How To BEAT ADVERSITY & Overcome ANY OBSTACLE | Jordan Peterson EP 273

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation show.

0:10I firmly believe that taking charge of your mindset allows you to be in the driver's seat of your life and unlock your potential. And that's why I'm thrilled to share that my new book is out right now. It's called The Greatness Mindset. In it, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book that I wish I had 20 years ago. It's everything I've learned in the last decade with the research and the science to help you unlock your mind. Make sure to go to lewishouse.com slash 2023mindset to pick up your copy of my book, The Greatness Mindset, today.

0:53Your question is, well, to what degree is adversity character building? And the answer to that is plenty. But I was already, like I said, and it was the same with my wife. We weren't naive people. You know, because I had an extensive clinical practice, I was dealing with heavy level adversity always. Because it wasn't your daughter. No, no. But there were, you know, there were other problems in my family and so forth that I dealt with as well. We'd already, I think, garnered most of what we could from confronting adverse situations. It probably brought our family closer together, all things considered.

1:29I saw the same thing happen when my wife's mother died. She died of prefrontal dementia and she developed it quite young, but it started to really manifest itself in her early 50s. And she died when she was 70 and she fell apart over, you know, 18 years. And she was very physically healthy. And her husband, who was quite the man about town when he was a young guy, real extrovert, he was a real character in our hometown, he took care of her so well it was absolutely jaw-dropping. Every time she slipped, he'd step up to the plate. and he took care of her until he couldn't lift her out of her chair anymore.

2:05And he was getting old too. And so she wasn't in an old age home for very long. And then we were around when she died, you know, over the couple of days just before her death. And her family, her sister is a palliative care nurse. Her other sister is a pharmacist. And Tammy's had the experiences that I already described. And then her father really stepped up to the plate. So the whole family gathered around for that. And they acted impeccably throughout it, I would say. They took care of their mother very carefully while she was dying and they pulled together. And one of the consequences of that, which was so interesting, is that although their mother died and that was a terrible loss, their bonds that connected them, all of them, strengthened to the point where I would say that was almost compensation for the loss of their mother.

2:50So that was really interesting to see what happens even in a dire circumstance if people do what they can't. Now, I'm not saying that that's going to work for every situation because I know people get cut off at the knees. And sometimes you hit a tragedy that, well, that's fatal, that you cannot rectify. It's a real catastrophe. But it was very interesting watching that because they were alert and awake around the deathbed and they weren't fighting with each other at all. There was no familial squabbling because you can imagine that that would happen because everyone's stressed. And then you can just imagine how terrible that would make something that's already awful.

3:26There was none of that. They focused their attention on her. They gave her water when she needed it. They watched her. And they made this terrible thing the least amount of awful it could be. You guys have been through a lot. Yeah, it was a lot. What's your biggest fear now, moving forward, in your own life? Oh, making a mistake at the moment. Because I've been the subject of so much public attention in the last two years. And I've been in a situation where, well, even things I didn't say have also almost been fatal. because people take them out of context. Right. You know, but my biggest fear has been that I do something careless and that there are, like, serious cascading consequences to it.

4:13Do you feel like you've done something careless? Well, everyone's done something careless. Right. You know, but I've been pretty careful. I mean, I was fortunate. So when this political scandal blew up around me in Canada, when I opposed some legislation that I thought was reprehensibly constructed. The radicals on the left in particular came after me hard. And, you know, I suppose there was some degree of... That was understandable to some degree, because if you stand up against something, if you stand up against the radical right, well, maybe you're a communist. Probably not, because you don't have to be a communist to not like the radical right.

4:48But if you stand up against the radical left, well, maybe you're a Nazi. Well, probably not, but you might be. And so it's certainly in the interest of the people who are proponents of the philosophy of the radical left to assume that you're a Nazi Because then they don't have to deal with you. And so that's what happens You throw yourself into the fray people try to localize you and they do that by saying well Maybe you're this maybe you're this maybe this maybe you're this it's like well, yeah, maybe not too and and but I already had 250 hours of lectures up on YouTube at that point so people could actually go and see what I had said because virtually every word I'd ever said to students in a professional capacity.

5:24Not every word because I didn't tape every lecture, but I taped multiple years of lectures and so people went over those with a fine-tooth comb trying to find out if there's anything I'd ever said that was and they couldn't find anything. And that was because I've been very careful with what I say. 25 I started paying attention to what I was saying and and trying very hard not to say things that something in me objected to.

6:02Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description that will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on the School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

6:53Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.

7:08Thank you.