Four Hacks of How Jordan Peterson Teaches Us to Be Taken Seriously

Oh, to be Taken Seriously

Four Psychological Hacks from Jordan Peterson

I often think of this quote during the days when I question both the seriousness with which I approach issues and the seriousness with which others approach me. I agree with Hutchins wholeheartedly, by the way – not all situations call for seriousness. And I have ever been the clown for my family, suggesting I have no problem with people not taking me seriously when the time is appropriate.

Yet, I have also experienced times when people have discarded my words – or even me, as a person – because they lack the fundamental respect for me that is required for them to take me seriously. Perhaps this is a problem that has plagued your life. Any time your voice has gone unheard, your input discarded, you have been considered an afterthought by somebody who truly ought to listen to you.

The question arises:

How can I make this person take me more seriously?

I have found that Jordan Peterson provides strong answers. A man who is respected and, in some quarters, revered, for his intellectual capacity is the perfect person to ask when seeking seriousness. We shall do just that in this essay, in which I discuss Peterson’s four psychological hacks for being taken more seriously.

But first…

The Serious Problem with Seriousness

The mistake I and many others have made when making the effort to be taken seriously is to equate the commanding of respect to being a bully. This sentiment is often instilled in us from a young age – the master of the schoolyard is supposedly the most respected child. Respect born from fear. A foundational flaw in which cracks will soon appear.

What I love most about Peterson and the hacks I am about to introduce is that being the “bully” does not factor into the gaining of respect in his world. He has a different way:

Pay particular attention to the word “attracts” in that statement. Respect – and thus, being taken seriously – is not something we can command. Ordered respect simply does not exist. It’s a falsity behind which lies aspersions on your character that are rightly being cast because you’re unable to attract the respect you seek. True respect only comes to those who attract it – the people who use the potent combination of their words and deeds to demonstrate that they are truly worthy of the respect that they desire.

To me, that describes Jordan Peterson in a nutshell. But perhaps the better explanations of who to attract, rather than attempt to command, respect come from the man himself. This leads us nicely to the first of Peterson’s four hacks.

Hack One – Pace Your Reality

We often try to avoid interpretations that contradict our own because it’s painful. A challenge to the axioms we hold is a challenge to us – something that can tear those insecure people among us apart. But accepting those challenges, embracing them, even, is the only way to be taken seriously, as Peterson explains:

Wisdom isn’t found through regurgitating what you already know with people who just parrot that information back to you. You need a situation where you have people around you providing corrective feedback – that’s the only way to keep yourself sane. To stop yourself from getting swept up inside an echo chamber to the point where you stop moving in the ever-changing environment that is life.

I like to call this concept “pacing your reality.”

This involves not only being able to relate to another person even when their viewpoints differ but also being capable of seeing some of their points in advance of the conversation. That foresight enables articulation – you’re able to reinforce the other person’s point before they even have a chance to make it. This isn’t competitive. It’s merely a way to show that you understand the other person and have considered their viewpoint when reaching your own conclusions.

Credence to the counterparty comes from this acknowledgment. You’re giving a little bit of goodwill to the otherwise because you’re recognizing that their points are worthy of discussion and consideration. But perhaps more importantly – you create an opportunity for reciprocation. The other party lets their guard down a little as they see you as somebody who actually considers what they have to say, leading to them doing the same with your points.

This is attraction.

Now, consider what happens when you take the opposite of this approach. You come out of the gate screaming and yelling, forcing your points down the throat of somebody who feels they have no chance to respond. So, they won’t. The other person won’t “play.” They won’t interact with you as part of a useful debate so all points are lost and everybody involved remains static.

Peterson offers a great example of this whenever he engages in religious discussion. Though he has yet to fully articulate his own religious beliefs – to my knowledge – he sees all sides. He can speak to the side of the atheist, the conservative, the liberal, or whoever may have an opinion, lending them credence in the process. And through that lending of credence, he attracts respect from other parties, with that respect leading to those people taking him more seriously. They may not agree with what he has to say (that is not even the point) but they will listen because this is a man who at least understands their point of view.

Hack Two – Tell a Large Number of Stories

Peterson tells stories. A large number of stories. And he does this for a simple reason:

I believe there are two types of stories.

The first type is a story of opportunity – where a third party references a person of respect or a specific resource that can serve as a dignified reference to the story they want to tell. The second type of story is the personal tale, which is perhaps the most common – and the most effective – in terms of encouraging people to let their guard down. Here, we see a crossover between the first and second hack because a good personal story sees you ascend to your “adversary’s” position so you give them credence through the story you tell. They can relate to you because your story shows them that you’re not so different from them. Thus, you attract respect.

Through a personal story – and this even goes for one in which you do not directly confront another’s point – you give this idea that you’re vulnerable. You have struggled with a specific thing, with the struggle itself being the relatable part. We have all struggled, or fought, to overcome an obstacle, with your story helping you showcase how your specific type of thinking helped you to push past that struggle.

Peterson does an excellent job of using stories to approach potentially confrontational subjects. And through those stories, he is able to apply a lesson to the conversation he’s having with another person.

Let me give you an example from Peterson’s own life.

He’s talked to his daughter at length about the power of story in attracting respect, so it seems only fair that he tells a story about her to showcase what I mean. His daughter runs his companies. The struggle for her was that she didn’t know much about business when she started running those companies – with a secondary struggle being that she was pretty sick when she started – which created challenges for her. It was easy for those with a little more experience, and a healthy heaping of malice, to pull the wool over her eyes and fool her into making poor decisions.

But according to Peterson, his daughter also has a gift:

She’s able to ask stupid questions.

You only have to ask a stupid question once, assuming you’re alert to the answer. And if you’re in a crowd of people, the odds are that 80% of those people are thinking about the same question that you ask, with the difference being that they don’t have the courage to actually ask. They’re too scared of looking “stupid.”

His daughter doesn’t have that fear – she’ll ask the stupid question because it’s only by getting the answer that you can be “not stupid” anymore, according to Peterson. 

This little story brings me back to the point about Peterson and how he uses his own stories to convince people to let their guard down. Remember – a discussion with another person is not a confrontation. You’re not looking to “win,” but rather to engage that person in an intellectual conversation. To get them to potentially assent to your view or, if that isn’t possible, to at least understand your perspective. Recognizing that also leads to the understanding that it is extremely rare for anybody to be fully armed with the knowledge they need during an initial conversation.

His daughter understands this. That’s why she’s unafraid to ask stupid questions.

She – like Peterson – understands that a true conversation is a back-and-forth where defeating the other person isn’t the object. This back-and-forth could go on for hours, days, months, or even years. It may never even conclude, and that’s okay. The conversation itself is the game, with the best way to play being to make yourself relatable through the personal anecdotes you can tell about your life, struggles, and personal triumphs.

Hack Three – Bargain From a Position of Authority

I’ll kick off the third hack with an example from Peterson himself. This example comes from when he was engaged in a discussion in which the other party was talking about the concept of not having a Plan B. Herein, Peterson sees an opportunity to relate this concept to one of his talking points – marriage.

He starts by acknowledging what the other person was saying about no Plan B and brings up the concept of marriage. Here is where he bargains from authority – Peterson brings up the psychologist Carl Jung and his belief that marriage had to be an unbreakable vow. Why? If it wasn’t, those entering the marriage covenant would have reason to not go into it giving 110%. They could enter with a backup plan. “This is what I’ll do if the marriage doesn’t work out.” I can always find someone else, right? But marriage being an unbreakable vow, Peterson argues, means that a person’s entire way of thinking is changed when adversity comes. They know they’re bound together with a person for life, with no Plan B lurking somewhere in the back of their mind, so they will put the work that is necessary into overcoming whatever the struggle of the moment may be.

It’s a solid point.

One that Peterson makes – and gains respect for – because he bargains from authority.

Now, there are several ways you can do this in your conversations. You could take the route Peterson took in my example by citing a reference, ideally a source of authority in their own right. You’ll notice that Peterson leans on Jung, but there are many other examples. Plato and Socrates are often his go-to’s in philosophical debates, whereas he’ll sometimes bring up Roger Penrose when discussing mathematics.

He uses their authority to supplement his points, but he does so in a way that’s relatable to another person:

Why does this work so well?

About 90% of the time, the person with whom you’re conversing won’t have in-depth knowledge of the resource you cite – or the ability to counter with one of their own – to rebut the point you are making. Thus, your statement has to stand. Through that statement, you can then build your elongated argument. You see this in the Peterson example I shared, as the mention of Jungian philosophy serves as the foundation for his argument about how marriage is the ultimate example of not having a Plan B.

However, there is a second aspect of bargaining from a position of authority:

The person, i.e., you!

It is through the person that we find perspective and internal integrity. Again, Peterson provides an excellent example. Here is a man who stood up against the overlords of his college, choosing to be removed rather than compromise on his views. As I write this, he is standing up against the Canadian Medical Society in their efforts to have him take social media classes, with his authority in this fight coming from the fact that he has a large social media following than any who tell him he needs classes. He’s already more adept than the entire society.

Peterson himself is a source of authority, aided by the fact that he enlightens himself through a broad spectrum of thought systems.

Perhaps this sounds contradictory to you. After all, I’ve discussed how attracting respect requires you to understand that you are not in a confrontation. You’re in a discussion. However, there are times when the person on the opposite side of your thought system is simply factually incorrect. In those cases, you must stand your ground – never backing down – because to relent against such people shows that your fear of them can overcome your sense of integrity.

A person of integrity doesn’t compromise themselves by deciding to make a claim that goes against their knowledge of a subject. That’s a lie – a betrayal of moral judgment. And that betrayal means you cannot trust yourself, meaning others cannot trust you either. You may pay for that betrayal for the rest of your life – and likely deserve it – by losing the ability to attract the respect you crave.

Or, to keep it simple – speak only the truth if you wish to retain authority. That brings us nicely to our final Peterson hack…

Hack Four – Never Lie (Regardless of Outcome)

Whenever you lie, you commit to creating a complex web of deception that you must navigate for the rest of your life or until the lie comes out in the wash. You must keep track. Failure to do so means the shattering of your credibility and the loss of the respect you seek. It is an exhausting task, with each new conversation adding layers to the lies while forcing you to burn through your mental energy.

Lying is hardly the most efficient way to live.

It’s also far from the integrity-laden life led by those who are taken seriously, as lies lead only to chaos.

This is why those who attract respect speak only the truth. They are guided by truth. They hold it up as a higher principle – a Godly principle – in the tradition of the Stoics and the other great philosophers.

Allow me to repeat that – never fear the outcomes.

It is easy to speak a universally recognized and accepted truth because you know the outcome will be positive. You will still be taken seriously by virtue of speaking that truth, but you will not stand out as somebody to be respected because you fight for that truth in the face of adversity.

Far more challenging is to speak an unpopular truth while being willing to live with the outcomes of speaking that truth. Again, I can point to the Peterson examples I shared earlier – his refusal to compromise on truth led to his expulsion from his college. Many would fear that prospect. They would cower away, speak the college’s “truth,” – knowing that it was a lie – and try to carry on with their lives. They may even succeed in maintaining some semblance of stability, though that success would come at the cost of the respect they had previously attracted.

Those people submit to fear. And that kind of fear is evil. 

That fear is often born from the belief that speaking the truth is often the “hard” way to do things. Perhaps I have reinforced that belief with what I’ve just said about speaking unpopular truths, but the reality is that speaking the truth is always the easy way, but rarely feels so. It may not appear so in the short term when you are dealing with the ramifications of speaking that truth. However, those who only consider the short term are short-minded people. They fear what others will think of them while failing to see that those very people will think less of them in the long term if they lie.

Those who attract respect do not have this fear.

They understand that to be truthful means they may have to handle the short-term consequences created by the short-minded. Such consequences are irrelevant in the face of maintaining integrity because they dedicate themselves to truth rather than the manipulation of outcomes.

I find this final psychological hack to be the most effective for those who wish to be taken more seriously in the context of a business or similar organizational structure. Attaching to the truth leads to growth in all aspects of your life. 

Through that growth comes respect. A recognition that you are willing to hurt yourself in the short term to maintain your integrity.

 

 

An aside: I published a talk on this as well. Here’s a summary:

 

This video delves into the psychological strategies that Jordan Peterson employs to command respect and be taken more seriously. It not only presents Peterson’s approach to engaging in meaningful dialogue but also outlines practical steps for individuals to enhance their own conversational impact and credibility. Through a series of examples and explanations, the video illuminates how one can navigate discussions and express themselves in a manner that garners genuine respect and understanding.

Takeaways

  • ❓ Seek Contradictory Information: Emphasizes the importance of challenging one’s own viewpoints to foster learning and adaptability.
  • 💬 Engage in Dialogue: Highlights the value of engaging with those who hold opposing views to gain new insights and maintain personal stability.
  • 🤝 Reciprocity and Respect: Discusses the tactic of acknowledging others’ perspectives to facilitate a more open and reciprocal exchange of ideas.
  • 🫂 Personal Stories and Vulnerability: Shares the strategy of using personal anecdotes to build relatability and lower conversational defenses.

Summary

  • Challenging One’s Views: Jordan Peterson advocates for actively seeking out information that contradicts current beliefs as a means to achieve growth and stability.
  • Valuable Opposition: Engaging with individuals of differing opinions is crucial for learning and maintaining one’s sanity in an ever-changing environment.
  • Articulating Opposing Views: Demonstrating an understanding of another’s standpoint can lead to mutual respect and a more productive dialogue.
  • Use of Personal Narratives: Sharing personal stories serves to humanize the speaker, fostering a connection and encouraging open dialogue.

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