Competing with Jordan Peterson?

Requesting some advice about advice about advice

A Bet On It reader sent me this email after the Chicago meet-up. Reprinted with his permission. Your reactions?

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Hey Bryan,

Thanks for inviting me to dinner last night. It was a real treat and it was great to meet you in person.

I particularly enjoyed hearing about your family's procedure for choosing a college for your sons. When I was deciding where to apply and ultimately where to enroll in early 2008, my thought process was very similar -- where can I get the most bang for my buck to study math and economics? For me it was a full-tuition merit scholarship to Duke that sealed the deal. Likewise, my wife chose Pitt over Penn for her chemical engineering undergraduate studies due to a merit scholarship. 

I've been thinking more about your son's idea for you to post some life advice videos for young men. As I said during dinner, I think it's a good idea, definitely worth serious consideration. You've clearly put a lot of thought into your approach to parenting and how to guide your children. That really shone through in your recent interview with Tucker Carlson, like in your discussion about teaching aphorisms to your kids. And I think it fits well with your brand of being thoughtful and candid (even critics label you as "good-natured"). 

Recently NYT opinion columnist Ezra Klein and guest Richard Reeves touched on the life advice topic in a podcast. Here's a quote from it that jumped out at me:

That’s the vacuum, I think, Tate and other figures fill, because you can consume the Tate content for most horrible misogynist stuff. But if you watch a lot of it, and I’ve watched a lot of it now, there’s some really good stuff in there. And I’m afraid even to say that out loud, because it’s like, what, Andrew Tate said something good? And the answer is yeah. Like, an example, someone called in to a show he was doing and says, I’m very short, and I know that women prefer tall men. Am I screwed? What should I do, right?

And what Tate basically said is, look, mate, you’ve got to deal — you’ve got to deal with the cards you’re dealt. Get yourself in good shape, get yourself sorted out, try and dress — whatever. He just said, that’s just the way it is. He didn’t whinge, he didn’t say — oh, and most importantly, he didn’t start blaming women for preferring taller men. So he just said, that’s the way it is. Let me help you make the best of it. And I just — I watched that clip and thought, “that’s pretty good, actually.”

Take the topic from last night about starting at McDonald's and working your way up, showing up on time for three months and getting promoted. To some people that idea will sound trite and obvious, or beneath them. But to my ear it's an engaging topic as well as a candid message that many young men may not have heard much growing up (maybe they're part of today's lucky 10,000). It could be just what they need to hear at the stage they are in their lives. And it's a wise insight into how the world functions.

Of course, if you tried this idea out and you wound up getting some traction, there's the potential for serious upside, if Tate's billions of views and Peterson's millions of book sales are any indication. And from an effective altruism lens, it's a lot of good you could potentially do! I'm sure you have plenty of competing ideas for how to focus your scarce time over the coming years, but I think this is worth pondering.

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