Tag Archive for: psychology

It’s rare that I appreciate major blockbuster comic book films these days.

They’re fun, but rarely do they have deep life lessons for all of us, and they nearly never go on my list of classics to keep in mind for the kids one day.

But, just back from date night last night, I took my queen to see Wonder Woman, and we both loved it.

Admittedly, you can’t go wrong with a fit and powerful lead woman, so when Jam said she wanted to see Wonder Woman, it was easy to persuade me. But there was a tremendous amount of unexpected depth to this story.

Gal Gadot delivered a great performance as Princess Diana of Themyscira, an Amazonian trained to be an incomparable warrior, daughter of Hippolyta and (SPOILER ALERT) of Zeus, the king of the gods. How this immortal ends up walking into World War I — the “war to end all wars” — is a mystery I’ll leave you to discover for yourself if you haven’t seen this flick yet.

Wonder Woman 1918

An unknowing demigoddess raised naive of her heritage, Diana only gradually discovers her incredible abilities as she develops courage and confidence in herself — a nice metaphorical message I approve of!

A great mix of moving drama, mild romance, action, and humor. Bravo to director Patty Jenkins!

The Heroine’s Journey in Wonder Woman

Beyond your typical movie reviews, it’s even more fun to analyze films from an archetypal perspective, incorporating what’s usually referred to as Jungian psychology.

From Lewis Carrol’s 1865 Alice in Wonderland, to the roaring success of the Harry Potter series, and The Hunger Games trilogy, the “Hero’s Journey” charts the stages and trials that the average Jane must face in order to discover her greatest self and share her exceptional gifts with the world.

It is the recurring story of those who choose to pursue greatness, of those who strive to make the world a better place, the greatest story ever told, a story older than time.

The heroine starts out as an ordinary person in the ordinary world, and receives a call to adventure. If she accepts the call, she must face internal and external trials, sometimes alone and sometimes with help from a guide…

heros-journey

This is what Joseph Campbell identified as the perennial “Hero’s Journey” monomyth — the cyclical hero’s path seen time and again throughout mythical stories passed down over the millennia, in spiritual traditions, in children’s bedtime stories, classic literature, and now in the fantasy and science fiction of today.

The long, difficult road of trials and challenges, as well as the heroine’s frequent brush with death, loss, or confrontation with evil, transform her for the better. In the end, the heroine must return to the “normal world” to share her extraordinary gifts with others, often facing life-threatening obstacles along the way.

“The heroic quest is about saying ‘yes’ to yourself and in so doing, becoming more fully alive and more effective in the world…. The quest is replete with dangers and pitfalls, but it offers great rewards: the capacity to be successful in the world, knowledge of the mysteries of the human soul, and the opportunity to find and express your unique gifts in the world.”

–Carol S. Pearson, author, Persephone Rising

While Wonder Woman isn’t for younger children, the two most important ladies in my life thoroughly enjoyed the film, and I look forward to sharing this film with any daughters I have one day, as a decent example of an empowering heroic female role model.

Fun trivia: at 75, Wonder Woman was recently named a U.N. Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls. Check Wikipedia for more on Wonder Woman’s character origins and history.

What Does It Mean to Be a Real-Life Hero?

“In times of radical uncertainty, it’s necessary that the Hero be born.

Because the Hero is the person who doesn’t deal with something specific, the Hero is the person that deals with Uncertainty itself. And that’s the Great Dragon of Chaos.

…What’s necessary is for the individual to become prepared for anything and everything, and the way that you do that is by developing your character.”

Dr. Jordan Peterson, University of Toronto professor of psychology

The hero or heroine is the person who is not afraid to confront their own inner demons, to explore the world of the Unknown, discover hidden power and talents, slay dragons, and eventually return to their regular day-to-day life to help lead their community towards a better future.

We were all born Kings and Queens, but we must reclaim the power and authority that is rightfully ours to take charge of this magical life and sculpt it into something beautiful.

But what does it truly mean to be a real-life, modern hero? As the Buddha observed, the REAL enemy who every great hero must defeat is oneself, and all of humanity’s greatest myths are really metaphors for this (often painful) process of self-overcoming.

“In many indigenous traditions, a person seeking answers to questions would approach a medicine man or woman sitting by the fire and ask what they should do to resolve their dilemma. He or she classically would respond to this request by saying, “Let me tell you a story.” Moms, dads, mentors, and friends can do this, too…. In new situations, often what is needed is a new story that can help supply a map for the new journey and a toehold when that journey feels like climbing up a steep and dangerous mountain.”

–Carol S. Pearson

A New Map: Come Sit By the Fire and Let Me Tell You a Story

I’m bringing together a community to help me fine-tune my upcoming book, Chasing the Sun, and to help develop a new theoretical framework for personal growth based around the Hero’s Journey!

It’s a story about finding purpose, about building a life, a business, and a family, illustrated through travel memoirs and wild, never-before-told stories of some of my more questionable travel adventures around the world over the last 8+ years, business trials, failures, successes, and more.

It’s finally time to share a few of the most important lessons I’ve learned along the way.

Sign up to get updates about the HERO Project below!

Maxims are universal ethical rules of conduct that guide us when we encounter unexpected or difficult situations in life.

It was asked on Quora:

If you could write a rulebook for being a man, what “Man Law” would you write?

Don’t feel limited by anything. Think about what you would want to see in an ideal man. What are the qualities of a good husband, father, brother? What one thing would you want to see in your daughter’s boyfriend or husband?

Here is the wise list of guiding maxims espoused by Dr. Jordan Peterson, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto and clinical psychologist:

  1. Encourage children through play.
  2. Promote the best in people.
  3. Keep the sacred fire burning.
  4. Guard the women and children from harm.
  5. Confront the eternal adversary.
  6. Build the crystal palace.
  7. Confront death with courage and return.
  8. Dare to cut down a tree.
  9. Offer your sons up as a sacrifice to God.
  10. Protect your daughters from exploitation.
  11. Store up wealth for the future.
  12. Consult the ancestral spirits.
  13. Read great books.
  14. Speak the truth about unpleasant things.
  15. Pay close attention.
  16. Make a worthy temple for the Lord.
  17. Keep the howling winds of winter at bay.
  18. Stand up for the oppressed.
  19. Provide a warm and secure home.
  20. Be a prince of peace.
  21. Don’t be too civilized. (related video)
  22. Organize yourself with other men. (related video)
  23. Be faithful to your wife.
  24. Be hospitable to friends and strangers.
  25. Rout the wolves and chase the lions so the shepherds can eat.
  26. Establish a destination – and a path.
  27. Bring heaven to earth.
  28. Take on the sins of the world.
  29. Dig the wells and mine the gold and copper.
  30. Gather everyone to the banquet.
  31. Grow up and take responsibility. (related video)
  32. Resist pride in all things.

[source: Quora]

What would you add? Or what do you think needs more context?

For a more thorough understanding of maxims, see this video about Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy and conscience in the film Kingdom of Heaven, particularly at 1:45

Ever since I lost two of my best friends at age 20, Chris and Kareem, I’ve spent the last 14 years looking — around the god forsaken globe mind you, in every dark corner I could find — for hope.

This man helped set off a chain of events that helped me find my misplaced faith again, and take important responsibility for certain things in my life.

The process was not easy. It cost me everything I had. But I am rebuilding myself stronger than ever and with a much clearer understanding of why I’m here than ever before.

Jordan B. Peterson is a controversial professor at the center of the sociopolitical culture war erupting in the West right now who has been vilified in outrageous ways by his critics.

But I believe Peterson — of all the wildly different people I’ve encountered across four continents — I believe this man may be the most important living intellectual of our time, akin to a modern-day Joseph Campbell.

You may disagree with his views, but what the professor of psychology at the University of Toronto is doing just may tip the scales in humanity’s favor and help warring tribes and hostile brothers come to understand each other.

Right when we most need a miracle.

0:30 Introduction/Rise to Fame & Gender Pronouns
3:28 “Radical in a Conservative way”
5:54 Jung/Archetypes/Collective Unconscious
10:30 Integrating of the Logos
15:45 Bringing yourself into Alignment
19:06 Nature of Responsibility & Rights / Message for Men
22:00 Masculinity in the West
25:50 Post-Modernism
29:40 Integrating your Shadow, “You are the Locus of Evil”, Mind and Body alignment
34:50 Relation to the Raising of Children
37:50 Piaget’s developmental model and continual integration vs Freud
39:00 Speaking the Truth
41:02 On Atheism, Rationalism, Morality, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins etc.
44:10 Intellectualism, embodiment
45:20 Motivation for true understanding

Following along with his Maps of Meaning and Personality & Its Transformations courses at the University of Toronto was a transformational process that helped me understand a lot of the deeper wisdom in the value system I was raised within. Not only that, but working through the Self Authoring program he and his academic colleagues created is also helping me create a much more accurate mental map to navigate the trials and challenges of life.

Along with the work of many others, including Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, Peterson’s work has helped me through the most challenging times of my life, and helped me learn to navigate incredible failure, suffering, pain, and face immense terror with a newfound zen-like faith in the process.

Life is suffering.

Love is the desire to see unnecessary suffering ameliorated.

Truth is the handmaiden of love.

Dialogue is the pathway to truth.

Humility is recognition of personal insufficiency and the willingness to learn.

To learn is to die voluntarily and to be born again, in great ways and small.

So, speech must be untrammeled, so that dialogue can take place; so that we can all humbly learn, so that truth can serve love, so that suffering can be ameliorated, so that we can all stumble forward, so to speak, towards the kingdom of God.”

–Jordan Peterson

 

 

principle is a concept or value that is a guide for behavior or evaluation. In law, it is a rule that has to be, or usually is to be followed, or can be desirably followed, or is an inevitable consequence of something, such as the laws observed in nature or the way that a system is constructed. The principles of such a system are understood by its users as the essential characteristics of the system, or reflecting system’s designed purpose, and the effective operation or use of which would be impossible if any one of the principles was to be ignored.

In seeking well-organized principles to live by, I’ve not come across a better, more comprehensive example than these shared by Dr. Jordan Peterson, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto (also author of the upcoming book 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote to Chaos).

In response to the question: “What are the most valuable things everyone should know?” These are the forty lessons the good professor had to share. Hard to beat:

  1. Tell the truth.
  2. Do not do things that you hate.
  3. Act so that you can tell the truth about how you act.
  4. Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient.
  5. If you have to choose, be the one who does things, instead of the one who is seen to do things.
  6. Pay attention.
  7. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you need to know. Listen to them hard enough so that they will share it with you.
  8. Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationships.
  9. Be careful who you share good news with.
  10. Be careful who you share bad news with.
  11. Make at least one thing better every single place you go.
  12. Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that.
  13. Do not allow yourself to become arrogant or resentful.
  14. Try to make one room in your house as beautiful as possible.
  15. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.
  16. Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens.
  17. If old memories still make you cry, write them down carefully and completely.
  18. Maintain your connections with people.
  19. Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or artistic achievement.
  20. Treat yourself as if you were someone that you are responsible for helping.
  21. Ask someone to do you a small favour, so that he or she can ask you to do one in the future.
  22. Make friends with people who want the best for you.
  23. Do not try to rescue someone who does not want to be rescued, and be very careful about rescuing someone who does.
  24. Nothing well done is insignificant.
  25. Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.
  26. Dress like the person you want to be.
  27. Be precise in your speech.
  28. Stand up straight with your shoulders back.
  29. Don’t avoid something frightening if it stands in your way — and don’t do unnecessarily dangerous things.
  30. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.
  31. Do not transform your wife into a maid.
  32. Do not hide unwanted things in the fog.
  33. Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated.
  34. Read something written by someone great.
  35. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.
  36. Do not bother children when they are skateboarding.
  37. Don’t let bullies get away with it.
  38. Write a letter to the government if you see something that needs fixing — and propose a solution.
  39. Remember that what you do not yet know is more important than what you already know.
  40. Be grateful in spite of your suffering.

[original source: Quora]

Isn’t it strange, to live life through just one pair of eyeballs, and to know for a fact, that at the very same time, there are literally billions of other eyeballs having their very own, sometimes wildly unique lives, recording their own crazy experiences simultaneously.

And that’s just taking other people into account. Not to even mention the countless other lifeforms, just on this planet.

And who knows what else lurks out there in the deep reaches of outer space, in the great beyond, the Unknown World…

How important we think we are. Our experiences, our perspective.

And we tend to think other people share the same views on things, or at least that they should. But we forget how myopic others are, just as much as ourselves.

Humans tend to focus on the areas immediately around them — the objects in their immediate surroundings.

Jobs, and screens, don’t help.

There were times in millennia past when men did very little but watch the horizon for enemy tribes, or for predators. And there are still a few men throughout the world today who lead their lives in a similar fashion — seafarers, pilots, herders, hunters, outdoorsmen, certain kinds of nomads.

But most of us spend the vast majority of our hours and days indoors. In cities. Enclosed.

Our eyesight goes early because we spend years of our lives staring at screens or surfaces of one form or another. Our ancestors did not evolve to do the things we do today.

And keep in mind, the modern human brain essentially developed over 50,000 years ago.

For 99.8% of that time, humans were living very different lifestyles — occupying themselves with incredibly different things than we do today.

As I write this, I’m watching the construction men across the road building a magnificent piece of engineering.

construction

These guys (and a few gals, props to ’em) are working now on the seventh floor, out there in the breeze, no ropes, not one safety net that I can see from where I’m sitting.

Some of them have been practicing their craft for so long, they’ll stand right on the edge looking straight down.

And they’re talented.

But I bet you could point a gun at most of them from the next nearest rooftop, and nobody would see it coming. Because of the nature of their work (and this is a somewhat extreme example, I’ll admit) but they are hyper-focused on their immediate surroundings.

It’s not a bad thing. They get excellent work done.

But for a lot of people, it could cost you your life sometimes if you take your eye off your day job.

And most don’t get out enough to fully appreciate the real healing powers of being in our natural environment.

I feel people sometimes lose sight of the fact that we are not well-adapted to live with our technology.

Technology’s great. But we are in fact hard-wired through millions of years of evolution to do very different things than we do in 2017.

And that fact underlies most the problems YOU experience in life — from health issues, injuries, relationship challenges, emotional and mental wellbeing, to your failure to find meaning in your work, poor sexual performance, or struggling with unhappiness.

Even money (as you know it) wasn’t even a thing until the last 1000 years.

So if you’re struggling with that game, don’t worry. So am I. It doesn’t come naturally to anyone.

I have several friends who’ve managed to find a way to make millions, and then lose it all.

I’ve got to imagine that bites. Hard.

But I still respect them. Plus it just shows — we’re all only human.

If you’re struggling with any of these things — your emotional world, your fitness and health, your wealth, your relationships, or otherwise getting what you want out of life — I bet you probably don’t typically think in your day-to-day life that maybe something about how your ancestors evolved had much to do with it.

But just maybe…

***

Once in a while, it’s nice to get out of the city. It’s nice to get out into nature, somewhere you can stretch out and breath. Somewhere you can spend time with the wanderers, the seagoers, the adventurers.

Somewhere far away from your day job. Somewhere you can look out across the open sea, or examine the world from mountaintop.

I even just love sitting here on my balcony every chance I get, watching the world go by. It gives you a different PERSPECTIVE on life, and the world.

But with the increasing harvest season smoke and smog here in Chiang Mai, I’m thinking of getting away from it all, getting a change of perspective and going to immerse myself in the great outdoors, in my preferred natural environment.

It’s been quite a while actually, since I visited my good friends there… sat on my favorite beach listening to the ocean speak, went rock climbing, or sea kayaking, or even just jammed at one of the great reggae bars filled with friendly warm faces.

Heck, last time I took a group of new friends there, we swam with sharks, braved jellyfish stings, we shared unforgettable moments together around a beach bonfire, under an open sky full of stars.

hiking guided tour krabi

If anybody wants to join me soon in my favorite paradise, I’m thinking of making another escape to Krabi, Thailand.

But this is a HEROIC Escape! We always build incredible deep bonds with new friends, push ourselves to grow in challenging but fun ways, and tend to really experience some breakthroughs through a change in perspective, and through more physical, natural challenges than many folks might be used to (at least in their day-to-day life).

I always find it’s a great reset, and I always deepen some pretty valuable new relationships with fascinating people. I’ve even connected some new friends with VC money in the millions, or with publishers, for example, through these wild experiences.

And I’ve been blessed to witness some incredible transformative moments that people have had — simply challenging themselves in weird new ways and sharing a once-in-a-lifetime experience together with other like-minded people.

I spent 2 years living in Ao Nang, Krabi, and developed many amazing friendships and invaluable connections in this very magical place.

If there is a Shangri-La, this is it as far as I’m concerned:

In the 35 countries I’ve traveled so far, I haven’t found a beach I love more than this place.

Let me know — I’m considering taking my Queen and our son for their first time for much of March, and I’m toying with the idea of throwing a little beach festival for my 33rd birthday.

If you’d be interested to join, let me know here.

And keep your eye on the horizon, friends.

personal finance wealth

Ramit Sethi was one of the earliest bloggers to inspire me when I first started writing my original site ‘Thrilling Heroics’ and building my professional network.

A Stanford alumni who studied technology and psychology, Ramit was one of the original co-founders of Silicon Valley startup PBworks, and runs the hugely successful I Will Teach You To Be Rich blog to help college students and young professionals take control of their personal finances and succeed with entrepreneurship.

I first met him in person in our hometown Sacramento, California, one chilly winter day in 2006 when he was home to visit his family, and I had the opportunity to interview him about his education, entrepreneurship experience, and his perspectives on new media.

One of the first bold moves Ramit made in his career was to call up Seth Godin and negotiate a job opportunity with him. He later consulted with Omidyar Network, the philanthropic social innovation firm started by Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar.

I Will Teach You to Be RichIn March 2006, Ramit published his definitive personal finance book, which immediately hit #1 on Amazon and made him a New York Times bestselling author. His educational background in social psychology translated well into a thorough guidebook that helps readers make real behavioral change:

At last, for a generation that’s materially ambitious yet financially clueless comes I Will Teach You To Be Rich, Ramit Sethi’s 6-week personal finance program for 20-to-35-year-olds. A completely practical approach delivered with a nonjudgmental style that makes readers want to do what Sethi says, it is based around the four pillars of personal finance—banking, saving, budgeting, and investing—and the wealth-building ideas of personal entrepreneurship.

This week Ramit is adapting his bestseller into a six-week online bootcamp

After meeting recently with him in San Francisco, I’ve been wanting to bring him on for a video interview to share what has changed in the last three years. Here’s our fascinating discussion:

Check out the full video interview here for the following:

  • How Ramit turned his writing and personal expertise into a 6-week personal finance training program
  • The massive importance of TAKING ACTION
  • The value of FREE content versus INVESTING in your success
  • How to use a blog as a laboratory for launching your own business and life experiments
  • What defines a RICH life? (what Ramit values most)
  • How to leverage failures to reach SUCCESS
  • How Ramit made the leap from blogger to NYT best-selling author
  • Personal finance & entrepreneurship tips for travelers & expats

lifestyle design Ramit Sethi interview

To learn more about Ramit Sethi, social psychology, technology in business, scrappy startups, and x-man abilities, make sure you also read my 2006 interview with him.