Jordan Peterson - Why Successful People Are Often Lonely

foreign [Music] if you concentrate solely on your career you can get a long way in your career and I would say that that's a strategy that a minority of men preferentially do that's all they do they worked like 70 80 hours a week they go flat out on their career they're staking everything on the small probability of exceptional status in a narrow domain but it's hard on them they don't have a life it's very difficult for them to have a family what's the one thing the one thing he said God I wish I had done

that that I haven't done you know thanking Melinda it may be that that unidimensionality is the price you have to pay to be exceptional at one thing right because if you're going to be something like a genius level mathematician and you want to do that for or a scientist say it's like you're in your lab you're in your lab all the time you're working 70 hours a week or 80 hours a week you're smart you're dedicated you're uni-dimensional 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 find more power to you but but it's a 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 you have a network of friends that that those three things alone are four 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 can 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 when women went after wholeness so they're different they're different value they're they're different there's something different at the top of the value hierarchy so Perfection would be stake it all on one thing and and look for radical success not all 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

I want it's like I want one thing in my life to be 150 percent or I want five things in my life to be 80 percent well there there's a lot more richness in a life where you have five things operating at eighty percent but you're not operating in any of at any of them at 150 percent so and I really believe this because I've watched men and women go through their careers now for a long period of time and one of the things that there's lots of things that produce this but one of the

things that I've noticed is that mostly women in their 30s bear bail out of uni-dimensional careers they won't do them they won't 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 [Music] difficult did you expect them to cheer you on so they hoping they would what are you trying to prove to them what I'm trying

to do is is to make a significant difference in in space flight and and and help make space flight accessible to to almost anyone and I I would hope for as much support in that direction as we as we can receive 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 told me you once told me that when you came back we might be the same age and today I'm the age you

were when you left you a real good time for you to come in because you're competing with other people you know they're smart they're hard working and if you want to be at the top you have to be smarter and work harder than any of them [Music] and working hard means working long hours I mean it also means working diligently but in in the final analysis it's all also an additive issue if I'm smart and hard working 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 anyways 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 is 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 till they're like 80. whereas women it's like no way man you got to

get it you 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 like the most unhappy people you ever see no no one of the common roots to extreme unhappiness is to want children and not have them I wouldn't recommend that