Jordan Peterson – Awaken Your Vitality (Motivational Speech)

➡ The video discusses the importance of balance in life, suggesting that focusing solely on one aspect, like a career, can lead to a lack of fulfillment. It argues that having a variety of interests and relationships can lead to a richer life, even if it means not reaching the top in any one area. The video also highlights the different pressures and expectations on men and women, and the sacrifices required for success. Lastly, it emphasizes that problems are a part of life and striving for a problem-free existence is unrealistic, but it’s still worth trying to solve them.
➡ Creativity is a high-risk, high-return strategy that isn’t for everyone. While it can open up unique experiences, monetizing creativity is extremely challenging. It involves not just creating an original product, but also marketing, sales, customer support, and building an organization. Even if you manage to create a successful product, the chances of making money from it are slim. However, for those who are truly creative, not being creative can lead to misery, and despite the risks, the potential for significant success can be a powerful motivator.

This video is sponsored by CheckQuest 17 Anti-Aging Coffee. This video is sponsored by CheckQuest 17 Anti-Aging Coffee. This video is sponsored by CheckQuest 17 Anti-Aging Coffee. You’re dedicated, you’re unidimensional, and that’s how you get to beat all the other people who are doing that. It’s the only way, but the problem is you don’t get a life. Now, if you love being a scientist and you have that kind of focus of mind, well, first of all, you’re a rare person, and second, you’re going to pay for it. But, fine, more power to you. But, it’s a risky business to do that.

You sacrifice a lot for it. You know, and I would say, most often, if you’re speaking about having a healthy life, that isn’t what you do. You spread yourself out more. So, you know, you have a family, you have some things that you do outside of work that are meaningful to you and useful. You have a network of friends. Those three things alone are plenty to keep you well-oriented. And then, if one of those things collapses, you know, everything doesn’t go. Now, the price you pay for that is, the more you strive to optimize that balance, the less likely you are to be fantastically successful at any single one of them.

But, you might have a very, you know, if you consider your life as a whole, that might be a winning strategy. One of the things Carl Jung said, I really like this, he thought that men went after perfection and women went after wholeness. So, perfection would be, stake it all in one thing and look for radical success. Not that all men do that, because they don’t, but we’re talking about extremes, at least with regards to the men that do that. The wholeness idea is more like, well, I want one thing in my life to be 150%, or I want five things in my life to be 80%.

Well, there’s a lot more richness in a life where you have five things operating at 80%, but you’re not operating at any of them, at 150%. And I really believe this, because I’ve watched men and women go through their careers now, for a long period of time. But one of the things that I’ve noticed is that mostly women in their 30s bail out of unidimensional careers. They won’t do them. They won’t put in the 80 hours a week that they would have to put in in order to dominate that particular area. And it isn’t, the reason that they won’t do it is because they decide it’s not worth it.

And no wonder, because why would that be worth it? You have to ask yourself that. It’s like, well, you want to be an outstanding scientist. It’s like, okay, really, really, that’s what you want. Because that means that’s what you do. Because you’re competing with other people. You know, they’re smart, they’re hardworking, and if you want to be at the top, you have to be smarter and work harder than any of them. And working hard means working long hours. I mean, it also means working diligently. But in the final analysis, it’s also an additive issue. If I’m smart and hardworking, and I can crank out for 70 hours a week, and you do it for 30, it’s like, in two years, I’m so far ahead of you.

You will never, ever catch up. And I think partly, maybe part of the reason, too, that women are oriented that way more than men. I think there’s two reasons. One is, socioeconomic status does not make women more attractive on the mating market, but it does make men more attractive. And the second is, women’s time frame is compressed. Right? Because guys can always say, well, I’ll have kids later. And they can say that until they’re, like, 80. Whereas women, it’s like, no way, man, you’ve got to get it together by the time you’re, let’s say, 40, but really, probably by 35, but definitely by 40.

Because otherwise, it ain’t happening. And that’s bloody dreadful. There’s a sacrificial element in maturation, right? You have to sacrifice the pluripotentiality of childhood for the actuality of a frame. And the question is, well, why would you do that? Well, one reason is, it happens to you whether you do it or not. You can either choose your damn limitation, or you can let it take you unaware when you’re 30, or even worse, when you’re 40. And then, that is not a happy day. I see people like this, and I think it’s more and more common in our culture, because people can put off maturity without suffering an immediate penalty.

But all that happens is the penalty accrues, and then when it finally hits, it just wallops you. Because when you’re 25, you can be an idiot. It’s no problem. Even when you’re out in a job search, it’s like, well, you don’t have any experience, and you’re kind of clueless. It’s, yeah, yeah, you’re young. You know, it’s no problem. That’s what young people are like, but they’re full of potential. Okay, well, now you’re the same person at 30. It’s like, people aren’t so thrilled about you at that point. It’s like, what the hell have you been doing for the last 10 years? Well, I’m just as clueless as I was when I was 22.

It’s, yeah, but you’re not 22. You’re an old infant, right? And that’s an ugly thing, an old infant. So part of the reason you choose your damn sacrifice, because the sacrifice is inevitable. But at least you get to choose it. And then there’s something that’s even more complex than that in some sense, is that the problem with being a child is that all you are is potential. And it’s really low resolution. You could be anything, but you’re not anything. So then you go and you adopt an apprenticeship, roughly speaking. And then you become, at least you become something.

And when you’re something, that makes the world open up to you again. You know, like if you’re a really good plumber, then you end up being far more than a plumber. You know, if you’re a really good plumber, well, then you have some employees. You run a business. You train some other people. You enlarge their lives. You’re kind of a pillar of the community. You have your family. Once you pass through that narrow training period, which narrows you and constricts you and develops you at the same time, then you can come out the other end with a bunch of new possibility at hand.

Part of the proper path of development in the last half of life was to rediscover the child that you left behind as you were apprenticing. And so then you get to be something and regain that potential at the same time. You’re in the situation that you’re in right now, and that’s not good enough. And so that’s another thing that’s kind of interesting about people, is they’re chronically dissatisfied with the way things are. Well, that’s okay, because you wouldn’t be motivated to move forward if you weren’t chronically dissatisfied with the way that things are. But it’s kind of annoying, you know, because you might think, well, why aren’t you just happy with what you have? And the answer to that is generally, because I don’t know if it’s going to last.

And so that’s part of it. And the other is, well, if the situation shifted a bit, maybe I’d have more options. And some of that would be, it would last longer, it’d be more stable, it’d be more promising. And so you can say, well, you should be satisfied with what you have. But it’s kind of really a stupid thing in some sense to tell human beings, because no matter what you have, it isn’t going to solve your fundamental problem. So the problem isn’t going away, and you can’t just fool yourself into saying, well, what I have is great.

You could say, I could have a hell of a lot less, and that would be bad. And most people have a lot less than me, and I should be grateful for what I have. That’s fine. That’s perfectly reasonable. But you’re stuck with this chronic sense of unfinished business, and the reason for that is, well, you’re permanently vulnerable. So how could it be otherwise? And even if you’ve got your problems solved, then there’s three or four people in your family that by no means have got their problems solved. So the problem of problems never goes away.

That’s a good thing to know existentially, too, because it helps you calibrate your life properly. Because you might be thinking, well, if I just got everything together, you know, I’d hit some plateau of satiation and stability, and then I would just be there. It’s like, no, that’s never going to happen. It’s never going to happen. So you might as well just forget about that. Well, maybe you want to push a damn rock up a hill. You know, it’s going to roll down again. It’s like, what are you going to do? Just sit there by the rock? It’s okay to be active, even if the problem you’re trying to solve is not fundamentally solvable.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth trying to solve. And you guys should listen to this, because I know what I’m talking about. If you happen to be creative, if you’re a songwriter or another kind of musician or an artist or any of the other number of things that you might be, find a way to make money, and then practice your craft on the side, because you will starve to death otherwise. Now, for some of you, that won’t be true, but it’s a tiny minority. Your best bet is to find a job that will keep body and soul together and parse off some time that you can pursue your creative thing.

Because then, well, as a long-term strategy, medium to long-term strategy, it’s a better one. You know, you hear very frequently people say things like, everyone’s creative. It’s like, that’s wrong. It’s wrong. It’s just as wrong as saying that everyone’s extroverted. First of all, you have to be pretty damn smart to be creative, because otherwise you’re just going to get to where other people have already got, and that’s not creative by definition. So, being fast and being out there at the front of things really makes a difference. And then you also have to have these divergent thinking capabilities, and that’s part of your trait structure.

And creative people are really different than non-creative people. You know, partly because, for example, they’re highly motivated to do creative things, and to experience novelty, and to chase down aesthetic experiences, and to attend movies, and to read fiction, and to go to museums, and to enjoy poetry, and to enjoy music that’s not conventional music, for example. These aren’t trivial differences, and so it’s a real misstatement to make the proposition that everyone’s creative. It’s just simply not the case. It’s a matter of wishful thinking. It’s like saying that everyone’s intelligent. It’s like, well, if everyone’s intelligent, then the term loses all of its meaning, because any term that you can apply to every member of a category has absolutely no meaning.

You know, the other thing you want to be thinking about here is that, don’t be thinking that creativity is such a good thing. It’s a high-risk, high-return strategy. There’s creative people in this room, man. You guys are going to have a hell of a time monetizing your creativity. It’s virtually impossible. It’s really, really difficult, because, first of all, let’s say you make an original product. You think, the world will beat a pathway to your door if you build a better mousetrap. It’s like, that’s complete rubbish. It isn’t true in the least. If you make a good, creative product, you’ve probably solved about 5% of your problem, because then you have marketing, which is insanely difficult, and then you have sales, and then you have customer support, and then you have to build an organization, and you have to, if it’s really novel, you have to tell people what the hell the thing is.

You know, we built this future authoring program, right? It’s available for people online. How do you market that? No one knows what that is, and that’s a real problem. If you write a book, well, then you have the problem that another million people have also written a book, but if you produce something that’s completely new and doesn’t have a category, people can’t search for it online, how are they going to find it? And then you have pricing problems, and it’s really unbelievably difficult to produce something creative, and then monetize it, and even worse, if you’re the creative person, let’s say you have a spectacular invention.

You’ve got no money, right? You’ve got no customers. Those are big problems, and so maybe you go and you find a venture capitalist, we start with family and friends, because that’s how it works. You raise money for your product, you raise money from your family and friends. That’s assuming you have family and friends that have some money, and that they’re going to give it to you, and most people aren’t in that situation. So it’s a terrible barrier right off the bat. And then, of course, you’re putting your family and friends at substantial financial risk, because the probability that your stupid idea is going to make money is virtually zero, even if it’s a really brilliant idea.

And so then, let’s say, well, you get past family and friends, and you get venture capitalists involved, because that’s often the next step, or an angel investor. There’s steps in building a business. Family and friends, angel investor, that’s some rich guy that you happen to meet, some man, or in some way, who’s into this sort of thing and is willing to provide you with some money to get your product off the ground. Well, how much of your product is that person going to take? Well, most of it. Most of it. And no wonder, because, you know, you don’t have any money.

How are you going to bargain for control over your product? He’ll just say, well, do you want the money or not? And if your answer is no, then he’ll go and do something else with his money. It’s not like there’s no shortage of things that you can do with your money. There’s a million things you can do with it. So you’re not in a great bargaining position. And then if you get venture capitalists involved, they’ll take another big chunk. And maybe if they’re not very straight with you, they’ll just throw you out. Because maybe by that point in the company’s development, you’re nothing but a pain in the neck.

Because what do you know about marketing, and sales, and customer service, and building an organization, and running a business? Like, you don’t have a clue, so why do they need you? So, even if you’re successful at generating a new idea, and you put it into a business, the probability that you, as the originator of the idea, are going to make some money from it is very, very low. So don’t be thinking that creativity is something you would want to curse yourself with. Now, it’s not all bad, because it opens up avenues of experience for creative people that aren’t available to people who aren’t creative.

But it definitely is a high-risk, high-return strategy. So the overwhelming probability is that you will fail. But a small proportion of creative people succeed spectacularly. And so, it’s like a lottery, in some sense. You’re probably going to lose. But if you don’t lose, you could win big. And that keeps a lot of creative people going. But also, they don’t really have much choice in it, because if you’re a creative person, you’re like a fruit tree that’s bearing fruit. So you don’t really have, you can suppress it, but it’s very bad for you. You know, the creative people I’ve worked with, is if they’re not creative, they’re miserable, so they have to do it.

And, you know, there’s real joy and pleasure in it, and psychological utility. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s intelligent. It’s certainly not a conservative strategy for moving forward through life. What does it mean to think creatively? It’s something like this. Imagine that I tossed you out an idea, and there’s some probability that when I tossed you that idea, that that will trigger off other ideas in your imagination. So you could think about it as a threshold issue. If you’re not very creative, I’ll throw you an idea, and hardly any other ideas will be triggered, and the ones that will be triggered are going to be very closely associated with that initial idea.

So let’s say I tossed each of you an idea, and I asked you to tell me the first thing that comes to mind. Okay, so what we would see first is that the first thing that comes to mind, in all likelihood, would be shared by many of you. Okay, so then you could think about that as a common response, right? And so that’s a less creative response. And then there’ll be some things that come to mind for you that are so idiosyncratic, that you’re the only person that thinks it, and no one can understand it.

Well, that’s also not exactly creative, because the thing that you, for something to be creative, it has to be novel and useful at the same time. That’s sort of a rough definition. Something creative is novel and useful. So anyways, so you can think of, you get thrown an idea, and there’s some probability that that will co-activate other ideas. And if it co-activates many other ideas, that’s like fluency. And if it co-activates ideas that are quite distant from the original idea, something like that, and you could track distance by comparing it to probability that other people have generated it, then that’s also another indication of creativity.

So there have to be many unlikely responses that are useful. That’s what creativity is, roughly speaking. And then you can fractionate it into different dimensions. So that’s creative thinking. But then creative achievement would be the ability to take those original ideas and then actually to implement them in the world. And that’s obviously much more different than merely being creative. [tr:trw].