- Hey, welcome back.
Today I'll be reacting to a little piece
of a Jordan Peterson lecture.
So this is not one of his political conversations.
This is just a few minutes of a lecture that he's giving
in one of his high level classes on intelligence as a trait.
It's a fairly sophisticated topic,
we really won't be trying to figure out exactly
what he's saying, 'cause he's in the middle of this.
But the point is I'm not picking
a political speech for a reason.
That's not what this channel's about,
I don't comment on it,
I don't make videos about politics.
There are plenty of other channels for that.
And if you're interested in that, then please go find them.
We're gonna talk about his communication skills.
Jordan Peterson is known to be a very
compelling communicator,
and I'd like to unpack exactly why that is.
And that's what this channel is all about.
Communication, leadership skills, public speaking.
So let's get into this and see how he does
and what makes him so compelling.
- So the first issue is how should you look at things?
Well, that's a problem that intelligence has to solve.
So that's one of the problems that intelligence goes after.
And then I think what happens
is we have the thing in itself,
and then we simplify it with a perception,
and that's like an iconic representation.
And then we nail the iconic representation with a word.
And that's how we compress the world's complexity
into something that we can manage.
We take the complex thing,
make it into an icon, and represent the icon with a word.
And then when I throw you the word so to speak,
you decompose it into the icon,
and then decompose it even further into the thing.
If you can, if you know the icon, and you know the thing.
- Okay, so right away
he's really illustrative with his gestures and his body.
He's bringing everything to life through the way
he moves his hands to make something a little bit abstract,
which is intelligence as a trait.
And he's trying to decode it
and illustrate it with his gestures.
In fact, these gestures are called illustrators.
They don't have a specific meaning.
This doesn't mean anything apart from the words he's using.
There's another kind of gesture called an emblem,
like a peace sign.
It has a specific meaning.
He's just using lots of illustrators.
Now I would say one out of 10,
one out of 20 people would say,
oh he's talking with his hands too much.
That tends to bother a small percentage of people.
Most people, however, in the lecture hall and watching,
like gestures because it's animated
and it's more engaging to look at.
So he's doing excellent gestures.
- Well, then we can use shorthand, right?
Because you have representational structures and so do I,
and I'm just tossing you markers
about your representational structures
and you can unfold them.
That's what you do when you're reading a novel.
Because the novel comes alive in your imagination
in your own idiosyncratic way.
And it wouldn't if you didn't understand
the references of the novel, right?
The novelist has to assume
that your basic perceptual structures, and your intuitions,
and your instincts are basically the same as his or hers,
because otherwise they have to assume that,
because otherwise they would be lost in an infinite regress.
- Okay, so here's another thing he's doing.
In addition to the gestures
he's using his movement really well.
So he's working the room, you might say.
He's starting on one side, he makes a point.
And then he walks a few paces,
stands there and makes a point,
walks a little further, makes a point.
So he's connecting with people
in different parts of the room.
He's working the room, working the stage.
This would be, imagine what it was like
if he were standing behind that podium the whole time.
This would have a whole different feel,
a real lower energy level.
But his moving around, his walking around with a purpose
really emphasizes his message.
He's not simply pacing.
I noticed that he's stopping when he makes the key point.
He's not just walking through and pacing through key points.
He stops when he wants to say something really important
and looks at people.
- The explanation.
So it's problematic often, for example,
if you start reading Victorian novels
you may find that it takes a while
to get into them because the presuppositions,
the expectations are slightly different
and so is the language.
- Okay look at him right here.
He is looking right at people.
His eye contact is excellent.
So he's moving his body and stopping,
and he's also looking at people when he makes a point.
And I always recommend,
he's doing exactly what I would recommend.
And that is, he is looking at someone
long enough to make a point,
let's say half a sentence to a sentence,
three to five seconds.
And then he's moving on to the next person,
three to five seconds.
And he's moving onto the next person.
He's not staring at one person for a minute.
That would make people uncomfortable.
And he's also not just darting around the room.
Some people will say, oh, just look over everybody's heads,
and that way it'll seem like you're looking at 'em.
That doesn't really work.
That's like a very beginner level tip
to look over their heads to help you with your nerves.
He's looking right at people and he's connecting with them.
And no doubt, they feel that connection.
You can see this accumulating,
why he's such a compelling speaker
- Have to update the representations.
But anyway, so that's roughly, as far as I'm concerned,
that's roughly a representation
of what intelligence is doing in the world.
It's a big part of it.
It's how in the world do you look at things
so that you can use them
for the purposes that you need to use them for?
And then the next problem that intelligence has to solve
which is related is,
once you've got the perceptual landscape sorted out
how do you abstractly represent the action
patterns that you're going to implement in the world?
So it's, how do you perceive where you are now?
How do you perceive where you're going?
And how do you construct up,
and then implement strategies that enable you to move
from where are to where you're going?
- Okay see, we see this all coming together now.
His illustrative gestures, his movement,
his solid eye contact.
Now, one thing I wanna mention that he's not doing
is he's not staring back at his visual aids.
You notice that he's, some speakers will look back
at their visual aid the whole time.
And there is a visual aid up there
because earlier in the video they showed it.
But he's not looking back at it.
Some people just turn, literally turn their body,
and they'll stare at the visual aid the whole time.
And they'll use it as notes.
They'll sort of read off it as if it's their notes.
And that's really boring,
it totally disconnects the speaker from the audience.
So keep in mind, there's a visual aid up behind him
this whole time that his students may be glancing at.
And that you'll see him point at it here and there,
but he's not staring at it.
He's keeping that connection.
I think that's one of the reasons why he's so compelling.
He is like the visual aid, right?
He's coming to life here.
Okay, let's keep watching, this is excellent.
- So it's a continual process of mapping and movement.
And so it's navigation.
That's what we're doing in the world all the time,
is navigating through it because we're mobile creatures.
We're navigating through it,
attempting to make the world manifest itself
in accordance with our wishes.
And that's the fundamental problem
that intelligence has to solve.
And animals have their perceptions to rely on,
but we have our perceptions and our ability to abstract
from those perceptions multiple times,
and then to abstract finally into language.
So we live in a very abstracted world.
And it also means that we can learn the lesson
in one place and generalize it across many other places,
which is also something that animals have a hard time doing.
- So one last thing I'll notice is that
if there's one sort of criticism of Jordan Peterson
is that he speaks in long sentences, long thoughts.
But as I've been listening,
I'm noticing that he is pausing for emphasis
after key ideas.
He gives a little one second beat,
or a two second beat after key ideas
and he lets them sink in a little bit.
So he is breaking up his message somewhat,
and that's a good tip for all of us as public speakers.
Make sure after you hit an important idea,
you pause, and let it sink in a little bit.
Now if I were to give him one little minor tip
and who am I to give him a tip, you know,
maybe pause a little more often, but he is pausing.
I've been listening and he does pause after key ideas,
and he really leans into those key moments
so that you understand what some of the main ideas are.
So overall, I am really impressed
with Jordan Peterson speaking.
If I were in a lecture with him,
think about the normal teachers you've had,
I would be on the edge of my seat.
I don't even really follow all of what he's saying here
but I would be on the edge of my seat.
Like, wow, this guy is passionate,
he really believes in what he's saying,
and he wants me to understand it.
He wants me to get on board and get excited about it too.
And that's much easier to get excited
about what a speaker is saying
if they're coming across like they're excited.
So I can see why he gets really high marks as a speaker.
I've seen other presentations and speeches by him,
and they're very similar.
He has a ton of energy, obviously loves his subject matter.
So I wanna tell you before we leave
that I have a website, online classes,
Communication Coach Academy
that I would invite you to check out.
I will put a link to that
in the description below the video.
And also, what are your comments
on Jordan Peterson's presentation style?
How he comes across.
I would love to hear your comments and also
anybody else that you would like to see me react to.
I welcome those suggestions,
I wanna give you stuff that you'll enjoy.
And I look forward to reading your comments below.
Until next time, thanks, God bless,