Focus on You – Jordan Peterson

0:00Few things are as uplifting as the greatest moments in sports, and nothing brings us together quite like Team USA at the Olympic Winter Games. From NBC Universal's iconic storytelling to the innovative technology across Xfinity and Peacock, Comcast brings the Olympic Games home to America, sharing every moment with millions. When Team USA steps onto the world stage, we're not just watching, we're cheering together. This winter, we're all on the same team. Comcast, Proud Partner of Team USA. The sun is out, the birds are chirping, and the open road is calling. Bring on the spring at the Honda Spring event and take that road trip you've been dreaming of. Now's the time to check out the Honda Civic and HRV from Honda, the 2025 Kelly Blue Books KVB.com Best Value Brand. I'm really on the side of the person that wants to do something positive with their life,

1:08to make their own life better, because I think that's where you should start. You should start by maximizing the quality of your own life. That's not a selfish thing, or if it is, it's the right kind of selfishness, and that you should figure out how to do that in a way that's of benefit to your friends and your family and your community, and you should take that deadly seriously. And the reason you should do that is because that just makes life better for everyone, and it reduces a fair bit of the misery that would otherwise be part and parcel of life, and it makes everything function smoothly. And one of the things I'm really curious about is what the world would be like if everybody decided to do that, because human beings are really remarkable creatures, and we hobble ourselves very badly with deception and resentment and revenge and the desire to make things worse and arrogance, and all those sins, let's say, that make us deviate from our true path, and our true path should be something like, imagine the noblest aim that you can conceptualize, and then sacrifice your life to attempting to attain it.

2:08And there's nothing in that that isn't good for everyone. And so, apart from the fact that it requires a lot of responsibility, I just can't see why everyone wouldn't do that. To get rid of the truth first, who are you? Get really accountable. It's okay, who am I? You must have truth about me. Get to that dark place in your mind. Figure out. It may take months, may take years. Figure out your purpose. Figure out what you want to be in life. And then from there, okay, I have my purpose. It may take a long time. No one knows their purpose, because it's too loud. Find your purpose. From there, all right. You gotta start planning. People love the planning phase, because it's very comfortable. And then from the planning phase, you gotta go to execution. So the execution phase would be all hate, because that's where the real work begins, and that's when the failure happens, and the failure, and the failure. But you know, that's that's kind of how you have to do it. There's a tremendous amount of stuff you got to change to do. You have been given the message over and over and over, even though it's not true.

3:13That you don't deserve it, that there's something wrong with you. If you don't, at some point, be defiant against what the world or your past experience has pounded into your brain incorrectly, unfairly, you will forever be stuck with that story. You are not responsible for what happened to you. You survived what happened to you. But you do have a responsibility to heal yourself, and to do the work to change so that you can be the happy, fulfilled person that you were born to be. In a moment when you feel alone, you can give yourself the boost, the support, the empowerment that you need to keep going. If it's important to you, you're gonna find a way. You won't have to look for a resource you will become resourceful. It's not always about the accomplishment. It's about the effort. If we can just keep that effort going, the excuse is irrelevant.

4:15Responsibility. That's what gives life meaning. It's like lift a load. Then you can tolerate yourself, right? Because look at your useless, easily hurt, easily killed. Why should you have any self-respect? That's the story of the fall. Pick something up and carry it. Pick, make it heavy enough so that you can think, yeah, well, useless as I am, at least I could move that from there to there. What's really cool about that is that when I talk to these crowds about this, the men's eyes light up. I've seen that phenomenon because I've been talking about this mythological material for a long time. I can see when I'm watching crowds, people, their eyebrows lift, their eyes light up because I put something together for them. That's what mythological stories do. I'm not taking responsibility for that. That's what the stories do. I say the story and people go click, click, click. When their eyes light up, but this responsibility thing, that's a whole new order of this, is that young men are so hungry for that, it is unbelievable. One of the things I've been talking

5:15to some of the people who've been running for the conservative leadership in Canada, and I've been talking to them about, well, the difficulties they have communicating with young people, because conservatives, what the hell are they going to sell to young people? Because being conservative is something that happens when you're older. They can sell responsibility. I started realizing, man, just by going to war with myself every day and putting these challenges and these goals and these obstacles, these insurmountable obstacles. So what about losing a hundred and six pounds? Me losing five pounds wasn't accomplishing. Me losing ten pounds and then fifty pounds and the more I did, the more I gained confidence. And then the more I gained confidence, the more I realized these Navy SEALs, man. These guys can't do what I'm doing right now. I had no coach, had no trainer, had no money. I didn't know how to lose weight. I had no knowledge of what I was doing. I was just working. I was just sacrificing. And then through that, all these different tools

6:19started coming up. But I would have never found these tools. If I didn't put myself in a very uncomfortable place, we all look for toughness. We all want it. But we look for in a comfortable environment. You will not find toughness in a comfortable environment. Those of you who are listening to this, whoever hear this, you will not find it. I was trying to look for it everywhere. The only way you find it is to drown yourself in a position where you're just out of sorts, where you can't swim and you're drowning. You're drowning. You're drowning in life. But you say, know what, man? Yeah. I'm going to figure out how to backstroke or something. I'm going to figure out how to, and then you figuring out all these tools. Your mind starts to, when you quit, your mind does this because you're out. Once you say, I'm not going to quit, this is a 40%. When you quit, your

7:23mind says, we're done. So it doesn't expand. There's no expansion when you quit. When you say, you, uh, uh, this sucks. I'm drowning. I'm miserable. I'm suffering. I'm broken. But I'm not going anywhere. What happens to your mind is it does this. It says, he's not leaving. So we got to expand. We got to grow. We got to figure this thing out. So then these compartments in your brain start to have, they have to work. They have to work. And then you start to engage parts of your mind that you've never engaged before, but you can engage it by sitting back in these nice chairs, drinking this nice water, talking to you, talking about what I want to do. That's where, so that's where the 40% thing comes in. It comes in when you're in suffer mode and you say, I'm not going to quit. You're forcing your brain now to operate on a level. It's not used to. But then it becomes used to it. Your inborn potential is extraordinary. You have within you right now,

8:29the ability to achieve almost any goal that you can set for yourself. Your greatest responsibility to yourself is to invest the whatever time is required to become absolutely clear about exactly what it is you want and how you can best achieve it. The greater clarity you have regarding your true goals, the more of your potential you will unleash for good in your life. You have probably heard it said that the average person uses only 10 of his or her potential. The sad fact is that according to Stanford University, the average person functions with only about two of his or her mental potential. The remainder just sits there in reserve being saved up for some later time. This would be exactly as if your parents had left you a trust fund with $100,000 in it, but all you ever took out to spend was $2,000. The other $98,000 simply sat in the account unused throughout your life. The starting point of all goal attainment is desire. You must develop an intense burning desire for your goals if you really want to achieve them. It is only when your

9:32desire becomes intense enough that you will have the energy and the internal drive to overcome all the obstacles that will arise in your path. The good news is that almost anything that you want long enough and hard enough, you can ultimately achieve the great oil billionaire HL Hunt was once asked the secret of success. He replied that success required two things and two things only. First, he said, you must know exactly what it is you want. Most people never make this decision. Second, he said, you must determine the price that you will have to pay to achieve it and then get busy paying that price, setting goals, working toward them day by day and ultimately achieving them as the key to happiness in life. Goal setting is so powerful that the very act of thinking about your goals makes you happy even before you have taken the first step toward achieving them. To unlock and unleash your full potential, you should make a habit of daily goal setting and achieving for the rest of your life. You should develop a laser like focus so that you are always

10:38thinking and talking about the things you want on rather than the things that you don't want. You must resolve from this moment on to be a goal-seeking organism like a guided missile or a homing pigeon moving unhearingly toward the things that are important to you. There is no greater guarantee of a long, happy, healthy and prosperous life than for you to be continually working on being, having and achieving more and more of the things you really want. Clear goals enable you to release your full potential for personal and professional success. Goals enable you to overcome any obstacle and to make your future unlimited. Freight rail does more than move goods. It drives America's economy. Every dollar invested generates another $2.50 in economic activity spurring growth from farms to factories. And here's the best part. Freight railroads fund their own infrastructure, saving taxpayers' billions while powering the economy forward, from reducing highway congestion to delivering goods

11:42safely and efficiently. Freight rail keeps America moving. Learn more at ar.org slash America's engine. Sharing every moment with millions. When team USA steps onto the world stage, we're not just watching. We're cheering together. This winter, we're all on the same team. Comcast, proud partner of team USA. And with so many coverage options, it's nice knowing you have help choosing a plan that fits your needs. So you can continue celebrating all of life's milestones. Like a good neighbor,

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