What’s your personality?

Jordan B. Peterson is a former Clinical Psychologist and University of Toronto professor, among other titles. He’s most famous for his 2018 book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, which sold over 4 million copies worldwide (and has been on the Amazon Bestsellers list since published). After that he did a lecture tour, inspiring individuals–especially young men–to take responsibility for their lives.

There’s a whole group of people who despise Peterson. These are generally people who don’t like taking responsibility for things.

The field of Personality is one of Dr. Peterson’s strongest areas of expertise. He developed his own personality test based on the Big 5 Model. You can find it at UnderstandMyself.com (code MP [from his daughter, Mikhaila Peterson] to pay 8 dollars instead of 9, lol).

I took the test and, not ironically, learned a lot about myself. Camille took it, too. Then we connected our results (a feature on the website) and got a report about the ways we might struggle and thrive as a couple. We both found this to be the most insightful test we’ve taken, far more telling than Myers-Briggs.

It got me thinking a lot about what personality actually is. I used to think of it as the way that you interacted with other people. “Oh, that’s just her personality,” or, “He has a dominant personality.” But now I’m starting to think of personality as something far deeper and more core to one’s being.

The way I’m beginning to understand it is this: Personality is the combination of all the psychological and physical processes which make you who you are. All your past experiences, beliefs, conceptions, genetic programming, and default patterning that have developed over your lifetime influence your personality. When you make an instinctual decision, it’s actually your personality–and all of its associated facets–making the decision. It’s far more than how you interact with others at a party.

Your personality is who you are. It’s part plastic, part fixed. Understanding it can tell you a lot about the unresolved work in your life and who (or what) is actually in control of your decsions.

What’s your personality?

Unearned Wisdom

The following quote is from a recent episode of the Tim Ferriss show with Jordan Peterson titled: Jordan Peterson on Rules for Life, Psychedelics, The Bible, and Much More (#502)

Jordan Peterson: We need social institutions, but they become corrupt. And so we need creative revolution, but it can get out of hand. And so there’s this constant war between the structures of tradition and the transformation of creativity. And you can’t say who’s right, you can just talk it out. But the psilocybin, you take one dose and have a mystical experience, and you move from 50th percentile openness to 85th percentile with one dose. It’s a major neurological rewiring. It’s stunning. It’s stunning. And you could say, well that I’m sure there are things about that that are good. But Jung said, “Beware of unearned wisdom.”

Tim Ferriss: It’s a good quote. It’s a good quote. I mean, yeah.

Jordan Peterson: It is a good quote. Jung really puzzles me because it’s never clear to me how he knew the things he knew, and that’s one really good example of that.

Episode 502

There’s a lot of faux experts out there in the world today. Social media is littered with them. Don’t believe somebody whose only credential is a degree, a certification, a receipt for an online course, or worse–RAS (Recent Article Syndrome).

There’s also a lot of people looking for God, but instead of committing to a spiritual discipline for even a minimal length of time they head straight to psychoactive substances. That sounds like taking steroids instead of lifting weights. You ever see one of those guys with Popeye arms and no pecs?

“Beware of unearned wisdom.”

If you know anything about Jung, you know he earned his wisdom. He’s somebody worth listening to.

I think Mother Earth would agree with him, too.

Clean Your Room

Rules 6 of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life is “Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.” Basically, clean your room.

You might not like this. I didn’t at first. I have good ideas and think I can change things. Cleaning my room is a way to procrastinate my purpose.

If you don’t like this idea, just try it. Clean your room and keep it clean for a week. Notice if you feel any different, if you think any different, if you are any different. It’s an easy experiment for a worthwhile potential.

Dr. Peterson recognized that it’s not about being clean–it’s about taking responsibility for the smallest domain you and I can possibly control. Our rooms represent more than where we sleep. Our rooms represent the chaos within our own minds.

Create order in your room, create order in your life, then create order in the world.

Try everything. If it works for you, make it your own.