True personal growth and higher consciousness are fundamentally achieved by consistently and honestly admitting one's wrongness, which requires introspection, humility, and a willingness to confront deeply ingrained self-deceptions and structural limitations.
Mind Map
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make sure you stick around for the
second half of this episode where I'm
going to give a detailed list of things
I was wrong about these are new things
that I haven't discussed before and
they're going to be very nuanced subtle
things Advanced ways of being wrong
which will be Illuminating for you and
also I'm sure you'll get a thrill out of
that so stick around for that but before
we get there let's set up some
Foundation there's just one core idea in
this whole episode which is that growth
requires admitting that you were
wrong I was
yet as simple as that is it's hard to
get people to actually do
it so this idea is so
simple but the trick is how do you how
do you get it to sink into somebody's
mind that's the challenge here and I've
been racking my mind around that and in
fact this is something that uh comes up
over and over again in all these
episodes that I do is it's like uh the
challenges that the ideas are often very
simple but then getting them to sink in
is the the difficult part getting you to
see the power and depth of them and all
the ways in which they can be
applied that's the trick that's why a
long discussion is necessary because
sure you can do a 10-minute long video
that just tells you some of the basics
but it's just going to go in one ear and
out the other it's not really going
to change how you think about these
things which is the whole point of
stuff so we need to communicate its
power and all the subtlety and nuance
and all the different potential for
mistakes and all the psychological
trickery Behind These otherwise
principles and then that's what gets you
to start to change because the biggest
problem in all this work is that it just
you're sitting there watching and you're
just watching and nothing changes in
your life you get Theory empty Theory
this so
anyways I was wrong is the magic phrase
skill and of course also before you can
admit you were wrong you have to be able
to notice that that you're wrong if you
can develop that skill as well that
whole thing is the skill of I was wrong
let's call that that that label um this
is where you're going to see a lot of
growth that other people miss out
on now you can have insight into how
your attitude towards anything in life was
was
wrong and once you clearly see that you
can't quite behave in the same ways
anymore just as a basic example and
we'll have a lot more coming here in a
minute but basic example is an atheist
experience as long as he doesn't deny
that and he really takes it in he'll
realize that he was wrong about all of
religion like fundamentally wrong deeply
wrong it's not just like a little
mistake he made it's like he made a
fundamental epistemic metaphysical
error and now his whole attitude towards
religion has to change so there's also a
burden that comes with admitting you
not only does it bruise your ego but but
sacrifice as another example just think
of uh one of your old romantic
relationships one that is a few years
old or more and you're out of it you're
over it you're done you're at peace but
see now you can look back and you can
ask yourself what are all the mistakes I
made in that relationship and you can
clearly see the mistakes and you
couldn't see them at all before when you
were in the middle of
it so that tells you something it's like
you were in a trans when you were in
this relationship and now you're out of
that trans you can look back upon it
with perspective with the benefit of
time with the benefit of new experiences
more theory that you learned which now
helps you look back analyze the
situation sort of we might say
objectively that's the trick when you're
in the thick of it it's really difficult
what I mean when I say being wrong is
not just identifying some false belief
you have but noticing your approach or
attitude towards a thing or a
situation noticing that that is wrong
for example changing how you relate to
women changing how you relate to
money changing how you relate to
criticism changing how you relate to to
spirituality if you really want to
change these things you're going to have
to be admitting a lot of I'm wrong on
these and the mind gets stuck in a
certain orientation a certain way of
relating to these things and then
changing that becomes quite tricky so we
need to undo that in order to get your mind
mind
unstuck reaching the highest stages of
development requires seeing things in in
new ways fundamentally new ways not just
rearranging the little details of your
perspective but like really a shift 180
degree shift in your perspective on a
situation that's what we're after
here so where are you wrong in your
sensemaking framework see everything
we're talking about with this work is is
really grounded in how you make sense of
things the mistakes all begin there
because if you're not making sense of of
a situation or a domain of Life properly
then all sorts of mistakes will fall
from fall out from that as a natural
consequence um and then you're not going
to be able to fix those mistakes unless
you track them backwards sort of reverse
engineer them and get to the sense
making framework that led to those
problems this includes your biases
judgments interpretations core
assumptions core beliefs your attitudes
in its attempts at making sense of
reality your mind is already wrong about many
many
things you're just not aware of it your
mind is hiding it from you so this is a
key thing for you to realize because
um most
people if you tell them well what are
you wrong
about they're just going to kind of like
like what are you wrong about in
your sense making of reality they're
just going to kind of shrug their
shoulders like well I'm sure I'm wrong
about a few things but I I don't know
like nothing
major this is how most people would
react to that but what you have to see
is that that is an illusion that is
complete illusion you are wrong about so
many deep and fundamental
things and so how do you how do you
actually get somewhere with that cuz if
if you just sit down and ask yourself
how am I wrong you're not going to get
very far which is why we want to talk
about this some
more it's very easy to see how other
people are wrong it's very difficult to
see how you're wrong especially in more
fundamental ways the more fundamental
the error the harder it is to see
because the more consequences it has for
your psyche in your
life and it's very easy
to distract yourself from this
responsibility because it is your
responsibility to figure out how you're
wrong by externalizing
the wrongness onto others in the world
and then see you're going to fall into
the Trap of going around pointing out
everybody else's wrongness but then of
course that's just a distraction from
searching for your own the
counterintuitive move is to turn
inwards that search that energy because
you're using energy you only have so
much time and energy in in the day what
towards now of course even though I said
just sitting down alone in a room and asking
asking
yourself how am I wrong uh that's
limited but still you should do that I
mean it's better than what most people
do which is that they never even do that
so I do recommend as a basic exercise
that after this episode is done or soon
after as soon as you have some time sit
down alone in a room for an hour with
the notepad and just ask yourself what
are all the ways I'm wrong
you might be surprised at how many
answers your mind just supplies to you
of course this assumes that you're
open you have to be open you have to be
honest and as you're doing that notice
how that feels there will probably be
some resistance to you doing that maybe
some procrastination to this exercise
that's not by
accident this is not one of those comfortable
comfortable
exercises and also uh notice your mind
uh notice your mind maybe even getting
foggy like as you think back into your
life you what are all the things I've
been wrong about you might even notice
that your mind just it stops working for
some reason it's like ah you know I
don't I'm kind of tired I'm kind of
sleepy I can't remember things so
well of course you
can't um that's your mind resisting so notice
that uh and just see how far you
get um you should do this periodically
in your life maybe once every couple of
years you know sit down and go through this
this
exercise of course like I said it's not
going to be
enough it will take you years to find
many ways in which you were
wrong and just doing it logically like
this is not going to be enough
realistically what you're going to need
is you're going to need some emotional
motivation especially negative emotional
motivation some
suffering as is otherwise known
now beware that the mind will trick you
and it will use
shallow forms of wrongness to avoid
facing more fundamental and deep
wrongness right so you can be wrong in
Shallow ways and you can be wrong in
deep ways and a lot of
what people do in order to kind of put
on this air of I'm a humble person you
I'm a humble spiritual person so of
course I can't admit that I'm never
wrong right so to be a proper humble
spiritual person I have to admit some of
my faults and so you do admit some of
your faults but they're like very
shallow ineffective they don't really
change you in a in a fundamental
way it's like yeah you know uh I'm wrong
in that I'm a perfectionist I'm wrong in that
that
um uh you know I I demand too much of
myself you know these kind of like this
is kind of like
bullshit where are you like really wrong
where are you wrong in a way that it
threatens you where you'd have to change
how you live that's what we're
here of course admitting you were wrong
is very painful to the ego there's a
Wall of Resistance
there uh the mind is so averse to
admitting that it's wrong and that keeps you
you
stuck and then there's a denial of
wrongness and that becomes the
Trap and then the problem is that a lot
of times when other people point out
your wrongness to you or they
try the ego is so uh stubborn that
there's there's almost like a reverse
psychology at play the more people tell
you you're wrong the more the ego denies
it and defends itself because it feels
threatened that's why sitting alone in a
room is is a is a better way to go about
it because a lot of times people will
tell you ways in which you're wrong and
your mind just doesn't take it
defensive what you really want to do is
you want to avoid becoming someone like
I was thinking of an example of this
like what's what's an example of someone
in the public who's like very wrong and
so stubborn and just will never admit it
and I was thinking I mean there's many
examples that you can probably think of
but like what came to me is this
professor Dave guy on YouTube there's
this YouTuber called Professor Dave who
teaches science um and uh man is this
guy uh is is this guy like stubborn in
his materialism and his scientism like
this is he's like the poster boy of all
the the problems of scientism that we've
discussed um and look I'm not trying to
judge him or I don't I don't care about
demonizing him or any of that but just
like don't become that guy right like
that's the that's the reason we're
having this conversation is because if
you get stuck like that in some Paradigm
and you just keep doubling down on and
doubling down on and you can see the
psychological mechanisms that the mind
has to employ to keep like it has to
keep doing these mental gymnastics and
rationalizations and denials and then
acting out and then this arrogance comes
from that and
look uh I'm very guilty of arrogance
myself so I I can't judge him for for
the arrogance too much um but
um the important thing is not that you
make mistakes or that you're wrong it's
that you admit it
your willingness to admit it there has
that sometimes you're unable to admit
that you're wrong simply because of the
way that your life is structured there's
a structural Dimension to this which
which is really where where this gets
deep and interesting for example you
work at
Academia that's like the structure of
your life you devoted your life to
Academia there are things
that are wrong with with the Academia
system that you will never be able to
admit to yourself as long as you're in
paycheck another example is that you're
trapped inside of a family situation
with a husband and children let's say
you're a
wife you have a husband who's um abusive
or the way that he earns money is
through some sort of like criminal activity
but now you can't admit that to yourself
yet you turn a blind eye to it you make
excuses for it because why because
structurally you're really
stuck you want to keep your marriage you
want to keep it for the sake of your
children what's going to happen if you
start raising you know too much of a
fuss over the way he that he earns money
or the way that he maybe suddenly
manipulates or abuses you um
most likely you're going to find ways to
rationalize that and just to kind of
stick in there because after all
marriage does require a commitment right
and that's not wrong but um uh
structurally right cuz cuz really to
admit that you're wrong in that
situation that's going to imply that you
have to change the structure of your
life you're probably going to have to
get a divorce you're have to figure out
what to do with the kids and so forth
you might even lose your children
how how is a how's a mother going to
lose her
children how's that going to work right
realistically she's uh
she's she's got a gun to her head she
can't admit that she's
wrong I actually my
my um my my last former girlfriend um
she was
uh she was in a marriage like that she had
had
cult um and then she had to break out of
that think of how difficult it is to
break out of that your husband's a
Mormon everyone you know is a Mormon you
were a
Mormon you have this otherwise Happy
Family Life you have
children and then you realize that all
of that is bullshit all of that is
occult all of that is corrupt and
abusive and
criminal at
times and isn't really aligned with with
spirituality and so forth how do you how
do you leave that
situation in the end she ended up losing
her her children but she left that
situation they took her kids
kids
that's you know that's heavy heavy stuff
that's not like as simple as just oh
admitting some innocent little mistake
like oh yeah I'm a perfectionist no it's like
like
no you're your whole way of life is
wrong that's what we're talking about uh
another example of this kind of
structural problem is um if you work
inside the
government you're in a very uh you know
corrupt system structurally and
structurally you can't speak out because
they'll fire
you they'll destroy your
career or for example if you're if
you're wealthy and you're attached to a
certain kind of easy luxurious lifestyle
maybe you go to these fancy exclusive
parties or
nightclubs you go on these luxurious
vacations and Yachts and cruises I mean
this is like a a great life on the
surface but then maybe you realize that
all of the money that is funding this
kind of lifestyle that it's actually
coming from let's say your Rich Daddy
and your Rich daddy how is he getting
all this money by screwing people over
on Wall Street through some sort of
White Collar you know scams and
that how do you then admit to yourself
wrong and of course
uh the
simplest structural problem is any
anytime you're getting paid hu paid huge
amounts of money for whatever ever work
you do is going to be very difficult for
you to admit that that work is
wrong and the more money they pay you
be and lastly for example uh the
structural thing is um if you have a
public Persona to defend if you're a
public intellectual if you're a public
author if you're a well-known
celebrity if you're a social media
influencer God
forbid you have this
Persona to
defend and what's going to happen when
you admit that you were
wrong and so there's a fear of the
consequences okay so what's the
technique here for for for this work
basically identify where you're
wrong face it look at it hold that
wrongness in your awareness admit it to
yourself and then explicitly say to
yourself I was wrong in that
situation that's going to trigger a mini
grieving process maybe a major grieving
process but at least a mini one if it's
a significant wrong then a mini grieving
process where you feel your ego is
bruised you start to experience some
emotional stuff come up probably some
negative emotions you're going to start
to feel embarrassed at yourself you're
going to start to feel like a fool
you're going to start to have
regrets and what you want to do is you
just want to go through that process
that grieving
process that's what's healing you that's
healthy uh give yourself time to go
through that and you know spend time in
self-reflection going through that
grieving process and just introspecting
about it and coming to peace with
it and as you're doing that ask yourself
how will my behavior change going
forward remember my episode learning
equals Behavior change well this
that this situation is going to be
painful because you're going to
fool that you were tricked that you
tricked yourself or somebody else
tricked you and it makes you look like a
total fool and this contradicts your
self-image because you don't usually
think of yourself as a total fool but
now you're facing it and you have to
being wrong is embarrassing especially
if you've built up an identity about
being for example very intellectual or
being wise or being spiritually Advanced
or being some kind of expert in some
sort of
domain like uh Professor Dave has done
see Professor Dave has a lot invested in
being Professor Dave being the scientist
you know the sort of the Ambassador for
science the the Neil degrass Tyson of science
and then ask yourself how did I fall
into this self-deception because most
likely you're dealing with the self-deception
self-deception
here and think about the epistemology
right that's where when I talk about
this kind of abstract notion of
epistemology that's where it gets real
see here you can now consider what are
the epistemic gaps in my sense making
that led to
this situation to me getting this wrong
examining your epistemic assumptions of
for example into atheism if you're if
you're one of these atheists then you
realize that was wrong uh it's not
enough just to realize that oh yeah
atheism is wrong you have to go
further uh you have to you have to
examine how you fell into that trap
epistemically speaking and and likewise
you know if you're into fundamentalism
relig fundamentalist religion that's
also wrong right so at some point you're
going to realize fundamentalism
fundamentalist religion is wrong and you
have to but then you don't stop there
you have to actually go and respect the
epistemic assumptions that led you there
CU otherwise you'll you'll get into
another problem you know see what'll
happen is that if you don't really take
this opportunity to go deep into the
epistemics of the situation what's going
to happen is that you're going to let's
say Escape your fundamentalist religion
but then you're going to fall into
something else namely you're probably
going to fall into some sort of new age spirituality
spirituality
instead and then the problems will
repeat themselves but see you're not
going to see that because you're going
to miss the structure you're going to
think like well yeah fundamentalist
religion was was was stupid but uh but
I'm now I'm just going to do the new age
thing that's so much better it's so much
different well but there's so much
similarity between the two various kinds
of fantasy what really connects them is
fantasy you're following into fantasy
that and then as you're going through
this whole process you
know recognize that that is what Leo
means by self
deception cuz I've talked a lot with you
guys about self-deception but
self-deception in the abstract ways you
know I give you various like mechanisms
abstract mechanisms for how
self-deception works I also give you
examples but none of that is going to be
actually enough that's not the same
thing at all as actually confronting
your self-deception and seeing it in
practice and in fact you thinking you
understand self-deception because you've
listened to my three-part series called self-deception
self-deception
this itself then becomes the next trap
because you think you understand but but
you don't really see the self-deception
there's a difference between
understanding self-deception as a
concept and
seeing where you are self-
deceived now this whole process of
admitting that you're wrong
uh I'll make it much easier for you do
it for yourself just for yourself don't
worry about admitting to others or
publicly announcing that you were wrong
just do it for
yourself because that's what really
matters as long as you recognize that
you were wrong in whatever
situation that's what really matters
that's enough to change you and then
whether you admit it to others sure it
can be you can go the extra step of
admitting it to others that's nice um
but it's not it's not strictly necessary
and it might put too much burden on you
right because if you have to then reveal
this to your whole family and to your
all your co-workers and and your whole
uh social media audience that's like
that that just makes it more difficult
than it needs to
be now here's a list of examples of
things you could be wrong about just to
start to get you to see how this can be
applied uh the nature of
religion you can be wrong about that the
very nature of what is the origin and
purpose and function of religion
this is for example a trap that I call
this a Sam Harris trap he doesn't
understand what religion is and why it
exists he thinks he does but he
doesn't and uh maybe one day in his
career he'll come to realize that he was
fundamentally wrong about the nature of
religion uh I'm not going to hold my
breath but for him to admit that to
himself that's going to be very
difficult and then to admit that to all
of his atheist fans that's going to be
very very difficult because he's built a
whole persona career and audience
now uh around this you know what would
Sam Harris's audience do if he came out
and says that uh to them that guys I was
atheism that's that's tough that's tough
you know he has to admit that to himself
first which he probably won't do um next
you could be wrong about scientism
rationalism materialism pretty obvious
we've discussed that a lot before you
can be wrong about political radicalism
whether left or right forms of political
radicalism you get sucked into it you're
not going to even be aware that you get
sucked in and radicalized by the time
you're radicalized it's like you're an
occult but you can break out of that
people have broken out of that you know
just kind of like you awake you awaken
from the trans of that
radicalization and that's difficult to
do uh just in general you can be wrong
about all sorts of political views
on abortion on climate on war on
corruption on taxes and you can be wrong
in both directions so when I say that
you're wrong on abortion I'm not saying
that there's some one right way to look
at abortion and that that that's my way
that's like Leo's view on abortion is
the right way to view abortion no you
can be wrong from either direction on
issues and in fact you can be wrong on
these issues in in like even more
complex ways than just
being pro-abortion or anti-abortion
there's like a even deeper way you can
be wrong about that where you're wrong
at it from both sides in a sense we
could say that both the pro-abortion
people and the anti-abortion people
they're both wrong on abortion it's like
well how can that
be right um and likewise with climate
change both sides are wrong about
climate change the left and the right
are wrong about climate change and
likewise with with issues of war and
Taxation so like it's it's not simple at all
all
there's a lot of nuance here uh romantic
relationships there's a lot you can get
wrong in Ro romantic
relationships um that just that requires
a whole episode on its own there but I'm
sure you you've had realizations of uh
ways in which you've behaved in romantic
relationships that were wrong that some
of that stuff is pretty obvious in
retrospect views of the opposite sex you
can be wrong
there black pill ideology various forms
of misogyny a lot of young men are
falling into this right now and then um
it's going to take them years and
decades to admit this to themselves but
as they mature you know as you get out
of your 20s and into your 30s and 40s
you know once you're in your 40s you'll
see how much misogyny as a young man you
know immersed in online culture around
this whole topic how much misogyny
misogyny
uh you engaged in and it's going to be
rather ugly rather ugly to look at how you
you
behaved in your 20s for
example uh conspiracy theories of course
so many ways to be wrong about
conspiracy theor and very difficult to
admit to yourself that you subscribe to
one of these like just asinine
conspiracy theories whether it's flat
Earth I mean imagine being a flat
earther and then and then coming out of
that that you're you're just going to
feel so
embarrassed um you know I was thinking
you know
I shit on conspiracy theories all the
time but like um there's only one
conspiracy theory that I could think
that I fall have had fallen into um
which is the hollow Earth to me for a
while Hollow Earth seemed like it might
be sort of plausible that's really the
only one and in retrospect it's
embarrassing even just to admit this
right now but uh but hey look I'm trying
to help you so I'm admitting things
about myself that I would normally not
admit because I'm trying to model it for
you um so yeah so you got to like you
got to lean into your cringe lean into
your embarrassment and just
like that's the process here
really getting suckered into a bad
investment like it's really hard to
admit to yourself
that you made some really foolish
investment and then to admit it to your
family and so on like it's imagine
losing your your your family's life
savings by investing in some ridiculous
crypto scheme losing all of it and now
you have to go and admit it to them like that's
uh that that that's horrible uh on the
other hand you know the nice thing with
the bad investment is that you know
eventually like you can't deny a bad
investment eventually everyone's going
to know you lost the money so in that
sense it's kind of like an easy
one uh you can be wrong in criticisms
and Judgment of other people you're
going to be criticizing your parents
your children leaders in public wealthy people
people
celebrities your boss you're going to be
criticizing and judging all these people
very harshly
uh before you seriously
mature and then you're going to in
retrospect you're going to regret many
of those judgments and criticisms but
it'll probably take you a
while um you can be wrong about how
success works for example you could have
wrong ideas about that and maybe that's
what's keeping you poor and unsuccessful
women in order to get good at attracting
women you're going to have to you're
going to have to make some 180 degree
shifts Paradigm shifts in certain ways
that you understand how how dating and mating
Works some people call it the red pill
although you know the red pill has its
own problems so there's a you can also
like you can be wrong in a in a certain
sense then you break out of that and you
say oh how is so stupid for being wrong
in that sense then you break out of it
and you go into some new thing that you
think okay this is the right way and
then that turns out to be wrong too just
in a more nuanced way this time it's not
as grossly wrong so like for example um
a good example here is Michael Shermer
so he's he's like a public intellectual
skeptic type of person he runs skeptic
magazine uh similar to like one of these
Sam Harris types or David Dave Professor
Dave types um Michael shurmer used to be
a fundamentalist religious Christian
like a born again
Christian then when he when he matured
he realized that's nonsense he became a
skeptic now he adopted he shifted from
fundamentalist fundamentalist Christian
to skeptic of course that's an upgrade
that's an upgrade but now he's stuck in
the skepticism thinking that he's
escaped that now he he understands the
spe spiritual situation the the
religious situation he thinks he has a
handle on science and all this like it's
Preposterous he has no idea he's wrong
about so many things but like will he
ever realize that no because
he's he like the way his mind works is
that there's either this or this it's
like it's a very
binary right without appreciating that
you can be wrong in subtle like you know
the wrongness can be wrapped up with
with rightness in such a you know messy
way and likewise with the red p pill so
there's certain aspects of the red pill
which are right and are better than
let's say the blue pill but then the red
pill introduces its own errors that
you're going to have to transcend as
well and and by that I don't mean you're
going to go to the black pill because
the black pill is is really bad super
wrong um so right so your mind has to be
flexible enough to see like not in
binaries the binary thinking here is is really
really
wrong that's one thing you can realize
uh you can be wrong about how politics
and power really
works you can be wrong in your
assessment of the motives of
others you can be wrong in your
characterization and demonization of
alternative perspectives maybe you've
demonized in the past capitalists
hippies new agers Muslims trans
gays Libs and greens
greens
environmentalists maybe you ridiculed
certain people and ideas and then in the
future you'll realize you're wrong on
that and it's going to be embarrassing
for you to admit that cuz you were
probably a jerk to these people you
probably posted some nasty comments on
on Twitter or
wherever call these people names and
then turns out you're wrong and they
were right all along how
embarrassing uh wrong in in straw
Manning and misrepresenting some other
point of view different than your own so
much straw Manning go going on online
uh wrong in your assessment of where
others are wrong see you say well this
person is wrong and that person is wrong
and this is wrong and that is wrong and
Leo is wrong but then in the future
you'll realize that actually you were
the wrong one for pointing out the
wrongness in
others of course you could have been
right in certain areas too I'm not
saying you're wrong across the board I'm
saying you're wrong in in certain you
know specific nuanced ways at least I
hope so I hope you're not wrong Ross the
board there's people like that too uh
wrong in your understanding of
terrorists and terrorism that's a that's
a very common one I need to do a whole
episode I mean that that's it's hard to
do that episode
because uh the things that need to be
said about terrorism like um are very
Politically Incorrect but uh I should
get get to work on that one uh wrong in
in what you think your true motives were
for doing a thing that's a big one
that's a subtle one right like you you
can fool yourself about what your true
motives are for doing things you can
tell yourself you're doing it for some
sort of selfless motive when actually
there's a sort of a uh a hidden selfish
motive behind it and that's good to
recognize wrong in your justifications
and rationalizations I'll have a whole
episode in the future about
justifications rationalizations that's a
huge important topic wrong in your
interpretations of psychedelics and
mystical experiences a lot of ways to
misinterpret mystical experiences turn
them into fantasy sees and you start to
think that they mean things that they
don't really mean like let's say you
take some mushrooms and you see Jesus in
your trip what does that really
mean that's
tricky you can be wrong in your
understanding of SP dnamic
stages you think you understand what
stage green is or what stage yellow is
or what stage turquoise especially is or
even Coral dare I say uh the higher you
go up stages the more likely you are to misunderstand
them and and that actually actually
works kind of in Reverse as well the
lower you go down the stages you also
tend to misunder like it's easy to
misunderstand purple stage purple and
Stage red just because if you're living
in a developed part of the world if you
yourself are stage greenish which is Mo
where most of you probably are who
follow my work uh you you're going to
struggle understanding red and and
purple because just like you don't
experience them around you you don't
have a a frame of reference for it so watch
watch
out uh you can be wrong in pushing your
values onto others that's a that's a
tricky one I'll talk more about that as
I get into my own errors because i' I've
made that mistake uh wrong in your
closed-mindedness wrong in your
understanding of Enlightenment and
Awakening wrong in people uh in treating
people transactionally wrong in
dismissing some piece of advice that you
were given by somebody wiser than you
cuz you thought you knew
better wrong in your beliefs about your
own capacities you can both overestimate
your own capacities and you can
underestimate your own capacities if you
underestimate that's kind of like the
victim mentality but then overestimate
this gets you into arrogance you think
you know more than you do or you think
you can do more than you can really do
you might say to yourself well how hard
is it to to shoot a movie I can shoot a
movie you know these directors that are
making these shitty movies these days
you know they're idiots I'll make my own
movie and it's going to be great and
then you make your own movie and you
realize how awful it is and how
difficult it is to really make a movie
and this by the way this generally
applies to almost
business any kind of company where you
want to create any kind of product it's
all going to be way harder than you
thought you you're likely overestimating
your abilities to do these things and
with art you know writing a good song
making a good painting these things are
a lot harder than they
seem and you'll quickly discover that if
you try doing some of this which is why
a lot of a lot of people don't even try
because deep down they know they know
they're full of shit and they'll fail or
they fail so quickly into the process
they never even
realize right like you you start doing
film go actually try to make a try to
make a a good film like within a few
days you'll realize how hard it is most
likely and you'll
quit uh wrong in your online Behavior so
many so many mistakes happening there uh
wrong in trashing other
people eventually you realize all the
people you trash that was a
mistake wrong in your approach to
business and making
money wrong in your ethical orientation
of your
business there are a lot of unethical
ways to do business which you'll realize
as your Consciousness Rises see in
general if your Consciousness is low or
sort of average relative to the center
of gravity of of your Society a lot of
these things you're not ever going to
realize if we're wrong but as you go
beyond the center of gravity of your
culture more and more of these things
will become obviously wrong to you and
that's where it gets
difficult you can be wrong in being too
optimistic or pessimist too cynical too
skeptical too
trusting uh wrong in how you relate to
your children wrong in bullying others
wrong in being disrespectful towards
others wrong in judging your boss or
superiors this is a a very common trap because
because
um it's so easy to think that you know
better than your boss that your boss is an
an
idiot and sometimes that's true but in
most cases usually your boss knows more
than you has more experience than you
has more wisdom than you um and in fact
your boss can know so much more than you
that you don't even understand how much
your boss knows because your boss is
just too busy doing the things he needs
to do to keep you know the corporation
running and you in your little lowly
position as a newbie you like you have
no comprehension of what it takes to run
that business but you think you know you
think you could do a better job and then
a lot of times you may not understand
they may seem seem cruel to you they may
seem heartless to you like let's say
your boss fires somebody it's like well
why couldn't the boss be nicer but
there's higher issues at stake that you
will never realize unless you become a
boss yourself and then when you do
finally become a boss you're going to
say oh my God I completely
underestimated what it means to be a
boss to be responsible for hundreds for
thousands of people working under me
that's that's an enormous responsibility
and there's a there's so many ways to
screw that up it's a miracle if your
boss is doing most of it
difficult you can be wrong in
oversimplifying situations thinking of
them too simplistically lacking the
Nuance thinking in a sort of a black and
white way about a situation for example
with political with the realm of
politics you can kind of oversimplify to
the point where you think that one side
or the other side has to be right and
wrong all the time on every issue and
that that's really not the case you you
will disabuse yourself with that notion
if you study politics deeply and follow
some of my political
content wrong in taking your mental
constructs for reality mistaking the two
confusing the
two wrong in seeing a situation too
you're not technically wrong but your
view is just so limited so
narrow that that's what makes it wrong
more wrong in your understanding of
capitalism or socialism wrong in
dismissing another's subjective
experience of reality wrong in trying to
monopolize the truth that's a really sneaky
sneaky
one once your ego gets a hold of the
truth you want to have a monopoly on it
that's what that's the classic trap that
these religions fall into right like
Islam wants to monopolize the
truth Christians want to monopolize the
truth Jesus is the truth see they're
trying to monopolize the truth but the
truth is not limited to Jesus that's a
again a very narrow understanding of that
that
situation you can be wrong in your
understanding of geopolitics and war war
is a tricky thing to understand I have
an episode about war and conflict
uh wrong in understanding the Middle
East Middle East is a is a tricky place to
to
understand for example it's it's easy to
misunderstand why women have to be
veiled in the Middle
East uh wrong in how you relate to
criticism it's easy to get reactive when
criticism comes your way uh wrong in how
you relate to negative people trying to
debate with them and argue with
them wrong with being edgy wrong with
your style of communication wrong in
your blabber mouthy just blabber
mouthing on social
media without
thinking wrong in idolizing gurus and
teachers and putting them on pedestals
celebrities wrong and copying and aping
others rather than following your own
path a lot of young people are doing
this wrong in gaslighting people wrong
in shifting blame on others wrong in
thinking that someone else is stupid
when you're actually the stupid one in the
the
situation wrong in wasting years of your
life doing something ineffectively
that's a very tricky
one like you can waste years of your
life going to the gym and lifting
weights ineffectively just because you
think you have the right way and you
don't want to learn from somebody else
you're too proud or you're too lazy to
actually learn or you're too cheap to
actually maybe invest in a person
trainer and so you just keep going about
it ineffectively for years for decades
and then admitting to yourself that the
way that you've been lifting at the gym
or exercising at the gym is wrong that's
going to be very difficult because you
have a decade now of ineffective
practice the same can apply to example
for meditation you could be doing
meditation wrong for a
decade and then the longer you do it
ineffectively the worse it becomes
because it becomes harder and harder to
admit to yourself that you've wasted a
this Effectiveness topic is is so
so
uh so significant it really deserves its
own episode uh you can be wrong in
getting carried away just you can get
carried away with all sorts of things
you can get just carried away with a
romantic relationship especially early
on when you're in this kind of
infatuation honeymoon period you can get
carried away with some religious
community which ends up being a cult you
can get carried away with earning money
just you're just like you're in like a
trans a money earning trans you get
carried away and you forget all about
ethics you forget all about
Consciousness and and and the things
that I said and you just get carried
away chasing money carried away with
with pickup you know you get into to
pickup and you discover that hey
actually I'm kind of skilled at pickup
and then you start doing it and you're
getting results but then you just get
like get carried away with the with the
whole pickup thing or carried away with
some online ideology like this carried away
away
stuff it's very very
trappy here's a few very like subtle
examples see I'm trying to communicate
to you the nuance and subtlety here so
the more nuanced are examples can be the better
better
uh here's one being wrong in how you
create content insisting for example
that you need total creative control of
your content and that you don't need any
editors cuz you know an editor is going
to interfere with your creative genius
or something like that right and then so
you structure your life such that nobody
can edit your creative content but then
that actually makes your content worse
I've suffered from
that um my content could improve with
better editing so recently I've started
to I don't mean that I'm going to be
editing my videos like after they're
shot I'm editing them before I even speak
speak
I'm pre-editing
this episode here has already been
pre-edited it would have been longer and
worse had I not realized that I was
wrong in this specific way so see that's
kind of a subtle one like it's really
difficult to spot that right it took me
a long long it took me 10 years of
making videos to get to the point where
I realized that I mean yeah I always
knew my videos were long and kind of you
know all that but I was fooling myself
into thinking that actually longer is
better more content is better you know
uh would make my content
worse but then I realized the value of
editing so now I'm more ruthless about
editing my content pre-editing it
editing my outlines cutting out all the
extraneous examples all the low quality
examples all the um all the fluff all
the intro like heavy intro stuff like
really cutting it down to like like
nowadays I'm asking myself like what is
like the Bare Bones like the minimum the
potent uh here's another subtle example
is wrong in trying to impress people
vocabulary that's a tricky one I fell
into that luckily with that one I
realized that trap really early on I
realized that trap when I was about uh
24 25 I got out of that trap cuz I went
to University and I was into all that
academic heavy jargon sophisticated
vocabulary right these $100 fancy words
that they use in Academia I was all into
that shit impressing people with that
and then I I caught myself and I
realized like what am I doing I'm
putting on this front that's not how
language and communication is supposed
to be communication is supposed to be as
simple as possible as clear as possible
possible not words that people average
people don't
understand I actually discovered that by
getting out of Academia and going into
business when I went into business I
would write like for example when I was
a game designer um at a studio I would
write these sort of like academic
sounding verbose
florid design documents and very quickly
I was just abused of this kind of
communication because when you're
writing design documents for program
and for other designers they don't want
any of your fancy you know poetic
bullshit language academic language they
want like really concise uh you know
simple straight to the point and that in
a sense that's actually more
difficult communicating with that like
in a in a potent simple clear list-like
form that's that in a sense that can be
more difficult especially if you went
through the whole academic system where
you were writing these long
10-page essays on topics which is how I
was educated you know my idea of a good
document is like a 10-page
essay that that's that's terrible for
world so what's going to happen to you
is that if you don't get good at
admitting your wrongness then your
Consciousness will get stuck that's the
real cost that's the cost of all
this right now people who are not
actively pursuing higher consciousness
they don't even realize that this is a
factor because they don't think about
Consciousness they don't care about
developing Consciousness they're not
trying to access higher stages up the
spiral none of this kind they're not
trying to you know access God
Consciousness um and so for them it's
not a big issue but if you really want
to access higher dimensions of
Consciousness this is this is why I'm
pointing this whole topic out to
you is that this is your mind will get stuck
stuck
you're going to your mind is simply
going to lack the open-mindedness and
requisite variety and intelligence which
is necessary to access the highest
levels see the highest levels of
consciousness are the most intelligent
ones intelligence needs infinite
requisite variety at the highest level
right so the closer you get to God the
more infinite variety the requisite
variety uh your your Consciousness will
require to understand the higher
things and anything where your mind is wrong
wrong
anything where you have a wrong attitude
towards things or you're afraid to admit
that you're wrong any place where you're
in denial that's going to be an obstacle
to going any higher and at some point
you're just going to max out you're
going to max out you're going to stall
for years you're just going to stall
until some breakthrough happens where
usually some catastrophe happens in your
life some huge amount of pain and Trauma
um suffering rather uh and uh and then
that might break break you through that
might get you to realize how fucking
stupid you were how close-minded and
stubborn you were and that might bust you
through uh but also this is a collective
issue as well don't think that it's all
just on the
individual right now many of our
political problems come
from various groups and factions within
Society refusing to admit that they've
been being
wrong in fact you can look at the entire
consern ative movement especially I
don't know how it is in other countries
but especially in American politics
which is what I'm most familiar
with everything the Republican party is
doing everything the right-wing in
America is doing all the Maga people and
and even the non- Maga
people fundamentally what's going on
is conservatives are wrong about some
very fundamental aspects of reality and
society and they're in denial about it
and they're fundamentally unwilling to
admit that they're wrong
and then from that all the other disease
is happening within the conservative
movement now I'm not saying that all of
the problem of politics is on the
conservatives there's also stuff that's
going wrong on the left as well but just
if we look at the conservative movement
look think about it what are the
conservatives in denial about and refuse
to admit that that they're wrong
about their denial and wrong about
climate change and environmental
degradation and just the fundamental
carrying capacity of the planet the
human species has reached a point where
we're we're we're buning up against the
carrying capacity of the planet and
conservatives don't want to look at that
they're in denial about that
fundamentally and they don't want to
change how they do business how they
mine for oil how they mine for minerals
how the population is is you know the
population they don't want to look at
difficult it's expensive as well
what else are conservatives uh refusing
to admit the wrong about fundamentalist
religion all of these Evangelical
Christians all of these hardcore
Catholics on the Supreme Court
fundamentally they're all in denial that
fundamentalist religion is a bunch of
nonsense denial of evolution
all this sort of shit it's still going
on and these people they think they can
get away with it they think they can get
away with it and they're pushing and
then see what happens is that when
you're in denial of reality like that
you have to go through more elaborate
minations and you have
to bend yourself over backwards and do
more and more devilry in order to
sustain your position your wrong
wrongness conservatives are also wrong about
about
the the whole capitalist system and that
doesn't mean that I'm saying we should
move to socialism but I'm just saying
because socialism also has many problems
but I'm just saying they're in denial
about the externalities of capital M and
the pro very serious problems this is creating
for what uh not just the environment
environment
but um
democracy excessive capitalism runaway
capitalism is undermining democracy
because all these giant corporations
have so much money and there's such
ridiculous wealth inequality at this
point that the wealthy are completely
corrupting the government
but the conservatives don't want to
admit any of that because they're
benefiting from that whole system
they're trying to conserve that whole
system but that system is beyond the
conserved and so they're fighting a losing
battle and then the more they they
struggle and they fight the more proud
they get you
know they kind of rile themselves up
they they energize their Base by by
making them feel proud of all this wrongness
and that doesn't mean that everything in
the conservative philosophy is wrong it
just means that there's a couple of
like core pillars that are wrong that
need to be rethought and if you would
just rethink them then our politics
could move in the proper
directions but this is this is
destabilizing the entire American System
right now it's creating needless polarization
polarization
and uh chaos that's what this whole
and the root solution to that if we
really want to advance in our politics in
America it's funny to even say it this
way because it's so Preposterous it
would never happen but what would need
to happen is that conservatives would
need to walk out and say we were
wrong we were wrong on capitalism we
were wrong on the environment we were
wrong on uh fun religion we were wrong
on nationalism and a few other points
like that and then we could have a
healing and a moving forward and then
all the denial would go away and this is
what would actually heal the country and
move it forward but of course if you
tell that to a conservative they're
going to just point the finger and say
well but what about the Liberals what
about the progressives what about the
antifa people what have they been all
wrong about and then they're just going
a few more of these kind of collective denials of wrongness is uh the
denials of wrongness is uh the capitalist
capitalist class the CEOs the Wall Street people
class the CEOs the Wall Street people the bankers the business people the
the bankers the business people the marketers the philanthropists the
marketers the philanthropists the lobbyists all of these people are
lobbyists all of these people are participating in this toxic capitalism
participating in this toxic capitalism and they need to come out and say we
and they need to come out and say we were
were wrong literally the head CEOs of these
wrong literally the head CEOs of these giant corporations Disney and you know
giant corporations Disney and you know Google and Facebook and and Exon Mobile
Google and Facebook and and Exon Mobile need to come out and say we were wrong
need to come out and say we were wrong for driving this insane income
for driving this insane income inequality with our lobbying the
inequality with our lobbying the government and manipulating with all
government and manipulating with all these devilish
these devilish tactics the bankers with with their uh
tactics the bankers with with their uh you know with their derivatives and and
you know with their derivatives and and weird loan schemes all this this kind of
weird loan schemes all this this kind of stuff they need to come out and say we
stuff they need to come out and say we were wrong of course are any of these
were wrong of course are any of these people ever going to admit they were
people ever going to admit they were wrong no never never they earned too
wrong no never never they earned too much money as we discussed above before
much money as we discussed above before that's one of the shest ways to ensure
that's one of the shest ways to ensure uh that that someone will never admit
uh that that someone will never admit being wrong is when they earn million
being wrong is when they earn million tens of millions and hundreds and
tens of millions and hundreds and billions of dollars from their
billions of dollars from their wrongness another one of these
wrongness another one of these Collective points is union busting and
Collective points is union busting and monopolization the crazy Tech monopolies
monopolization the crazy Tech monopolies that we
that we have the um companies just buying up
have the um companies just buying up little
little companies abusing their Monopoly power
companies abusing their Monopoly power the union busting that Starbucks is
the union busting that Starbucks is doing and Amazon is doing and all these
doing and Amazon is doing and all these corporations are doing it's illegal what
corporations are doing it's illegal what they're doing but they do it anyways
they're doing but they do it anyways because there's no good enforcement and
because there's no good enforcement and there's no good enforcement from the
there's no good enforcement from the government because the government has
government because the government has been bought out by these people by all
been bought out by these people by all these corporations this is completely
these corporations this is completely corrupting our entire
corrupting our entire system these people who engage in these
system these people who engage in these practices need to realize if you're
practices need to realize if you're engaged in union busting at Amazon or
engaged in union busting at Amazon or Starbucks as like one of the top
Starbucks as like one of the top managers you need to come out and admit
managers you need to come out and admit you were wrong likewise if you're
you were wrong likewise if you're running a monopoly Microsoft Google
running a monopoly Microsoft Google Facebook
Facebook whoever um Amazon you got to come out
whoever um Amazon you got to come out and say that you got to admit this shit
and say that you got to admit this shit this is this is like now we're getting
this is this is like now we're getting to some juicy admitting you were wrong
to some juicy admitting you were wrong right this is not oh I'm a perfectionist
right this is not oh I'm a perfectionist that's my mistake no no no this is like
that's my mistake no no no this is like this is heavy heavy admitting you were
this is heavy heavy admitting you were wrong entire industry need to come out
wrong entire industry need to come out and say that they were wrong the food
and say that they were wrong the food industry the the fast food industry all
industry the the fast food industry all this junk food that's being sold all
this junk food that's being sold all these people need to come out and say
these people need to come out and say they they were wrong the healthcare
they they were wrong the healthcare industry big Pharma big Tech the
industry big Pharma big Tech the military industrial complex all the oil
military industrial complex all the oil companies now these AI companies who are
companies now these AI companies who are stealing voices and art and scraping
stealing voices and art and scraping YouTube and all this for their
YouTube and all this for their content um the devilry of AI is just now
content um the devilry of AI is just now starting to come online these social
starting to come online these social media companies
media companies all of them need to admit that they were
all of them need to admit that they were wrong and of course they never will and
wrong and of course they never will and that's why we have all the chaos that we
that's why we have all the chaos that we have politically speaking and of course
have politically speaking and of course last but not least the Israeli
last but not least the Israeli Palestinian
Palestinian situation and the demonization of
situation and the demonization of terrorism in
terrorism in general if you want peace you know what
general if you want peace you know what the real solution is to the Israeli
the real solution is to the Israeli Palestinian situation Israel has to come
Palestinian situation Israel has to come out and say that they're wrong
out and say that they're wrong the zionists have to say they're wrong
the zionists have to say they're wrong they're wrong for
they're wrong for settling for pushing their
settling for pushing their settlements and they keep pushing it
settlements and they keep pushing it even today they keep pushing
even today they keep pushing it of course this is the last thing they
it of course this is the last thing they want to do and so the conflict
continues again just because I say that some of these groups and people and
some of these groups and people and parties are wrong that does not don't
parties are wrong that does not don't assume that that that now means that oh
assume that that that now means that oh the progressives don't have any of these
the progressives don't have any of these problems or some other group or the
problems or some other group or the Palestinians or Hamas doesn't have these
Palestinians or Hamas doesn't have these problems they also have those problems
problems they also have those problems right this is just I'm just giving you a
right this is just I'm just giving you a cursory overview with some example this
cursory overview with some example this is not meant to be a comprehensive
is not meant to be a comprehensive balanced list this is just some like
balanced list this is just some like this is just like very obvious I'm just
this is just like very obvious I'm just obvious obvious obvious stuff and yet at
obvious obvious obvious stuff and yet at the same time stuff that nobody else is
the same time stuff that nobody else is really talking
about a hallm Mark of an immature mind is that it cannot admit to being wrong
is that it cannot admit to being wrong just again look at Donald Trump he's the
just again look at Donald Trump he's the best example of this absolutely
best example of this absolutely incapable of admitting any wrongdoing
incapable of admitting any wrongdoing and one of the corrupting influences
and one of the corrupting influences Trump has had on our political culture I
Trump has had on our political culture I mean he's had a lot but um one of the
mean he's had a lot but um one of the more subtle ones is that Trump has
more subtle ones is that Trump has started this trend has kind of like
started this trend has kind of like normalized this trend within right-wing
normalized this trend within right-wing politics of never admitting any wrong
politics of never admitting any wrong doing at all just like double down on
doing at all just like double down on all your
all your mistakes even if a video comes out of
mistakes even if a video comes out of you
you sexually assaulting somebody you just
sexually assaulting somebody you just come out there and you say you know what
come out there and you say you know what I'll do it again next time too it's like
I'll do it again next time too it's like it's like it's Preposterous and and and
it's like it's Preposterous and and and the rightwing has just kind of like
the rightwing has just kind of like bought this and again why are they
bought this and again why are they buying it because they're in such a bad
buying it because they're in such a bad position on the fundamentals they're
position on the fundamentals they're wrong on capitalism they're wrong on um
wrong on capitalism they're wrong on um on fundamentalist fundamentalist
on fundamentalist fundamentalist religion they're wrong on the
religion they're wrong on the environment they're wrong on nationalism
environment they're wrong on nationalism but they don't want they have no
but they don't want they have no capacity to admit is so their only
capacity to admit is so their only option then is to double
down to get aggressively wrong to get all self-righteous about it to get
all self-righteous about it to get indignant about it to go
indignant about it to go storm some government offices about
it admitting wrongness opens the Mind humbles the
wrongness opens the Mind humbles the mind creates a state of not knowing
mind creates a state of not knowing leads to construct awareness leads to
leads to construct awareness leads to contemplation
contemplation introspection leads to New
introspection leads to New Perspectives more requisite variety
Perspectives more requisite variety inside your mind and ultimately creates
inside your mind and ultimately creates maturity in
maturity in you that's what's good about it that's
you that's what's good about it that's what you get for going through the
what you get for going through the misery of admitting you were wrong yes
misery of admitting you were wrong yes it's miserable yes it would be very
it's miserable yes it would be very painful for the conservative party to ad
painful for the conservative party to ad know the whole conservative movement to
know the whole conservative movement to admit that they were wrong that would be
admit that they were wrong that would be very painful
very painful but but think of the benefit
but but think of the benefit the benefit would be
enormous if Israelis admitted that they that that that they were wrong we could
that that that they were wrong we could have peace in that conflict but as it is
have peace in that conflict but as it is see if you're refusing to admit that you
see if you're refusing to admit that you did something wrong when you actually
did something wrong when you actually did something wrong there can't be
did something wrong there can't be peace there can't be
Justice now you might say well but Leo what about you know relativism
what about you know relativism relativity subjectivity what does being
relativity subjectivity what does being wrong even mean in this case I mean AR
wrong even mean in this case I mean AR aren't right and wrong just relative I
aren't right and wrong just relative I mean who's to say that the conservatives
mean who's to say that the conservatives are wrong who's to say that the Israelis
are wrong who's to say that the Israelis are
are wrong of
wrong of course I'm not the one to
course I'm not the one to say what I what I mean when I say being
say what I what I mean when I say being wrong is
wrong is uh by your own recognizance you clearly
uh by your own recognizance you clearly see that you were operating under
see that you were operating under illusion falsehood
illusion falsehood self-deception in an immature unwise
self-deception in an immature unwise foolish unconscious egoic selfish
