On Jordan Peterson's Self-Authoring Course

“Reflection, not experience, leads to learning.”

Apr 19, 2024

*Hand with Reflecting Sphere* by M.C. Escher, 1935

In March, I stopped writing essays to do something even more important: not walk around with my dick in my hand.

And by that, I mean that I got more intentional with my life. It’s been 14 months since I left college in Boulder, so it felt like the perfect time to assess where I’ve been, where I’m at, and where I’m going. To do so, I took a writing course called Self Authoring. I’ll tell you more about that soon.

As the Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote, all plans for the future are dependent on the past:

"What really ruins our characters is the fact that none of us looks back over his life. We think about what we are going to do, and only rarely of that, and fail to think about what we have done, yet any plans for the future are dependent on the past."1

Now, that might seem about as obvious as the skin color contrast between Michael Jordan and Michael Scott. But the thing is, if we haven’t really reflected on our lives, we may just be operating on autopilot—on some path programmed by other people’s expectations or our own past.

Bending Back, Moving Forward

“Reflect” comes from the Latin verb reflectere, which means to bend back. It also means to resolve matters in the mind.

So by reflecting on my life, I’m not only resolving repressed issues from my past that manifest in my present, but I’m also bending back the layers of societal scripts and asking myself, “What actually resonates with me? What excites me? What bores me? What makes me want to throw up, like those disgustingly distasteful green tiles on the floor of a 24 Hour Fitness locker room? What things should I double down on in the future? What would it look like if life was easy and fun?”2

As Shane Parrish wrote, “Reflection, not experience, leads to learning.” So perhaps this is what the sage Seneca really meant: when you reflect on your life, you learn what you know. This is why I write: to learn what I think.

A Quick Piss-Stop

With all this talk of the past, my friend Sergio made a cute little objection: you can’t drive a car looking in the rearview mirror.

That’s true—unless you’re in a Tesla. But in this context, I’m not even in the car right now. On the road of life, I made a pitstop. I pulled off the highway, put it in park, got out, took a piss, and asked myself: why am I on this road? What have I learned? What can I improve on? What do I want? Where is my next destination? Should I go offroading?3

Self Authoring

I spent my time last month taking Self Authoring, a solo writing course developed by Jordan Peterson and other psychologists. I wanted to introspect intensely, mine my mind, and see where I was least free.

The course was divided into three parts: Past Authoring, Present Authoring, and Future Authoring.

1) In Past Authoring, you create your own autobiography. You split your life up into 7 epochs of time, and you reflect on the peak positive and peak negative experiences from your life. You think about how these experiences shaped your life and made you who you are today.

2) Present Authoring is shorter. You select from a list of faults and virtues in the realms of extraversion, openness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and agreeableness.

For the faults, you analyze how they’ve negatively impacted you, what you would’ve done differently, and how you can improve on them now. For virtues, you think about how they strengthened you in the past and how you can leverage them moving forward to keep crushing it.

3) In Future Authoring, you set goals for yourself. You imagine your ideal life. You meditate on a miserable life that you want to avoid like the Canadian winters. Then you think about how you’re getting to where you want to go and who you want to be in 6 months, 2 years, and 5 years. As Seneca also said, "If you don't know what port you are sailing to, no wind is favorable."

This type of writing also happens to help with many ailments of modern society:

“People who spend time writing carefully about themselves become happier, less anxious and depressed and physically healthier. They become more productive, persistent and engaged in life. This is because thinking about where you came from, who you are and where you are going helps you chart a simpler and more rewarding path through life.” - Self Authoring

In this essay, I wanted to share my top takeaways from the course. This is one of the best investments that I’ve made as a time billionaire.

Sacrificing My Feelings For The Comfort of Others

There was one clear trend in how my past shaped me: the inability to express myself authentically and honestly. As I reflected on in the Present Authoring exercise, my biggest fault is that I sacrifice my feelings for the comfort of others.

This made perfect sense when I bent back some past psychological traumas. Whether that was getting punched in the face by one of my hockey teammates or getting yelled at by my coaches for making a mini mistake, I learned that I should suppress my feelings and not speak my mind. “Suck it up,” they said.

By example of environment, I learned that speaking up was scary and dangerous, especially if my values, beliefs, or opinions conflicted with someone else’s. I learned that I should hold back and tell white lies to spare someone’s feelings. My safety strategy was surrender. Omission. Hesitancy. I wanted to avoid the danger of an angry reaction that might pierce my psyche and send me into a fearful, contracted state of being.

All of this led to a lack of self-assertiveness and authentic self-expression, which stemmed from a fear of what other people thought of me. This led to people pleasing and hesitancy, which damages self-esteem and self-worth.4

High Quality Leisure

Athletes treat recovery like a nun treats her virginity: it’s sacred. I realized in this course that I need to be more intentional about mental recovery—how I spend my time in the evenings and on weekends. This will ensure that I’m not wasting my life binging Youtube or social media, which isn’t regenerative, deep rest. I usually default to reading, but sometimes I still get seduced by the algo’s metaphorical tits.

This was a powerful prompt from Future Authoring:

“Take a moment to consider the activities you would like to pursue outside of obligations such as work, family and school. The activities you choose should be worthwhile and personally meaningful.
Without a plan, people often default to whatever is easiest, such as television watching, and waste their private time. If you waste 4 hours a day, which is not uncommon, then you are wasting 1,400 hours a year. That is equivalent to 35 40-hour work weeks, which is almost as much as the typical individual spends at his or her job every year.
If your time is worth $25 per hour, then you are wasting time worth $35,000 per year. Over a 50-year period, that is $1.8 million dollars, not counting interest or any increase in the value of your time as you develop.”

For me, this involves a mix of solo time and social time.

To avoid addictive apps, I deleted Youtube, email, and all social media from my phone. To avoid my compulsion to check Youtube when I’m bored or anxious, I’ll schedule a 60 minute rabbit hole on my computer every week to go watch some Marc Rebillet or explore some cool curiosity.

I’ve also decorated my room with books to maintain the habit of reading before bed, especially putting lighter reading—like poetry and fiction—on my nightstand. Another thing I like doing is scheduling spontaneity, like a random walk or random run around Austin.

For social time, I’ll schedule at least one dinner with 2-4 friends every week. I’ll go to Danny Miranda’s sunrise run club and Cameron Hogan’s men’s club. I’ll text a few friends to go walk the trail. I might join Elle Beecher’s Board Walks if I’m not already socially depleted.

And as for less frequent activities—like once a month—I’ll book something like a comedy show or a classical concert. (I just saw Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony with a few friends, and it was grand.) All of these activities plus the social scene of Austin itself will be plenty for my social life.

Setting Authentic Goals

"Write out your goals. It's amazing how few people do. By writing out your goals, you prevent a random walk through life. So many people just wander through life.”
- Balaji Srinivasan

When I was setting my new goals in Future Authoring, there were 6 critical questions that I really fucked with:

Do you truly believe that pursuing this goal is important?
Would you feel ashamed, guilty or anxious if you didn't?
Do you want to achieve this goal personally, or are you doing it to please someone else? (It is often a good thing to do something for someone else, but you should know when you are doing that.)
Are you pursuing this goal because the situation that you find yourself in seems to demand it?
Is the pursuit of this goal enjoyable, stimulating or satisfying?
Is this goal part of a deeply felt personal dream?

I won’t share my goals with you because I learned from Huberman that that can actually undermine my drive in achieving them. But I really loved this prompt because it gets you in the headspace of thinking about what you actually want— not what others might expect. I keep returning to this quote from Yung Pueblo: “it is not love if all they want from you is to fulfill their expectations.”

Language Lover

When looking back on my early childhood, I realized that I was obsessed with language. In my keepsakes, I remember finding an old journal of quotes I heard. I also loved camping in 5th grade because the counselors told these fun little riddles and scary stories. In middle school, I loved reading fiction books like The Maze Runner and Divergent. Even on my gap year in 2020, I remember telling my dad, “I wish I could make money from reading books.”

And recently, I noticed that I just love little quirky adjectives. Words like “promiscuous” or “delicious,” when they’re used in non-sexual and non-nutritional contexts. This is great news for me and writing because I’m naturally leaning into my unique gifts and quirks.

My Strengths

I was talking to a friend at a community workout in Austin who also took this course. He told me that he found it hard to sit down and write for just 90 minutes. I stood there thinking to myself, well damn, bitch! I just spent 60 hours on this course in March, so clearly I’m a writer. Wow. And I did all that without trying very hard.

Other strengths that I identified were a long attention span, being a fast learner, attention to detail, watching what I eat, being skeptical and—surprise—spending time reflecting on things.

Given my linguistic love along with my obese attention span that requires no drugs and minimal activation energy, it’s very clear that I’m on the right path with writing.

Independence

Analyzing these strengths also made me realize that besides the pursuit of excellence and education, I also value independence. That’s one reason why I didn’t want to be a doctor.

I was always that guy in school projects who would do most of the work. I would nudge other people on iMessage to get their shit together. But I realized that I never actually liked managing people in the first place.

Near the end of high school, I started this mini tutoring business. With the help of my parents, I posted an ad in the online neighborhood newspaper. Some mom emailed me almost immediately. Then over the course of the year, I helped her daughter and a few other middle school kids with math, English, and organizing their lives. And I was paid to do it. I was fully independent, working less hours, and making more money per hour. I didn’t have to nudge anyone—including myself. I guess I had an entrepreneur encoded in me after all.

Then when I took a piano class in 11th grade, I realized how much I valued the flow state that comes with solo study. I could ask for help from my teacher, but I spent most of my time working by myself at the keyboard.

Moving forward, I know that I don’t want to manage many people at all and spend most of my time reading, writing, and battling with ideas. LFG. As David Senra talks about in his Founders Podcast, the average size of a business is shrinking with the Internet, anyways.

Nature and Unplugging

I didn’t realize until taking this course that some of the most magical moments of my life all involved spending time in nature. Solo hiking in Italy. A men’s retreat in the Costa Rican jungle. Hiking 15 miles with a friend in Rocky Mountain National Park.

When I went to Alaska in June of 2022 with my dad, we stayed in this remote camp on the Alagnak River. It was so remote and wild that we had to take a water plane to get there. Being off the grid in nature with a small group of people gave me a true appreciation for tiny things like sunsets, the strumming of a guitar, massive moose, and community meals.

It also showed me for the first time that I was actually addicted to my phone. Even though I was fully off the grid and didn't even try to get the weak wifi at the camp, I remember checking the time like every 10 minutes. Of course, I wasn't actually checking the time but rather looking for new notifications. I was searching for a rescue from boredom, an escape from having to actually think about my life. (At that point, I was slowly gaining the awareness that I didn’t want to be a doctor but was still on that path in college.)

Once we got online at Anchorage Airport, I realized how anxious all those notifications and emails made me feel. That first vibration in my pocket actually startled me. I didn’t like having a vibrator and music machine in my pocket.5

To nurture nature, I’ve always had a dream to run retreats with a small group of smart people. I want to get off the grid more, so why not do it with a community and create my own utopia? I already know people who want this. (If you do, let me know in the comments!) I envision some delicious festivities, like a ceremonial unplugging, ice baths, group workouts, meditations, playing childhood games, sharing stories over a campfire, and eating with our hands.

Less Aimlessness, More Purpose

To be fair, I’ve never really wandered through life with my dick in my hand. I’ve always been pretty cautious and conscientious. Playing Tier 1 hockey, having high standards in high school, and having amazing parents helped me develop discipline and drive.

But to the extent that I was wandering with my dick in my hand, I’m happy to say that I’ve been doing less of it now that I’ve taken this course. I feel like I’m much more aligned with my purpose and the highest version of myself. I hope you give yourself the same gift.

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Notes

Letters from a Stoic, Letter LXXXIII

One societal script that poisoned my psyche: you must suffer to do anything worthwhile. This doesn’t have to be true, especially as the Internet has created more opportunities for wealth generation.

And if you’re surrendered to your true nature, you should be doing work that doesn’t feel like work. That’s why Tim Ferriss always asks the following question when thinking about creating content: “what would this look like if it were easy?” For the first time in a while, writing has felt easy for me. This long-ass essay was pure play and actually energized me. That’s insane.

As an early adopter of

Paul Millerd

’s “Pathless Path,” a road and a destination aren’t even the proper metaphors for your life path because the only true path is yours. So once you go offroading, finding your path is more like getting out of the car, putting on hiking boots, whacking some bushes, and finding a small stream filled with Brook trout that nobody in the world has ever fished at before. But to find that patch of paradise takes some time.

As psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden wrote in his brilliant book, The 6 Pillars of Self Esteem, self-assertiveness is one of the pillars of a healthy sense of self:

“The average life is marked by thousands of unremembered silences, surrenders, capitulations, and misrepresentations of feelings and beliefs that corrode dignity and self-respect. When we do not express ourselves, do not assert our being, do not stand up for our values in contexts where it is appropriate to do so, we inflict wounds on our sense of self. The world does not do it to us—we do it to ourselves.”

What if our natural state was to be in a perpetual state of silence? I believe that Do Not Disturb should be a default setting on our phones. Besides texts and calls, almost all notifications should be turned off because they’re not actually urgent—even though that ring or buzz on your leg makes it seem so.