36 for it and try to get some ideas on how it could work.
192. 00:11:40 And for the life of me, I kept avoiding it over and over and over.
193. 00:11:45 And ultimately, I think it came down to basically a lack of choice on my part.
194. 00:11:50 I felt like it was something that was being thrust upon me that I didn't really support.
195. 00:11:55 So then it was like out of my hands, which then led me down the path of, okay, well, if
196. 00:12:01 that's out of my hands, how do I spin this mentally to make this my choice?
197. 00:12:06 And I think I found some ways to do that, like different ways to take advantage of what
198. 00:12:11 I was being asked to do, but then to put my own little flair on it.
199. 00:12:15 And that seemingly had a pretty big effect on me.
200. 00:12:19 Because once I figured that particular part out, it was done pretty quick.
201. 00:12:23 So there's something we said there.
202. 00:12:26 And then the last one, which is really quite boring because I wanted to use it on something
203. 00:12:30 that was boring that I really, really don't like doing.
204. 00:12:35 And that was taxes because welcome to tax season in the United States.
205. 00:12:40 And really, like I'm fully capable of getting everything together for taxes.
206. 00:12:47 I'm very capable of, and like realizing that I have a choice to do this.
207. 00:12:53 But again, didn't really connect with why on earth I might have to do this other than
208. 00:12:57 the government tells me I have to do this.
209. 00:12:59 I don't want to do this.
210. 00:13:02 Have I mentioned that I don't want to do this?
211. 00:13:04 And I'm picking up on that.
212. 00:13:06 Just through like changing like some of the choice stuff and the connection stuff of like
213. 00:13:11 this is a way to help us do XYZ for some financial stuff that ended up being something
214. 00:13:18 I was able to motivate myself to get started on.
215. 00:13:21 I don't want to say that I use that to motivate me to do the whole thing just because it ended
216. 00:13:27 up happening over the span of a couple days.
217. 00:13:30 But once it was started, it was pretty easy to keep it going.
218. 00:13:33 So it was mostly just to get the ball rolling on that one.
219. 00:13:38 So at the end of the day, I think what I have realized is that if you are willing to go
220. 00:13:44 through the process and take the time to break down those three C's, it can work pretty well.
221. 00:13:54 What I also learned though is that it takes a little bit of time to determine what those
222. 00:14:00 potential pain points are.
223. 00:14:02 It's not something that's always super obvious and it can take a little while to get it figured
224. 00:14:07 out and it feels like a waste of time.
225. 00:14:11 That's the potential pain point, at least for me because it's like, okay, if I'm going
226. 00:14:15 to spend 20 minutes trying to figure out why I'm not doing this, why don't I just go do
227. 00:14:19 the thing instead?
228. 00:14:22 Which is a weird spot to be.
229. 00:14:27 To be like, I would rather just get the thing done because it's going to take 10 minutes
230. 00:14:31 versus the 20 minutes to figure out why I don't want to do it.
231. 00:14:34 So I had a couple of things.
232. 00:14:36 I can't remember what they were.
233. 00:14:37 There was a couple of things that I was debating using this on.
234. 00:14:41 I had gotten which one.
235. 00:14:43 I had done the taxes one and realized how long it took me to figure that one out.
236. 00:14:49 And then just decided I'm not taking the time to do that.
237. 00:14:51 I'm just going to do it quick.
238. 00:14:53 So just the threat of trying to work through the three C's was enough to get me to go do
239. 00:14:58 the thing.
240. 00:14:59 So it was weird.
241. 00:15:00 That was a weird revelation on my part.
242. 00:15:05 But I can't say the three C's thing does seem to work.
243. 00:15:08 Cool, cool.
244. 00:15:09 I've got two action items.
245. 00:15:12 Make a list of the things that I value and craft my own credo.
246. 00:15:18 Both of these things, of course, live inside of obsidian.
247. 00:15:23 And I have started these and starting to make progress on them, but I don't think they're
248. 00:15:28 finished.
249. 00:15:29 And I don't know when they will be.
250. 00:15:30 I do like having these as just kind of save notes and I keep adding things to them as
251. 00:15:34 I think of them.
252. 00:15:35 Sure.
253. 00:15:36 So I can share some examples here.
254. 00:15:38 Things I value, honesty, integrity, authenticity, time, discipline, commitment, personal growth,
255. 00:15:45 simplicity, calm, which I put in parentheses, a lack of drama.
256. 00:15:53 And then these are kind of tied to the, what I'm calling the faith-based productivity manifesto,
257. 00:15:58 but it's basically a personal manifesto, personal credo, whatever.
258. 00:16:02 Do what's right, not what's easy.
259. 00:16:03 Show up every day, progress, not perfection, things like that.
260. 00:16:06 Create, don't consume.
261. 00:16:07 I've talked about that.
262. 00:16:08 Just ship it, embrace constraints, connect the dots, trust the process.
263. 00:16:11 Don't be a jerk.
264. 00:16:13 Follow your path.
265. 00:16:14 Then quantity, be a river, not a reservoir.
266. 00:16:18 Say what you mean and mean what you say.
267. 00:16:21 So I kind of like how this is shaping up, but definitely not done yet.
268. 00:16:27 I do this manifesto specifically.
269. 00:16:30 I want to end up taking all of these short little sayings and then creating a graphic
270. 00:16:35 for it.
271. 00:16:37 But I don't know when I'll think that this is done enough to actually do that.
272. 00:16:43 But that's ultimately what I want the end state of this to be.
273. 00:16:48 Cool.
274. 00:16:49 So I guess, does that bring us to the fun part of the day?
275. 00:16:54 Yep, you can't avoid it any longer.
276. 00:16:56 Okay.
277. 00:16:57 I don't know that I'm actually avoiding it.
278. 00:16:59 I don't know.
279. 00:17:00 There's something about this.
280. 00:17:01 I'm kind of, yeah, I don't know.
281. 00:17:03 Well, you're not running into the discussion.
282. 00:17:04 I'm not.
283. 00:17:05 I'm really not.
284. 00:17:06 Okay, let's go.
285. 00:17:08 So 12 Rules for Life, Jordan B. Peterson.
286. 00:17:10 I picked this book partially because it seems like I keep showing up on lists every time
287. 00:17:14 I look up like potential books or bookworm and it just struck me that I need to pick
288. 00:17:19 a book for bookworm.
289. 00:17:20 So if you have one you want, put it in the chat.
290. 00:17:23 This one continue to show up on all the things.
291. 00:17:27 And it's one that I know is very controversial in the sense that people are very split by
292. 00:17:36 Jordan B. Peterson and having read this, I think I understand why and have lots of
293. 00:17:45 feelings about this that we'll go through.
294. 00:17:49 And it's one that I feel like I've wanted to read for quite a while just because it
295. 00:17:52 keeps showing up on so many different arenas.
296. 00:17:58 And yet I've been a little afraid to pick it just because I knew some of the drama around
297. 00:18:05 Jordan Peterson.
298. 00:18:07 So at this point, I'm kind of glad I finally got it in my hands and had a chance to go
299. 00:18:12 through it.
300. 00:18:14 But what were your initial thoughts on this one, Mike, before you started the process
301. 00:18:19 of reading what turns out to be a very talk-worthy book?
302. 00:18:26 Let me answer that by telling you a story.
303. 00:18:29 Okay.
304. 00:18:30 I used to travel fairly often every couple of months.
305. 00:18:34 And whenever I was in the airport, I always look at the books that people are reading,
306. 00:18:41 not like reading over their shoulder, but they always just jump out to me.
307. 00:18:45 That intrigues me.
308. 00:18:47 And a lot of times they're fiction and have no interest in the romance novels, so whatever.
309. 00:18:52 I'll move on quickly.
310. 00:18:53 But if it's a biography or a business book or a personal development type book, I'm usually
311. 00:19:00 pretty intrigued.
312. 00:19:01 So I remember seeing 12 rules for life a long time ago.
313. 00:19:06 Huh, it's kind of interesting.
314. 00:19:08 What is that?
315. 00:19:09 And I looked at it and I immediately did not want to go anywhere near it ever again.
316. 00:19:16 So when you picked this one, I was like, okay, fine.
317. 00:19:19 I guess I have to.
318. 00:19:20 Yeah.
319. 00:19:21 I've never tried to talk you out of a book for bookworm.
320. 00:19:25 Probably the closest one would have been Zen in the art of motorcycle maintenance.
321. 00:19:30 But it was just like that one that one, I had the same sort of feeling.
322. 00:19:33 I've heard people talk about, oh, this is a great book.
323. 00:19:36 I had absolutely no interest in it.
324. 00:19:38 Did not want to go anywhere near it.
325. 00:19:39 There's plenty of other books I would rather read than that one.
326. 00:19:42 So that's probably like the closest thing where I would have been like, hey, Joe, you
327. 00:19:46 sure you want to do this one?
328. 00:19:48 Can we maybe pick something else?
329. 00:19:50 And I had the same feeling when you picked this one.
330. 00:19:53 I know I've got a good one on my hands.
331. 00:19:57 Is there fun that way?
332. 00:20:01 That is not a quality judgment on the book itself.
333. 00:20:07 That's just my personal taste.
334. 00:20:09 And since you're asking about my first impression of the book, it was like, oh, I guess we have
335. 00:20:14 to.
336. 00:20:15 Yes.
337. 00:20:16 That you do.
338. 00:20:17 You have to do this, Mike.
339. 00:20:18 I'm forcing you into it.
340. 00:20:20 Well, I think the easiest way to do this is, you know, I wrote all 12 rules down in the
341. 00:20:28 notes.
342. 00:20:29 There's a handful of these.
343. 00:20:30 I think you're going to be very, very quick.
344. 00:20:32 And unless there's something I'm missing that you feel like you want to cover on these,
345. 00:20:38 there's probably about four of these I think we'll spend most of our time on.
346. 00:20:43 But I think it's going to be at least somewhat helpful if we discuss all of them.
347. 00:20:47 At least somewhat.
348. 00:20:49 Is that fair?
349. 00:20:50 Let's do it.
350. 00:20:52 The beginning of it, however, starts with a forward and an overture.
351. 00:20:56 So there is a person, I don't have his name in front of me, that wrote a forward for it,
352. 00:21:04 which is basically how he met Jordan B. Peterson and how he really liked him.
353. 00:21:09 And then the overture is written by Jordan Peterson himself, who basically is setting
354. 00:21:15 up why rules.
355. 00:21:17 And in this world, why do we need more rules?
356. 00:21:22 Which is basically his justification, like his justification for that is just that there
357. 00:21:27 are some things that we need to follow that will make everything else go better.
358. 00:21:33 That was kind of my very brief summarization of what I got out of that overture.
359. 00:21:40 But yeah, that's really all I've got on that part before we jump into rules.
360. 00:21:46 Anything strike you from those two pieces?
361. 00:21:49 No, just how long they were.
362. 00:21:52 Yes.
363. 00:21:53 Yeah.
364. 00:21:54 Which is a pretty good foreshadowing of this.
365. 00:21:59 Would we decide 360 some page book?
366. 00:22:01 Yeah.
367. 00:22:02 That's a short one.
368. 00:22:04 So that said, let's jump into rule one, which is stand up straight with your shoulders back.
369. 00:22:11 And I have lots and lots of handwritten notes on these particular rules.
370. 00:22:18 I'm not going to share all of them, but this one starts off with a story about lobsters.
371. 00:22:23 That is not where I expected this book to start.
372. 00:22:28 Something about lobsters and how there's basically hierarchies in the animal world, as is with
373. 00:22:35 crustaceans, there is hierarchy.
374. 00:22:39 The moral of the story is by the time you get done with this particular rule in this
375. 00:22:43 chapter is that if you stand up straight with your shoulders back, it essentially helps
376. 00:22:51 release certain chemicals in your brain to make you feel more confident.
377. 00:22:56 That's the very, very basic understanding I have on it.
378. 00:23:01 That said, there's a lot more in this book or in this particular chapter, but that's
379. 00:23:07 the big overarching point here.
380. 00:23:09 Yeah.
381. 00:23:10 So the lobster story I actually thought was kind of cool at the beginning.
382. 00:23:19 And then I realized how these chapters and the book itself are put together and it lost
383. 00:23:26 some of its significance, shall we say, because he jumps from there to something else to something
384. 00:23:35 else to something else.
385. 00:23:36 And there's like seven or eight different jumps in each one of these chapters.
386. 00:23:41 And every one of these jumps is a bit of a leap.
387. 00:23:45 He's a good writer.
388. 00:23:46 So it's a very smooth transition.
389. 00:23:51 But after a while, you start to just feel overwhelmed with all the different places that
390. 00:23:57 he's taken you.
391. 00:23:59 And he always ends these chapters by coming back to the name of the chapter itself.
392. 00:24:04 So kind of a poetic envelope thing going on here always comes back to, you know, stand
393. 00:24:09 up straight with your shoulders back.
394. 00:24:11 But I feel at this point, just in the first chapter that this is not for me.
395. 00:24:24 Kind of talked a little bit about this before we hit record.
396. 00:24:28 Very intellectual.
397. 00:24:30 And the arguments are linked together so carefully is basically creating like this patchwork quilt
398. 00:24:40 story of these different principles.
399. 00:24:44 And I feel like this is the type of person, not Jordan Peterson himself, but I feel like
400. 00:24:50 I have met people who are sort of in this vein, this ilk, right?
401. 00:24:57 And they're impossible to talk to because they know all these facts and they are convinced
402. 00:25:01 that because they put together this, you know, those those things from like the murder movies
403. 00:25:07 with all the different strings that tie together.
404. 00:25:10 There was no whiteboard with like things written on the strings and what they mean.
405. 00:25:15 Yeah.
406. 00:25:16 Yeah.
407. 00:25:17 So this is what people think of the people who don't like PKMs and app like the apps
408. 00:25:21 like obsidian that they think, Oh, there's the people have all these different connections
409. 00:25:25 and they're going to sort through all these different connections.
410. 00:25:27 They're going to connect all these dots.
411. 00:25:28 And it's going to magically open up the skies and they're going to see the truth.
412. 00:25:32 Like that's not how it works.
413. 00:25:34 But that's kind of the journey that he's taking you down.
414. 00:25:38 And very quickly, even in the first chapter, you know, that more and more Adler, how to
415. 00:25:42 read a book, this is supposed to be a conversation, right?
416. 00:25:46 And I'm supposed to be weighing these arguments that he's making and then responding.
417. 00:25:49 I feel like I stopped responding because even just reading this book, it's like, well, he
418. 00:25:55 doesn't care what I'm going to say.
419. 00:25:59 So yeah, not a great setup for the rest of the book.
420. 00:26:05 I would would say if you're going to go into it, like we do, I guess, or I do for bookworm
421. 00:26:14 where it's like, what are the nuggets here that I can extract because he's so carefully
422. 00:26:20 cherry picking certain things to weave this big web that it feels like a fruitless exercise
423. 00:26:28 to try to dig any deeper on any one of them.
424. 00:26:31 Yeah, we talked about this beforehand a little bit, which is a little dangerous sometimes.
425. 00:26:39 But I've watched a number of Jordan B. Peterson's videos, his short form videos over the last
426. 00:26:47 maybe six months or so, which is partly why I was interested in reading his book.
427. 00:26:51 But at the same time, I know that a lot of his posts and those of people who have debated
428. 00:26:59 him because I wanted to make sure I was understanding the other side of it, not just the cherry-picked
429. 00:27:05 segments he wanted us to see.
430. 00:27:07 But any time he is in a debate or a conversation with someone and there's any chance of getting
431. 00:27:14 him to question his current thought, you have to have a lot of data and a lot of debate
432. 00:27:23 background to get him to even question his current viewpoint.
433. 00:27:27 And if you do get him to question that, which is a challenge, he will very quickly, in almost
434. 00:27:35 every scenario, have some kind of rebuttal that slightly changes it off topic, it seems.
435. 00:27:40 Not completely, but somewhat just enough.
436. 00:27:43 And that's a little frustrating at times.
437. 00:27:47 That makes perfect sense to me based on how he jumps from thing to thing here.
438. 00:27:51 Correct.
439. 00:27:52 Yeah.
440. 00:27:53 And there's a couple points.
441. 00:27:54 I'm not seeing it quickly in my notes, but there's a couple times when he had a heading
442. 00:28:00 in the book and then it was like the rest of it was designed to try to defend that argument.
443. 00:28:08 And I got to the end of it, I don't feel like you defended that argument at all.
444. 00:28:13 You walked around it the whole time, but I don't feel like I'm actually buying your
445. 00:28:20 viewpoint here.
446. 00:28:22 And again, this rule number one is where he kind of sets the stage for that.
447. 00:28:25 This is where I realized that if he needs to set up background for something, that he
448. 00:28:31 will spend multiple pages setting up the background for one sub point.
449. 00:28:38 And sometimes he doesn't always use it.
450. 00:28:39 There was a thing later on about black squirrels in the park and they're not normally there.
451. 00:28:45 It's like, what's that got to do with anything?
452. 00:28:50 And from what I could tell, he never brought that one full around anyway.
453. 00:28:52 So rule number one, stand up straight with your shoulders back.
454. 00:28:56 Generally, this is a very specific thing he's recommending, which is stand up straight,
455. 00:29:01 shoulders back.
456. 00:29:03 And I actually wrote this down as an action item at the time.
457. 00:29:05 I don't know if I'm going to follow through on this.
458. 00:29:07 We can put it through.
459. 00:29:09 But just like I have my watch kind of tap my wrist every 15 minutes because I'm time blind
460. 00:29:15 on so many things.
461. 00:29:16 It's like every time I goes off, I just got to make sure my posture is okay.
462. 00:29:22 And that's it.
463. 00:29:23 That's as far as it goes.
464. 00:29:24 But as I've finished reading the book, I'm not sure I'm going to follow through on that
465. 00:29:27 just because I think there was maybe a flaw somewhere in this that I just didn't catch.
466. 00:29:34 That said, let's go on rule number two because this is going to be way more fun than rule
467. 00:29:38 number one.
468. 00:29:39 Rule number two, treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping at the surface
469. 00:29:46 that that concept.
470. 00:29:48 This is actually one of the things I really like is if you were to read these 12 rules,
471. 00:29:52 just read the table of contents, you can get a lot of value just by reading the list.
472. 00:29:57 I just want to point that out.
473. 00:29:59 There's a lot of good stuff here.
474. 00:30:01 We're already being nitpicky on this one, but there is some value in a lot of this.
475. 00:30:06 But treat yourself like someone you were responsible for helping.
476. 00:30:09 And he starts this off by talking about the difference between chaos and order and the
477. 00:30:15 juxtaposition of those two needing each other, which very quickly takes him into what I was
478. 00:30:24 not prepared for, which then turned into a theme throughout a lot of the rest of the
479. 00:30:30 book, which was like a biblical scriptural deep dive and a theological deep dive.
480. 00:30:37 I was not prepared for that at all.
481. 00:30:42 I knew that Peterson was not against talking about the Bible and would sometimes use biblical
482. 00:30:50 references in his talks.
483. 00:30:52 But I did not know he would go this deep or for so long on this topic.
484. 00:31:00 There's a whole bunch of stuff here.
485. 00:31:02 I know you've been thinking about this one quite a bit, but at the surface of this, he's
486. 00:31:09 essentially going back to the Genesis story of Adam and Eve and the fall of man to use
487. 00:31:18 the Christian terms, right, and using that scenario as the basis for this chaos and order
488. 00:31:26 conversation.
489. 00:31:29 What are your thoughts on this?
490. 00:31:30 I know you have a lot around this particular one.
491. 00:31:33 It was at this point that I know I started very seriously questioning his belief systems,
492. 00:31:38 but what are your thoughts on this one, Mike?
493. 00:31:42 He really wants to be seen as a deep brother.
494. 00:31:47 Keep in mind, one of the things that I just shared that I value is simplicity, right?
495. 00:31:52 So we'll say when I read this and he did the deep dive into certain scriptural passages
496. 00:32:01 from the Bible that kind of helped me understand why certain people that I know have referenced
497. 00:32:11 this book, kind of like they like it so long.
498. 00:32:15 I kind of question whether they actually read it, but I think there is a stigma type of person
499. 00:32:22 who you could say like, "Oh, well, obviously."
500. 00:32:26 They like Jordan B. Peterson, and I think you and I are probably close to falling into
501. 00:32:31 that circle or that avatar.
502. 00:32:35 So I actually did not appreciate it at all.
503. 00:32:40 I thought it was interesting at the beginning.
504. 00:32:42 I'm not surprised in the direction that he went.
505. 00:32:44 I also think they're in lies folly.
506. 00:32:50 When it comes to Christianity, I think there is a danger of trying to make things too complicated.
507. 00:32:56 And I went to Bible college.
508. 00:32:58 I have a Bible college degree.
509. 00:33:00 My whole brand is faith-based productivity.
510. 00:33:03 So on one level, it's cool that he's referencing this.
511. 00:33:07 However, this is the mistake I see a lot of people make is they try to get so deep that
512. 00:33:12 they lose the forest through the trees.
513. 00:33:16 I think he even said at one point in here, or maybe it was a different book, but I thought
514. 00:33:22 he referenced a version of like there are different famous people who through they've
515. 00:33:28 been anti-Christian in their life.
516. 00:33:31 And the big problem they have is that while you Christians don't act like you're Christ,
517. 00:33:36 the actual gospel message is very simple.
518. 00:33:39 And it's all based on loving your neighbor as yourself.
519. 00:33:43 So I don't know.
520. 00:33:45 I mean, let's keep the main thing, the main thing here.
521. 00:33:50 And that's totally not what he's doing.
522. 00:33:51 It's not the way this book is structured.
523. 00:33:55 So I don't know.
524. 00:33:57 I mean, at this point, I was honestly disconnecting from the book itself.
525. 00:34:05 Like Martin said in the chat, this feels like he's showing us how clever he is.
526. 00:34:16 And it's almost like in the second chapter here with the deep dive into the scripture,
527. 00:34:20 where it's like, Oh, yes, see, I know about this area too, which doesn't surprise me from
528. 00:34:25 an academic.
529. 00:34:28 But also I don't think is really a great perspective to have.
530. 00:34:33 That's just me personally based on the stuff that we read, but I'm thinking of like liminal
531. 00:34:38 thinking by Dave Gray specifically, we develop these bubbles of belief.
532. 00:34:43 And I feel like the approach that I see Jordan Pearson taking here is just whatever data
533. 00:34:49 point he finds instead of questioning like, is that true and going outside his bubble?
534. 00:34:54 Oh, let's figure out a connection to that.
535. 00:34:56 So it reinforces the bubble.
536. 00:35:00 Or as is the case on some of these, it's like he wants to bring it up simply to show how
537. 00:35:05 he can deconstruct it and show how it's not true.
538. 00:35:10 And there's like in this particular section, he contradicts himself in a couple ways.
539. 00:35:17 And in primarily, you know, using the biblical references, you know, he makes a comment that
540. 00:35:25 God couldn't keep evil out of the garden, which is why the original sin happened.
541. 00:35:31 So God couldn't keep evil out.
542. 00:35:33 And then he says, why would God ever do such a thing?
543. 00:35:38 But then it wasn't what is this three pages later and the underlying tone there with that,
544. 00:35:45 by the way, is like, you don't need to ask him because I already know.
545. 00:35:50 Yeah.
546. 00:35:51 But then, and that's just one particular case, he's got a number of these worries like asking
547. 00:35:55 these questions like God, why would you ever, why wouldn't he do x, y, z?
548. 00:36:01 But then on page 52, he has a quote, but who would dare to question God?
549. 00:36:05 And I wrote my own note next to that Jordan B. Peterson apparently.
550. 00:36:10 So I think okay.
551. 00:36:13 Let me address that specifically because that like you and I are kind of like, well, how
552. 00:36:18 could you possibly question God?
553. 00:36:22 It takes an awful lot of assurance in your, in yourself to do that.
554. 00:36:30 But that is still the wrong approach, even if you're just talking about other people's
555. 00:36:35 ideas.
556. 00:36:36 So it's take it outside the religious context.
557. 00:36:39 The approach here is still fundamentally broken, I feel.
558. 00:36:42 Sure.
559. 00:36:43 It's like, I know best and you know nothing.
560. 00:36:46 Yeah.
561. 00:36:47 I'm not sure that's how he intends it.
562. 00:36:49 I think that's the right tone.
563. 00:36:51 I think you're absolutely correct.
564. 00:36:53 That's the tone that it comes across as.
565. 00:36:55 I don't think that's the way he intends it though.
566. 00:36:57 Yeah.
567. 00:36:58 I know a lot of people take it as he intended it that way.
568. 00:37:02 Just and I'm the only reason I'm saying that is because I have watched him debate people
569. 00:37:07 over video a number of times and he's generally not always sometimes he's like out to get somebody's
570. 00:37:16 argument and prove them, prove that they're wrong and that he's right.
571. 00:37:19 But generally speaking, it's mostly that he's trying to get himself down to the fundamental
572. 00:37:24 truths and what is actually happening.
573. 00:37:28 And I think that's what he's attempting to do just with flawed logic.
574. 00:37:33 But again, he's using an arena that you and I both know very well.
575. 00:37:38 So he, the way he talks and the way that he presents his arguments, I have this picture
576. 00:37:45 because I have competed in Toastmasters and part of the comp, one of the competitions
577. 00:37:49 they have is this table topics, extemporaneous speech where you go up to the front of the
578. 00:37:54 room, they give you the prompt or the topic and then you have to on right there for three
579. 00:38:00 minutes, talk in response to that.
580. 00:38:04 And one of the strategies that people use is when they give you the topic, you start
581. 00:38:12 talking about something else unrelated at the beginning.
582. 00:38:17 And sometimes if you're good, like you can wrap it back into that theme.
583. 00:38:21 Some people just don't care and they use it as an opportunity to just get on their soapbox
584. 00:38:25 and talk about whatever the heck they want.
585. 00:38:28 But I could totally see Jordan Peterson getting up there and like, okay, could you tell us
586. 00:38:34 why X, you know, and then he's like, well, let me tell you a story about Z.
587. 00:38:40 And then Z led to A and then A led to B, which by the way, as you can see, that ties to
588. 00:38:47 X.
589. 00:38:48 And by the time he's like taking you all these different places, the judges, they're basing
590. 00:38:53 it on your ability to speak, right?
591. 00:38:54 So it's all like how you feel about what was said.
592. 00:38:57 It has nothing to do with the actual content of the writing.
593. 00:38:59 Those are the people who win those competitions.
594. 00:39:02 Sure.
595. 00:39:03 Jordan B. Peterson would be great at Toastmasters.
596. 00:39:05 Well, let's go on to rule number three, make friends with people who want the best for you.
597. 00:39:14 I don't have a whole lot to say on this one.
598. 00:39:16 He starts out with a story about his hometown.
599. 00:39:19 You know, people choose friends for a variety of reasons.
600. 00:39:22 He points out a few of the bad reasons, which is like to rescue them.
601. 00:39:26 You know, you have a friend and they have a bunch of problems and you feel like you can
602. 00:39:29 help them.
603. 00:39:30 So you become friends with them.
604. 00:39:32 Or you don't want to be challenged in your own belief systems or your own day to day choices.
605. 00:39:38 So you go be friends with people who are easy to be around and won't challenge you.
606. 00:39:45 But you know, ultimately bad friends are easier to be around and the good ones will,
607. 00:39:49 you know, hold you to a higher standard.
608. 00:39:51 So pick good friends.
609. 00:39:54 That's it in a nutshell.
610. 00:39:59 But he takes 50 pages to talk about the people from his hometown who couldn't escape and
611. 00:40:05 committed suicide and stuff like that.
612. 00:40:08 He's a good writer like those stories are entertaining as a story about suicide can
613. 00:40:13 be like he does a good job telling it.
614. 00:40:16 But yeah, you're right.
615. 00:40:18 You can encapsulate it in a couple of sentences like you did.
616. 00:40:21 One of the things that did kind of stand out to me from this is he says loyalty must be
617. 00:40:27 negotiated fairly and honestly.
618. 00:40:30 I have been described by my wife as loyal to a fault.
619. 00:40:38 So that that one specifically gave me something to chew on.
620. 00:40:41 No action item associated with that.
621. 00:40:43 But at the very least, nothing else in this book, it encouraged me to not just blindly
622. 00:40:49 be loyal, but ask essentially what is the transaction that is happening here, not that
623. 00:40:56 it's all based on like, well, what can you do for me?
624. 00:40:59 But I also think it's okay to kind of stand up for yourself maybe a little bit.
625. 00:41:03 So rule number four, because we'll need to keep moving here.
626. 00:41:07 Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.
627. 00:41:12 I feel like this is a topic we've talked about.
628. 00:41:14 A fair amount on bookworm.
629. 00:41:17 If you start comparing yourself to someone else, you're always going to find somebody
630. 00:41:20 who's better.
631. 00:41:21 And that's really what he's saying here.
632. 00:41:23 He talks about being born in a small town.
633. 00:41:25 I was born in a small town.
634. 00:41:27 That was pre days when everybody had social media.
635. 00:41:31 So it was a thing that people still knew everything you were up to.
636. 00:41:37 That's been something that's been in my life from the day I can remember.
637. 00:41:41 I know that a lot of people, that's not the case.
638. 00:41:43 But in small town America, that's the way it is, even more so now with the social media
639. 00:41:48 internet world.
640. 00:41:50 But ultimately it's big fish, small pond at the beginning, big fish in the ocean.
641. 00:41:57 Not so big, that scenario.
642. 00:41:59 But if you compare yourself to who you were yesterday, ultimately what you're doing is
643. 00:42:06 you're focusing on your own actions and not letting somebody else's actions get in the
644. 00:42:12 way of what you're after.
645. 00:42:14 Again, that's really the distillation of what he's getting at with this one.
646. 00:42:20 Pay attention to yourself, not so much everybody else.
647. 00:42:25 Which I agree with.
648. 00:42:26 I mean, if you just take the rule itself, I feel like this one really resonates.
649. 00:42:31 But again, the style, it's like, do you really have to drag me through 50 pages of this?
650. 00:42:37 I guess the thing that I can't quite wrap my head around, and maybe it's just because
651. 00:42:41 I'm not an academic.
652. 00:42:43 But the topic here, compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not who someone else is
653. 00:42:52 today.
654. 00:42:53 That is essentially the whole idea of the gap versus the gain by Dan Sullivan.
655. 00:42:58 Have we talked about that on Bookworm?
656. 00:42:59 I feel like we have.
657. 00:43:01 Maybe a cursory level.
658. 00:43:03 Okay.
659. 00:43:04 Well, I'll just review it real briefly as a whole book about it.
660. 00:43:08 But imagine three dots on a straight line going top to bottom.
661. 00:43:15 The middle dot is where you are.
662. 00:43:19 You can compare yourself to somebody else who's more successful.
663. 00:43:22 Or another version of that is where you want to be.
664. 00:43:26 This is why I hate goals.
665. 00:43:28 Because you have this picture of your ideal future at the top.
666. 00:43:30 You look at where you are right now, and you get discouraged.
667. 00:43:32 There's a gap there.
668. 00:43:34 You feel like, especially once you set a goal and you get there and the goal posts move
669. 00:43:38 on you, and now you have another goal that you have to achieve, you feel like you're
670. 00:43:43 not making enough progress fast enough.
671. 00:43:46 It's never good enough.
672. 00:43:47 But if instead you look at where you are now, and you base it off of habits, right, so you
673. 00:43:52 can see your progress, and you compare that to where you started, that's the gain.
674. 00:43:56 You can see how much you've grown.
675. 00:43:57 And then they're like, "Oh, hey, actually, this is working."
676. 00:43:59 And then you just continue to do it.
677. 00:44:02 And then you have motivation to keep going there.
678. 00:44:05 So that's essentially what he's saying here.
679. 00:44:07 But Dan Sullivan talks about that.
680. 00:44:09 And yeah, he's extrapolated it to a higher book at this point.
681. 00:44:12 But for years he talks about this.
682. 00:44:13 This was like three pages.
683. 00:44:14 It was a simple concept that he brought up in the midst of a whole bunch of other things.
684. 00:44:20 And it's so direct, and it's so clear.
685. 00:44:23 And by the time you get done reading this chapter, your eyes are glossed over, and you're
686. 00:44:26 like, "I don't even know what I just heard, man, but it was good."
687. 00:44:30 But me, I'm asking myself at the end, like, "Who cares?
688. 00:44:37 What am I going to do about this?
689. 00:44:38 What impact has this hat on me?"
690. 00:44:40 And this one specifically, because he ends it with that same phrase, I'm like, "Dan Sullivan
691. 00:44:46 did this way better."
692. 00:44:48 Well, I know that in today's world, it's easy to see how other people are doing things
693. 00:44:56 and how well they're doing with them.
694. 00:44:59 And it's easy to get into the comparison game with that.
695. 00:45:04 And to do the comparison thing at a very, very basic level can cause problems, it's okay
696. 00:45:13 to notice how well something else is done.
697. 00:45:16 Like there's a fine line between viewing what other people are doing and using that
698. 00:45:20 as inspiration to do better yourself, and watching something somebody else is done or
699. 00:45:26 is in the middle of doing and then saying, "Why can't I be like that?"
700. 00:45:31 Those are two different realms.
701. 00:45:33 And if we focus more on how am I doing as compared to how the rest of my stuff is doing,
702. 00:45:39 am I on the mission to do my thing, or am I just trying to beat this other person, the
703. 00:45:47 whole competition thing like that?
704. 00:45:50 That can get to be a problem.
705. 00:45:51 So if you focus on your own thing and use the other as inspiration instead of comparison,
706. 00:45:59 I feel like that's the benefit in it.
707. 00:46:01 I think he would probably agree with this on that, though it would take a very long process
708. 00:46:07 of him talking about inattentional blindness, religion, a slipped in attack on atheism.
709. 00:46:14 I was not prepared for that one either, to get to the point where he says, "Pay attention
710. 00:46:19 to yourself."
711. 00:46:20 What was this?
712. 00:46:21 38 page endeavor to get to that point.
713. 00:46:26 Yeah, he likes his meandering journeys.
714. 00:46:30 He sure does.
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736. 00:47:56 Now you won't find the software anywhere else.
737. 00:48:00 You have to use MyLink HDADSPAC.com/bookworm to unlock all of Headspace free for 30 days.
738. 00:48:08 This is not something they normally do, Headspace.com/bookworm.
739. 00:48:13 All right, rule number five.
740. 00:48:16 And I think you briefly mentioned this one when we were together last week.
741. 00:48:20 Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.
742. 00:48:23 Okay, now let's move on.
743. 00:48:25 Like that's great.
744. 00:48:30 This one is, I don't have a lot written down from this, but there is a quote that I wrote,
745. 00:48:38 which is, it's an act of responsibility to discipline a child.
746. 00:48:46 And I think that's very valuable.
747. 00:48:49 This is one of the sections where like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
748. 00:48:54 It was also one of the longer ones as well.
749. 00:48:57 Though I have to admit, it was hard at times to not skim some of this.
750. 00:49:03 Yeah, it's great stories.
751. 00:49:04 It's great things, but I want to move on.
752. 00:49:06 Wait, don't let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.
753. 00:49:09 Like on the surface, that sounds awesome.
754. 00:49:12 I haven't really found anything that I, in this particular one that I felt like was wrong.
755. 00:49:19 But it's a good charge to take responsibility for discipline, for disciplining your child.
756. 00:49:28 Yeah.
757. 00:49:30 This one feels like parenting advice, but also like at this point in the book, I'm looking
758. 00:49:41 at it with a side eye.
759. 00:49:44 So some of this stuff I feel in here is probably decent advice that he doesn't speak to directly.
760. 00:49:53 So it doesn't really have sort of impact that it could have.
761. 00:49:56 I mean, I jotted down a few things from here.
762. 00:50:00 Not like, oh, I'm going to change this.
763. 00:50:01 This is an action item sort of a thing.
764. 00:50:03 But I feel like there's a few nuggets of wisdom in here about not trying to be your
765. 00:50:09 kid's friend and how kids can be damaged by a lack of attention as much as by mental or
766. 00:50:14 physical abuse.
767. 00:50:15 It's kind of shocking to hear that.
768. 00:50:18 But I think I can see that.
769. 00:50:20 Can't avoid being the bad guy, you know, kind of stuff like that.
770. 00:50:24 But I don't know, I didn't come to this book for parenting advice.
771. 00:50:30 And I am skeptical of any parent who thinks that they can condense everything about parenting
772. 00:50:38 into even 12 rules.
773. 00:50:40 Like if this whole book was written as here's everything you know about parenting, I still
774. 00:50:44 don't think I would trust it.
775. 00:50:47 Parenting is one of the most difficult things in the world to do.
776. 00:50:52 Simply because each kid is completely different.
777. 00:50:56 So the whole rules format doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.
778. 00:51:00 My personal opinion, you have to get the plan for each kid.
779. 00:51:05 You got to figure out who they are.
780. 00:51:08 And I personally believe that given to you for a reason.
781. 00:51:12 So you have what it takes to raise them right.
782. 00:51:15 But you can't just follow a formula.
783. 00:51:19 And the more that I see the, I guess, kind of longer I've been a parent, the more I've
784. 00:51:25 seen people who have taken that approach.
785. 00:51:28 I know one person specifically who is kind of a famous football player at one point.
786. 00:51:34 I'm not going to share their name, but they had a bunch of kids and was very rigid.
787. 00:51:40 And on the surface, you know, it looks like they've got a great family.
788. 00:51:43 The kids are real well behaved.
789. 00:51:45 And then he ends up going crazy and the family falls apart.
790. 00:51:49 And then you kind of see, like, if you watch long enough, you know, that it wasn't exactly
791. 00:51:54 what it seemed.
792. 00:51:55 I don't want to pretend like I've got it all together.
793. 00:51:58 I hope I've got a strong foundation and I'm going to do whatever I can to build it.
794. 00:52:04 But it's not going to be condensed into a rule or rules.
795. 00:52:10 Sure.
796. 00:52:11 Well, let's keep moving here because I don't want to get into the parenting advice realm
797. 00:52:17 at the moment.
798. 00:52:18 Rule number six, set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.
799. 00:52:26 The emphasis on that is mine on perfect.
800. 00:52:29 The reason I put the emphasis there is because he talks about how things fall apart, things
801. 00:52:37 break, things don't always stay in perfect order.
802. 00:52:43 And before you start trying to worry about someone else's world, you need to make sure
803. 00:52:49 you are right in that same realm or to use his word.
804. 00:52:54 It needs to be in perfect order before you start worrying about somebody else's territory.
805. 00:53:00 Now, it's interesting to me, you know, one of his rules later is going to be about being
806. 00:53:06 precise in your words and your speech.
807. 00:53:09 But it's interesting to me that if that's the case, he's being very precise with this
808. 00:53:12 choice of words, knowing how he operates.
809. 00:53:16 He's usually quite precise with what he's saying, which meant that me coming into this,
810. 00:53:23 that's probably a little bit of the weird bias that I had coming into this.
811. 00:53:27 Like I'm taking every word as if he means it and didn't have some unintended bias behind
812. 00:53:33 it.
813. 00:53:34 So he's saying put it in perfect order before you criticize the world.
814. 00:53:38 Now here's the catch.
815. 00:53:40 When is it ever in perfect order?
816. 00:53:44 Whether that's relationally cleanliness, you name it, you know, perfect politically, that
817. 00:53:50 doesn't exist.
818. 00:53:52 So if that's the case, when is the point at which you would criticize the world?
819. 00:54:01 Never.
820. 00:54:03 So it based on that terminology and the debate that he took us through in this, it led me
821. 00:54:09 to believe that there is never a point at which you would be willing to criticize the
822. 00:54:14 world because your stuff would never be put together perfectly.
823. 00:54:19 So why is he criticizing so many things in the world?
824. 00:54:25 Is that the point?
825. 00:54:26 I mean, is that maybe I haven't watched, I haven't watched any of his other videos or
826. 00:54:30 followed anything else that he does online.
827. 00:54:32 So I can't compare, but you know, if you're looking at this book, I mean, that would be
828. 00:54:36 a fairly effective point to make is like, hey, don't worry about what other people are
829. 00:54:41 doing.
830. 00:54:42 Just worry about yourself.
831. 00:54:43 I'm eating.
832. 00:54:44 Yep.
833. 00:54:45 And Jesus said that.
834. 00:54:47 Yeah.
835. 00:54:48 Worry about the log in your own eye before you dig out the spec in your brother's eye.
836. 00:54:52 Correct.
837. 00:54:53 That's kind of what the title implies here.
838. 00:54:56 The things I jotted down from this chapter, there were only a couple of points.
839. 00:54:59 Right.
840. 00:55:00 They are all relate to not finding somebody else to blame and cleaning up your own life,
841. 00:55:06 not doing what you know is wrong, all that kind of, that kind of stuff.
842. 00:55:10 Self determination, personal responsibility, those sorts of things, which at this, I don't
843. 00:55:18 know, like we're repeating the same model, obviously every single chapter.
844. 00:55:24 We're not speaking real strongly directly to any one of these things, but let's just
845. 00:55:27 say he did, right?
846. 00:55:29 Self, self determination, you are in charge of your own future.
847. 00:55:32 We talk about that a lot on this podcast, but let's say that's what Rule 6 is all about.
848. 00:55:41 Is this transformational for people?
849. 00:55:46 Like five million copies sold.
850. 00:55:50 So it says on the cover of mine anyways.
851. 00:55:51 Right.
852. 00:55:52 Yeah.
853. 00:55:53 Mine too.
854. 00:55:54 So I'm kind of blown away that people are encountering this idea and thinking that this
855. 00:56:02 is brand new, maybe the way he describes it using all the fancy words is new, but five
856. 00:56:11 million copies of what exactly?
857. 00:56:15 I mean, at this point, feels like a bunch of fluff.
858. 00:56:20 I don't know.
859. 00:56:21 I mean, Martin made a point in the chat.
860. 00:56:23 This might be one of the few books where the Blinkist version would be better.
861. 00:56:26 I pity the person who has to try to make the Blinkist version of this.
862. 00:56:32 You consolidate some of the things that he's trying to say here.
863. 00:56:37 If you did that, I feel like he gets surface level.
864. 00:56:41 It feels like a thousand word blog post that was turned into, I don't know, 90,000 words
865. 00:56:50 in a book, but sort of chat GPT style where it's added a whole bunch of volume, but there's
866. 00:57:00 not a whole lot of signal here.
867. 00:57:04 There's not a whole lot of boosting of these ideas.
868. 00:57:08 And again, maybe it's just because I'm not the right person for this.
869. 00:57:11 It doesn't really click with me, but silent says that the Blinkist version is one minute
870. 00:57:15 long.
871. 00:57:16 It's just the 12 rules.
872. 00:57:19 That's it.
873. 00:57:20 Also, I suppose if you took your time and just said them with conviction, you could get it
874. 00:57:28 to be a minute long.
875. 00:57:29 I do know, and he mentions this in the overture at the beginning, that this started out as
876. 00:57:37 a list of things to live by on Quora.
877. 00:57:43 He was answering a question on Quora, and then he had a publisher reach out to him and
878. 00:57:49 want to make it into a book, and then it slowly got whittled down to these 12 rules.
879. 00:57:54 So it did start out as a blog post of sorts that then got expanded into 300 plus pages.
880. 00:58:03 So you're not wrong in that.
881. 00:58:07 I just think I should probably look up the Quora answer and read that and be done.
882. 00:58:11 Okay, let's go on to rule number seven, which is pursue what is meaningful, not what is
883. 00:58:19 expedient.
884. 00:58:21 And the premise here goes that we tend to believe the concept life is short, so live
885. 00:58:27 it up.
886. 00:58:30 That's like the short-sighted view of life.
887. 00:58:34 Whereas if you want to have a meaningful life, it always requires sacrifice of some kind.
888. 00:58:43 So then the rest of the chapter is basically showing us the reasons behind sacrifice and
889. 00:58:50 why sacrifice is important.
890. 00:58:52 He gets into another biblical stance here, basically saying that God is dead.
891. 00:58:59 He has a whole, I forget how many pages it was, like an eight or nine page thing trying
892. 00:59:04 to prove that God is dead in here.
893. 00:59:08 And I was usually pretty good at following his arguments, but that one I couldn't follow.
894. 00:59:15 Maybe you figured it out, but I couldn't even follow that.
895. 00:59:18 So in my notes, I just wrote that I couldn't figure out his argument.
896. 00:59:22 He's just rambling.
897. 00:59:23 So I don't know.
898. 00:59:25 Anyway, that one.
899. 00:59:26 One of the things I jotted down is that he says when atheists argue against Christian
900. 00:59:32 creationism, they are doing so using truths established over centuries of Christian culture.
901. 00:59:38 So I kind of had the opposite conclusion.
902. 00:59:40 He was saying that atheists believe in something.
903. 00:59:43 They just don't really even realize what they believe in necessarily.
904. 00:59:46 Sure.
905. 00:59:47 I must have missed that.
906. 00:59:48 But I don't know.
907. 00:59:50 I mean, at this point, it's easy to lose the plot.
908. 00:59:55 Yeah.
909. 00:59:56 This is also where that stories to get to one point.
910. 00:59:58 Yeah.
911. 00:59:59 This is also where that quote that I mentioned came in.
912. 01:00:02 I found it in my notes.
913. 01:00:04 Christians have never practiced the actions Jesus prescribed them.
914. 01:00:07 That was, I don't know how to pronounce his philosopher's name, Nietzsche.
915. 01:00:11 Oh, yeah, Nietzsche.
916. 01:00:14 Yeah.
917. 01:00:15 So I like the general idea, you know, you should, and Dave Ramsey says it a different way, you
918. 01:00:24 know, pay now, play later or play now, pay later.
919. 01:00:28 That's essentially what he's saying.
920. 01:00:29 Work is a delay of gratification.
921. 01:00:31 You sacrifice now to gain later, but don't need all the meandering to land on that, in
922. 01:00:40 my opinion.
923. 01:00:42 Yes.
924. 01:00:43 So let's go on to rule number eight.
925. 01:00:46 Tell the truth or at least don't lie.
926. 01:00:49 There you go.
927. 01:00:52 Tell the truth.
928. 01:00:55 I literally wrote down one thing.
929. 01:00:57 The truth may sometimes be hard, but it's always strengthening.
930. 01:01:04 Like that was the one point I got from this.
931. 01:01:05 So I don't really have anything more on that one because it's pretty self explanatory.
932. 01:01:09 Don't tell lies.
933. 01:01:11 I hate this chapter.
934. 01:01:13 Really?
935. 01:01:14 Okay.
936. 01:01:15 I mean, just like that whole title kind of encapsulates, I feel like the whole academic
937. 01:01:23 mindset around what is truth, right?
938. 01:01:27 Yeah.
939. 01:01:28 So tell the truth.
940. 01:01:30 I feel like that is a good rule to live by.
941. 01:01:34 Very black and white.
942. 01:01:35 And then he adds the, or at least don't lie.
943. 01:01:37 So don't say something you know is not true, right?
944. 01:01:42 Which opens up everything else to interpretation.
945. 01:01:46 And I don't know.
946. 01:01:47 On one level, I get that, but I also don't like the whole door that opens up.
947. 01:01:55 Yeah.
948. 01:01:56 There's not a whole lot of notes I have in the next chapter, either black to your comment.
949. 01:02:02 Yep.
950. 01:02:03 There, I don't know.
951. 01:02:05 There's some interesting stuff in here, I guess, where he talks about the two different
952. 01:02:07 types of sin.
953. 01:02:09 And this doesn't have to be religious context.
954. 01:02:10 But basically, if you're talking about right and wrong, there is wrong or sin of co-mission
955. 01:02:16 where you actually do something that you know is wrong.
956. 01:02:18 Or also there is the sin of omission where you let something bad happen when you could
957. 01:02:23 do something to stop it.
958. 01:02:25 And I feel like there was a, maybe it was a Gladwell book link we talked about about
959. 01:02:31 that a little bit about how people will tend to just kind of like not want to get involved.
960. 01:02:37 And I feel like that's the wrong approach here.
961. 01:02:42 But also just like the underlying tone with all of this feels shaky.
962. 01:02:50 Yeah.
963. 01:02:51 I feel like if that was exactly what you said, that would be a lot stronger, a lot more clear
964. 01:02:59 and have a lot more impact.
965. 01:03:01 Like don't just sit on the sideline when something bad is happening.
966. 01:03:04 Do something to stop it.
967. 01:03:05 So just tell the truth.
968. 01:03:07 Yeah.
969. 01:03:08 Do what's right, not what's easy.
970. 01:03:10 You know, that's something my pastor says all the time.
971. 01:03:12 I mentioned that in my manifesto sort of a thing.
972. 01:03:14 Like that sounds better to me than tell the truth or at least don't lie.
973. 01:03:19 Yeah.
974. 01:03:20 All right.
975. 01:03:21 Let's go to rule number nine where I have one word written as a note.
976. 01:03:29 Rule number nine is assume that the person you are listening to might know something you
977. 01:03:34 don't.
978. 01:03:36 And the word that I wrote down as a note for this entire chapter was listen.
979. 01:03:41 I feel like that's what you need to know.
980. 01:03:43 Listen, when you're in conversation, listen, because the other person may have things that
981. 01:03:50 they need to say and by me speaking, to use his terminology, he may inflict his own ideology
982. 01:03:57 on the other person.
983. 01:03:58 Now, Greg, he was speaking about that from a clinical psychologist viewpoint to a patient.
984. 01:04:06 So he's not always trying to put his own thoughts and ideas into the person's mind.
985. 01:04:14 Having seen how he operates, that is absolutely what he tries to do is put his ideologies
986. 01:04:20 into your brain.
987. 01:04:21 So he's on the opposite end of the spectrum whenever I've seen him in that scenario.
988. 01:04:27 But this one is basically just listen.
989. 01:04:30 Well, I mean, I can't, I can't, because I haven't looked at anything else.
990. 01:04:35 That's probably a benefit when it comes to some of these books is like, I can't judge
991. 01:04:39 that like authenticity of the author.
992. 01:04:42 And I agree with the things he's saying in this chapter, some of the things that he's
993. 01:04:48 saying, you know, that it's amazing what people will tell you if you listen.
994. 01:04:51 You can be pretty smart if you just shut up.
995. 01:04:54 Yeah.
996. 01:04:55 Yes.
997. 01:04:56 So I look at arguments from others perspective.
998. 01:05:00 That's good advice.
999. 01:05:03 But again, like liminal thinking speaks to this a whole lot better.
1000. 01:05:09 I feel.
1001. 01:05:11 And I probably do this every single episode where there is a chapter in a book where
1002. 01:05:15 I'm like, there's a whole book that speaks to this better.
1003. 01:05:18 So I recognize that's kind of my bias here.
1004. 01:05:23 But it's also like, I kind of can't get over the fact that there's 370 pages here and he
1005. 01:05:33 really doesn't say anything real strongly.
1006. 01:05:36 Yes.
1007. 01:05:38 So yeah, is what it is.
1008. 01:05:41 Which I think that's a perfect place to start talking about rule number 10.
1009. 01:05:46 Be precise in your speech that you made a comment that it might be better having not
1010. 01:05:54 seen his work online because then you maybe don't have our tainted view of that.
1011. 01:06:03 And I kind of struggled with that, you know, having seen so much of his stuff and like,
1012. 01:06:07 as I'm reading it, I can hear his voice reading it.
1013. 01:06:12 And there's there's definitely like some bias and stuff that comes in because like some
1014. 01:06:16 of the things I know he said, I'm like, yes, that's your spot on with that.
1015. 01:06:20 The way you're coming about this is probably not all that great.
1016. 01:06:23 But this be precise in your speech.
1017. 01:06:25 That's actually a word that he likes to use in his debates precise.
1018. 01:06:30 It's like whenever somebody brings something up, you know, one of them that I've seen him
1019. 01:06:37 do quite a bit is the equality and pay process between men and women.
1020. 01:06:44 He likes to debate that one quite a bit.
1021. 01:06:47 And whenever it comes up, he's always wanting to know, well, be precise about the arenas
1022. 01:06:52 you're talking about.
1023. 01:06:53 He's like, everybody wants to talk about sea level positions.
1024. 01:06:56 But what about the garbage collectors who are 99% male?
1025. 01:07:00 Like those are the things that he'll bring up.
1026. 01:07:02 But he always wants people to be precise.
1027. 01:07:04 He likes to use that word, which is fascinating given how imprecise he's been on so many topics
1028. 01:07:12 so far because he's like dancing around things instead of pinpointing it.
1029. 01:07:16 He wants people to pinpoint it, but then he doesn't himself.
1030. 01:07:20 That's the type of thing that gets to be kind of frustrating for me.
1031. 01:07:25 That part aside, like take Jordan Peterson out of that equation, be precise in your speech,
1032. 01:07:31 that concept, I think can be very helpful.
1033. 01:07:35 If you were to do that and one of the things I wrote down just wrote again one thing at
1034. 01:07:39 the end of this, it's like ultimately what I was coming to in reading this was like,
1035. 01:07:45 there's so much that has to do with chaos in the world, like disorder.
1036. 01:07:49 Being precise helps you define the problem very clearly, which then makes the answer
1037. 01:07:54 easier to come to.
1038. 01:07:56 So that precision in defining it, the precision in the words you use to define that problem,
1039. 01:08:01 that's the important part in that process.
1040. 01:08:03 So that part of this, I could definitely get on board with.
1041. 01:08:07 Well, let me defend him a little bit because I think it kind of depends on how you define
1042. 01:08:12 precise.
1043. 01:08:14 I think he actually is pretty precise in his words and in his communication because you
1044. 01:08:21 have to be to jump from this thing to that thing to that thing to that thing to that
1045. 01:08:26 thing and then back to the beginning again.
1046. 01:08:28 If you're not precise in your words, that is just going to leave you feeling motion
1047. 01:08:33 sick in addition to the feeling I have where like you didn't really tell me anything, bro.
1048. 01:08:38 Right.
1049. 01:08:39 So I feel like he is precise, but he's trying to connect all these different domains going
1050. 01:08:47 all the way back like 12 rules for life.
1051. 01:08:50 And he starts with a story about the lobsters.
1052. 01:08:53 Why?
1053. 01:08:55 At some point you kind of can't figure out why he's selecting any single one of these
1054. 01:09:00 stories and weaving them together, which kind of comes back.
1055. 01:09:05 I was sort of saving this for like the style and rating, but who is this book for 12
1056. 01:09:11 rules for life?
1057. 01:09:13 Are people just like getting to a certain point in their life and I've never read a
1058. 01:09:16 book?
1059. 01:09:17 I wonder which one I should pick up.
1060. 01:09:18 Oh, this one will tell me everything I need to know about life.
1061. 01:09:22 That's the only person I can think of with like this sort of thing is like, Hey man, this
1062. 01:09:26 is really great.
1063. 01:09:28 If you've read anything else, this is like why 370 pages of why?
1064. 01:09:37 Yup.
1065. 01:09:38 Those are hours of my life.
1066. 01:09:40 I won't get back.
1067. 01:09:42 All right, let's go to rule number 11.
1068. 01:09:48 Do not bother children when they are skateboarding.
1069. 01:09:52 This one was just kind of odd for me.
1070. 01:09:55 I think I understand his process here.
1071. 01:10:01 Let me attempt to explain this and then you can point out where I'm wrong because I feel
1072. 01:10:05 like you're better at grasping this type of stuff.
1073. 01:10:08 He talks about skateboarding and based on what I'm reading here, skateboarding can be
1074. 01:10:15 dangerous and that danger has lessons that come with it.
1075. 01:10:21 You learn how to deal with hardships and trying to overcome difficulties and pulling
1076. 01:10:27 off tricks or skating down a half pipe and such.
1077. 01:10:31 You learn how to be tougher in doing that.
1078. 01:10:37 If you don't do that or if you prevent kids from being able to learn those lessons, they
1079. 01:10:46 end up becoming a weak adult or a weaker person later on in life and then they can
1080. 01:10:54 end up having very flawed views of the world and be a detriment to society.
1081. 01:11:01 I think that's the logic here.
1082. 01:11:04 Now, where am I wrong on that?
1083. 01:11:06 It just felt like a weird debate to me.
1084. 01:11:11 I can tell you it's jarring to me all the different places he tries to take you in each
1085. 01:11:18 one of these chapters.
1086. 01:11:19 I feel like at the beginning of this he's actually making it a pretty solid point which
1087. 01:11:23 is that we generally are risk adverse.
1088. 01:11:28 We want to be safe, especially if you're a parent.
1089. 01:11:31 You want your kids to be safe.
1090. 01:11:33 However, to really protect your kids and keep them safe, you need to expose them to
1091. 01:11:41 a certain amount of risk so that they develop competence because with skateboarding specifically,
1092. 01:11:47 competence is what makes that dangerous activity safe.
1093. 01:11:51 If you don't have the competence and you try to even step on a skateboard, you're going
1094. 01:11:55 to fall on your butt and break your neck.
1095. 01:11:58 If you know what you're doing, then trying to go down, grind down the hand railing isn't
1096. 01:12:02 really all that dangerous because you know what you're doing.
1097. 01:12:06 How do you know what you're doing?
1098. 01:12:07 How do you expose yourself to different levels of risk and you develop the skill to be able
1099. 01:12:11 to do that?
1100. 01:12:13 Then he gets into hierarchies and then he talks about how the hierarchies aren't all
1101. 01:12:18 men's fault.
1102. 01:12:21 This is stuff that he says explicitly and just like the way that he says that I'm like,
1103. 01:12:26 "Dude, why?"
1104. 01:12:29 I don't know.
1105. 01:12:30 It's like there is a certain type of person who can't articulate their own arguments and
1106. 01:12:37 would totally latch on to specific statements from this chapter and be like, "See?
1107. 01:12:43 See?
1108. 01:12:44 I knew it."
1109. 01:12:45 Just go read Jordan B. Peterson's book because I'm too lazy to articulate this myself and
1110. 01:12:49 decide what I actually think.
1111. 01:12:53 But that's not me.
1112. 01:12:56 This did nothing for me.
1113. 01:13:00 It's a thing.
1114. 01:13:01 I've never been one who's overly protective of my kids.
1115. 01:13:04 I regularly let them make what I would consider bad choices in safe ways.
1116. 01:13:13 You want to climb that tree?
1117. 01:13:14 Sure, go for it.
1118. 01:13:16 That particular tree has all bunch of dead branches and I know it's very likely you're
1119. 01:13:19 going to fall, but those branches are only four feet off the ground.
1120. 01:13:26 You're going to fall, but you might break an arm, break something like that.
1121. 01:13:30 You're not going to die from that.
1122. 01:13:33 I'll let them take that risk so that they become better at stability, balance, etc.,
1123. 01:13:43 so then they are safe whenever I'm not there.
1124. 01:13:46 They don't need me there all the time to not die.
1125. 01:13:52 I'm comfortable with my kids in pretty risky situations because I know that they can
1126. 01:13:56 handle themselves in those situations, but it's because they've been allowed to be tested
1127. 01:14:01 at small scales.
1128. 01:14:02 I get that.
1129. 01:14:04 I don't know that particular concept was one that I got from this, so I'm grateful you
1130. 01:14:09 brought it up.
1131. 01:14:11 Well, I'm not sure even that's the main point that he's making to be honest.
1132. 01:14:17 He spends quite a bit of time attacking these hierarchies and mentions that hierarchies
1133. 01:14:25 can exist for a lot of different reasons.
1134. 01:14:29 Science can be biased by the interests of power, so he gets you to question everything
1135. 01:14:34 that you believe here.
1136. 01:14:36 He does make one solid point in this chapter, I feel, which is worth calling out that a
1137. 01:14:41 lot of the resentment around different groups of people, which he talks about resentment,
1138. 01:14:50 there's two options for that being taken advantage of or refusal to accept responsibility and
1139. 01:14:54 grow up.
1140. 01:14:55 So, he's very direct in his confrontation of this mindset, but group identity can be
1141. 01:15:01 fractioned down to the individual.
1142. 01:15:04 And I think I like that statement because we all have these groups that we identify with,
1143. 01:15:13 but really people are way more complex than a group identity.
1144. 01:15:18 If you keep digging deeper, the pool of shared characteristics keeps getting smaller and smaller
1145. 01:15:24 until you are the only person left, and then that ties into the whole idea of the self-determination
1146. 01:15:30 and taking responsibility for your future.
1147. 01:15:34 It doesn't matter if, and I'm not saying bad stuff happens to people, that it's your fault.
1148. 01:15:40 Maybe it's not your fault.
1149. 01:15:41 Maybe you were completely wronged by someone, some way, somehow.
1150. 01:15:46 But as long as you stay in that place where there's nothing I can do about this because
1151. 01:15:50 this person put me or these people put me in this situation, then your power lists to
1152. 01:15:55 get out of that.
1153. 01:15:56 The minute that you're like, "Well, it may not be my fault, but I'm going to be the
1154. 01:15:59 answer.
1155. 01:16:00 I'm going to find the solution because I have the ability and the power within me to do
1156. 01:16:05 that."
1157. 01:16:06 That's when your future starts to change.
1158. 01:16:09 So I think that's a really powerful idea.
1159. 01:16:10 Then again, he's not really speaking to.
1160. 01:16:11 I'm connecting two ideas from two totally different chapters.
1161. 01:16:14 In a very different way than he does and with 60 less steps in between.
1162. 01:16:19 Yes.
1163. 01:16:21 Not so much a meandering journey, which is what we get in Rule 12.
1164. 01:16:25 It's a fun little segue.
1165. 01:16:29 Rule number 12, "Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street."
1166. 01:16:33 This one starts exactly the way you would expect by talking about dogs for the next
1167. 01:16:39 five and a half pages because I wrote it down that he specifically talked about a dog for
1168. 01:16:45 five and a half pages at the beginning of a chapter talking about cats in order to show
1169. 01:16:51 that he's not just going to talk about cats and that he also likes dogs.
1170. 01:16:56 Yes.
1171. 01:16:57 It's really weird.
1172. 01:16:59 You're right though.
1173. 01:17:00 He tells a story about his family dog.
1174. 01:17:05 Then basically four pages later, he says, "I did this just so that people couldn't say
1175. 01:17:10 I was biased."
1176. 01:17:13 He calls out the reader for that.
1177. 01:17:15 It's like, "Why?"
1178. 01:17:16 Yes.
1179. 01:17:17 Now we're in argument and you're trying to defend yourself against me when a book is
1180. 01:17:22 supposed to be written for those who are on your side.
1181. 01:17:25 What?
1182. 01:17:26 I'm a dog person anyways.
1183. 01:17:29 I'm probably the person that group who he's writing that for but I didn't care.
1184. 01:17:37 I feel like the people who are going to pick up a book in order to actually get something
1185. 01:17:41 out of it aren't going to care.
1186. 01:17:43 The bookworm listeners are not going to care because they've developed the skill to pick
1187. 01:17:47 through the crap and find the gold nuggets that they can apply to their own life.
1188. 01:17:52 He's just assuming that you're stupid and you can't do it.
1189. 01:17:55 Here's my summarization of the actual point of the chapter which is that, and this is
1190. 01:18:02 me being a dog person who also has cat's, outdoor cats.
1191. 01:18:08 Take that however you like.
1192. 01:18:11 Basically, if you're on a street, you're walking on the sidewalk and a cat comes up to you,
1193. 01:18:17 that's a pretty rare occurrence.
1194. 01:18:19 Cats wouldn't normally do that.
1195. 01:18:21 Take advantage of the opportunity and pet the cat when it's there.
1196. 01:18:27 Take advantage of good things when they come.
1197. 01:18:30 That's the way I took this chapter.
1198. 01:18:34 That could very well be the point you was trying to make but that's not at all what I
1199. 01:18:38 I'm not only jotting on a couple things from here but had nothing to do with that.
1200. 01:18:41 I really have no idea.
1201. 01:18:42 Yeah, how'd you take it?
1202. 01:18:44 This is the problem with this style of book, right?
1203. 01:18:47 I really have no idea what, yeah, I'm not sure.
1204. 01:18:53 But the three things I jotted down is that being requires limitations.
1205. 01:18:56 When you love someone, it's not despite their limitations, it's because of them.
1206. 01:19:00 He also mentioned that the parts of your brain that generate anxiety are more interested
1207. 01:19:04 that there is a plan than in the details of the plan.
1208. 01:19:07 I don't understand really having finished the book, how those wrap back into rule number
1209. 01:19:12 12 anymore.
1210. 01:19:14 But those were my couple takeaways.
1211. 01:19:19 The moral of the story is we're not real sure what rule 12 is about.
1212. 01:19:26 I'm joking.
1213. 01:19:29 It was a weird spot for this end.
1214. 01:19:30 He does have a postlude of sorts but I wrote nothing down because nothing about it struck
1215. 01:19:37 me.
1216. 01:19:38 Unless there's something there you want to throw in.
1217. 01:19:42 I jotted on two things from the coda, which actually that's where I think he tells the
1218. 01:19:47 pretty emotional story about his daughter and all the health trouble that she's had,
1219. 01:19:53 which makes him feel much more human, much more relatable.
1220. 01:19:58 At that point, I'm starting to not quite get so angry at him and start to feel sorry for
1221. 01:20:01 him.
1222. 01:20:02 So, coda does what it intends to do probably in terms of generating empathy and sympathy
1223. 01:20:09 for the author.
1224. 01:20:11 But the two things I jotted down, which really have nothing to do with the story, consider
1225. 01:20:17 how you may be wrong even if you won't like the answer and continue asking questions.
1226. 01:20:21 I think those are two great principles and I don't think that was the prevalent theme
1227. 01:20:30 throughout the book.
1228. 01:20:33 It's kind of weird how it ended that way.
1229. 01:20:38 And again, I feel like this is probably just the message getting lost, not in translation
1230. 01:20:46 but just in the volume.
1231. 01:20:47 Like it gets watered down as he makes all these different connections and pieces together
1232. 01:20:53 all this intricate stuff.
1233. 01:20:55 Like the actual story he's trying to tell and the points that he's trying to make.
1234. 01:21:00 He's too smart for his own good.
1235. 01:21:02 At least in terms, I think of the bookworm audience engaging with this book and being
1236. 01:21:08 able to understand the arguments from a how to read a book perspective and asking how
1237. 01:21:12 do I apply this to my life and really like what was the benefit of reading this.
1238. 01:21:20 I can think of lots of other books which speak to lots of these other like random topics
1239. 01:21:27 that he kind of touches on that I would point people to instead.
1240. 01:21:32 Maybe that's getting in the style and rating.
1241. 01:21:35 So I'll stop there but maybe it's just like the whole broad approach of like these are
1242. 01:21:40 the 12 things you need to know for your entire life.
1243. 01:21:43 That's not exactly what he's saying with the title but kinda.
1244. 01:21:46 So I don't know.
1245. 01:21:47 Okay.
1246. 01:21:48 Well before we go style and rating and all the fun things, action items.
1247. 01:21:54 I have two down here.
1248. 01:21:56 One of them I have mentioned which was checking my posture.
1249. 01:22:02 Stand up straight.
1250. 01:22:04 Maybe when I'm tapped on the wrist.
1251. 01:22:08 The second one, this is more general.
1252. 01:22:11 I didn't come from any specific place in the book and I just wrote down say yes more to
1253. 01:22:18 my kids.
1254. 01:22:19 Say yes to my kids more often.
1255. 01:22:21 I guess it's the cleaner way to say that.
1256. 01:22:23 Grammar good sometimes.
1257. 01:22:26 And that primarily comes from the idea of as I was reading this, obviously the rule 5
1258. 01:22:35 about children and then don't bother children.
1259. 01:22:39 Obviously those two kind of come into play here but it was more general across the book.
1260. 01:22:43 Just that I tend to say no by default in some situations.
1261. 01:22:49 Primarily when I get home from work, I usually get asked to do different things or play certain
1262. 01:22:54 games and such.
1263. 01:22:55 It's like I've got things I've got to get done.
1264. 01:22:59 No I don't.
1265. 01:23:00 I can wait and play with the kids when I get home.
1266. 01:23:03 So I know that that time will not always be there so I need to say yes more to my kids.
1267. 01:23:08 So I've got those two from this.
1268. 01:23:10 So I've at least got that from this one.
1269. 01:23:12 How about you?
1270. 01:23:14 I do not have any action items.
1271. 01:23:15 I kind of guess that.
1272. 01:23:16 My action item is to never pick up this book again.
1273. 01:23:21 All right, well then let's go to style and rating.
1274. 01:23:27 I think it's a weird position to be in to say that Jordan B. Peterson is a good writer
1275. 01:23:33 but not necessarily a good book putter together in that I think he's really good at telling
1276. 01:23:40 his stories and getting his point across in a subsection level.
1277. 01:23:46 When he's making a specific point within a chapter like over that page, I feel like he
1278. 01:23:52 does a really good job of putting that one little piece together.
1279. 01:23:56 When he goes to putting those sections together within the chapter, I very regularly got lost
1280. 01:24:03 because I think he was putting together, he was building the foundation for his arguments
1281. 01:24:08 in order to prove the rule that he's setting out to prove.
1282. 01:24:13 But sometimes I just got so spun around that I got lost on some things.
1283. 01:24:18 Like I mentioned this one earlier, there was one section where he was talking about his
1284. 01:24:22 wife going out for a walk and they saw a bunch of black squirrels and the negative 40 degree
1285. 01:24:26 weather out in the park and thought that was really weird because they would never be out
1286. 01:24:29 that are hibernating.
1287. 01:24:31 But then he never really tied that one off and just kind of left it.
1288. 01:24:36 At least about that I caught anyway.
1289. 01:24:39 Like why are we talking about this?
1290. 01:24:41 It was a handful of those.
1291. 01:24:42 I don't even understand what you're getting at here.
1292. 01:24:47 Maybe my brain's just not smart enough to handle that at the moment, but that was the
1293. 01:24:52 way I took it.
1294. 01:24:54 And so I feel like he's good at writing his stories.
1295. 01:24:56 Putting the whole thing together is a challenge to follow with him.
1296. 01:25:01 I'm not entirely certain why this is 12 rules for life other than just a, it almost feels
1297. 01:25:08 like a money grab of sorts.
1298. 01:25:10 Like he's really good at laying out debates.
1299. 01:25:12 He's really good at putting these arguments together and saying lots of words around them.
1300. 01:25:20 Really good at driving a lot of attention.
1301. 01:25:23 People watch him because he's kind of a wild card.
1302. 01:25:27 Sometimes you never really know what he's going to say and he even has a point in the
1303. 01:25:32 book.
1304. 01:25:33 Don't hold back.
1305. 01:25:34 Say what you think and let the consequences lie where they may.
1306. 01:25:40 So he does have kind of that mindset.
1307. 01:25:43 So as far as like, would I recommend this or not?
1308. 01:25:47 From a Christian viewpoints, I have a lot of people.
1309. 01:25:50 I don't want to read this because I don't think they're going to catch some of the flaws
1310. 01:25:56 in biblical knowledge here.
1311. 01:25:59 So like that one, I don't quite follow.
1312. 01:26:05 Good point, Martin, about squirrels, not hibernating.
1313. 01:26:10 The thing that I know when it comes to like, would I recommend this or not?
1314. 01:26:14 If you don't have a solid standing on some of these topics, I don't think you should
1315. 01:26:19 touch this because you're going to have to be in a challenge mode, trying to make sure
1316. 01:26:26 that you actually believe what he's saying or disagreeing with what he's saying and be
1317. 01:26:31 able to articulate that.
1318. 01:26:32 So you have to be pretty grounded in your ideas on those subjects before you're willing
1319. 01:26:39 to take on Jordan B. Peterson.
1320. 01:26:41 That's primarily because he's well studied and he does lay out his arguments very well.
1321. 01:26:48 So if you're going to pick it up, please be in that position.
1322. 01:26:52 So I am not going to tell you that you absolutely should read this like we have with other books.
1323. 01:26:57 As far as how to rate it, that's a struggle for me because there's a lot of these that
1324. 01:27:01 I'm like this, this idea of I just read the table of contents.
1325. 01:27:04 Yeah, I can get on board with pretty much all of these depending on interpretation.
1326. 01:27:11 But knowing that there's a lot of things that I got value out of this and yet completely
1327. 01:27:18 lost on this as far as a rating goes, I think I'm going to put it at a 4.0 just because
1328. 01:27:24 I think there is some value here on a surface level.
1329. 01:27:29 I don't think I want people to deep dive this too far.
1330. 01:27:34 So I'm not going to go above that just because of the struggles there, not to mention the
1331. 01:27:38 borderline heresy at times.
1332. 01:27:42 So be careful with this one if you're going to read it.
1333. 01:27:45 Personally, there's stuff here that I got a lot of value out of just having read it even
1334. 01:27:49 just from a motivational stance on a minor level.
1335. 01:27:51 So that's helpful, but I'm not going to go beyond that.
1336. 01:27:56 Alright, well, as I have kind of alluded to throughout this entire recording, I did not
1337. 01:28:06 enjoy this book and I would not recommend anyone read this.
1338. 01:28:10 I feel like this is a lazy book recommendation.
1339. 01:28:15 If you follow along with Bookworm at all and you've listened to even 10 different episodes,
1340. 01:28:23 you have a breadth of knowledge that is going to make this a very difficult read for you.
1341. 01:28:30 If this is the one nonfiction book you have ever read, it probably is entertaining.
1342. 01:28:36 And you're right, there are certain things in here that can provide a lot of value.
1343. 01:28:39 However, I would argue the way that he presents them.
1344. 01:28:42 They won't.
1345. 01:28:43 You have to dig deeper than anything that he shares in here.
1346. 01:28:48 I don't like the approach.
1347. 01:28:51 I don't like the tone.
1348. 01:28:53 I agree with you that he's a talented writer, probably even a talented storyteller.
1349. 01:29:01 I think that diminishes value in how many jumps he makes between different things as
1350. 01:29:08 he's trying to create this intricate web and I'm projecting there.
1351. 01:29:11 I understand that, but didn't like this book.
1352. 01:29:18 Walking out of it.
1353. 01:29:19 What did I get out of this book?
1354. 01:29:21 No action items and really nothing that I jotted down anyways that was like even that's interesting.
1355. 01:29:33 I'm going to have to really think about that more or that challenges the beliefs that I
1356. 01:29:37 had in certain areas.
1357. 01:29:40 There's lots of opportunity here for confirmation bias.
1358. 01:29:44 You walk into this with your beliefs and you're looking for something to back it up so you
1359. 01:29:47 don't have to defend it.
1360. 01:29:49 You could just point at this.
1361. 01:29:52 I do not think this is a good book.
1362. 01:29:58 Have you ever seen the movie Billy?
1363. 01:29:59 I think it's Billy Madison.
1364. 01:30:01 Adam Sander, one we're going to have in the day.
1365. 01:30:05 You know the end of the movie where he has to describe the industrial revolution and he
1366. 01:30:10 launches into this big story about the little engine that could.
1367. 01:30:15 You know and everybody's kind of nodding and then at the end the judge goes, "I award
1368. 01:30:20 you no points and we are all dumber for having listened to you."
1369. 01:30:26 That's how I feel at this book.
1370. 01:30:31 So I'm actually looking at the Bookworm Stats page right now and I have the ratings for
1371. 01:30:36 myself in reverse order.
1372. 01:30:39 All right.
1373. 01:30:40 So the lowest rating I have ever given a book.
1374. 01:30:44 You know which one it was?
1375. 01:30:45 It was a 2.0 wasn't it?
1376. 01:30:46 Or 2.5.
1377. 01:30:47 I don't remember what it is.
1378. 01:30:49 It was 1.5.
1379. 01:30:50 Yeah, 1.5 for Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
1380. 01:30:55 The next one up from that was the Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer at 2-Stars.
1381. 01:31:01 And walking out of this 370 page book I feel like I got about as much out of this one as
1382. 01:31:06 I got out of that one.
1383. 01:31:07 So I'm going to put it at 2-Stars.
1384. 01:31:08 You're putting it 2?
1385. 01:31:11 Yeah.
1386. 01:31:12 What did I rate that one?
1387. 01:31:15 You rated that one 3.5.
1388. 01:31:17 Fair enough.
1389. 01:31:18 I don't think you're wrong given that rationale by any means.
1390. 01:31:25 Okay.
1391. 01:31:26 Great fun.
1392. 01:31:28 Let's make this one disappear on the shelf.
1393. 01:31:30 What's next, Mike?
1394. 01:31:32 Next is the Pathless Path by Paul Millard.
1395. 01:31:36 I mentioned last time.
1396. 01:31:37 This is actually an Ali Abdahl recommendation.
1397. 01:31:42 And Ali Abdahl occasionally will put together these videos of like top 10 books this year
1398. 01:31:47 or whatever.
1399. 01:31:48 Every time I watch one of those, he does his little short explanations.
1400. 01:31:52 And I can usually tell right away whether a book is going to resonate with me or not.
1401. 01:31:57 Read a couple of books that he's recommended that I did think resonated with me and been
1402. 01:32:02 pleasantly surprised each time.
1403. 01:32:05 So I think this one is going to be good, but we will see.
1404. 01:32:09 That's why I'm going to make you read it with me.
1405. 01:32:12 All right.
1406. 01:32:14 And then following that, I went and looked up my books to read list.
1407. 01:32:20 It's like, oh, yeah, I've had this one on my list for a very long time and I've wanted
1408. 01:32:24 to read it.
1409. 01:32:25 The Almond Act of Nival Robocont.
1410. 01:32:27 I think that's how you say that by Eric Jorgensen.
1411. 01:32:31 Have you seen this one?
1412. 01:32:32 Heard of this one?
1413. 01:32:33 Scared of this one?
1414. 01:32:35 I had not heard about this until you put it in the notes, but I pulled it up.
1415. 01:32:40 It looks really great, actually.
1416. 01:32:42 So there's a website where you can actually read the whole thing for free.
1417. 01:32:47 You can even get the free ePUB or Moby files if you wanted the digital version.
1418. 01:32:53 But the book itself is by Eric Jorgensen and the forward is by Tim Ferriss.
1419. 01:32:59 Who cares?
1420. 01:33:00 That means it's a great book, obviously.
1421. 01:33:02 No, no.
1422. 01:33:03 The visuals, though, are by, is it Jack Butcher?
1423. 01:33:07 This is the guy behind.
1424. 01:33:08 Are you familiar with visualized value?
1425. 01:33:10 No, I'm not.
1426. 01:33:12 Okay.
1427. 01:33:13 So, visualized value is probably the best entrepreneurial follow on Twitter that I have
1428. 01:33:20 found.
1429. 01:33:21 It's basically all these business principles that he illustrates very simply.
1430. 01:33:25 He's got a whole course associated with it that I've actually bought, but he tweets out
1431. 01:33:29 these images.
1432. 01:33:32 I don't have an example to, but they're all very simple, black and white, couple of arrows,
1433. 01:33:39 sort of a thing.
1434. 01:33:40 It's simplifying these really complex business topics.
1435. 01:33:44 And there's some really great information there.
1436. 01:33:47 So I've been familiar with Jack Butcher for a while.
1437. 01:33:49 And the fact that he illustrated this book makes me instantly want to read it.
1438. 01:33:52 It is very well rated on the Amazon.
1439. 01:33:56 I could find my thing.
1440. 01:33:59 It's 13,426 ratings at the moment.
1441. 01:34:03 It's a four and a half star book.
1442. 01:34:06 So, that'll tell you something there.
1443. 01:34:09 Should be good.
1444. 01:34:10 I'll go with that one.
1445. 01:34:11 But, yeah, it's been on my list for a long time.
1446. 01:34:13 How about Gap Books, Mike?
1447. 01:34:14 Did you manage to slip in another book on top of this one?
1448. 01:34:18 I did not.
1449. 01:34:19 I've got a couple others that I am probably going to read before next time.
1450. 01:34:26 So I will probably have a Gap Book for next time, but not currently.
1451. 01:34:30 What about you?
1452. 01:34:31 Yeah.
1453. 01:34:32 I'm kind of in the same boat.
1454. 01:34:34 I was struggling to get through this one because I felt like I had to go slow trying
1455. 01:34:37 to understand his stuff.
1456. 01:34:39 So maybe I'm not well read enough.
1457. 01:34:43 So no, I don't have any this time.
1458. 01:34:44 Maybe next time.
1459. 01:34:45 All right.
1460. 01:34:47 That said, super big thanks to all of you who have joined us live in the chat.
1461. 01:34:51 If that's ever something you want to do, you need to join the Bookworm Club, club.bookworm.fm.
1462. 01:34:56 And you'll find the live events.
1463. 01:34:57 We'll post them.
1464. 01:34:58 Actually, when we're done here, I'm going to need to post the next one once we've got
1465. 01:35:01 a date and time locked in.
1466. 01:35:02 So, we'll post those two weeks in advance so you'll know when they're happening.
1467. 01:35:06 Join us live.
1468. 01:35:08 Join the chat.
1469. 01:35:09 Tell me I'm reading things too highly, which thanks Martin.
1470. 01:35:13 I get that.
1471. 01:35:14 But it's super fun to have you guys in the chat with us.
1472. 01:35:18 So big thanks to all of you who have done that.
1473. 01:35:20 Also a huge thanks to those of you who have successfully made the transition over to circle.
1474. 01:35:26 I feel like we need to put some tweets on about that or something.
1475. 01:35:29 But the transition to circle has gone pretty smoothly.
1476. 01:35:33 And those of you who have managed to get the Bookworm Pro membership moved over.
1477. 01:35:38 I hope that's been a smooth process from what I've seen.
1478. 01:35:41 It seems to go pretty smooth.
1479. 01:35:42 But we have transferred all of the book notes that Mike had, all the different feeds and
1480. 01:35:49 stuff.
1481. 01:35:50 There's the Pro feed that has no ads on it.
1482. 01:35:52 There's a bootleg feed, which you get immediately after the show recording.
1483. 01:35:57 It includes the pre and post show.
1484. 01:35:59 And it is well, completely unedited.
1485. 01:36:02 Also promises on quality, balances, all of that is out the window.
1486. 01:36:06 So that's what that is.
1487. 01:36:07 Super fun.
1488. 01:36:08 But if you're interested in all of that and you want to join that Pro membership, pretty
1489. 01:36:12 simple, Bookworm.fm/pro, you can still go to the slash membership as well.
1490. 01:36:17 That'll get you there as well.
1491. 01:36:18 Just wanted to make it easier.
1492. 01:36:20 Thus Bookworm.fm/pro.
1493. 01:36:21 We'd love to have you there.
1494. 01:36:24 So the real question you mentioned the sending out some tweets.
1495. 01:36:28 Is Bookworm on Mastodon?
1496. 01:36:29 Do we get to send out some toots?
1497. 01:36:31 Do you want to be on Mastodon?
1498. 01:36:32 I've asked you this a couple times.
1499. 01:36:34 Bookworm is not currently on Mastodon.
1500. 01:36:36 I don't share it.
1501. 01:36:37 Should it be?
1502. 01:36:38 That's the question.
1503. 01:36:39 Yeah, I'm not sure.
1504. 01:36:41 I've tried Mastodon.
1505. 01:36:43 It's fine.
1506. 01:36:45 It hasn't really clicked for me.
1507. 01:36:47 It's not somewhere I feel like I need to go hang out every day.
1508. 01:36:50 In my world, it's just another Twitter.
1509. 01:36:53 So yeah, I don't.
1510. 01:36:56 It's whatever.
1511. 01:36:57 I'm on both the same thing as in both places.
1512. 01:37:00 All righty.
1513. 01:37:01 If you are reading along with us, pick up The Pathless Path by Paul Millard.
1514. 01:37:08 And we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.