Jordan Peterson: 12 Rules for Life:

An Antidote to Chaos,

Rules 1-6

episode 128

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's episode 128. I'm your co-host Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by the man who has many rules for life. Mr. Mark Pearson Freeland. Good morning. Hey, good morning, Mike. You're right. Those rules for life. They seem to be growing every single week. Every episode we get new advice, tips, guidance from our moonshot is, you know, they're superstars entrepreneurs.

And I don't know my, my journal, my mantras, my list of things I need to stick by each week. It seems to be growing what you mean and boy, get ready for them to grow because we have a heavyweight to decode and to learn from today. Who is it? Mark today? We're beginning a new two part series based on the work of Jordan Peterson and his book from a actually not too distant future.

Mike is only in 2018, the 12 rules for life, an antidote to chaos. Mike, what are leaving doing Mark? It's taken us 128 shows to get to Jordan Peterson, who is. A huge in the philosophical, the search for meaning a space. He is a powerhouse. And whenever he travels around the world, he sells out like huge. He came to Australia and  a friend of mine went and  he sold out the Sydney opera house.

Wow. So  that tells you the draw power of Jordan Peterson. Matt, why do you think  he is so important and so critical for us to study here on the moonshots podcast? Well, I think the attraction for Jordan Peterson for a lot of. Readers as well as  those who go and see him live is this idea of, you know, self-help the idea of learning something from him based on his [00:02:00] work as a, as a clinical psychologist, as well as a professor and more recently a kind of YouTube personality, but for me digging into his rules over the last week or two  it, it strikes me that these rules that will begin to get into today are very, very accessible.

They appear to me as though anybody can follow these rules. You don't have to be a huge celebrity or a big name in, in  music or, or business or a family man. Anybody can listen to these rules, read these rules and I think takes something away from them. Yeah, he  he is  A great thinker, a provocative thinker.

And for all of you, our listeners, I think we've got a great show ahead because it's going to cover everything from adventure, responsibility, freedom. And I think this is 12 rules. We're going to do the first six.  Today there's just so much in them. We can't possibly jam them into one show, but if you're on a [00:03:00] mission, if you're trying to be the best version of yourself, you're trying to build a company, a team, a product, whatever you're trying to do.

You know, sometimes we get a little off track and something like 12 practical and profound rules for life is just what we need to bring ourselves back into the moment to be the best version of ourselves. So I'm pumped Mark. I think we're going to have a lot to discuss today. Where do you want to start?

I want to start with Jordan Peterson telling us rule number one, which is stand up straight with your shoulders back. So chapter one is a bit of a meditation on the nature of hierarchies and the biochemistry of hierarchy. But it's also an injunction about how to present yourself because you don't, you want to present yourself to the world in a manner that, that doesn't disgrace you in some sense that that might be a good way to think about it.

And you don't want to disgrace yourself because the consequence of disgrace is emotional dysregulation, more pain, less [00:04:00] positive emotion. And so the best way to present yourself is to stand up forthrightly and to stretch out, you know, and to occupy some space and to, to, to make yourself sort of vulnerable by doing that because you open up the front of your body, right.

But it's a sign of confidence. And that way people are most likely to give you the benefit of the doubt. And that's a good way to start regulating your mood, but not only does it directly regulate your mood to stand up because it's so tightly associated. Like posterial reflection is associated with serotonin and emotional regulation, but also because if you straighten up and you present yourself in that manner, then other people are more likely to take you seriously.

And that means they'll start treating you as if you're a number one lobster instead of a number 10 lobster. And that's another way that you can at least give yourself the bloody benefit of the doubt, right. And, and, and, and confront the world in a courageous manner. And that's a really good way of also of, of figuring out how [00:05:00] to establish yourself in multiple competence hierarchies, because one of the general rules of thumb about how to be successful is to confront things that frighten you forthrightly and with courage.

And that's kind of a universal strategy for success. Oh, I'm S I love this. This reminds me of  William H McRaven who says, make your bed, doesn't it make? Oh, yeah. Right. Admiral McRaven. That was a great episode. Wasn't it? You know, beginning your day with that assurance as well as confidence. So no matter what you run into during the rest of the day, you've got that foundation when you come home.

Right. And this is exactly the same. This is basically saying, you know, stand up straight and put your shoulders back and present your best self. And I liked how, you know, Peterson was kind of like give yourself the benefit of the doubt, which I said differently is like, you know, if you're going to present your, if you're going to tell a story, if you're going to ask something of someone, if you're going to present [00:06:00] something, if you're going to have a conversation, set yourself up for success, stand up straight, don't have a defensive posture.

Don't be all slouched. And  it's. Ancient ancient wisdom, like just set yourself up for success. I kind of liked the fact that  for someone who, who can, you know, elevate his thinking to, to the very highest levels can start with something so damn practical. Margaret's great. Well, it's funny. It reminds me  in fact, this is a rule that wasn't necessarily put towards me as a rule back when I was a, when I was a whippersnapper, as, as you say, I remember being, doing a drama class when I was about 15 and our teacher told us whenever you're doing a talk, whenever you're making a speech  a monologue on stage have both feet flat.

And make your, your legs quite, you know, straight down towards the ground and you can feel this energy kind of come [00:07:00] up through the ground. And I think what she's saying was don't slouch, don't stand to one side, make sure to emanate that confidence. And I think you're right. It's a very practical tip that in my history, I kind of learned it through drama, but isn't it funny to now hear it brought up again from a psychologist, basically saying how you hold yourself, not only impacts your, your body you're straightening up.

Your body's kind of getting ready to go out there, but also in front of others, you're putting across that eminence of. Courage of confidence. Yeah. As a father, it reminds me when my son was younger of like instructing him that when he greets people, he says, hello and looks them in the eye. Right. It's it's takes me right back to that.

Another more, more practical one. It reminds me of which I believe it might've been the Simon Sinek show or one of the many that we've done where he talked about not putting your [00:08:00] phone on the table and when you're in a meeting, because it's a gesture to suggest that at any point, if that device was to notify you, you will put your attention to them and not to the person in front of you.

Which again, I, I really do like that.  I think I was  a little bit naughty. I think I fell a victim a lot to having the phone on the table. So I tried to  To put that aside when I'm actually in the same room, having a meeting with humans and not doing it through zoom, but that's another good one.

Isn't it? Yeah, that's good. Isn't it as well? I think both of those, remind me of just what Peterson's doing in his book, 12 rules for life. They are quite practical. And as the listeners, as well as you and I, Mike will find out during today's show, they are quite practical recommendations and rules. Aren't they, they are things that, as long as we remember in our minds, we can all, we can all kind of go and do the phone [00:09:00] example on the table.

All of us can do that. Whether we're in a meeting or whether we go out for dinner, putting it away to one side, removes the anxiety of the other person, thinking that at any moment, you might stand up and go and take a call. Yeah. And the sun's coming out here, you stand up straight. People know that you are confident in yourself.

Therefore, Hey. I can feel confident in you too. Mm mm. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, there's so much in this and  one production note is that  where we've been getting so, so much feedback from, from all of you, our listeners over the last period, that we actually have a question for you, our listeners, which is, as you can tell that we're going to break Jordan Peterson's book 12 rules for life.

We're going to break it into two parts. So today we're going to do the first six rules and next week we will do the subsequent six. Now here's the big thing. Jordan Peterson has written [00:10:00] another book beyond order and  also extremely popular a bit of a powerhouse as well. But Mark, we need a little bit of guidance.

Well, we do listeners. We need you guys to tell us whether you'd like us to launch straight in. If you want us to continue the, the highway of Jordan Peterson and you want us to continue driving down it. Once we go through Jordan Peterson's first 12 rules for life. If you'd like us to go straight into beyond order 12 more rules for life.

Let us know we're only going to do it once we hear from you, you are as Mike, I think you put them, Alison is earlier our exec producers to a certain extent. We want to hear from you guys, whether this is what you'd like us to attend and do. Yeah. And just to, to be  to build on that, it would be four back to back Jordan Peterson shows.

And I think our question is, is that too heavy duty? Is it just  do you need a [00:11:00] breather in between a little halftime break where Gaga kind of flies in from the roof of the stadium or something like that?  Let us know.  Because  we obviously want to make sure you get that the most out of it. I'm  we've, we've done four in a row, have one author before haven't we Mark?

I think actually we've done four in a row for a few people. The most recent one that comes to my mind is Ron holiday. Yeah. And that was a, that was a very popular series. We've also done Tim Ferris. A four parter. Glen I think was for as well add well was for  our first series of Adam Grant, I think was three.

So we, we have done a few  quite long series of non  authors entrepreneurs superstars before.  But here here's where listeners, we want your recommendation. Would you like us to continue that same vibe and do a four part series on Mr. Jordan Peterson? No. So you can send us an email@helloatmoonshots.io or go to moonshots.io itself.

There's about a gazillion ways you can contact us or hit [00:12:00] the socials, but  however you choose to contact us, it would be much appreciated. And the other thing that would be much appreciated in this day and age, according to Jordan Peterson, is actually thinking about. Your own wellbeing. And he has some really, I love this  this idea the way he presented it.

So let's have a listen to Jordan, Jordan Peterson, talking about taking ownership of how you really want to treat yourself. Rule. Number two is treat yourself like you're someone that you care about. And that's a deeper chapter. I would say like chapter one is kind of comical, but it's also got this serious scientific end for example.

And it's practical. Like most of the rules are chapter two is a bit of a meditation on why. See, I read this, I read this, this piece of work by yielding a long while back. And it was a meditation on the injunction [00:13:00] to treat your neighbor as, as you would like to be treated, something like that. And what young pointed out, which I really liked was that that wasn't an injunction to be nice to other people.

It was an invitation to reciprocity. It was something like this. You should figure out how you would like to be treated like you were taking care of yourself, not how you would like people to respond to you. It's more important than that. It's like, imagine you had a child that you really cared for. And someone said, well, we'll treat this child exactly.

Like you want them to, but you have to figure out what that is. And so then you'd have to sit down for like a month and you'd think, okay, well, how do you want your child to be treated? You don't want everyone just to be nice to him. You know, you want people to challenge him and you want people to discipline them.

And you want people to tell him when he's wrong. It's like, you don't just want everyone to be nice. That's that's pathetic attic. Isn't, there's no challenge in that. And so, well you want to treat other people like you would like to be treated well, then you have to figure it out. How would you like to be treated?

And while you'd like people to fall on all over you and just lay [00:14:00] everything at your feet, it's like, no, that's not something you'd wish for, for someone that you were taking care of. And then, then there's an additional problem, which is it's often the case that people will treat other people better than they treat themselves.

That happens extremely frequently. So one of the things I pointed out chapter two was that if you have a dog and you take him to a vet and the vet gives you the prescription medicine, you'll go buy the medicine and you will give it to the dog and you will do it properly. But if you go yourself to a doctor and you get a prescription, there's one that there's a 30% chance.

You won't even pick up the medication. And if you do, there's a 50% chance that you won't administer it to yourself properly. And so I already thought about that when I first came across that statistic, it really, it was another one of those little facts. I thought, what the hell is up with that? It's like, you'll do it for your dog.

So obviously you'll do it for something you care about and you're conscientious enough. So you'll actually do it. So like, why wouldn't you do it for you? Your dog likes you, you know what, even your dog would [00:15:00] rather that you did, but you don't, you don't. And, and it's actually one of the reasons that modern medicine doesn't work nearly as well as it could because people just don't take their medication.

And it's not only because they don't take care of themselves, there's some skepticism about doctors, but you can be just as skeptical about the vet. So it's a deep meditation, I would say. And it's what I've done with these rules is they're very simple rules and they're, they're kind of comical and tongue in cheek in some way.

But what I've tried to do is like pull them apart and show what's underneath the men to go down as deep as I possibly can. And in rural too, it's a bit of a meditation on why people don't like themselves very much. Okay. That's a nice meaty clip there. Wasn't a Mike and boy

it is isn't it because what you, what happened to me when he was talking? So you realize, Oh yeah, you, of course you just think, Oh, just be nice. But it's, it's more than that. That would, that, that's it. For me, that was a big penny drop a hard moment, you know, when [00:16:00] he, when he references young and really what he's trying to say rather than just thinking, okay, well, yeah, I can go on and be nice to people.

I can treat them how I want to be treated. That's fine. From a surface level, you know, I don't want people to spit on me. I don't want them to treat me up in the street, so I won't do that either. But when you layer back that onion and you look at it even deeper first, you need to understand that. Well, how do I want to be treated?

How do I want to take care of myself? And that's very, very  introspective, isn't it? And I don't think it's something that a lot of us. Do very often. I know that we  and I've suddenly got something that I do about which I'll share with you in a second mic, but I think it's something that's pretty challenging.

Isn't it to take ownership of, of what you personally want to do from a, from a treatment perspective and how you want others to treat you. It can be a little bit of a challenge. Yeah. And cause I, I think what he's really pushing into [00:17:00] is of course you should be courteous and respectful and pleasant.

Right. But what he's really saying here is that you, if, you know, if you think about a good friend of yours, it's easy to be nice and pleasant and to have fun. But the true friends are the ones that tell you, this is great Dutch saying a true friend will tell you when you've got spinach caught in your teeth.

Right.  And the point is. Getting called out when you're not at your best. And either saying, Hey, you're, you're off track, or B, do you need help? What can I do to support you, helping them be accountable to their promises? That's when things get really cooking, right? That's when real friendships come to the forum.

What he's challenging us to do is like you might hold your [00:18:00] friends accountable to their goals and say, Hey, come on, you can do it. What can I do to help that you must also do the same work on yourself or? So Mike, how do you do that? Work on yourself?  Well, I know when my wife when tells me something, she keeps me honest, man.

Like seriously, she, she will call me out and it might be hard, but when she calls me out, I always prioritize, it always prioritize it and more practically, you know, I have these, these mantras my own rules for life that I actually write down a lot.  So, you know, I am frequently visiting, so on my to-do list, I have 97 managers.

I'm just looking at us. We're chatting 97. Yeah. Yeah. So this is how I do it. [00:19:00] So the one that I've been  Focus on is these which include things like being still and quiet for there as much to here start the day as if it's a brand new life, a clean slate, do your most important work first listen to understand and lots of others, but those things I write down and I reflect on constantly, constantly.

I even wait for this Mark. I even record my mantras and play them back to me so I can just listen to them on the train, listen to them when I'm walking.  Cause I, I think I'm like like I have to BombBomb myself and remind myself and reflect for myself on, on these rules. And for me, like a great way to frame them is if I only had 10 truths that I could tell my son, [00:20:00] what would they be?

Right. Wow. That's powerful. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. What about you? How do you kind of have that focus so that you're not just busy, you know, caring for your wife, for your work colleagues, your family, and your friends? How do you, how do you kind of keep yourself on track? It's been  I think it's probably been something that I've learned or maybe experimented with more as I get older.

You know you've been married again with partners that you, that you live with all the time who see you behind the curtain, so to speak and you go through, you know, stresses as you get older and so on. And I think for me, the thing that I've challenged myself with doing which I was always quite guilty of not doing when I was younger is actually talking about things out loud.

So I was very good at internalizing stuff before thinking about journaling and so on. [00:21:00] It was very easy to almost compartmentalize your life and think, okay, well I'm stressed about work. I won't tell anyone because it's not their problem. I'll just get on with it and VAT in its own way. I'm still guilty of sometimes.

And I think that for me is, is. What I'm trying to work on better nowadays, voicing it out aloud because as we know, if you name the beast, if you confront it head-on, it does feel a lot better. Doesn't it share is a problem. Half is always a favorite phrase that I, that I've always remembered, which I still think is really, yeah.

Powerful. But for me, that, that was a pretty big, a hard moment as I started to learn that. But that, that worked for me, that, that that's how I  tried and take responsibility for how. I want to be treated because I get to reflect on how I feel. I'll talk about it out loud with somebody.  I do journal as well as, as you know, our [00:22:00] listeners have probably heard us speak about many, many times.

Oh no, they're going to go in the journal rant against kind of, Hey, when you need him. Oh. Before you know it, they're going to talk about cold showers against stuff. Exactly. But all of these are really good. And actually, the cold shower one reminded me of I'm looking at my to-do list mantras right now.

And that's another thing that I do. I, I will. Try and take ownership of what my situation is right now, by bringing myself into this moment. I'll sniff the air. I'll notice what's around me. I'll feel how I'm sitting or as Jordan Peterson has in his first rule, stand up straight that in its own way is a way of us connecting with what we're doing right now.

Isn't it. It's reminding us right. Stand up straight. You're stretching it back out. I'll try and do that. If I'm in a situation where I've kind of flatlined, so to speak, you know, when you're not really engaged too much. Cause you're thinking about something else. I think, I think rule [00:23:00] number one is a, is a great demonstration of being responsible for yourself because you'll bring yourself back into that moment.

Yeah, I agree. And I think the most important thing is whether you have mantras, whether you have a diary and that you journal, these are all ways into these 12 rules of life from Jordan Peterson. So whichever rules work for you, our listeners, I think my big advice is to write it down, reflect on it. Don't just read it and go, Oh, that's nice.

Or listen to Mike and Mark speaking about it and go, Oh yeah, that's a good one. I should think about that. Like you have to internalize it. You have to like put the ingredients together, cook the recipe, and truly taste these ideas. And so you can not only think them, but they can come true as your behaviors and how you choose to lead your life.

And one of the biggest decisions that we actually have in our life is the [00:24:00] books we read. The great podcasts you listen to. And it's also the people you surround yourself with. So let's have a listen to rule number three for Mr. Jordan Peterson, which is all about friends. The next rule is to make friends with people who want the best for you.

And that's a meditation on my own childhood and adolescents to some degree. Yeah. I had friends who wanted the best for me and friends who didn't and, you know, they were friends who, some of them were aiming up and some of them were aiming down. And if you have a friend that's aiming down and you do something that saved me up, then they're generally not that happy about it.

You know, they try to top your accomplishment with one of their own hypothetical or real, or put down what you're doing or offer you a cigarette if you're trying to quit. And you've kind of done that successfully or a drink if you've been drinking too much and are just trying to stop being an alcoholic, you know, or, or.

Yeah, they're cynical and bitter and devoted towards no good. And sometimes that's family members too. And [00:25:00] sometimes it's even part of you, you know, but this chapter's injunction to people is like like you have an ethical responsibility to take care of yourself. You have an ethical responsibility to surround yourself with those who have the courage, faith, and wisdom to wish you well, you've done something good.

And to stop you when you're doing something destructive and if your friends aren't like that, then they're not your friends, and maintaining your friendships with them might not even be in their interest. And so it's a tricky argument to make because I'm not saying, you know, whenever anyone's in trouble, you should push them into a ditch and then give them a couple of kicks.

That's not the idea. The idea is that I had a couple of rules. I didn't write about one was careful. Be careful about whom you share the good news. And another was to be careful about whom you share bad news with. And everyone, those rules ring in people's minds quite quickly, a friend is someone you can share the good news with, you know, [00:26:00] you go to them and you say, Hey look, this good thing happened to me.

And they say, look, I'm so happy that that happened to you, like the way to be. And they don't think Goddammit, why didn't that happen to me? And like, you know, you didn't deserve it. Here's a bunch of reasons you're stupid and why it won't work. It's like, that's not helpful. And so I would say like if people are, you know, what the other thing people are doing, if they're trying to drag you down, let's say is, they're trying to see if you'll put up with it because they have this idea that maybe life isn't worth living and things aren't good.

And then if they can besmirch, let's say to use an archaic term, something that's pristine and good, then they demonstrate to themselves that there is no true ideal and that there's no necessary reason to be responsible and to strive forward. And so they use you it's as a test case. No, I'll just push you down into the low lobster bin and see how you respond.

And if you put up with it, then yeah, my cynicism is fully justified. And so well that's chapter three. So take ownership of what makes you happy, treat yourself as if you were someone else and now take ownership of [00:27:00] those who are around you and find the people who want the best for you. Very connected. I think so.

Good. All right. So good. I mean, you know, the thing is that what he's saying is, and this really comes back to some of the recent shows were done is focused on the things that you control and the control things that you control your inputs. And as I was saying earlier, it's not just your friends, it's your colleagues.

You see the clients, the business partners, family, friends teachers, coaches, mentors, you have control of the books. You have controls in them. What shows do you choose to watch on television? Yeah, one of the interesting things that I always decide is when I do have those rare moments that I can actually watch Netflix, do I want to have a more chilled, reflective time?

So maybe I go a documentary. If I really want [00:28:00] to chill out, I will always watch something like a    David, Adam, bruh sort of nature documentary, or if I'm kind of feeling really energetic, then I might take something a little bit more of a thriller or an action or something like this, but those are conscious choices I make.

Cause sometimes like if I'm exhausted, like I don't like getting all pumped up in some really exciting show. I want to chill, but it's the same thing with your friends and your colleagues. Like if people don't, if you don't have a genuine connection with them, you don't have a genuine care and fondness of the people that you're around.

And likewise, back to you, reciprocity as Jordan Peterson talked about. If there's not it's okay, if people. Just for whatever reason it is not going to work. Like you're not meant to be besties. That's fine. That's no judgment on either party, but orientate yourself, try and maximize the time [00:29:00] with the good people and active, avoid being around people who don't have your interests.

I think again, simple, but man, that's good stuff. Stuff to, to reflect on, to keep us on track. Isn't it? Yeah. I like how Peterson actually calls out. It's an ethical responsibility. You have, you have to take ownership of those who are around you and, and I like your connection to the, to the Netflix consumption again.

It's a good comparison. You control that only you are going to put on what you want to watch and more  More than likely for a lot of us, as well as our listeners either fall into a habit with friends and those around you, whether they're colleagues and so on. And they can be a little bit, either self destructive or they can be a little bit  you know, dare I say, depressing, I suppose, you know, so you know, this sort of characters who will just stay in the same head space.

[00:30:00] And, and if you're trying to exercise perhaps a more of a growth mindset, but you haven't got the right people around you to help you facilitate that, it can be as, as dangerous as not doing it yourself. You know, you can be talked out of it. And I think again, very, very practical, very, very sensible rules.

The Peterson shown to us, but very, very  orientate around focusing on what you can control. I think that comparison there is, is spot on actually. Yeah. And I would say, just check your energy. Like if you feel good, With people, that's a leading indicator that they might actually care about. You, if you feel like a little bit odd or exhausted or you find yourself.

Hmm. I don't know if I really want to hang out with them, then just listen to that voice. That's just your, your conscious saying, Hey, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. It's a signal. Listen to the [00:31:00] voice. Exactly. Now there is another way that we can listen to voices to amazing voices. In fact, that's right. That's you Mark. And me because we have a little bit of an idea that we're getting a lot of love for.

What are you, what do you think we need to share with our listeners today? The, the, the voice inside our listeners' heads  in this certain moment is, is obviously yourself. Mike. So listeners, we've been blown away by how many of you have got in touch with us just over the past couple of weeks in response to our call-out and requests, and almost invitation to know whether we should go out and develop a moonshots application.

And this moonshots application would be our next layer between you, our listeners and us sitting in our production towers  slaving away, pulling together the show. We want to create something that perhaps is a little bit more  engaging for you. Our listeners, you can get in [00:32:00] touch with us  interact with our show in more than one way as well as vote for future shows.

And my, I mean, I've been blown away. How, how have you  responded to the, the amount of people getting in touch with us? Well, my inbox is getting a bit full. I can tell you that much.  Look, it's great. Thank you to Paul and Rick and Terry, a from Maria, Bruce, Sheila, Pennington, all these people that are signing up for our beta of our moonshots app  where we still need about another 50 before we can  do this.

Cause we just want to make sure that enough of you, our listeners, our moonshot, is that you truly think that it might be a value.  And you know, to recap on what we would include in the app. You'd be able to have like a very rich listening experience. So you can bookmark comment, like share and have a whole kind of inventory of your favorite shows with all the, all your bookmarks in one central [00:33:00] place.

The other thing which is really important is you'll be able to submit and vote for future shows. So you can kind of, as our executive producers, you can kind of guide us. In the right direction. And lastly, it was going to be lots of training and coaching  content. And that's going to be pretty revolutionary because what we will do is invert the whole model of the show.

And what I mean by that is you will be able to type a subject that you're interested in and you will be given a cross-reference of all the shows, all the clips, all of the people that you can learn from around that particular subject. So we're putting a huge amount of work into creating this moonshot data model.

And it's a huge, and what it would effectively mean is whether you're trying to improve yourself, your decisions or how you lead teams. You will be able to say, you know what, I want to work [00:34:00] on reflection, and then you will have an inventory of all the great thinking about reflection. You might say, you know what?

I need to make a better decision, or I face a problem and I don't know how to analyze it. Well, we'll have a whole section on critical thinking, and it's all about getting you to the fastest pathway to being the best version of yourself. Anyway. So this is the idea for the moonshots app. And if people are interested Mark in the beta, where should they go belong to www.moonshots.io?

And you will find our banner sitting at the very top of the page where you can click on and sign up for the free beater of the moonshots app. Nice one. So now I think it's time to. Stretch our arms a little bit and get ready for three more left, right left punches. This is a kind of a mental workout at the gym from Jordan Peterson.

We are now into rules four, five, and six from his book, 12 rules for life. [00:35:00] This is a big one. And this time we have some thinking from the man himself about to whom we should compare ourselves. You really have to start comparing yourself in some ways to other people. And the reason for that is that the particularities of your life are so idiosyncratic that there isn't anyone really, all that much like you, you know, because the details of your life happen to matter.

And so maybe you compare yourself to some rock star or something like that. And you know, the person's rich and famous and glamorous and all that, but you know, they're alcoholic and they use too much cocaine and they've had three divorces and it's like, how the hell do you. Make sense out of that, is that someone that you should judge yourself harshly against or not?

The answer is you don't know, cause you don't know all the details of their lives and who do you know that you can compare yourself to? That's easy you yesterday. So here's a good goal. It's something like, well, aim high. And I really mean that. And we'll talk about that a little bit to aim high, but use that as your [00:36:00] troll yourself.

It's like, so your goal is to make today some tiny increment better than yesterday and you can use, or you can define better yourself. This doesn't have to be some imposition of external morality, you know, you know where you're weak and insufficient, where you could improve think, okay, well this is what I'm like yesterday.

If I did this little thing, things would be just an increment better. And that's a great thing because you get the ball rolling and. Incremental improvement is unstoppable. You can actually implement it. And it starts to generate Pareto distribution, light consequences. It starts to compound, and I've seen that happen in people's lives over and over.

And people write all the time and tell me that they're doing that, but I've seen that happen in people's lives. Continually. They make a goal, a goal that the goal should be, how could I conceive of my life so that if I had that life, it would clearly be worth living. So I wouldn't have to be bitter resentful, deceitful, arrogant, and vengeful.

Oh, geez. [00:37:00] Those were some pretty, he was about to go dark then wasn't he? He was, he was getting into it then.  But I think that's, that's a good point to, to pause and reflect, because I think that's really what this clip, when this rule number four is all about it's reflection. Isn't it. Mike, it's reflecting on who you are, who am I?

Who's Mark. And where was I perhaps yesterday or after a significant event? Maybe today. Whenever it is. And instead of constantly thinking, Oh, well, I'm not as influential as. As Peterson instead that remember that it's not a worthwhile comparison for me. Again, this is a bit of a penny drop moment because it's very, very easy to compare  yourself, your successes, your career, your interests and hobbies, even to somebody else.

But the truth is it's not a fair comparison because of how different your upbringing has been, your, your environment, your ecosystem, and so on. [00:38:00] And I don't know for me, this is quite a big moment. Yeah. Actually, as we go through these rules from Peterson, because like you were just saying that that compound interest is significant as we look at our ways of being better each day, that's really what Peterson's calling out here.

Stop trying to shoot towards the Elon Musks perhaps and instead think, okay, well, what can I learn from them? And how can I make myself better? Just small. Little pieces each day in order to try and make myself get that a little bit better. Yes. The thoughts that come to mind here, number one, it's such wasted energy comparing yourself to others, because number one, if you are looking at others  and they're doing so much better than me, well, here's the thing.

There is no positive. Energy to be gained from that thought that is your ego speaking. Eckhart Tolle would be going [00:39:00] bonkers right now if he had you doing that kind of stuff. Right. So, first of all, there's nothing to gain from that envy, that jealousy, that ego, like there's nothing, nothing to gain.  That's the first thing, second thing, I can't remember which show it was on, but one of the clips we've played in the last month or two Mark, someone said, well, you know, the, the working class guy is looking at the rich guy, envying his money in the rich guy is looking at the working class guy, envying the simplicity of his life.

And the reality is a lot of us are all looking at each other and being each other's situation. So it tells you it's like this big circular kind of cluster.  The reality is. That the best thing you can do is make commitments to yourself and work hard to reach them every single day. And if you can just be 1% [00:40:00] better every day, this is huge because if you do it every single day, day after day, you will turn back maybe in a week in a month, maybe it's a whole year.

And then you go all of a sudden, wow, look at that. I mean, we started this show Mark, and we would get a couple of hundred listeners each month. And two years later we get 25,000 listeners a month and it just is growing like crazy. But each show. We just turn up, do a little bit better and we can do that in our lives.

And the here's the thing, because everyone makes mistake. There is no, I, there is no such thing as perfect. What there is, is working hard learning and doing it a little bit better than next time, because that learning is so [00:41:00] satisfying because even if you're not at your end goal, if you can love the process, if you can get addicted to the compounding, the meaning in your day comes from knowing that, Hey, I did it better yesterday.

And today I did it a little bit better again. And if you can just bring yourself into the moment and say, am I doing it better now? Then you can not be held hostage by all those comparisons that Jordan Peterson talks about. I mean, this, this, I think a lot of people in the age of Instagram and social media struggle with a lot.

I think everybody thinks that everyone else is having a great life. Don't you? Yeah, I think you're right. It's very easy to look at.  Whether it's podcasts, social media  everybody's got a TV show nowadays. It's, it's an unfair ecosystem to try and compare yourself to others. Isn't it? And, and when you've just said it's wasted energy [00:42:00] instead of looking at somebody else thinking, Oh, I wish I heard what they heard.

Channel that into something more. Productive. Yeah. To do.  Have you seen like all the people or the Instagram models getting in trouble for Photoshopping the last few months? Yeah. Yeah. So why would you compare yourself if you're a woman looking at those women, why would you even compare? So, cause it's all Photoshop to anyone it's photoshopped and fake.

Yeah. Yeah. It's that wasted energy. And  and Gary V  that might be Mike, the episode that perhaps you were referencing, because I know the Gary V show that we did was very orientated around this idea of not comparing yourself to others and the  the imbalance between, you know, a rich person wanting the simplicity or, you know, somebody else wanting the rich lifestyle.

And, you know, again, that. Show with Gary V he was calling this out. Wasn't it it's fake. Anyway, stop being distracted by where somebody else is [00:43:00] because it's not the right thing to judge yourself on. That's absolutely right. That's absolutely right now, I think that the  you know, your own success comes from setting your own goals and meeting them because, you know, you set something, a goal that you control, and you're not worried about externalities.

I mean, that was a huge part of what Ryan holiday stead in the stoicism series, like stop worrying about things you don't control, bringing yourself into the present, focus on the things that you control. And that's where all the other, what I would argue at least satisfaction and fulfillment comes from.

Maybe you might even find some real meaning there as well.  But I think this is great advice. And I think the, the great thing about Jordan Peterson's work is that. I mean, he's, he's got advice, not only for ourselves, but Mark will even give us  parenting tips, Roni. Yeah. This is another great example of, of the, the variety of rules that the Peterson has [00:44:00] in the 12 rules for life.

So rule number five, Mike is Peterson giving us like, say just that little bit of advice around raising our children. You don't want to set them up as an enemy against you. You don't want to allow them to engage in the kind of hierarchical challenge that makes you irritable and resentful. That's not a good idea.

And if the things they do make you dislike them, the probability that they will make other people dislike them is extraordinarily high. And so you can consult your own irritability and you can say, look, kid, I used to tell my kids this, you know, when they were three or four and say, look, I'm not in a very good mood.

And I'm likely to be unreasonable, so it'd be best if you'd go in your room and play for a while. It's like, I like you, man. You're a great kid, but like, get the hell out of here for awhile. And they were fine with that. We trained them already at that point to be able to go play by themselves in the room, you know, which is something a kid should be able to do anyways.

But, but you need to know what sort of monster you are if you're going to be a good parent. And if you think, Oh, I'm not a monster. It's like, Oh [00:45:00] yes, you are. You're just an unbelievably unconscious monster. And that's actually the worst time. So, and then the other thing about that chapter is there's an idea in it.

And it's an idea that I think is well-supported by the relevant literature, which is that your fundamental job as a parent, especially if a child from zero to four is to make that child eminently desirable socially. So what you're, you're a successful parent if when your child is for all sorts of other children want to play with him or her, that's really the that's like, if you want one marker of whether or not you've been successful.

It's it's a pretty practical tip there, Mike, isn't it?  It is an actual, they are the nice people. And the funny thing is, though, if you take a moment to think that one through it's really fascinating because whilst he uses the metaphor of children, just  play the same  [00:46:00] thinking to the workplace.

And what you could say is your job as a manager, is to make sure that your team members are able to collaborate and work together, and that people want to come together with a given individual, that they have the skills to communicate and collaborate. Essentially just essential skills. They sound incredibly simple, but actually how much work do we need to put into those skills?

And I think a manager of a team needs to make sure that. His team members have the capacity to enter each interact with each other in a productive, respectful manner. I think I see a direct correlation. Yeah. I, I think you're right. Actually, this is a nice comparison perhaps with Patrick Lencioni, you know, how, as well as Jim Collins, from a leadership perspective, you want to try and raise, or at least lead a team who liked one another.

And [00:47:00] in an age when a lot of us are working remotely and so on, it can become a lot more difficult though. Can't it? And I think as a leader  who's, who's faced with those sorts of challenges. I can imagine it's very, very, very tricky to actually go and, and create that unity between the family slash team members.

Yeah. It, it really is. And I think it's, you know, lead through your actions, right?  That's the starting point that it's like how you behave with your  your family, your partner, your children, how you yeah. Flip it into the workplace, how you interact with your peers and colleagues, eggs and your teammates.

That's the, that's the thing, starting point, if you're acting like an idiot, like, well, what do you expect the rest of them? Yeah. I was just going to act like idiots because you're setting the tone. Yeah.  Yeah, there's just so much  so much in  in his, his work isn't there. I mean, it's, for me, it's just, [00:48:00] sometimes these feel like ancient truths rewritten for the modern.

 But I do think that  It's so powerful to whether you read a book like this once, or whether you re read it once a year. I think they can just help you  get back on track.  And I think the truth is we all get a little bit of track and sometimes when we're off track Mark, let's say someone's struggling.

What are some of the bad habits that they get into, if they're not really doing well and they can feel it, what sort of behaviors do you observe in teams and network Mark? If, if someone's a bit of track, I, I think, I think what happens is there's a lot of finger pointing, a lot of judgment of criticism, criticism, and judged.

Exactly. Maybe even aggression, whether it's, whether it's  forthright or passive. I think, I think that's pretty common trait, isn't it? [00:49:00] Yeah. And it's, it's a bad vibe, but it's also not particularly productive. I mean, sure. If someone isn't living up to. Not only the team's expectations, but the commitments that, that individuals made sure you need to call them out, but she publicly shaming them.

I don't think has ever produced a positive result. Hasn't no, I don't think so. And this final clip that we're going to hear today in show one to eight, which is rural six of Peterson's, 12 rules for life is, is bringing that to like a, to light actually.  So listeners rule number six from Jordan Peterson, he's going to tell us a little bit about how we should reflect on ourselves before we criticize others.

It's a rough chapter, but it's more than that. It's a meditation on resentment because resentment is a key human motivation. And I would say it's an, it's a great teacher to listen to your resentment is one of the best things you can possibly do. You have to admit that it [00:50:00] exists first, and then you have to admit to the fantasies that it's generating and you have to admit to what you would regard as.

The way out of it. So that's all very difficult because it means learning things about yourself that you probably don't want to learn. But resentment only means one of two things. It means either like, shut the hell up, grow up, quit whining, and get on with it. That's one thing it means, or someone is playing the tyrant too.

You might even be you and you have something to say and do that you should say and do to put it to a stop. And so maybe, and resentment can show you the pathway to doing that. It's a meditation on resentment. And one of the, one of the principles that I extracted from that is like a resentful person wants other people to change.

And if you're resentful, then your motivations, aren't trustworthy. In fact, they're very, very dark. And that's why I went to the extreme with people. Like Penn's, Rehmann the Columbine killers, resentful. [00:51:00] People who want to change the world are not to be trusted. What should you do instead? How do you treat your own resentment?

I would say, well, there's a, there's a great, I read this great line in the Ts Eliot play called the cocktail party. And in it, this woman comes up to a psychiatrist. I think this is in this chapter. And she says, you know, I'm having a really rough time of it. I'm suffering badly. My life is not going well.

And then she says, ah, I hope that there's something wrong with me. And the psychiatrist says, well, what the hell do you mean by that? And she says, well, here's how I look at it. There's either something wrong with the world and I'm just in it. And that's how it is. And then like, what am I going to do about that?

Because it's the whole world, or maybe I could be fortunate and there's something wrong with me. That's causing all this unnecessary suffering. And if I could just set it right, I could learn and I could set it. Right. And so. Well, I've been thinking about that for a very long time. And I think, well, if your life isn't going the way it is, you know, you can find someone else to [00:52:00] blame, which is pretty convenient for you and also relatively easy.

Or you could think, okay, I don't like light. I don't like the way my life is unfolding. Maybe I don't like life in general because it's tragic and, and tainted with evil.

how do I know if my judgment is accurate? And the question is, well, have I really done everything I possibly could to set my life straight because maybe I shouldn't be judging its quality or the quality of life itself or being itself for that matter. If I haven't done everything I possibly could to set my life straight.

What a heavy Judy clear Mark. I mean, he came out and on for number six. That one is a bit, yeah. Right. That's such a  again, the theme of these first six rules to me are a reflection on that.  They're very much orientated around. Okay. Well take ownership of yourself rather [00:53:00] than. Allowing either outside  stimulus to affect you and simultaneously don't you  you know, interact poorly for, for others.

And then that one there, this idea of getting everything right in your life first, before you criticize others really comes down to, again, this concept of ownership, doesn't it. And asking yourself, have you done everything you can today to be that best version of yourself? I like how you saying, look, if, if you do catch yourself blaming  then  use it as an opportunity to be like a flag bag for yourself because it's such a negative energy.

 I really liked that. And you know, for me, I think we all have moments where we feel like we're the victim. Right. And we want to blame every single thing that we possibly can people's circumstances, whatever. [00:54:00] But the truth really is that if you find yourself saying poor me  that means that actually the one, the person that's accountable for this situation is not the guy down the road.

It's you, you got yourself here and it's probably, you could go back to the other five and find something in there. Are you taking responsibility? Are you standing tall? Are you, you know, are you really doing the right thing? All right.  So. I think this is really, really good because I think it is just such a natural emotion go what?

This isn't fair. Right? Like, I didn't deserve this or we, the team, the company, we didn't deserve that. That's not fair. That just is what it is. And don't indulge this because I think it's so counterproductive. Isn't it?  [00:55:00]What you have to do is go okay, in every hardship, there's a lesson, right? You got to go Jaco, Willink problem.

Good. Right. You just, what you got to do to get yourself right. To live the very best life you can. I think. I I, what I took from Eckhart toll is when you do find the ego talking, right?  The first thing you can do is identify that it's your ego talking and actually it's not really you and you can, you can have a choice and how, how your mindset is set in the world.

You don't have to fall victim to the ego. No, and I, and I think building on, on the echo Tal episode, we did a  just a few weeks ago, followed by Adam Grant's latest book. Don't let that ego take control because ultimately you have control over what you believe and how you react to things. So when you [00:56:00] do find yourself responding, perhaps in it, in a self-sabotage way or something, that's overly critical to others instead, just be aware of it, notice it in yourself and think, okay, well, hang on.

Is this how I would treat myself, you know, do I know how much I should be?  Chris others, if I haven't really done that homework myself and, and again, you know, Jordan references a number of times in eclipse today, the fact that this book is a little bit of a meditation for him, you know, he said this in a few different clips.

And I think what he means by that is it's, it's bringing him back down to his core foundation. It's reminding him, where do I stand? How should I react? And what really matters to me? And I think that comparison to, to the power of now is a really strong one because that's awesome. Oh, a huge meditation. And how do I react to things right now?

How am I going to focus myself? Yeah, [00:57:00] totally. Totally. So then we are Mark. I mean, we've had, we've had six big rules from Jordan Pearson. Did, do you feel like  what's your gut feeling? Do you think all of our listeners can go for Jordan? Peterson's back to back. What's your gut? I think we, I I'm, I'm really looking forward to next week.

So this week, the first six are, I believe, are quite reflective on ourselves and internal and the next six. So rules seven to 12 are kind of a little bit more dare I say practical, but I want to get into them with you Mike, to determine whether that's a correct  analysis or not. And then I'm, I'm, I'm really don't know, beyond order could be a natural extension and we could make a full partnership, but again, I mean, listeners, you've got to, you've got to help us.

You've got to guide us with what you'd like to hear. I think so. And where would you send everyone? Where's the destination that they can give us their feedback, their thoughts, the [00:58:00] ideas they can pop along to www.moonshots.io and leave us in the top of the bar. A little bit of feedback. We've got a nice for a forum that everybody can get in touch with or alternative listeners that you can get in touch with us at via email.

hello@moonshots.io. What a place to go right there, Mark  of all of the ideas, which one is sticking with you? Which one is still there talking to you? Whispering there's there's a few practical ones, like stand up straight that I'm always gonna remember. But for me, the big penny dropper heart moment today was comparing yourself with who you were yesterday.

It's so liberating that thought isn't it. It's liberating is a great word for that. Actually it is liberating because then you give yourself permission. You feel more free? Yup. Yup. And it's very much in line with that idea of like, if you went out, you played the game and you gave it your very [00:59:00] best. Right.

Then you can just accept the result because you gave it your all and you know, you'll wake up tomorrow and play in the next game and give that your best too. Right. Perfect. Give me your best. Well, Mark, we have come finally, after 128 episodes, we have actually done a Jordan B. Peterson show. Thank you, Mark.

It was fantastic.  And I really am grateful for you helping me getting some good rules for life. So there, you have it, everybody. Thank you to you. Our listeners, our moonshot is all of you who are looking for rules to unlock the very best version of themselves. And today we started with six of the best from Jordan Peterson, and it was a wild adventure into discipline and freedom and adventure responsibility working out how to get it done.

And that journey started. With very much self-awareness he told us to [01:00:00] stand up straight with your shoulders back and to treat yourself like someone you responsible for helping a bit of self care don't we need that. And don't forget, you should surround yourself with people that actually care for you who want the best for you.

And that helps us. To make good choices in life. And the first choice he asks us to do is to compare yourself with who you were yesterday and not with somebody else. And if you do that, you'll be able to raise great teams, maybe even right, raise a great family with people who like each other, who are liked by others and can offer their best version of themselves to the world.

And if you've done that. You can have the power. You can have the purpose, the strength to not be a victim, but as Jordan Peterson asked us, he can go out into the world and do everything to set your life [01:01:00] straight. Don't blame others, take the ownership for your life. So there you have it. Moonshot is we've got the first six rules for life from Jordan B.

Peterson. I hope you've got that energy, that willingness to go out and be the very best version of yourself. That's it for the moonshot podcast. That's a wrap. 128