The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
548. Jordan Peterson Takes Your Call: Advice, Mental Health, Family Dynamics | Mikhaila Fuller
Mon, 19 May 2025
Dr. Jordan Peterson and his daughter Mikhaila sit down to tackle raw, unfiltered questions from the audience. This is a deeply honest, sometimes uncomfortable, often inspiring ride through the mess and meaning of modern life. From navigating fractured families and polyamory to rebuilding faith in a collapsing culture, Peterson offers his signature mix of sharp insight, hard truths, and fierce encouragement. Whether you're wondering about love, legacy, or just trying to build a life worth living—this is the conversation that dares to go there. Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy | Links | There’s nothing more difficult—or more important—than raising a child. In this new 5-part series, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson brings decades of clinical insight to the questions every parent faces: discipline, identity, responsibility, and what it truly means to guide a child toward a meaningful life. Parenting premieres May 25, exclusively on DailyWire+ https://www.dailywire.com/episode/parenting-the-official-trailer
Chapter 1: What advice does Jordan Peterson give about family dynamics?
It's very distressing to see people whose families are fragmented because it just curdles your soul. How far should I go for someone who I care about but who refuses to get professional help?
How do I know if I'm actually building something? If there is a substantial age gap? It seems to me unwise to reproduce things being this uncertain.
Well, what are you doing when you're talking to someone? You're thinking. Why would you think? To specify a problem and to solve it. You know, it sounds to me like you're setting yourself up as someone who could be maybe an excellent husband and father.
You know, you've evaluated your life and you've come to some new conclusions and you've developed some new daring and you're becoming more educated. It's like, share that with someone. Do you like my Jordan Peterson bust? Ha ha ha. I really don't know what to think of it.
It'd be weird if you owned it.
I think it's weird also that you own it.
Okay, let's get this show on the road. We thought it might be a fun idea or an interesting idea to take questions from your audience and have you do what you do best and try to help some people if they need help. And maybe the questions will be applicable to a lot of people. So I think it should be fun. We're going to give this a shot. I hope you guys enjoy it.
I'm Michaela, by the way, if people don't know who I am.
That would be she's my daughter.
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Chapter 2: How should I approach relationships with significant age gaps?
Then good. Two birds, one stone. It's just another place... where meaning can be derived, right? And mentoring people is good for that, for example. It's extremely fulfilling for people. How are you going to protect yourself against temptation, drug and alcohol abuse, and sexual misbehavior? Like, the advantage to the future authoring program is that it... provides a differentiated vision.
And so this is what I would recommend to the gentleman who asked the question. It's like, go do that and do a bad job. Just sketch it out. Do a good first draft. Because you're not going to get it perfect and you're going to learn along the way. You can substitute a better plan if you come up with one. Now, I wouldn't do that every week.
And that's the danger of someone who might be emotionally unstable, high in neuroticism, or really high in openness, or worse, both. But make the best plan you can. discuss it with other people, implement it. Then you'll learn.
Then you can take what you learn and, you know, maybe every four months, every six months, every year, you can return to your plan and see if it needs some tweaking or some foundation work. It's a very good idea to move forward with a bad plan. It's a very good idea to do that compared to not moving forward and waiting.
The problem with waiting is you get disenchanted and discouraged and you don't learn anything. If you implement a plan that isn't perfect, you'll learn exactly why it isn't perfect as you implement it and then you'll be able to make a better plan. And that is how...
cybernetic self-correction works that's how complex systems that rely on feedback true their aim across time they start out with a fuzzy goal this is even how large language models are trained the aim is fuzzy to begin with and then it tightens as it iterates that that's how that's the definition of learning and so
with regard to the plan you have now, if you're not fully confident in it, well, flesh it out more, as I said, talk to other people about it, but then also understand that That's your plan, unless you have a better one. And so stick to it, right? And if you stick to it and you learn as a consequence of your persistence, you will gather the information that will enable you to make a better plan.
For sure. New opportunities will come your way. And sometimes that'll mean a radical shift when it's time. And that's fine. But you're not going to do that without... a bad plan even. And so if you don't think your plan is perfect, well, that doesn't mean that you're making a mistake.
And then if you're really fortunate and you watch, and this is sort of how you cooperate with your plan and with the divine, so to speak, without becoming hidebound and insistent that your way is the right way, is you have a plan and then you search to see if there's open doors on the way to the goal, right? And if it's a good plan, people will spontaneously line up to cooperate with you.
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