Yep, I finally finished Jordan Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life and figured out why so many young men love him and hype him up.
In this podcast episode, I touch on my initial impressions, why people love him, how he’s so effective with his advice, the reasoning behind his advice, the different layers and fields he uses to back up his points, areas I agree and disagree, additional tips based on my own experiments and learnings, and how you can use it to improve your life. I dive deep into his first “rule” to break down what he truly means and the nuances to it so that you can more effectively use it to improve your life because it can be easy to miss stuff with how dense or thorough his ruminations and ramblings go.
Also, one thing I didn’t mention in my videos that is important is that Jordan mentions the phrase “dominance hierarchies” a few times. One distinction he goes onto make later on in videos that he doesn’t in the book is that “competence hierarchies” are a better way of describing these organizations. That’s because dominance implies bringing others down, taking something away from them, to boost yourself up. However, what we really find is that people with status are generating win-win relationships and being generous with the value they create that boost their status rather than bringing others down.
Another point I want to make is that you don’t need to strive to be exactly like Jordan. His daughter has admitted online that Jordan was rather peculiar and eccentric; he had dozens of types of paint in the house, the house was filled with Soviet paintings, and the dense material of his lectures would be common dinner conversation. Some of his eccentricities probably fuel his curiosity, which lead to his knowledge and communication skill. However, I don’t think that style of life and taste is the only path to success. There’s many flavors of success, and I don’t think you need to emulate that. For example, there’s plenty of successful people who have normal, upbeat dinner conversation.
