Aristotelian vs Platonic Philosophy of Personal Growth 🎙️ Debate with Steve Barton by @jeroseland on 3Speak
In this interview, a throwdown between Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy of personal growth, with Steve Barton, a Gestalt psychology-trained High-Performance Executive Coach, and he's the author...
Tags: #podcast #interview #mindset
Aristotle versus Plato. Everything philosophically comes down to Aristotle versus Plato, especially personal growth. Plato gave us the cave with the perfect forms, the ideal versions of things that exist in a higher realm, of which our ordinary lives are only imperfect shadows. Aristotle rejected that separate realm. He was the empiricist, the realist who insisted we start with what is actually in front of us. In our personal development, we face the same dichotomy. We can take the Aristotelian path, clear-eyed, empirical, sometimes hard on ourselves, working with the person we actually are. Or we can lean platonic. and reach for the perfect version of ourselves that seems to exist somewhere beyond our current reality. Neither is universally right. People have different tolerances for unvarnished truths. Some need the bracing realism of Aristotle. Others need the aspirational fire of Plato. That is why I... distrust, one size fits all, personal growth systems. You have to experiment. You have to stay relentlessly curious until you find the philosophy that fits your particular mind, body, and spirit. I'm Jonathan Rosent with Limitless, and today I'm joined by Steve Barton, a Gestalt Psychology, high -performance executive coach, and he's the author of The Father, The Son, and The AHA Moment, which I read because I'm a newish dad with a one-year-old, I still feel newish at it, I try to read a book or two a year about every domain in which I strive for excellence, biohacking, health, marriage, sex, philosophy, entrepreneurship, and now fatherhood, and hot tip or pro tip listener. With almost everything you do or attempt in life, you're probably going to suck at it if you don't read a book or two on the topic. Listening to podcasts or watching videos is not enough. If there's something you're serious about, you're cheating yourself and your mission, maybe even the people you love, if you don't read a book or two a year, about it. So I read Steve's book, which is really about mindset. And while it had some good insights, I disagreed with a few of its fundamental... suppositions. It's a little too platonic for my tastes, but I invited Steve on the podcast for a bit of friendly disagreement. I think we're going to have a bit of a throwdown here between Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy of personal growth. Steve, welcome to Limitless. Well, thank you so much, and I accept the challenge, Jonathan. And I love to be wrong. I love to be challenged. I love good conversation. And to figure out that we can either agree to disagree or we can agree, maybe find common ground in what you read and what I wrote. And thank you for having me on the show. I appreciate it. Certainly. Hope you're caffeinated. I am. I'm ADHD, and caffeine is my friend, and, yeah, so I'm caffeinated, so let's go. Okay, first question, can you introduce the Game of Ten versus Game Often Played Framework, which you developed and, and I actually created an infographic that I think does a decent job? of breaking this down, and people are going to be able to see that through the show notes for this episode, link below, wherever they're watching or listening to us. So can you break that down and then, importantly, explain what distinguishes this from garden variety? positive thinking. As Limitless is not a personal growth 101 podcast, our audience already understands that thoughts create reality, that we shouldn't walk around, beating ourselves up mentally all the time, that we shouldn't believe everything we think, and our audience understands the importance of having, like, layers of present awareness, mindfulness, practice. Roll with that, please. I love everything you just said, and hopefully I'll answer all the questions that if I don't, then let me know after. Okay, so the game of 10 is based on six phrases. And 10 is the game of 10 is under the idea that we're all created 10, the highest level of awareness. And through life, as a... Bruce Lipton talks about his neuroscientist, he talks about the first seven years of our life, we are in theta. So we're picking up all the traumas, all the nuances of our primary caregivers, father, mother, mother, grandparents, whoever raised us, we're picking it up. And that is our inner child, according to me, okay? So there's no science behind this. It's infinite. We're talking about something the infinite here. We're talking about spirit. We're talking about... 10. We're talking about awareness and consciousness. It's infinite. So we can only, as Akatoly says, we can only point to it. And when we point to it or talk about it, we're talking about one aspect of it. And speaking of aspect, we're all an aspect of the divine consciousness, according to the game of 10. So from the premise. So. I'd love to have you repeat these phrases with me. I know you've done it with reading the book, but maybe audience can hear it, and maybe you can describe what it's like when you do it, because this is what the Game of Tens all about. It's not about positive thinking or negative thinking, it's not about thinking at all. It's about coming from a place of awareness, the space of awareness of no thought. Okay, the space of awareness of no thought. thought, how is that different than when you're meditating and you're, or doing breath work, just focusing physiologically on what's happening? No, no different, no different. It's the same, a different way of meditating. These six phrases that we're going to repeat are an active meditation. They are declarations of who we are. And they quiet the mind. They answer all the questions. They're the answers to all the questions are, as I can totally cause it, our mind -made self, our ego, our, yeah, it's our faults, our imposter, whatever you want to call it, the trickster, is always looking to keep you safe, and usually in an unsafe and unhealthy way. So, shall we begin? Yeah, the 10 tenants. I had them highlighted here in the book, and... Okay, the... Okay, I'm a 10. I'm a 10. Okay, yes. Let's do it again. Okay, I'm a 10. I'm always right with the awareness I have. I'm doing the... Oh, sorry, did you want to repeat them afterwards after me? Yeah, why don't I begin and you do it with me? And when we say that we attend, we're actually saying we're an aspect of divine consciousness, when we're connecting. So this actually does connect you to consciousness, that we're typically, in the game often played, not connected to consciously. We're always connected, but sometimes unconsciously not connected. Okay, yeah, all right, I'm going to close my eyes and repeat after you. All right. I am 10. I'm 10. Let's do it with some enthusiasm, because you're saying your aspect of the divine, Jonathan. I am a 10. Yes, you are. I'm doing the best that I can with the awareness that I have. I'm doing the best that I can with the awareness that I have. I'm always right with the awareness that I have. I'm always right with the awareness that I have. I'm going to tell that to my wife next time we have a little disagreement. And she won't believe you. Sorry. I am enough. I do enough. And I have enough. I have enough. Okay, that's it. Or I had other ones that were highlighted here, but there, okay, and there are the, but then the other ones, everyone is enough. Everyone. does enough, everyone has enough. Yeah, these phrases that we say to ourselves go with our, we have to see others as 10 too. So in order to remain in this level of consciousness, conscious awareness, consciousness, we have to see everyone as that. You know, it's the premise, I know you are, I know they are and so am I, okay? So if you want to maintain your conscience, just accept people as they are. They're doing the best, they're tens. They might not know it, but they're doing the best they can with the awareness they have. They're always right with the awareness they have. So it's the awareness they have is the caveat that says, we may be working on different radio stations. I might be at 10, might be at 9, but if someone's at, you've got to be on the same wavelength in to communicate 100%. You know, the same level of awareness. And that's why we attract the level of awareness that we are. So this whole law of manifestation, a law of attraction, we manifest who in what we are at this time. And, yeah, so it's really, to me, the game of 10, and the game often played is common sense. The key is, at 10, you get 100 % of what you ask for. At 5, you get 50%. At 3, you get 30%. 70% isn't so good. So, you know, it's the higher level of awareness that you have, you increase the odds of making better choices, responding versus reacting, really having an optimistic stance in your life. So you can't be depressed. At 10, you can't be depressed. You can't be anxious. You can't be. have anything, and I'm not a big believer. The whole positive thinking thing, great. My car doesn't start with just a positive charge, okay? You want that negative charge to keep you going, but you don't use that negative charge through thought, and a lot of people do. But that negative charge, we have to have a positive and negative. We're Torresfields, basically, with a positive and negative charge. So you want that, but use that. negative energy for motiving, but not through thought. Use it through your, just connection. So the positive and negative, they're not separate. They're one. It's just energy. And you want to be connected. Right. Yeah. Connection is crucial. Okay, so these ten, these tenants, I characterize these as radical self-acceptance or radical each other. acceptance. Would you say that's pretty accurate way to characterize it? It's radical acceptance. Absolutely. Great way to support it, yes. Okay, I'm opposed to radical self-acceptance and radical each other acceptance. And I've got a pretty good personal example on this front that I can share is, okay, Both of these come from my marriage. And when we first got married, I had a bit of a porn habit. And I had thought, like so many naive, foolish men, I thought, ah, this isn't really a problem. It's only like, once a month, a couple times a month kind of thing. Doesn't seem to bother her a whole lot. But then, as happens, your spouse always finds out, or your partner always finds out what's on your phone, right? And she found out and was devastated. by it. And she said, Jonathan, this is a total deal breaker. This doesn't, this doesn't work at, this doesn't work at all for me. And I had a couple, I had a couple of, flimsy justifications for this, that I was, it's just mindless. internet entertainment, I'm giving myself a little dose of novelty. Yeah, I had some, like, justifications for this, and those were, yeah, she didn't buy those at all. And I'm also, I had to go through a, getting married, I had to go through a fundamental mindset shift, where... Before getting married, I had an abundance mindset about women, which is, that's actually kind of important when you're dating is to have like an abundance take it or leave it mindset. But, and I kind of carried that into the marriage, which connected to this bad habit of mine. But once I got married, like, that part of me was that needed to go. I needed to stop. doing that. And I, and I, and I did, and she's very happy with that. And, okay, and this actually, this reflects also something, or it was a bit of a conflict area that we had for a while, but was then resolved, which was that going into the marriage, I had a requirement that I had her agree to, a very serious requirement, which is, I wanted a beautiful wife. And I said, okay, we're getting married, and I understand aging happens, I understand what time does to the female form, but I want to have, like, a beautiful wife, I want you to be a babe for at least like 20 years. And this is going to require, like, you... getting outside of your comfort zone some, and doing some fitness things, doing, yeah, doing the kinds of things that women do that keep them beautiful as the years advance. And that was something that she struggled with, because she's the kind of person that naturally is not... really inclined to go to the gym or do 40 squats every day. But over time, I stayed, we, I stayed persistent. Yeah, I put persistent pressure on... her, and eventually, the way we resolve this conflict is, we resolve this conflict in the way that relationship gurus and therapists would never recommend that you resolve this kind of conflict, but it really worked for us, which is that we wrote down an agreement of exactly what my expectations were, and what she would do as far as, like, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, yearly, yearly habits to meet my need for beauty there. And she is my wife, I don't look at porn, so she's my exclusive source of womanly beauty in this world. And so I want her to maintain that. And so she signed this, we signed this agreement, and she kept to it, and that's resolved that conflict. And so... My marriage works, and we've been together nine years now, and yeah, we still have a very happy marriage. We navigated the turbulent first year of parenthood, I think, very gracefully. And our marriage works precisely because we're not practicing radical self-acceptance, nor radical each other. acceptance. If we were, we would almost certainly, on account of those two issues and our natural proclivities, we would certainly not be together at this, at this point. I understand radical self-acceptance. probably makes sense for some people. I think that there's some people that they had their self-esteem so demolished in childhood that they need to lean platonic on the self-esteem question, and they need to just believe, I'm a 10, I'm 100, 100% of the time, no matter... what, but for, I think, probably a larger proportion of people, I think that radical self -acceptance and even radical each other acceptance brings us into a world of self-delusion, which is destructive, and in our cases... Here with these two issues, if we had tried to practice radical each other acceptance, it would have just resulted in resentment. It would have resulted in great resentment over time. So, yeah, I don't see how radical self -acceptance universalizes. And your book suggested to me at least, universality of this recommendation. I love what you said, and you did exactly what I'm going to say to do, because radical acceptance means sometimes love says yes, sometimes love says no, sometimes love says stay, and sometimes love says go. So if she didn't want to, and we do contract, a marriage is a contract, what you just did was contract, your boundaries. what you're willing to accept and what you're willing to not. You know, and if she goes off the contract, breaks the contract, you're either going to have to renegotiate it, or one of you get to, you know, put up or shut up. Okay, leave. If I want to let myself, if she says to you, Jonathan, I want to let myself go, I want to be fat and happy. Need bomb bombs on the couch all day. No, okay? So it's about setting boundaries, healthy boundaries, loving boundaries. I love you. I will leave you if you do that. I was honest with you. We set an agreement. What's happened? So you just don't leave. You want to keep your wife. You want to be the mother of a child. But if she says, no, I decided I want to get through, I want to weigh 500 pounds and just lay around all day long, and you do your podcasts and you just have a great life, and I won't have sex with you anymore. So go watch your porn. You're probably just going to say, no. The contract was broken. The boundaries were just demolished that you sat. So many people put up walls. They don't communicate. They would do what you said that you assumed I was mentioning. You just become angry, bitter, and don't communicate. So it's all about communication because you probably want to find out what's happened. You know, you're right with what's white. What are you making you think? You want to be 500 pounds and eating bonbons all day in the couch, and you know that's not what I want. Do you want me to leave? Is this what you're asking for? So you open up communication by saying, I know you're right with what you want, but how is this right for you? And how is this right for us? So these phrases, really, the two phrases after the second and third one, are actually declarations of our divine innocence. I'm doing the best I can with the awareness I have. She's doing the best she can with the awareness she has. What's happened to her awareness when you negotiated this contract? Where did it go? You know, how many people want to go from... beauty queen to 550 pounds. What's coming up? Some traumas from childhood. Were you, you know, were you molesters of a child? Did you want to, that something's come up? Were you triggering? You want me not to touch you? What is it? You know, you open up really tough conversations. Yeah. I really wasn't worried about her getting... getting fat or she's really not the type that would sit around eating bonbons on that couch, but I imagined the, like, chronic pain issues that she would develop if she never, she was one of these people that was like, she probably had bad experiences in awful public schools in, in, in, uh, Bulgaria here as it was emerging out of communism, where the physical education classes were just awful for her. And so she was like, I don't think I'm going to exercise anymore for the rest of my life. And I didn't want her to have the awful chronic pain issues that result if you don't get some exercise. Okay, but you hit on, okay, the tenant, I'm doing the best with the awareness. that I have, and this is Declaration of Divine Innocence, I think is how you termed it. Okay, and this is another thing that I have a problem with, because I'm not an inherently moral person. I've consciously, with the awareness I had, done wrong things in my life. Like, there's, okay, there's, uh, variance on this. There was an interesting book I read a while back. It was called Evil Jeans, the how Hitler rose, the Soviet Union fell, and why my sister stole my mom's boyfriend. That's a great title for a book, isn't it? You can't make that up? Somebody did, obviously, like, yes, it is a great title. Okay, so, yeah, we'll link to that book, but it... talked about genes that can cause the, that cause different personality types of different case studies of, like, famous dictators that, yeah, they had evil genes and perpetuated incredible suffering upon humanity as a result of that. So there's this genetic, genetic person, there's people, like, my wife is, like, I think just inherently she's more programmed to just do the right thing. There's certain people like that, but then there's kind of like people like me that I know I kind of, the dark side whispers to me. And for me to live an upright life, which I'm doing a pretty good job of now. I need to be really clear-eyed about myself because I know that I can do the wrong thing, even with the awareness that I have. And so this is why, for me, radical self-acceptance could lead to delusions that would turn me into the kind of person that is not very... Good. Like, I know about myself, I'm not a very nice person when I'm underslept. There have been some times when I was underslept that I said some pretty terrible things and hurt people. And then after, later on, people were like, did you said that? I'm like, there's no way I could have said that. But it's happened enough times that. I know I need to get a decent night of sleep. So even during, like, first year, this is a self-knowledge thing, even during, like, first year of parenthood, when sleep is a struggle, there was, yeah, there was some things, there are sometimes I made bad decisions there. And so I talked to my wife about this, and I said, I'm sorry, sometimes I need to prioritize sleep so that I don't do something. bad. So, yeah, I think that, I think that that that particular tenant would be a problem for a lot of people,…