Hey Mary Lee Johnson with the 21 Report and I�m here with Soc and you just gave your
2014 keynote address. Great speech.
Thank you.
I think I would have to say that to you each time, and I told you before that I normally
I get a couple questions, and sometimes where people don�t have any questions and I�m
like �what am I going to say to him?� But, you I have like 15 pages of questions
so I�m going to try and ask maybe not the best questions but the ones that I really
want to know.
Ok.
So, the #1 thing right away that.. How do you realize that someone is either not a good
person or not just good for you in a relationships? Sometimes you�re in a relationship for months
at a time before you realize that this person isn�t a good person or that this person
just isn�t good for me. Is there a way I can tell that faster? Like maybe a weekend?
You can do it immediately. And I�m kicking myself because I�m having just listened
to Doug McGuff�s talk where he talked about 30% loss than what you intend to perform at
and that was one of the bullet points I wanted to talk about
Is that when I talk about crazy and people that are sociopaths and psychopaths and people
that are even just drama-related, I was very disparaging towards them and rightfully so,
but I have to give credit to crazy where it�s earned: they are truthful.
And being truthful individuals, crazy will tell you they are crazy. I mean, I just ask,
one of the first things that I do when I screen is I�ll sit down and ask �are you crazy?
Are you a great girlfriend? Would you make a great wife? Would you make an outstanding
mother?
And if those are things I�m looking for and I value, I�ll listen to what she�ll
tell me, and I�m willing to walk away right then, no investment. Right then. To protect
myself and to make sure I�m going after what I want, not short-term interest.
And so I get accustomed to screen people out, and I simply will ask. And then the other
thing I�ll do is I don�t listen to what people say, people learn to parrot back responses.
You know, we see this in the Miss America contest and they try to sit down and tell
you that they�re virtuous and they don�t really know what virtuous is and they tell
ya� �I don�t sip on snails, and I don�t kick squirrels.�
And you know, that�s not virtue. That�s nice, but that�s a really low bar. So then
what I�ll try to do, in part in building connection and rapport is I�ll ask them
about that. �Tell me more about that.� �Tell me the things that would be virtuous.�
And I start looking for things that they had told me or that they had led me to follow
a thought process into and I�ll pursue that conversation thread based on virtue, and I
try to get them to tell me examples of how they�ve been virtutous, not that they are,
but how. What have you done in action?
And so, those are two things that I�ll do. I�ll ask about crazy and then I look for
virtue and I try to look for it in action.
So when you�re dating somebody and you find out that or you just discover that they are
really not all that virtuous, are you being virtuous by staying with them?
No.
Ok.
But, it�s throttled. To what degree. I mean, when we talk about perfect marriages, when
we talk about perfect relationships, we�re not talking about without flaw. We�re not
talking immaculate. And there�s a difference in terms.
Talking immaculate, we would be talking pristine, and nobody�s immaculate, there is no immaculate.
But we can have perfect marriages, just like we can have a perfect martini.
It doesn�t mean it�s the best martini you�ve ever had in the world, it�s just
without major flaws. It�s perfect. And to sit down and look at that, we all have flaws.
God knows I do.
And so I don�t want to throw stones where I don�t want to live and I know I live in
a glass house, and so I sit down and say �are these things I�m able to manage? How meaningful
are they? Are these things really detrimental to my firmly held beliefs?�
And then have standards and to sit down and say �I�m willing to accept this but I�m
not willing to admit that.� And then the question becomes �is that individual willing
to work with it?� If it�s truly an issue, �am I free to discuss the issue with the
individual and can we work with it together?�
And so when I talk about being, for example, marriage potential, being in an area between
that and the human ideal, you�re looking for people that know their purpose and are
willing to work towards that goal.
And after you realize that �this issue is really important to my partner, am I willing
to work that to preserve that relationship to protect that relationship and to be the
virtuous individual that they want me to be and I want to be myself.�
And I think ultimately people want to be virtuous. So I think it�s kind of an easy thing.
So, when somebody is calling you selfish for doing an act or being in a relationship, what
is the difference between the bad kind of selfish that we associate and you�re just
self-interested?
This is interesting. When we talk about egoism, straight that way.
Is it prosocial?
Ok.
Ok and anything that�s virtuous is going to be prosocial. Ok it doesn�t mean it�s
not self-interested or there isn�t some self-response or value pulled from it. But,
it�s not so self-centered to be detrimental to a greater good, especially being in a social
sense.
And the smallest society we�ll have is between two people, that�s the smallest form of
governance, and governing social behaviors and social conditioning and all the elements
to that is important.
So, it may be selfish, it may be self-interested, it may also be terribly prosocial and if they�re
prosocial, they are beneficial. If they�re counter-social, then you have an issue.
Then they�re damaging.
That�s really good information. It�s been really informative. And I know that we have
to get going. And I�ve enjoyed talking to you, I�m sure our audience has enjoyed hearing
from you.
They can go to manningupsmart.com?
Manningupsmart.com, you can find me there. Your best bet is actually go to the table
of contents, find out because the blogs posts are actually done by categories, and to actually
take a step back and I know we were starting to have a really great dialogue and everything
else and this is one of the things I really love about The 21 Convention.
It�s not just the free presentations or this video that you�ll see, it�s the fact
that 10 minutes from now, the entire group and attendees will have access to me for another
72 hours. That we will be able to share and develop that cultural network through social
bonding elements and that to me is truly what the value of coming to this is.
It�s not just videos as much as we all like the videos, it�s to be able to talk to your
people, it�s to be able to talk to Doug McGuff and talk about fitness and health and
strengthening your muscles and how does that deal with strengthening virtues.
Looking at Ed Aiken and talking about a virtuous guy who�s all fuckin� alpha. I mean, really
the guy�s a beast. And having that play in relationships, and to be able to show him
in comparison to something that would be counter, anti-social.
I do love it, when I come here because it isn�t just the videos. Seeing it on your
computer or on your TV is so much different, you see these guys over a 3 day conference.
They come in on one day and they are kind of unsure and none of them are friends with
each other and then by day 3, they�re all just like we�re in it together.
It is. It�s called camaraderie that binds you together. The other thing
They�re more confident. They�re just so happy, different people.
It is. And you don�t get the warmth in the human condition through video. You just don�t.
So, with that, we will leave you with this video. This has been Mary Lee Johnson and
Socrates for the 21 Convention.