Who You Are Actually Competing Against

Hey there,

It is Matthew Larsen, back with my daily newsletter.

In today's email, we will talk about the type of person you are actually competing against at the top of any field, and the Jordan Peterson lecture that showed me what that person's life really looks like.

Many years ago, I watched one Jordan Peterson lecture that became one of the main inspirations for this entire subject.

I found the old video and rewatched it while I was making a course on it.

For anyone who does not know him, Peterson is a psychologist, author, and former professor of psychology who eventually ventured into political and social commentary.

He became extremely internet-famous for a period of time.

I do not see his material nearly as often anymore, but I really liked him and watched a lot of his lectures when I was younger.

Before we get into it, one thing to be clear about.

This is productivity content. We are not going to discuss politics, gender issues, or anything like that.

The relevant part is what Peterson said about the small number of people who are willing to do what is required to reach the top.

The lecture began with the question of why there are fewer female CEOs, and why women, on average, do not reach the same positions or earn as much money at the extreme upper end of the workplace.

Then he turned the entire question around.

The question is not:

"Why are there so few female CEOs?"

According to Peterson, the real question is:

"Why are there any men willing to do this at all?"

Watching that clip was something of a transformational moment for me when I was younger.

To understand why it affected me so much, you need to understand the example and the argument behind it.

Peterson uses the example of an extremely intelligent and hardworking woman.

She performs exceptionally well in high school, goes to college, earns outstanding grades, aces the LSAT, completes her articling, becomes an associate, and eventually makes partner at a high-end law firm by the time she is 30.

She may earn $250,000 or $300,000 per year and bill clients $500 or $750 per hour.

From the outside, she appears to have achieved everything.

So what does her life actually look like?

She works 70 or 75 hours per week, cannot make mistakes, and must remain available at all times.

If a client calls her at 3am on a Sunday, she has to act happy to hear from them.

If she does not immediately solve their complicated problem, another aggressive law firm in New York will happily take the client from her.

That is what remaining at the top actually requires.

Eventually, a lot of these women leave.

It is not because they were unqualified. The law firms are desperate to keep them, because they have already invested years into training them.

They leave because they look at the life required to remain there and ask:

"Why in the world am I doing this?"

"Why would anyone in their right mind want to live like this?"

They find a more controllable job, work normal hours, have children, spend time with their families, and build a life outside their careers.

Peterson argues that this is usually the intelligent decision.

And if leaving is the rational decision, then the surprising question is no longer why so many women leave.

The question is why anyone stays at all.

More specifically, why are there any men willing to do it?

This is the central question of the lecture.

A small number of hyper-competitive men are willing to work 80 hours per week for decades and sacrifice almost everything else.

Relationships come second.

Family comes second.

Children come second.

Everything comes second to reaching the top of whatever hierarchy they have chosen.

They are smart, disciplined, obsessive, and willing to work almost nonstop.

They may be extremely difficult to live with. They may have poor relationships with their wives and children.

They may also be disagreeable, because managing people requires making decisions that will cause other people to dislike them.

But they become incredibly good at what they do.

According to Peterson:

"That is the sort of people who run things."

They are not necessarily at the top because they discovered some magical secret.

They are willing to work longer, respond faster, accept more responsibility, and sacrifice more than almost anyone else.

From the outside, reaching the top may look like power.

From the inside, it looks much more like responsibility.

People have a completely unrealistic idea of what reaching the top looks like.

They imagine sitting in an office with their feet on the desk, smoking a cigar, telling everyone what to do, and enjoying their power. Everyone follows their instructions, other people do the work, and their life becomes easy.

That is not what it looks like.

These positions come with overwhelming responsibility.

People expect you to make the correct decision all the time. If you make a serious mistake, you may lose everything.

And you are constantly competing against other people who are prepared to work harder, respond faster, and take your clients from you.

It is not a comfortable position where everyone simply follows your instructions and makes your life easy.

The people at the top work flat out because the competition and the responsibility never stop.

The strangest part is that some of these people may not even need to force themselves to work this way.

That level of activity may just be built into them.

Peterson describes these people as naturally hyper-industrious.

If you put one of these men in a forest with an axe, he would wander around chopping down trees nonstop.

It does not really matter where you put him or what task you give him. He will find something to work on and keep doing it, because that level of activity is built into him.

He does not need someone to motivate him.

Work has become an obsession.

Years after watching this lecture, I saw a clip from Elon Musk's 2024 interview with Don Lemon that immediately reminded me of it.

You already know Musk is famous for working almost nonstop and organizing practically his entire life around his companies.

Lemon asked him:

"You're an intense person. Where does that intensity come from?"

Musk responded:

"I was born that way and I had a tough childhood."

He was not specifically talking about his work ethic, but he sounded like a real-world example of Peterson's man with the axe.

Some people genuinely seem to be born with an extreme level of intensity and activity built into them.

Peterson also gives the example of the rare woman who manages to combine a high-powered career with children.

These women operate at such an extreme level that they will buy a more powerful microwave because it cooks something in 45 seconds instead of one minute.

They wake up at 5am, exercise, make breakfast, prepare their children for the day, work for 14 hours, come home, organize everything for their children, work again, go to bed at around 1am, and then wake up at 5am to do it all again.

Peterson's point is not that women are incapable of doing it. Some women do it extremely well.

His point is that anyone who lives this way has to be extraordinarily tough, and very few people, male or female, are willing or able to keep that schedule up.

If a child gets sick, or any other crisis happens, the entire arrangement can become impossible to sustain.

The man with the axe and the woman with the 45-second microwave are extreme examples.

However, they reveal the main point I took away from the lecture.

The people at the top are not necessarily there because they discovered some magical secret.

They are often there because they are unusually intelligent, disciplined, competitive, disagreeable, obsessive, and willing to work more than almost anyone else.

You do not have to live this way.

In fact, Peterson repeatedly explains why someone might intelligently choose a more balanced life centered around relationships, family, and children.

However, if you decide that you want to compete for the highest positions or accomplish something exceptional, you need to understand who your competition is.

You may be competing against someone who is willing to work 80 hours per week for decades and sacrifice almost everything else.

You do not have to do that.

But they will.

The point of this newsletter? If you are trying to achieve big things, your competition is not “the average person.” Lots of people talk about “the average person, blah, blah, blah.” That is not who you are competing against, and you will have to act accordingly.

Talk later,

Matt