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Lewis HowesBen Shapiro Puts Politics ASIDE To Talk About PERSONAL GROWTH!| Lewis Howes
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EVERY SPOKEN WORD
110 min read · 21,684 words- 0:00 – 6:54
Why Ben Shares His Message: Values Beneath Politics
- BSBen Shapiro
Uh, a- as I get older, I think that the mark of a, of a, of a good person, or at least a person who's trying, is a person who wakes up in the middle of the night worried about the mistake they made the previous day.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- BSBen Shapiro
And how do you, and how do you fix that? Um-
- LHLewis Howes
Wow
- BSBen Shapiro
... and the mark of a, a person who, who's gonna have problems is, is a person who wakes up in the middle of the night angry at what somebody else did to them.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah. [upbeat music] All right, welcome everyone back to The School of Greatness. We've got Ben Shapiro in the house. Good to see you, sir.
- BSBen Shapiro
Thanks for having me, dude. I appreciate it.
- LHLewis Howes
Very excited about this. Uh, as we were talking before, uh, we just started, I don't know anything about politics. I don't follow politics. I'm probably the most, uh, the, the least ignorant person, or the most ignorant person about the topics that you cover. So this is gonna be interesting for me.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah, yeah.
- LHLewis Howes
Uh, not that I really need to go into politics, 'cause I'm more fascinated about you as a person and how you think and how you work and how you solve problems.
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
Because as I started going down the rabbit hole of your video content, I became just so impressed with your ability to communicate a message, make a point, and win your point. You know, you're really great at debate and winning your, your arguments and your ideas based on facts, not feelings, which is what you talk about a lot.
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
What is it? What do you say? Facts-
- BSBen Shapiro
Facts don't care about your feelings. Yeah.
- LHLewis Howes
Facts don't care about your feelings. And, um, you ruffle a lot of feathers for people. I already know just by having your name in the title of my show that-
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah, get ready, man [laughs]
- LHLewis Howes
... I'm gonna get so much critique. I had Jordan Peterson on.
- BSBen Shapiro
Oh, wow. So-
- LHLewis Howes
And, um, I had, so many people were just like, "Unsubscribe. I can't believe you would associate with this person."
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah.
- LHLewis Howes
But-
- BSBen Shapiro
So you're just jumping on every landmine you can find, basically
- LHLewis Howes
... I'm, I'm like, I'm, this is gonna be a bomb for me. I already know it.
- BSBen Shapiro
[laughs]
- LHLewis Howes
It's gonna be, we're gonna get a lot of, a great attention, and people are gonna be unsubscribing just because they're not willing to listen.
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
Because they see a name and a title, and they're not willing to see what happens.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah.
- LHLewis Howes
And I was telling people, you know, with Jordan Peterson, if they just listened, there was nothing negative that we talked about anything.
- 6:54 – 10:47
Preparing for Debate: Game Tape and the Piers Morgan Exchange
- LHLewis Howes
When you, [laughs] when you try to, uh, go into a place where you know it's heated then, where you're like this person has said online they don't like me or they're completely against me, or-
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm
- LHLewis Howes
... you just have a gut feeling like this is probably not gonna be good based on whatever, what do you think about going into a speech, a debate, uh, an interview-
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm
- LHLewis Howes
... where you know there could be some emotionally charged, uh, expressions happening? How do you prepare yourself mentally for that?
- BSBen Shapiro
So first of all, I treat debate like, like a game. It's, it, I watch game tape, in other words.
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- BSBen Shapiro
So, so before I-
- LHLewis Howes
That, you're like an elite athlete
- BSBen Shapiro
... it's, it, it, when, when it comes to this stuff, yeah.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah, yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, when, when it comes to debating somebody, I actually will sit there and I will watch how they debate.
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- BSBen Shapiro
What, what are their tactics? What are their favorite tricks to use?
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- BSBen Shapiro
What are their favorite facts that they cite? Um, maybe they've got a point, uh, and I haven't considered that point, so do I have to adjust my viewpoint in order to make room for that point?
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- BSBen Shapiro
But you, you actually have to study this stuff, and I think most people go and debate and they just think, "Okay, well, I'm just gonna go out there and say what I wanna say." You actually have to know what the lead tactic is before the person uses it. So for example-
- LHLewis Howes
Wow
- BSBen Shapiro
... the, the most famous debate that I was in probably was the one with Piers Morgan. That was sort of the initial kind of boost to, to top line status for me. It was 2013, it was right after Sandy Hook, and so gun control was being talked about a lot. And so he had been doing this thing where it, this very intellectually dishonest thing, where he's having on a bunch of people who disagreed with him on gun control, and then he would lead by saying, "If you disagree with me on gun control, it's because you don't care about these poor slaughtered children." And that to me was exactly what we're talking about. It's you attacking my character, not attacking my argument.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
Now, we can disagree on gun control, what's effective, what's not, do we think certain solutions work and certain solutions don't, what are the rights versus the risks, we can do all of that stuff, and that's an important conversation to have. What we can't do is I sit down and the first thing you say to me is you disagree with me because you're evil. That, that's not so. So I, I went into that debate knowing that he was going to-
- LHLewis Howes
He was gonna lead with that, yeah
- BSBen Shapiro
... that he's gonna lead with that. And before he could lead with that, I essentially punched him in the throat, right? I mean, he, he basically-
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs] What?
- BSBen Shapiro
It was, it was, it was the Mike T- I mean, it was the Mike Tyson thing, right?
- LHLewis Howes
Sure, sure.
- BSBen Shapiro
Like, it, the, everybody's got a game plan until they get hit in the mouth.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
And, and that was, that was that. I mean, he started off by saying, you know, "You've called me a bully. Why have you called me a bully?" And I said, "Well, Piers, it's because when it comes to these sorts of debates, you stand on the graves of children in order to push your political agenda." And he got very offended, and I said, "Well, if you wanna have a conversation about the topic, we can do that. But if you're going to suggest that I don't care about dead kids because I disagree with you, then we can't have a conversation. You're just being a jerk." And there was no place for him to go because that was his only tactic. W- because he di- he wasn't qualified to have the conversation, which is why he was misdirecting to the character assault. Now-
- 10:47 – 17:15
Owning Past Mistakes and Cancel Culture
- LHLewis Howes
Do you ever go into a situation where you kind of do the Eminem 8 Mile, like, "Yes, I've said this, and yes, I've said this, and I'm bad here," or whatever, you know?
- BSBen Shapiro
100%, yeah. Uh, I do that one all the time because as a person who's been writing a syndicated column since I was 17 years old, sure, I've said some really dumb stuff, right? I mean, I've said some stuff that I regret. I've said some s- I have a full column that I put online called Here's a Giant List of All the Dumb Stuff I've Ever Said.
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right? Because I think that it's important to do that, and some of that stuff was said a year ago or two years ago. As human beings, it's our job to grow and change, and not only that, to evaluate where we've gone wrong in the past. One of the things that's kinda nasty about our current political environment is that people made a mistake 10 years ago, and now they don't hold by that. They've never provided any evidence, but they double down on that, and now we're going back 10 years ago and digging up stuff that they said in order to destroy their careers. I mean, the most obvious example recently was Kevin Hart, where you go back and you find a tweet that he wrote in 2010, and now he can't host the Oscars in 2018 'cause he said something-
- LHLewis Howes
What did he say?
- BSBen Shapiro
... back in 2010. He, he tweeted something about how, uh, it was, it was, uh, an anti-gay tweet.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- BSBen Shapiro
Or he suggested that his, I think it was that he suggested his five-year-old, he wouldn't want his five-year-old son to be gay, uh, something like that.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
And then so people got all over him for that. Well, he can't host the Oscars now. Well, number one, there's no evidence that he's ever done anything actually anti-gay. Uh, number two, we actually have to, if we're gonna do this, we actually have to evaluate the question as to whether you should be barred from Hosting the Oscars if you would prefer that your five-year-old son be heterosexual versus homosexual, which I think is actually an interesting conversation.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- BSBen Shapiro
But more than that, regardless of all that, it's now eight years later, and you're digging back through some guy's history because you saw he's gonna host the Oscars?
- LHLewis Howes
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
He's host- the Heisman Trophy winner, right? The Heisman Trophy winner, and within a day, they're digging through his old tweets, and they find some-
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah
- BSBen Shapiro
... he, he called one of his friends gay when he was 14 or something.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
And now he's forced to apologize. Okay, if he had, if he had committed a murder at 14-
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah
- BSBen Shapiro
... then it would've been expunged from his record when he hit 18, right? He would've done it as a juvie. But he tweeted something when he's 14, and now we're going to go back and ruin everything, ruin, ruin him.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- BSBen Shapiro
If we, if we're, as a society, if we don't have the, the compassion to say people make mistakes-
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah
- BSBen Shapiro
... it's gonna be very difficult to move forward. Is your goal to ruin other people, or is your goal to actually forward the conversation? And so to that end, if somebody calls me on something and I feel like I've done something wrong, I'm more than happy to, to repent for it. I mean, as a religious person, I repent three times a day to God.
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- BSBen Shapiro
So I'm more than happy to repent for stuff that I've, that I've said in the past-
- LHLewis Howes
Right
- BSBen Shapiro
... that I think is, is bad or stupid or wrong. I write, as I say, I have a, a full 3,000-word column about it.
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- BSBen Shapiro
When people alert me to stuff that, I don't remember everything I've ever said, when people alert me to stuff that I th- that, that's, that I've said that's dumb, then I'll go back and I'll update it. I mean, it's a constantly updated list.
- 17:15 – 25:36
Parents, Teachers, and Taking Responsibility
- LHLewis Howes
Right, right. Absolutely. What, uh, who was the most influential person in your life growing up?
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, I, I would say that my parents, obviously. My, my dad was extremely influential. So my home life was, was, my parents have been married for, let's see, they, they've been married for nearly 40 years at this point.
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- BSBen Shapiro
So, um, thank God, I, uh, I grew up in a, uh... Well, actually no, they've been married longer than 40 years, actually. Um, I, I grew up in a very stable home. I, it was great. My mom worked, my dad stayed at home, so that was unusual. My dad was a musician.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- BSBen Shapiro
Uh, he came out, my parents came out to LA so he could write for film and TV.
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- BSBen Shapiro
That didn't really work out, but my mom ended up as a film exec. Uh, so having a degree in education.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- BSBen Shapiro
So, um, my dad was home with me, and so that meant that, a- and I have three younger sisters, so w- he was home with all of us. And so that meant that I was constantly talking with my dad about ideas and, and him recommending books for me to read, and me reading books that he didn't recommend.
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- BSBen Shapiro
And, and, um, him, and because he was a musician, I got very into music, and I was a-
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah
- BSBen Shapiro
... very highly trained musician, and so are some of my younger sisters, actually. I, and so he, he was really influential in, in my life, obviously continues to be influential in my life. Uh, as far as sort of other folks who were influential, I, I had certain teachers along the way.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
I had a, a third grade te- a fourth grade teacher, uh, in public school- ... uh, named Ms. Gianetti, who's I believe now at the Burbank Unified School District, and she, uh, and she was just wonderful. I mean, really focused in on kind of cr- being creative in how I was educated, because I had to skip certain grades. I skipped third- Yeah ... and I skipped ninth. So when I skipped into her grade, she was really great about, about that, and she also understood that, that she had to, that she could be exacting with me. And so she, one of my... People ask, like, "What's the most memorable thing that somebody's ever said to you?" The most memorable thing somebody ever said to me is, I was, so I was in fourth grade, but I'd skipped third, so I was probably seven or eight years old, and she said, "Don't let potential be written on your tombstone." Wow. So this is so- and so it's pretty, you know, deep stuff for a kid who's eight, maybe. [laughs] Uh, and, uh, but she was, she was like that, and she was great. Um, the principal of the school, uh, Carolyn Brumm, was also terrific. And then I had a teacher in high school who was, uh, named, uh, uh, um, Anthony Miller, who was a really good writer and had studied at, at Trinity College in Dublin, and so he, he was really creative in his writing, uh, and that, that had an impact on, on me- Wow ... in terms of how I wrote. Wow. What was, uh, since your dad was with you a lot during the days, uh, what was the biggest, the greatest lesson he ever taught you? Um, well, I think that the biggest lesson he ever taught me is to take everybody you talk to seriously. So the, with my dad, there really is no gap. A- I mean, folks, folks who know him, and a lot of folks where I work know my dad, uh, they know that he treats everybody exactly the same. So he, he, whether it's a member of his family or whether... He, he's the kind of person where if you get in an elevator with my dad, he will have your entire life story by the time you get out of the elevator. [laughs] And it doesn't matter- 20 seconds, yeah. Exactly. It doesn't matter if it's one floor, he'll be your best friend by the end of... Like- Yeah ... he has met so many people on airplane rides. That's how my dad is. But he was also like that with us as kids. Wow. Meaning that if I had a question, he took it extremely seriously and tried to get the best answer. Uh, he always addressed me as though I were an adult when I was a kid, uh, and he, and he took that stuff very seriously. And so for me, that's always been the case. Uh, and I think that's one of the reasons why my show and the stuff that I do has particular appeal to young people, because I'm treating these ideas seriously- Yeah ... and I'm not dumbing them down for young people. I think there's this perception, I mean, I'm, first of all, number one, I'm still relatively young, right? Yeah. I'm only 34 still. But part of that is also, in politics- Mm ... people who think they know a lot about politics tend to think, okay, well, if I translate this into second grade level, then pe- that's what people really need. They need me to dumb this stuff down to a level they can understand. I think people are capable of understanding a lot more than they think they're capable of understanding if they're treated with respect in how, in how- Yeah ... this stuff is presented. I mean, when I present, I'm presenting at a relatively high level. Yeah. I, I mean, I use some $5 words, and I, and I cite philosophers. Mm-hmm. And I, and I cite data from actual, from actual think tanks, and, and people like that. Yeah. People want that. People are hungry for that. I think- They pick it up, yeah. They pick it up. Yeah. They, they're sick of nostrums. I mean, politics is all nostrums. It's all, it's all a bunch of people who are just spitting at you slogans, bumper sticker slogans. Mm-hmm. And we all instinctively know, it's appealing be- just the way that any advertising slogan is appealing, but we all instinctively know it's bullshit. Mm-hmm. I mean, deep down, we all know that, that when somebody says that they can fix all your problems, it's just garbage. Right. And when, a- and which is also one of the other messages that I think my dad and my parents inculcated, which is if you've got a problem, the proper order is that you first look within and see if you can solve it yourself, right? Yeah. [clears throat] That, that accepting that... My parents weren't the type of people where if we had a problem at school, they blamed the teacher. Mm. Right? They were, they were the, they were, their first question was, "Okay, did you do it?" Right. Right? [laughs] And- Right. How can you change it? How can you respond differently to it? Yeah. And this is my pet peeve with people I deal with in family, friends, society, is if a good piece of advice is given to you, do you ignore the advice? Mm-hmm. Uh, do you fight against reality? Are you, are you more angry at reality than you are willing to change yourself? Because if that's the case, you're doomed to lead a pretty miserable life. Yeah. 'Cause reality is not changing. Now, that doesn't mean there are certain social circumstances that we can't all work together to change. But if you're running smack into certain baseline realities, such as some people are smarter and some people are not as smart, and some people earn more money and some people earn less money, and you're living in a free society, and you're running into reality, like, I made a, I made a bunch of bad decisions in my life, and now I'm poorer than I otherwise would be. Or I made a bunch of- Because of those, those decisions. Yeah. Because of those decisions. That ain't society's fault. Maybe you ought to get- It's not the government's fault. That's right. Maybe you ought to get your stuff together. Yeah. I mean, there was a joke going around that if, that if I were to run for president, my, my slogan would've been solve your own problems. [laughs] Because it, because for every politician, it's I'm gonna solve your problems. Mm-hmm. And this is something I despise on all sides of the aisle, right? I think that President Trump, to take an example, campaigned on the basis that you have a dying factory town, it's been dying because technology is ripping away those jobs, and because the market doesn't, doesn't help create new jobs in this particular area. Well, we're not gonna say that you should leave your town and go to a different town where the jobs are, and treat your life as an adventure and go forth. Instead, we're gonna say, "No, we're gonna bring those jobs back because it's the Mexican and the Chinese who stole those jobs." That's nonsense, okay? And when you hear the same thing from politicians like Elizabeth Warren- Yeah ... who recently spoke at a historically Black college, and she said to a group of Black students that America is inevitably stacked against you. And I'm thinking, these are people going to a top level college, who majored in probably useful things, and will get a job after that major. Mm-hmm. No. I mean, i- if, it's one thing to say that I can cite a specific example of somebody who has discriminated against me, done something bad, here's a specific law that disadvantages me. Mm-hmm. If you're solutions focused, then you should be asking, okay, what is the problem and what is the solution? But I think that we as a country, and just generally human beings, we're oriented toward being problem focused, meaning that something bad happens, and we think, "Okay, how can we complain about this problem? How can we blame this problem on somebody who's not me?" As opposed to, "Okay, how can we solve this problem? How can we just- Take ownership. Yeah. How can... Yeah, right. How can we, how can we do something about it? Mm-hmm. And, you know, my, my wife and I have a basic rule that, uh, this applies in relationships also. So my wife and I have a basic rule that, that came up very early in our marriage. So my, my wife, who's a lovely person, and as my listeners know, a doctor, uh, she is, um, you know, she, she does a thing that I think many women do. Uh, and she, she will want to talk to me about a problem. And as a man, my first instinct is, "Okay, here's what we should do." Let's fix it, yeah. And she gets pissed, right? [laughs] She doesn't, she doesn't want the problem solved. Yeah. She just wants to talk to me about the problem- Yeah ... 'cause it makes her feel better. Why can't you listen more? Why can't... And so I said to her, "That's fine, but I need to know upfront in the conversation, is this a problem-solving conversation?" [laughs] Right. "Or is this a me hearing you conversation?" Yes. Tell me- And so- ... so you understand. Right. So this is an actual rule in our house. Wow. That when we start addressing a problem, I'll say to her, and she doesn't get offended, 'cause she's awesome. I'll say to her, "Is this a you want me to give you a solution problem, or is this a you just want me to listen to you?" Mm-hmm. And very often she'll say, "I just want you to listen." It's like, okay good, now I know
- LHLewis Howes
Right
- BSBen Shapiro
Because what's the worst for a guy is if you say, "Right, so here's the problem, and I, here's three ways you can solve it."
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- BSBen Shapiro
You're just like, what are you talking about? Why are you... So you know, I, I think that's true in politics also.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
We mix up what it is that we want out of our politicians.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- BSBen Shapiro
We, we pretend that what we want out of our politicians is solutions. What we actually want out of our politicians is sympathy. The problem is that sympathy does not create solutions.
- LHLewis Howes
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
Sympathy is just a way for people to pander to you for votes and money.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
Sympathy, like, you should be viewing your politicians like you do your plumbers. Do they solve the problem? You shouldn't be viewing them like-
- LHLewis Howes
Do they have a result? Yes
- BSBen Shapiro
... right. You shouldn't be viewing them like you do your psychotherapist. Do they hear me? Do they listen to me?
- 25:36 – 34:51
Lewis's Own Story and Rights vs. Duties
- LHLewis Howes
Wow. You know, it's interesting because, uh, about 10 years ago I was, I was playing, uh, professional football, uh, kind of like minor league football. I was getting 250 bucks a week, so it wasn't like I was making a lot of money. But I was doing what I loved, and I got injured and I was sleeping on my sister's couch for about a year and a half afterwards. I didn't have a college degree yet. This was in 2008 when the economy was pretty bad, and people with degrees weren't even getting jobs. And I remember thinking at the time, I was like, "How am I gonna get out of this? And can someone help me out? And, uh, this is gonna be a struggle," you know? I was thinking, like, "There's gotta be a better way for people like me who can get taken care of." And then I realized after my sister, you know, lovingly kicked me off her couch after a year and a half, she was like, "You need to start either paying rent, uh, get a, get a good job, do something," I remember saying, "Okay, what if I could solve this problem? As opposed to being a victim to society, what happened to me or whatever, what if I could solve this problem and be in complete ownership of every decision I've made up to here?" And I think one of the reasons I don't follow politics or watch the news or do any of that stuff is because I try to instill what you talked about with people on this show, which is, like, how do we overcome our own challenges by not putting the blame on someone else, by not hoping for someone else to save us or rescue us or to give us a higher minimum wage or whatever it may be. But how can we develop skills with the society we're in? How can we develop new skills, uh, be more valuable to society so that we can earn more? How can we take care of our health better so we're not sick and needing, uh, medicine or someone to supplement that through, um, whatever it may be, some financial aid through med- through medicine. How can we just take care of our lives better and improve the quality of our life? And I think when we can focus more on improving the quality of our lives, the political things don't really matter as much.
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, this is right. I mean the-
- LHLewis Howes
Like, what's happening in the world doesn't matter
- BSBen Shapiro
... w- what, what John Adams said, and I think this is right, is that the, the Constitution of the United States, and what he meant by this is freedom, is really only built for moral and religious people. What he meant by that really is that if you've got a group of people who are waiting around for somebody else to save them externally-
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah
- BSBen Shapiro
... you can't have a system where even we can take care of each other, right? There, there are gonna be situations in which the community needs to come together-
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm
- BSBen Shapiro
... and take care of people who legitimately can't take care of themselves-
- LHLewis Howes
Yes
- BSBen Shapiro
... or are going through a rough stretch. Understood. All that's right. But if you don't have a group of people who are motivated not to take advantage of that or who are not being told by politicians that, [laughs] that, you know, they should be taking advantage of it or that society-
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm
- BSBen Shapiro
... has a duty, you know, why don't we focus on our own duties more than we focus on everybody else's duties to us?
- LHLewis Howes
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
We focus a lot on rights in our society. We have a right to X, Y, and Z. We focus very little on what are our duties to ourselves and to society, and that doesn't make us happier. It makes us more depressed.
- LHLewis Howes
What's the difference between rights and duties?
- BSBen Shapiro
So rights are, so there, there are a couple different visions of rights, and I think that this is where we actually get political. So I think that there, there are two different visions of rights. Uh, according to people on the, on the right, on conservatives, what rights are are things that you, uh, you, you have a right to do X without government controlling you. So basically these are called negative rights. This is the, the parlance that's sort of used, is that you have a right against the government. So for example, I have a right to free speech. What that really means is the government does not have the ability to compel me to speak in a certain way, or I have-
- LHLewis Howes
No matter what I say-
- BSBen Shapiro
Right
- LHLewis Howes
... anything at all-
- BSBen Shapiro
Right
- LHLewis Howes
... even threats or-
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, not, not, not threats because that, that's actual assault.
- LHLewis Howes
Uh-huh.
- BSBen Shapiro
But, but something, but anything that's not indicating violence, for example.
- LHLewis Howes
Gotcha.
- BSBen Shapiro
Uh, I have a right to say because the government does not have the power to encroach upon that.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
I, so then that's-
- LHLewis Howes
But if someone grabs you by the throat and says, "You're gonna be in an ambulance if you keep speaking-"
- BSBen Shapiro
Right. That's-
- 34:51 – 37:13
Lessons from Mom: Take Action and Make a Plan
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah. Wow. Um, I love this. Now, I'm curious, what was the biggest lesson that your mom taught you growing up?
- BSBen Shapiro
So my mom is really different from my dad, and, um, for a variety of reasons, and she is eminently practical. So-
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- BSBen Shapiro
... uh, she is, she was-
- LHLewis Howes
Your dad's the artist.
- BSBen Shapiro
Exactly. Exactly, and, and visionary-
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah, yeah
- BSBen Shapiro
... and likes to dream. And my mom was like, "Okay, yeah, but who, who's gonna sign the check?"
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- BSBen Shapiro
And so that, and so that, that's where my mom comes in. And so, um, you know, I'm a little, I'm a lot less generous than my dad even though I talk a lot. Um, my dad talks even more than I do. [laughs]
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- BSBen Shapiro
And, uh, my mom is a lot more kind of to the point. Um, the, the word in, in Yiddish is takhles. She's like, she's very, like, down to the meat of it.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
Um, and so from her, it's more a manner of we're not gonna waste time. We're gonna get right to the point. We're gonna get things done. Uh, and so she's, because she's very practical.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
And so, uh, y- I would say that the lesson that I, that I learned from her is just, like, go do it now. Like, stop talking. Just, just go do it right now. Like, if you don't have an excuse, then you shouldn't be wasting time doing that.
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- BSBen Shapiro
Uh, and so my dad taught a lot of kind of life lessons about morality and decency, and my mom was much more about, like, you gotta take action now. You need to, you need to go out and you need to move.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right? Make a plan. Like, this is always, honestly, I, I've had, you know, depressed folks in my family, and I know, you know, I have friends who have been depressed before. And to me, you know, when you're not talking about clinical depression, obviously, where you need actual care, but if you're talking about just you're down, the number one thing you should do is make a plan. Lit- literally get a piece of paper-
- LHLewis Howes
Write goals
- BSBen Shapiro
... and a pencil-
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah
- BSBen Shapiro
... and write down a bunch of goals, and then write concrete steps to-
- LHLewis Howes
Step by step.
- BSBen Shapiro
This is correct. And then when you're not even-
- LHLewis Howes
This is Jordan Peterson's way.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- LHLewis Howes
He says it's the key.
- BSBen Shapiro
And the, I think, honestly, I don't think it's Jordan's way or my way or-
- 37:13 – 47:15
Eternal Values, Meaning, and Depression
- BSBen Shapiro
Exactly. And I think that the, this does have some deep philosophical roots. So I have a book that's coming out in March, and it talks sort of about why suicide is up and why depression is up. And my basic, my basic thesis is that- We're sort of living m- so I talked at the very beginning about eternal values. I think there are certain eternal values that undergird our free and prosperous civilization, and we're living on the fumes of those values- Mm ... having undermined a lot of those values. Name me, name me a few of the core values you're talking about. Okay. So I think that there are, I think that there are four things that human beings need to be happy. You need individual purpose. So you're alone on a desert island, what do you do today? What gives you meaning? So you need individual purpose. You need individual capacity, so you need to feel like you have the capacity to do something, you, that, and you live in a world where you have free will, where you can make a freely willed decision, where your reason is capable of understanding things. You can think things through and make a good set of decisions on your own, right? You have to, you have to believe that the universe is predictable enough that things- Mm-hmm ... aren't magically changing around you and harming you and- Mm ... victimizing you. Uh, so you need that on the individual level, and then you need the same on a communal level. You need to feel that we together have something to do, right? As Americans- A mission ... we have something to do. Yeah. Right, or as a religious community, we have something to do, or as a group of friends, we have something to do. Mm-hmm. And then you need to feel like there's communal capacity. We as a group of people can do it without violating the rights of the individual. Now, my view is that Western civilization was really good at creating a system where people had all four of these things based on, historically speaking, a unique set of circumstances that springs from Jerusalem and Athens. So Judaeo-Christian values, these, these ideas that there is free will, that you can act within the world, that the, that there is a creator who stands behind a rational universe, uh, that you have the capacity to understand that universe if you apply your- Mm-hmm ... your thinking to that universe, uh, that you are made, you have inestimable value, right? You are made in God's image, right? These are things that come from the Judaeo-Christian value system, and that you have an obligation to your fellow man, to treat your fellow man in certain ways, and these are things that come, again, from the Judaeo-Christian value system. And then on the other hand, you have Athens, which is the, the idea that reason and logic can allow you to delve into the depths of the universe and really understand the world around you- Mm ... and to apply that reason to even the biblical rules that you receive, where you can say, "Okay, well, new evidence has arisen. That means that we may have gotten our original interpretation of this rule wrong, so let's reinterpret the rule in a way that meets the evidence." So for example, the most obvious example is if you are a biblical believer, there are a lot of people now who are creationists. I'm not a creationist. So when, I'm a creationist in the sense I believe God stands behind the creation of the universe. But there are people who lit- who believe literally that God created the universe in six 24-hour days- Mm-hmm ... in exactly the order described by the Bible. I don't believe that, right? I believe that the evidence shows that that's not the case, which means that God was giving a document, if, as a religious person, as a religious Jew, God was giving a document to human beings in language we could understand at the time. Right. But that doesn't necessarily mean that- So it's not the literal of word, it's the- The- ... the interpretation. Well, right, well, the interpretation was always taken for granted 'cause as human beings, that's what we do. Anytime I say something to you, you're interpreting, so if God says something to me, I'm also interpreting, and God knows that 'cause He's omniscient. So the, the basic interplay, the tension between faith and reason is what created the West, because without certain core assumptions, then you couldn't actually feel as though you have capacity to operate in the world. So I think we've ripped away a lot of these things. I think that we've ripped away the Judaeo-Christian value system. Mm. We've said that you don't need to go to church. The Bible is worthless. Not only that, it's oppressive. It's repressive. It sets up all these standards, and you, you have the capacity to make your own meaning. People suck at making their own meaning. [laughs] But you have the capacity to make your own meaning, and you can make your own world, your own set of moral- uh, your own set of morals. Well, the problem is that the same book, right, the same set of values that created the set of morals and, and, and meaning also says that you are made in God's image, that you have inestimable value as a human being that separates you from the animals- Mm-hmm ... that you are not just a series of firing synapses adapting evolutionarily to your environment. Okay, take all that stuff away, too. Now explain to me how you are a freely willed creature who can make a difference in your world, and the answer is you can't. Now you're a meatball wandering through space. So how, so w- they, I think that what happened over the course of the last couple centuries is that Western civilization got rid of all the bases for why human beings are unique, which are religious assumptions, and then it substituted reason. Mm. But reason requires certain religious assumptions. And so what we ended up with is we are a bunch of emotional creatures who are manipulated by our environment, and so that being the case, you actually don't have the power to do anything in your life. You're just what you are, right? You may think you're willing things, but you're not willing things. You're, you're basic- you're here. You're doing stuff just 'cause you're doing stuff. And life doesn't have any higher meaning. There's no purpose to serve. Even getting married and procreation and all this stuff, like- What's the point, yeah ... that's just, that's, that's pleasure, but that's not actual meaning. That's not actual purpose. Mm-hmm. Well, pleasure can be a purpose, but it is not a purpose high enough to actually drive people to do the right thing, and it also doesn't explain why you should be altruistic, why you should- Right ... why you should help out other people, why you should worry about what happens after you die, right? Why you should, uh, like I'm not even preaching the afterlife here. I'm, I'm preaching that there are certain values inherent to being a human being that say that you should care about something beyond yourself. As a society, we focus very much inward. We're very subjective now. Meaning is made by us. Biology apparently is defined by us. We get to, we get to define the world around us in our own personal terms, and again, we suck at it. We are not good at it. People don't create their own meanings. You either feel that there is meaning that is discoverable out there in the universe, and that it's your job to go find it. This is where Jordan and I are really on the same page. Or you are sitting in a chair trying to convince yourself that the meaning was made by you. Yeah. And it wasn't. And if it was, then why is your meaning any better than anybody else's meaning? Right. Is that why you think, uh, people are suffering and more depressed than, than ever right now, or? I think that's the cause without them knowing it. Yeah. I, I think that, that the, the question is what gets you up in the morning? What's your mission today? And I think that we've been basically n- i- as long as you don't look at it, you're okay, right? As long, as long as you don't look too deeply at, at the problem, you're all right. So y- y- you just say, "Okay, well, my goal is to act morally today." And you say, "Okay, well, mor- where do morals come from?" Then we all get very uncomfortable, right? Well, I know what's right. I'm a nice person. Okay, define nice. Define person. I mean [laughs] Right ... define all these terms. If you, but those having no roots, that's why if you strip three layers down, then none of it makes any sense. It do- Mm-hmm ... it's, and so I think that you've seen this manifest in basically, "Well, I'll let everybody do what they want. I'll do what I want, and now I'll be happy" and that's- That's not right. I mean, happiness according to Judeo-Christian values was in service of God, and in, in Greek thought-
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm
- BSBen Shapiro
... happiness was at least in large part living in, in coordination with reason. And so we've said we don't have to live in coordination with reason to be happy.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- BSBen Shapiro
Now we've said we don't need to serve God or our fellow man in order to be happy. So what exactly is it that's supposed to make us happy? Uh, food.
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs] Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
A TV. I mean-
- LHLewis Howes
Even if, uh, those who are watching or listening are not religious or don't believe in God, I'm sure that you've done the research on just the studies of what brings people happiness.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right.
- LHLewis Howes
You know, the-
- BSBen Shapiro
Religion is one of these things, by the way.
- LHLewis Howes
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right? I mean, it is deeply, it is deeply tied in. I mean, feelings of comm-
- LHLewis Howes
Or, or a core belief system, right? A belief something-
- BSBen Shapiro
Right
- LHLewis Howes
... in something greater than yourself.
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, and this is the thing, people are religious even if they don't wanna be.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
So if you're not, uh, you, you, you are going to be religious about a thing. The question is what are you going to be religious about? And when people, I mean, communists were the most religious people on planet Earth, they religiously believed in an ideal of a new utopia that was going to be created and was gonna take effect over time. "And if we have to murder a few million people to do it, we'll do it." It, every, people need, people need a vision of what life is supposed to be, and they need a vision of what meaning is supposed to constitute. The number of people who are honest enough to just say, "Okay, well, you know what? I'm a nihilist. F it," [laughs] like that's, that's five people, and their lives don't end up being very good. None of this is, is a suggestion that you have to be religious in order to be moral at all. Right? I think that there are plenty of people I know who are atheists, which I understand, who are, who are moral human beings.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- BSBen Shapiro
My contention is that you can't-
- LHLewis Howes
And there's a lot of religious people who are not
- BSBen Shapiro
... who are deeply, deeply immoral. Yeah, for sure.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
For sure. The question is what can you build a civilization on? I don't think you can build a civilization on mere, on mere matter.
- LHLewis Howes
Right, right.
- BSBen Shapiro
I don't think you can just say, like, "The world's just made up of stuff."
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
And then stuff happens to that stuff.
- LHLewis Howes
There's no greater purpose.
- 47:15 – 53:31
Skipping Grades and a Lonely High School
- LHLewis Howes
Now, I'm fascinated by, uh, I keep coming back to your childhood 'cause I'm fascinated by this. You skipped a couple grades, third and ninth I think you said.
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
Uh, and you went to UCLA at 16?
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah.
- LHLewis Howes
Is that right? Started UCLA at 16.
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
And I'm assuming you took, like, college credit classes when you were, like, 13 I'm assuming in high school, right?
- BSBen Shapiro
[laughs]
- LHLewis Howes
You probably took some advanced credits, uh, early in your, in your, in your high school years. What was that like jumping the first grade? Was there a big difference, like, going from second to fourth and being with kids older than you there? Or was it harder when you jumped from, I guess, seventh-
- BSBen Shapiro
Eighth to 10th, yeah
- LHLewis Howes
... eighth to 10th grade was-
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, yeah, eighth, yeah, eighth to 10th was a lot harder, right? I mean, when you're, when you're a kid-
- LHLewis Howes
'Cause you're in middle school until your sophomore year in high school, right? So it's like-
- BSBen Shapiro
Right. Also, like, when, when I skipped the first grade, I was merely a little bit younger than all the students.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
When I skipped the second grade, I was a lot younger than all the students.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
Also, I didn't hit my growth spurt until I was basically a senior in high school, so I spent most of my-
- LHLewis Howes
Wow
- BSBen Shapiro
... [laughs] my high school years 5'2" and 105.
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- BSBen Shapiro
So that's, uh, so you know, that, that, that made a bit of a difference. Also, because I'd gone to a private Jewish day school for high school, um, the, a, a lot of the cliques had already been formed. So my family only became, like, fully religious in terms of being Orthodox Jews when I was, like, 11.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- BSBen Shapiro
So a lot of these other kids had been that their whole life, so they all had friend groups. I only went to a fully Jewish school full-time, I did for a couple years earlier, but I only went to a fully Jewish school when I went to high school, so all the cliques had already been formed.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
So I was an outsider coming in, then I skipped a grade.
- LHLewis Howes
Small school. This was, like, a few hundred students.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah, a couple hundred students in the whole-
- LHLewis Howes
The whole high school, right?
- BSBen Shapiro
Right. Well, it was, it was, there was a boys school and a girls school.
- 53:31 – 57:22
A Family-Centered Life and a Childhood Spent on Mastery
- LHLewis Howes
Did you have any close friends, middle school or high school, you could confide in or talk to?
- BSBen Shapiro
No. No. No.
- LHLewis Howes
Zero?
- BSBen Shapiro
No.
- LHLewis Howes
Not one kid?
- BSBen Shapiro
No.
- LHLewis Howes
Not one kid your age that you-
- BSBen Shapiro
No
- LHLewis Howes
... could be like, "Hey, let's talk at lunch," or, "Let's practice here."
- BSBen Shapiro
No. I, I mean, I had people I was acquainted with, but no. I, I wouldn't say-
- LHLewis Howes
Really?
- BSBen Shapiro
... I had any strong close friends.
- LHLewis Howes
So did you get invited to, like, birthday parties at kids at school? Did you go hang out?
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, occasionally, but it, but not really. I mean, that wasn't, that wasn't-
- LHLewis Howes
Church kids, like anything?
- BSBen Shapiro
So no. I mean, I, honestly I spent most of my childhood talking to adults. [laughs] I mean, that was, that was really kind of like most of the people I was having conversations with were 45. Uh, so that meant, number one, the level of conversation was better, but no. I, I'm, I've never been a friends person. I'm a very-
- LHLewis Howes
Wow
- BSBen Shapiro
... family-oriented person, so I spend almost all of my, like, my best friend is my business partner.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
But if, but aside from that, all of the people that I'm closest to are my parents, who live a mile and a half away from me, my wife, who I spend 95% of all waking free time with-
- LHLewis Howes
Wow
- BSBen Shapiro
... and my two kids, who I spend an enormous amount of time with. And I think-
- LHLewis Howes
Wow
- BSBen Shapiro
... I, I do think people are either built one way or the other. I think there are people who are kinda more friends people and social, and they like-
- LHLewis Howes
Right, right
- BSBen Shapiro
... to be out with friends and they wanna spend time with friends. Like, I'm the kind of, I'm the kinda jerk who would, who would go to a party-
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- BSBen Shapiro
... at Harvard Law and we'd go, we'd go to a party and I would bring a book with me. Because if it, because if people were boring I was not going to waste the two hours just sitting there.
- LHLewis Howes
This is a good time to read right now, yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah, exactly. Ex- I got in a lot of good reading at these parties.
- 57:22 – 1:03:27
Proudest Moments and Turning Pain Into Service
- LHLewis Howes
What was your, um, uh, your most proud moment growing up?
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, I mean, the best moment growing up is when I caught a foul ball at a Dodger game. But, um, my, uh, [laughs] um, my most proud moment growing up, um, hmm. I don't know. You'd have to say before college and after college.
- LHLewis Howes
Okay, before college.
- BSBen Shapiro
So, so I mean, before, before college, uh, I would say that my, mm... I, I still think my most proud moments are doing nice things for people.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- BSBen Shapiro
Uh, so like I, I try to do nice things for people and not, and not talk about them.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah, yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
So that means that I can't talk about them.
- LHLewis Howes
Sure, sure.
- BSBen Shapiro
But, um, it's, but as far as, uh, you know, I was, I was proud that when I was in high school, I was re- like I, I was 14, and I won a 10 minute play contest from Princeton. Like that, that kind of stuff. Um-
- LHLewis Howes
A 10 minute play contest?
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah, fiction, like a fiction play.
- LHLewis Howes
Oh, oh, you wrote a play.
- BSBen Shapiro
Like a short play.
- LHLewis Howes
Oh, wow, that's cool.
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm. So that, so that was kind of fun.
- LHLewis Howes
That's pretty cool.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah. That, that kind of stuff was neat.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
Um, you know, there, there is, uh, you know, there's the occasional school fight that you win, right? Those are always proud moments.
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs] Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right? Dude, those are always proud moments.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
There's always some point where-
- LHLewis Howes
I fought back
- BSBen Shapiro
... yeah, exactly.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
Exactly. Um, or there's, you know, a sports moment where you finally make one move playing basketball. Like, uh-
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah
- BSBen Shapiro
... when I was in junior high, for some reason I just got incredibly hot and, you know-
- 1:03:27 – 1:07:06
Not Caring What People Think and Authenticity in Politics
- LHLewis Howes
Now, I'm curious, if you had this, uh, normal childhood, let's say.
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
Right? You didn't skip grades, like, kids were nice to you.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah.
- LHLewis Howes
They, they invited you to birthday parties. They, like, celebrated you as opposed to put you down-
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm
- LHLewis Howes
... and, like, whipping you with belts and crazy stuff.
- BSBen Shapiro
[laughs]
- LHLewis Howes
Do you think you would be as driven as a human being that you are today and as focused on, you know, building everything you're building and having all these debates?
- BSBen Shapiro
I, I doubt it. I doubt it.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, really, because one of the things that you learn when you, when you get beat on a lot is that you either have to care what people think or you really don't care what people think. And I think that it is a, it's something that doesn't help you when you're in high school not to care what people think.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
Because caring what people think is what makes you popular in high school.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
And trying to cater to that crowd.
- LHLewis Howes
And leading, yeah, going into the herd as opposed to being like, "Screw you guys."
- BSBen Shapiro
Right, exactly.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
But because I was sort of out of the herd from the time that I was young, it was like, okay, well, I don't care. And, uh, and you say that enough to your- at the beginning, you do care, obviously.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
But at a, at a certain point-
- LHLewis Howes
It hurts
- BSBen Shapiro
... right.
- LHLewis Howes
You're like, this hurts.
- BSBen Shapiro
And, and then at a certain point you're like, you know what? But I actually don't. Like, and my life is not materially worse because I'm not dealing with these people, and having followed them would've been dumb. Like, hanging out-
- LHLewis Howes
Right
- BSBen Shapiro
... with, would, would, would I wanna ... And, and so I feel that same way about politics and principles. Like, I'm not somebody who has typically tended to move with the herd, and that's true on specific issues, and it's true, you know, in so far as things like elections, right? In 2016, I took the most unpopular position you could take. I didn't vote for either major candidate. I did that as a-
- LHLewis Howes
And you announced it, too.
- BSBen Shapiro
I said that out loud. I said it repeatedly. Uh, I was extraordinarily critical of President Trump's character and personality. I still am. Uh, and it's not my job to please people. I mean, if people are pleased with me, then great, but it's not my job to please people. It's my job to say things that I think are true, and if I start sacrificing what I think is true in favor of pleasing people, then I'm not doing my job. I'm not, I'm not being true, I'm not being honest, and people can sense that. I mean-
- 1:07:06 – 1:14:23
Quitting Corporate Law and Anger as Fuel
- BSBen Shapiro
I'd probably be a successful lawyer.
- LHLewis Howes
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right? I mean, [laughs]
- LHLewis Howes
And that's what you did. You went to law school.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right. And then, then I worked at a law firm.
- LHLewis Howes
Uh-huh.
- BSBen Shapiro
And, you know, part of being in a law firm requires you to be part of the social group, uh, 'cause otherwise working at a law firm really blows. It's, it's a terrible job, especially the early years.
- LHLewis Howes
Uh-huh.
- BSBen Shapiro
Uh, and for me it was like, well, I don't care about any of this stuff.
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, I was the, I was the guy who ... Yeah, I mean, and, and so the authenticity has its upside and its downside, right? When I was interviewing for law firm jobs, I was way too authentic for the interviewers and it did not work well.
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- BSBen Shapiro
I won't, I had the worst law school interview, I had the worst law firm interview record-
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- BSBen Shapiro
... of anybody I've ever heard of at Harvard Law. I went, I had 32 law firm interviews and I got one offer, and I graduated cum laude from Harvard, so, and I'd written three books at the time.
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- BSBen Shapiro
So my resume was pretty good.
- LHLewis Howes
And you got one offer.
- BSBen Shapiro
But, and I got one offer. But that's because- I would be asked questions like somebody would say, uh, i- I remember one, one interview they, they would say something like, "Well, why do you want to work in corporate law?"
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm. [laughs]
- BSBen Shapiro
Now look, we all know the answer why you want to work in corporate law, right?
- LHLewis Howes
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
You've got $200,000 of debt-
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah, yeah
- BSBen Shapiro
... uh, or $150,000 of debt. And no one, no one grows up thinking, "You know what I really wanna do with my life? I wanna spend the next four years of my life directly out of law school reading for page numbers and for missing commas and indents." That, which is what you do. You work 2,100-
- LHLewis Howes
Right
- BSBen Shapiro
... 2,200 billable hours at a major law firm. You are there from 8:00 in the morning to 9:00 at night reading for page numbers and paginations. And I, and so they said, you know, "Why do you wanna, why do you wanna work at, in, in corporate law?" I said, "For the money."
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
And which is the-
- LHLewis Howes
You're being authentic
- 1:14:23 – 1:23:15
Mission, Three Truths, and Definition of Greatness
- LHLewis Howes
I've only got a few minutes left with you, so I've got a few questions. Um, what is, what, so you just mentioned purpose and meaning, what is your purpose and mission moving forward?
- BSBen Shapiro
So I'm deeply interested in revitalizing the values that I think we all ought to hold in common and that undergird the idea of God-given rights and a limited government. So on a political level, I've always been very committed to the idea that freedom is based on we as individuals are made in the end of- image of God, and that means that we have certain rights that go along with that, the right to free speech, the right to freedom of religion, uh, the right to economic, the, the right to economic freedom, that we get to make decisions with our own money without somebody sitting over our shoulder and telling us what to do. You know, all, all of that is rooted in certain fundamental values that require us also to have a social fabric. So we need to help other people. We need to, uh, we need to live in communities where we have a common set of rules. We need to stand up against discrimination when we see it, and we need to also stand up against pandering politically when we see it. Uh, I, I'm, I've always been committed to the idea that we need to change peop- how people think in order to, in order for them to change how they live. Uh, and so I've, uh, that, that's basically what I'm dedicated to. It's, it's, it's why-
- LHLewis Howes
Getting people to change the way they think.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah, and, and think more in terms, again, it's everything we've been talking about, change the mindset from, you know, I'm, why is every- why is the world being mean to me, to, okay, here's where the world is, now here's how I'm gonna succeed, and here's why I should succeed. And so, you know, I think that, as a religious person, I think that I'm here to fulfill a godly purpose in doing all of those things, but I don't think that it, I have to speak specifically in godly terms in order to justify why I do that stuff.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm. [clears throat] Interesting.
- BSBen Shapiro
So it's why whenever I talk on my show or politics or in my lectures, I never cite the Bible. I never cite religion. I, I tend to cite values and principles, but I d- I don't tend to think that I have to, while I believe that as a religious person I'm doing something that I think is in the service of God-
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm
- BSBen Shapiro
... I think that it also can be secularly justified as something that's in the interests of, of a functioning civilization.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah, humanity. And that's why you are very detailed on your research and your facts, to try to back these things as opposed to religious doctrine.
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, a- again, the argument from authority cuts no ice with people who don't accept the authority.
- LHLewis Howes
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
Like, if, if I say, "The Bible says X," and somebody who doesn't believe the Bible is gonna go, "So?"
- LHLewis Howes
Right, right.
- BSBen Shapiro
And they're right. I mean, that's, that, that is a so question, right [laughs] ?
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah, yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
But if I say, "Okay, you should believe this because here's the reasons"-
- LHLewis Howes
The data
- BSBen Shapiro
... uh, right, here's the data-
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah
- BSBen Shapiro
... then that's a different thing. It's harder to deny data.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah, amazing. Um, this question is, um, something I ask everyone at the end of my interviews. It's called the three truths. So imagine it's your last day on earth, and you get to choose the last day, whenever you want it to be. It could be hundreds of years, whenever. It could be whenever it is. And you've achieved everything you want. You've achieved all your dreams. You've, your family is thriving. Everything is great, and I hope it all goes great for you.
- BSBen Shapiro
[laughs]
- LHLewis Howes
Um, but for whatever reason, it's gotta be the last day. You've gotta say, "Okay, this is my last, like, moments," and, uh, you've said your goodbyes. But, uh, everything you've created up until that time you have to take with you in your death. You have to take it with you, so no one has access to the videos or the books you've written or anything you've ever said in the past.
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
There's no longer that access. But you get to write down on a piece of paper three things you know to be true about your life and the lessons that you would leave behind, that people would have to remember you by.
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
Uh, and I call this the three truths. So what would you say are the three truths that you would leave behind to, to the world? Three lessons or truths, and this is all they would have.
- BSBen Shapiro
You as a human being have inherent meaning, and I don't just mean that you have something to live toward, but that you actually are a meaningful thing.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
That your, that your life matters, and the decisions that you make matter. Uh, that'd be number one.
Episode duration: 1:23:23
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Transcript of episode ZETvBSlu1tg
