Alain de Botton on the joy of being average (E218)
The High Performance Podcast
High Performance
4.8 • 4.7K Ratings
🗓️ 9 October 2023
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode encourages us to explore a deeper understanding of ourselves, our relationships, and why we should be seeking fulfilment not happiness.
Alain de Botton is an author and philosopher, known for co-founding The School of Life in 2008. The School of Life was created to fill a void in our current education systems with the teaching of emotional intelligence. Alain’s work also focuses on love, parenthood, mental health and the meaning of success. During this episode, Jake, Damian and Alain dive deep into each of these subjects, exploring what a life filled with the constant search for knowledge could look like.
Alain shares what we can learn from our mental health struggles and how they can be revealing a deeper truth. This conversation highlights how important it is to lean into uncomfortable emotions to truly understand ourselves. Alain challenges Jake and Damian’s perceptions of what high performance really looks like, debating whether the fight for success actually leads to a good life, and why we should be embracing averageness.
Within this conversation they discuss why we’re obsessed with fame, how to be a better parent, the benefits of a breakdown and how we can improve our relationships.
Find Alain’s new book ‘A Therapeutic Journey’ here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/a-therapeutic-journey-lessons-from-the-school-of-life-alain-de-botton/7388674?ean=9780241642559
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there, you're listening to High Performance, the award-winning podcast that unlocks the |
| 0:05.1 | minds of some of the most fascinating people on the planet. I'm Jay Cumpfrey and alongside |
| 0:09.9 | Professor Damian Hughes, we learn from the stories, successes and struggles of our guests, |
| 0:14.9 | allowing us all to explore, be challenged and to grow. Here's what's coming up. |
| 0:21.9 | The ability to tolerate one's own averageness is the beginning of a certain sort of wisdom |
| 0:28.9 | and the insistence always on specialness is a kind of malignant situation. Love, |
| 0:37.3 | introhuman love is as important to our development as vitamins are to our healthy bodily development |
| 0:44.8 | and shortfalls of love lead to appalling deformations of character that can have lifelong |
| 0:54.0 | consequences. The trick of being happy is not to achieve anything and everything. It's to |
| 0:59.5 | achieve what you feel you're capable of. I think that is what leads ultimately to happiness. |
| 1:06.0 | The trick is not to have a problem, free life, it's to have a life where your problems contribute |
| 1:11.4 | to something interesting. I am so excited to bring Alan Davotto into the conversation when it comes |
| 1:18.5 | to high performance. I still feel that some people get high performance wrong. They think we're |
| 1:22.1 | saying you have to achieve incredible things. That's not what this podcast is about. This podcast |
| 1:26.9 | is about making people realize that actually it's about them finding their own version of high |
| 1:31.4 | performance. Alan Davotto published essays in love in 1993. It sold millions. He's gone on to write |
| 1:38.6 | some other incredible books and actually his whole thinking process is that being average is okay, |
| 1:45.4 | that the world is set up to trick us into thinking that we have to achieve incredible things to be |
| 1:50.1 | validated and actually all that leaves is us constantly chasing a moment that doesn't actually |
| 1:55.2 | bring us any more happiness. If anything, it's a toxic way to live. I know that so many of you |
| 2:01.2 | listen to our podcast because you want to go on to achieve incredible things. I also know so many |
| 2:05.7 | of you listen to this podcast and are maybe in a place where you're struggling at the moment. This |
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