Full transcript: Esther Perel on London Real
0:11 Brian Rose: I see a woman on the top of her game, and I wanted to ask you, how do you stay on top of your game? How do you cause yourself to do the next TED Talk and to write the next book and to keep traveling and talking at the Founders Forum? What do you do that keeps you there? Because it would be easy not to do the next talk. Because it could easily not be a success.
0:36 Esther Perel: Yes. And every time you do one, the next thing that went well, it breeds tremendous anxiety about can I do the next time. I’m never sure. I’m writing this new book and it’s like, you know, the fact that the TED Talks for many people is even, the second one is better than the first one makes the stakes of the second book even bigger. I am supported by a lot of people. I reach out a lot. I reach out to friends. I reach out to mentors. I reach out to other writers or to other speakers. I very much am nurtured socially.
1:17 Brian Rose: You’re building your village.
1:20 Esther Perel: Yes, yes, very much. And my village is global. It’s around the world all the time. When I write a chapter, I send it out to 10 people. In draft form, think with me, respond to me, react to me, give me feedback. I am constantly needing to be reacted to and responded to. I think in conversation, I need an allocator. I don’t function well alone. Alone, I don’t know what it’s worth. So I’m very, very, very dependent on my social network. My partner, my husband, my children, everybody is involved in that network. I’m very curious. I am an insatiably curious person and I love to throw myself into new situations. I love it. There’s a question I often ask my patients, do you like to know before you taste or do you like to taste before you know? And I know exactly where I…
2:28 Brian Rose: What’s the usual answer to that?
2:31 Esther Perel: It’s varied. But people often know very quickly where they are. And of course in a couple, it’s interesting to know if they are in the same place or if you’ve got one of each. I like to be taken into new experiences and to throw myself into completely different spaces. I work in very different spaces.
2:57 And maybe a piece of this has to do with my background too of my family because I remember as a child saying, no door will be closed to me. You know, like my parents, these Jewish refugees.
3:10 Brian Rose: Is that because you felt like an immigrant and you were like, I’m not going to let that stop me.
3:17 Esther Perel: Yes, all the doors will open to me. I will be a citizen of the world and all the doors will be open to me and I won’t have to hide in order to enter. I will be me and this is who will be invited in. I’m not going to try to pass or to hide or to change. Neither my ideas nor my gender nor my religion or my cultural affiliation.
3:39 Me is who will enter and me is who people will want to see. I remember that as a child. I had a game that I played for many years where I stood in front of my mother’s commode and it had a big mirror and I used to run the hit parade. And I sang songs and played the guitar in front of the mirror and I was the jury and the presenter and the singers. I played all the characters. And that was part of the, you know, this universe in which I’m going to enter. So I am a little counter phobic, I guess. I throw myself in situations and then I’m saying, what did I do? What did I do? I’m not going to do that con. You know, I have a little bit of that. Like at first I think, and then I think, what did I, why did I do this to myself? Why don’t I just stop? And because the challenge, because what I will discover about me and why life can take me that I don’t know yet. And all of that I am, I’m an adventure seeker of a certain kind.
4:43 Brian Rose: You said it line in your second TED talk. You said, I guess you think a French woman like me is pro-affair and the audience laughed. How much of your, you know, your accent and your being European, how does that translate into your appeal? How much do you live it? Obviously it’s much more than that for you because not only were you that, but you were also the immigrant on the block and the Jewish family on the block. But what is that like for your persona and how, say, the Americans react to you?
5:15 Esther Perel: Well, I think that people see me differently in different places. So when I come back to Europe, I am still quite a bit European, but my way of thinking, my pragmaticness now, my concreteness, my ability to take complex ideas and try to deliver them in very reachable language and all of that, those are things that are definitely learned in the States. You know, I was brought up that when you say complicated things, very few people should understand them. It’s like the sign of an intellectual is that only few people know what you’re talking about. I don’t have that. I am very much a hybrid of the sophistication and the ability to straddle ambiguity that is very much European and the delivery and the directness that I definitely have been invited to develop in the States. I, you know, if you hear me in French, you see a side of me. If you hear me in Dutch, you see a side of me. If you hear me in Yiddish, you see another side of me. If you hear me in Hebrew, in Spanish and Portuguese, I mean, I think that in every language, you will see a different aspect of this kaleidoscope and very few people know every part. Actually, that’s, that’s almost reserved to my, my closest friends. So I know that I can come across as this European in New York. I’m not even French. I’m totally Flemish and I’m not even totally Flemish. That’s just because I went to school for 12 years in Flemish and grew up in Antwerp, but I was a Jew from Antwerp and I’m not even
6:52 The real Jew from Antwerp because my family was among the very few who were not in the diamond business. I wasn’t completely part of the community. I didn’t live in the Jewish neighborhood. I lived as the one Jewish family in a very popular neighborhood. And I’ve always had the, I’m on the outside, but invited in with, and I’m with you without being like you. And for a long time that left me feeling sometimes exclude, not excluded, but like I envied people who knew where they belonged. I envied those who knew exactly where they need to be. And I was the Romer. I was the person who traveled the world. Today, I think it’s my strength. Today, I think it’s what allows me to connect immediately with people in very, very different contexts and different parts of the world. And I think it’s really who I am, but it takes maturing for these things to come together. At first, you just envy those who know who they are and don’t ask themselves a question. And you say, I’m the only one who’s like, written with existential angst, wondering who am I?
7:58 Where do I belong? What’s me? Now, it’s my strength. Then it was my youth, I would say.
8:04 Brian Rose: Right. When you think of the word successful, who comes to mind? You quote Nietzsche. You quote a lot of other people. You’ve obviously said that on your deathbed, people are going to reevaluate their life about what was important. Who comes to mind when you think about successful people, living or dead?
8:24 Esther Perel: You know, it’s a question that’s often asked in the Mastermind talks, right? And I often grapple with, like, I don’t have an immediate answer. I’m thinking in categories, like, is successful those, you know, the Beatles is successful because they’re among the few who, decades later, still are so fresh. You listen to them today and you know they were innovators. But they’re not innovators of the past.
8:57 They’re still, and how many Beatles are there, right? So that’s one criteria for me for successful. And the next, it’s very rarely financial, I can tell you that. I don’t, maybe because I’m not in the business world, I don’t think in money terms. I think in people who have been able to create a worthwhile, meaningful life for themselves and for the people around them and people who really know to give back. Big time. I’m, rather than build another mansion for themselves somewhere else. That’s very clear for me. It’s people who do for others.
9:35 Brian Rose: Selfless.
9:36 Esther Perel: Or selfish, but find meaning in including others into the things that give them meaning. It’s not like they’re just altruistic, but they understand that they have something to offer and that by giving to some people, they actually, these people are offering to them that it makes, you know, that your money gets a different meaning when you give it to the Syrian refugees in the, you know, that have just moved into Lebanon. That’s the friend I’m staying with. And he was a very successful finance person who is now taking that and, you know, I think success is people who can reinvent themselves. It’s people who stay young because they continue each time to find new things to be passionate about, to be driven with, to give themselves to and to grow from. That is an element definitely of success for me, rather than the, yeah, you asked me before, you know, about why do I continue to do? I don’t think of myself in terms of success, even though I’m hearing the world more and more. I always wanted to be relevant. I wanted to be meaningful. I wanted people who think about these subjects to think of the things I’ve said because it has helped them figure things out, have a different conversation, understand certain things, you know, be the portal to this part of their life. But I didn’t think of it in success terms. It was more in, that’s really, I think of common mortals more generally when I think of successful than I think of Bezos or that I think of Elon Musk or
11:28 I see them, you know, but then when I talk with many founders about their relationships, I see that they were very successful here, but they’re not necessarily that successful. I’ve heard most billionaires are really grumpy. You know, so it’s like, you know, are you at your fourth marriage? Are you, you know, when’s the last time you saw your kids? When’s the last time you said thank you to your best friend who doesn’t, who didn’t make it like you?
