The Futur with Chris Do

Episode 403: The Courage to Choose Your Own Life w/ Jodie Cook
Airdate: December 6, 2025

Episode Overview

In this candid and deeply reflective episode, Chris Do welcomes entrepreneur and author Jodie Cook for a profound conversation centered around the philosophy and psychological insights from The Courage to Be Disliked, a book that both have come to admire for its radical approach to personal agency. The duo dive into the fundamentals of Adlerian psychology, explore how it contrasts with Freudian thought, and, through personal anecdotes and honest self-examination, unravel how the book’s counterintuitive lessons are lived in real life.

The discussion is rich with direct quotes, memorable moments, challenging questions, and real-world examples. Jodie shares why she travels the globe with only a single, battered paperback in her luggage, while Chris draws parallels between the book's philosophy and tough-love lessons from his career, creative process, and team management.

Key Themes and Insights

1. The Courage to Be Disliked: Why This Book?

• Jodie’s Relationship with the Book
  • Jodie reveals she only carries one physical book everywhere: The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga, a dialogue introducing Adlerian psychology.
  • She compares its primacy in her life to a Bible, and recounts how it replaced prior “bibles” like The 4-Hour Workweek.

    "I've told my friends if I ever say, 'In the book it says this,' they never need to say 'Which book?' It's always this book." — Jodie [00:49]

  • Chris, now halfway through reading it, expresses feeling both resonance and frustration with its dialogue-heavy, sometimes circular style.

    "The challenge I have with this book...I just don't think the dialogue is written very sharply between these two people." — Chris [04:47]

2. Adlerian vs. Freudian Psychology

• Core Differences
  • Freudian: cause and effect; the past determines the present.
  • Adlerian: Goal-based; you assign meaning to your experiences and can choose your future regardless of the past.

    "The past does not exist whatsoever. You can choose your life right now." — Jodie [02:32]

• Responsibility & Agency
  • The book's central message is radical responsibility and personal agency.
  • Chris links current therapy debates to this split, mentioning Dr. Nicole Lepera’s criticism by traditionalists and locating her closer to Adler than Freud.

    "Alfred Adler's approach...is completely different. He talks about purpose. You have a belief and you have to ask yourself, what is the purpose of this belief? How does this serve you? What goal is it?" — Chris [06:50]

3. Goal-Based Thinking and Self-Limiting Beliefs

• Victim Mindset vs. Goal-Directed Action
  • Jodie illustrates with Twitter:

    "My friend has the goal that Twitter is going to annoy him. Or he has the goal of anger...and then blames Twitter." — Jodie [09:16]

  • The Courage to Be Disliked asserts trauma and the past do not exist as objective realities; what matters is the meaning and direction we choose.
• Examples from the Book
  • The blushing girl: her blushing is not a barrier but an excuse, a self-created symptom to avoid risking rejection.
  • Relationships: We fabricate reasons to justify decisions (e.g., to end a relationship).

    "You desire them to become a bad person, so you look for bad things." — Chris [11:39]

4. Radical Personal Agency: Lessons and Barriers

• Taking Responsibility
  • Chris: “We have to take radical responsibility for everything that we choose to do. It's much easier for us to blame our parents, society, our boss, our lover, our partner...But the hardest thing to face is we're exactly where we are because of the choices we made.” [15:06]
• Agency as Empowerment (and Threat)
  • Jodie: “This book allows me to be the hero of my own life.” [19:50]
  • For both, agency is both liberating and daunting.
• Letting Go of Needing to Be Liked
  • The title’s meaning: Self-sufficiency enables freedom, but the cost of true freedom is being willing to be disliked.

    “Complete freedom is not needing to be liked by anyone, not needing to prove anything to anyone.” — Jodie [23:26]

5. Application to Real Life and Creative Work

• Personal Stories:
  • Jodie shares her journey giving up alcohol, uncovering an underlying belief: “giving up alcohol equals don't have fun.” Once challenged, her social circle and sense of fun actually improved. [28:15]
  • Chris describes navigating art school as an outsider, detaching his ego from his work, and creating “the work as common enemy” to accelerate growth. [54:00]
• Feedback, Criticism, and Detachment:
  • Discussion on creative critique—most people don’t want real feedback, just affirmation.

    "You made it a common enemy. You kind of allowed it to be the common enemy." — Jodie [55:28]

  • Both note the benefit of detachment: “When I create the work, it's all me, but as soon as I let go of the pen, the marker, or the mouse, it's not my work anymore.” — Chris [53:36]

6. Saying What You Think and Nonviolent Communication

• Liberation of Honesty
  • Jodie, inspired to "say what you think," shares a candid exchange with a friend:

    “Without thinking, I just went, 'You're full of shit.' And she just, like, bursts out laughing.” — Jodie [36:14]

• Chris’s Perspective
  • Chris does not censor bluntness, but has learned through experience to assess if people actually want direct feedback.
  • The importance of separating your goals and others’—not imposing your narrative onto their journey. [43:04, 44:04]
• Nonviolent Communication vs. Bluntness
  • The dance between honesty and judgment, and knowing your audience:

    “If you're a jerk, learn nonviolent communication. That's all.” — Chris [38:56]

7. The Messiness of Real-World Application

• Complexity of Practice vs. Theory
  • Chris confesses to moments of anger and regret with his team—insisting he’s responsible for his words but also recognizes the need for a more tempered, less violent reaction.

    "I accept that person. I've embraced that there is a violent person inside of me that can be provoked." — Chris [67:53]

  • Ownership: Even when team mistakes go public, Chris takes accountability.
• Ongoing Growth
  • Both acknowledge oscillating between theory (ideal) and practice (reality), learning from “gaps between theory and application and the messiness of it all.” — Chris [75:53]

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• "The past does not exist whatsoever. You can choose your life right now." — Jodie [02:32]
• "You have to ask yourself, what is the purpose of this belief? How does this serve you?" — Chris [06:50]
• "If your goal is just to not fall out, you're not going to pick up on them leaving their socks around...you would just be like, I don't care, it doesn't matter." — Jodie [14:02]
• "Once you become an adult, it's like you have agency. And agency is a scary word for a lot of people." — Chris [15:06]
• "Life is decided by the meaning that we give things." — Jodie [02:32]
• "It doesn't actually matter what happens... It was what we did around it." — Jodie [19:50]
• "We are meaning making machines. We want to have meaning to everything... That’s how we find order in the world." — Chris [31:12]
• "Complete freedom is not needing to be liked by anyone, not needing to prove anything to anyone." — Jodie [23:26]
• "If you're an all right person...you can say what you think all the time. And then if other people don't like it, that's okay because you'll go more in the direction of freedom and of not caring." — Jodie [38:00]
• "You can tell them what you want, you can tell them how to do it, but you shouldn't do both." — Chris [60:50]

Timestamps for Core Segments

• 00:00–02:32 – Introduction to Jodie's minimalist lifestyle & her loyalty to The Courage to Be Disliked
• 02:32–08:30 – Alfred Adler vs. Freud & an overview of goal-based psychology
• 08:30–15:06 – Personal responsibility, Twitter example, stories from the book about self-limiting beliefs
• 15:06–23:26 – Choosing agency; what radical responsibility feels like; meaning of the book’s title
• 23:26–29:39 – Jodie’s struggle with social drinking and uncovering hidden beliefs; Chris's early life narratives
• 29:39–33:48 – Integrating detachment from outcomes/critique in life and career
• 33:48–38:56 – Popularity, authenticity, saying what you think, Ricky Gervais
• 38:56–48:42 – Feedback, nonviolent communication, portfolio reviews, separating your task from others
• 48:42–55:51 – The true purpose of critique, the role of goals, detaching from work
• 55:51–63:30 – Team, delegation, and trust; content creation and responsibility for output
• 63:30–77:53 – Chris on moments of anger, professional standards, and the reality of integrating theory into a messy, emotional life; closing remarks

Conclusion

The episode artfully bridges the gap between philosophical theory and the “messiness” of real-world application. Chris and Jodie both urge listeners toward radical self-responsibility and honest self-examination—even when uncomfortable—and model how difficult, liberating, and necessary it can be to have the courage to choose your own story and to let others dislike you in the process.

Whether you’re a creative, entrepreneur, or anyone grappling with agency, identity, and self-limiting beliefs, this conversation provides thoughtful, practical insight—and a compelling nudge toward a braver, freer life.

For show notes and additional resources, visit: thefutur.com/podcast