You know there are real people who interact but everybody turns into their worst self. In person people like to put on their best self. Why wouldn't you? But on the screen everybody turns into like a monster. So you got mostly trolls, boss grifters, narcissists, white knights, click whores, peacocks, the angry uninformed — they're my favorite, we love the angry uninformed — and then political hacks who are just working for clicks or attention or money. None of this is real. I didn't even get canceled in the real world. It's just that the cancellation bled into a different world. Like usually it doesn't jump. Usually you can keep the screen world in the screen world but it broke out of its — it was like a portal from hell opened. And once the portal from hell connected these two worlds, all hell broke loose.

All right, I gotta draw that. This has to be immortalized if I can reach without pulling my microphones off. Yeah, this will be the portal from hell. Portal from hell. Right. So that's sort of the big picture. Portal from hell. Take a good look at that. It's beautiful. I think you can tell from this that I'm a professional cartoonist. Like I don't like to brag and stuff but I mean look at this. It's beautiful. Can you tell that Karen looks like exactly like a human female? Yeah, yes you can. Or possibly a stain on a napkin. It's one of those two things. I do them both very well.

All right, let's talk about — here's the big picture. So last night I did one hour for Chris Cuomo and boy do I appreciate Chris Cuomo. All right, so I think I told you before he was one of the people who contacted me but a lot of people contacted me for interviews and comments. I said no to almost all of them but when he contacted me it was clear he had done his homework. So he actually understood the full context. Amazing. Secondly he promised to give me close to a full hour so that I wouldn't be timed out before I made my point. Thank you. That's exactly what this required. So I said yes and he delivered. He totally delivered.

Now NewsNation I was not totally familiar with but I think they're trying to frame themselves as the non-crazy news. You know, without the super spin. There's always a little bit of bias in everything but I think they're trying to find the middle and I think they did. I think they actually found the middle of this story. So he asked hard questions. I'll talk in more detail and I'll give you some media lessons. So he asked hard questions. And by the way you can see the link to the full thing in my pinned tweet on Twitter. He pushed on the hard questions which is what I wanted him to do because I don't want to do an interview with a friendly, like somebody who just agrees with me. That's not really going to move anything. Talking to people who agree with me, not really a good use of time.

So I knew that he would push but I also knew that he knew the full context and I knew that he'd give me time to say what I wanted to say and he delivered all three. So revise your CNN opinions of Chris Cuomo because that was a solid contribution to journalism I think.

Now my objective was to reframe things and move the window. So those of you who watched it can either confirm or deny but those of you who have not watched it and plan to, if you're interested to see these little communication techniques that I'm going to talk about, if you want to see them in practice just watch the video after I explain them.

All right, so the first thing that — this is like a media lesson too. The first thing you want to avoid if you find yourself in a scandal is going on a show with a four-minute hit because they're just gonna yell at you for three and a half minutes. You'll get half a minute to do something that takes 10 minutes and then you'll run out of time. So that's basically just inviting you into a trap. But if somebody says I'll give you an hour and it'll be live — and the live part's very important, right? That's what Chris Cuomo offered was live. You don't want it recorded. That's the 60 Minutes trick, right? The 60 Minutes trick is to say oh it's a high respectable thing, you sure want to be on here, and then they can cut the video any way they want. You've seen a lot of people complain about that, right?

So the first media trick is don't go to anything that's short, don't go to anything that's recorded. You get that, right? And you get a chance, right? And then also this is important. You want to pick somebody that the audience will think is going to go at you hard. That's important. If it looks too friendly then you lose all credibility. You want somebody who genuinely is going to challenge you on whatever allegedly you did wrong. And Cuomo did that.

All right, so here's what I want to do. Number one, I wanted to put my point of view on record without any of those limitations I just detailed. Did I do that? Did I accomplish putting on video one full record of my complete thinking? Yes. Yes, I was happy with the time he gave me, the questions he asked, and he gave me all the time in the world to fill in a lot of context which made a difference. So I got my viewpoint on record.

Did you see anybody disagree with my major reframes which were the point of the entire offense, right? As I described, I intentionally used hyperbole to draw energy toward me to make a point and to reframe the race conversation. So my objective was just to put out the idea into the universe that a lot of the race-related training from CRT to ESG to DEI, they're all backwards philosophies or backwards strategies. Nobody in life goes forward by looking backwards. You can have small gains like you can make somebody guilty and they'll give you some money in the short run but in the long term no person, no individual, black, white, any other color, no company, no organization can thrive unless it's focused forward.

If you take a driver a driving lesson they will teach you to make sure you check your mirrors, always be aware of history, don't forget your history, make sure you're really clear on everything that happened in black history, etc. But your focus has to be on the road, am I right? I'm not ignoring my rearview mirrors. That would be bad driving. I'm looking at my history. I'm looking at what's behind me but my focus is straight forward.

Now that was the main thing I wanted to get across. And that there are a set of tools that can make any individual successful as long as we work together to fix schools which are completely broken at the moment. Schools are broken for black kids, white kids. They're just broken completely. And so that's the common ground. If you look forward you can say to yourself hey, how can we work together to fix this thing? If you look backwards you just argue about who owes who. I mean it just can't work.

Take my exact situation. What I offered was a set of success tools because a lot of the audience didn't know that I had more impact in the field of personal success. That's what I write about and teach online, etc. So I have way more impact on the world on that domain. The audience was not aware of that but here I am offering a set of tools to make anybody more successful and would be especially useful to anybody who's suffering from systemic racism because systemic racism is a real drag on success. But if you learn the right tools of success you can slice through it like a hot knife through butter. It's still a barrier but if you have a hot rod to stick through it — that was not a sexual reference. It just sounded like it. Don't stick your hot rod through butter. You can. I just don't recommend it.

So look at my exact situation. People are mad at me for what I said in the past. Are they mad at me for something I said in the future? No, that's not possible. Are they mad at me for something I'm saying right now like in the present? Nope. Nope. They're mad at me for the past. Now look what you miss if that's your focus. If your focus is mad at me from the past, does that ignore the fact that I'm the most persuasive person in the realm of personal success and I've just told you how to be personally successful in a way that is very likely to work for just about everybody? I'm offering it for free. You don't have to buy my book. I'll tell you everything you want for free right now. Somebody's going to buy the book because it's packaged in a way but that's not the point. In fact if you tried to buy my book you couldn't. You couldn't buy my books. They're all banned at the moment so I think they're out of stock. Yeah, no. So it's not about selling the books. I'd love to sell some books. I usually do things for more than one reason so if somebody bought my books that'd be great but I will give it all to you for free and I do it all the time.

How many times do I describe what's in the book for free on livestream? So if you look at me as somebody who said something you didn't like in the past you would be blind to the fact that I just opened up this trove of useful things that I want to give you for free that absolutely will change your life in a positive way.

Now if that sounds absurd to anybody who's new to me I'm going to do an exercise that I often do. Can I deliver? The people who know me, you've been around, can I deliver? I'm giving you tools that would make you more successful based on your own experience. Can I deliver? Locals all say yes because they've watched me the longest. YouTube, the people who know me say yes, right? This is a real asset. All you have to do is remove your past blindness. Stop looking at the rearview mirror and look at me. I'm standing in the road right in front of your car with a big barrel of cash. Who's saw it in this entire drama who was able to see me standing in front of the highway with a big barrel of cash and it was for free? It's free cash.

Right now that was the frame that I was trying to reframe. I was trying to reframe from looking at the past to frame it as looking at the future. Always works if you have the right tools but also you need to fix the systemic racism in the schools because if you don't get schools right nothing else works basically. I mean it works. It's pretty hard.

All right, so I believe I put into the world the idea that you should stop pursuing anything that's a backwards-looking strategy for success. Now that's called the high ground maneuver, which I've discussed as the most powerful persuasion technique. Literally no one can disagree with looking forward instead of backwards because if you said it out loud you would sound stupid. You would sound stupid if you said you know I hear what you're saying Scott but I really do like focusing on the past. Nobody could even say that in public because it sounds so stupid, right? And yet everybody was doing it. Not just black people. Everybody was doing it. Everybody was focusing on the past. And when you deal with me you're focusing on the past too if all you care about is something I said in the past. Recent past. Recent past still past. Yeah, it's different.

All right, so that should act like an earworm. You know how earworms are. You hear music and you can't get it out of your head. The people who heard you should not focus on the past are going to have a hard time forgetting that. Would you agree? It's a reframe. And this is how reframes work. One of the magic of reframes is that a good one you only have to hear once. Such as alcohol as poison. Just thinking of alcohol as poison is a reframe that actually makes it easier to stop drinking. Has been proven many times. So yeah, a good reframe gets in your mind and it can't get out. And especially if it's a high ground maneuver. Zero people.

Now you saw at the end of the — if you watch the Cuomo interview he brought in a few guests to get a counterpoint which I thought was good technique. Now you could argue that I should have also been on to counterpoint the counterpoint but at some point it becomes too much. So I was happy with that even not having a response to the responses. That was fair because you know it's the real world. But did you see any of the people say that you should have a backwards focus? Did anybody disagree with my primary purpose and reframe? I don't think so, right?

So here are the things that I think were not focused on. Did — and you saw I didn't see the guests talk. I only heard some quotes so you'll have to fact check me on this. Did the guests — it was later I guess was Dan Abrams and some of the Eric Dyson and then another gentleman whose name I can't remember anyway. Did any of them accuse me of being a right-wing MAGA or a racist? Did anyone say that? No. No. Because once you heard the context that no longer made sense.

So was I successful at least in the interview, not in the world but in the interview, was I successful in reframing myself as not a right-wing crazy? Yes or no? Yes, right? So that would be a big success communication-wise, wouldn't it? Because that would be an objective.

Remember how in the first days of my scandal everybody was focused on the quality and usefulness of the poll, the Rasmussen poll? By the end of me giving the context was anybody still complaining about depending on the poll knowing that I didn't depend on the poll? I don't think they talked about it, did they? So that would be a successful communication.

How about their focus on you had to know that there would be trouble? Yeah, everybody's been saying the same thing. You had to know. You had to know. And then you suffered the consequence. Did you see that I agreed with that and have from the beginning? You had to know. Yeah, of course I knew it was a risk. It was a calculated risk. But why did you do it if you had to know? Well I was using hyperbole. But you had to know. Yes I had to know. That's why I did it. I knew that it would cause trouble. That's the reason I did it. But you had to know it would cause trouble. Okay, how many times do I have to say I knew it would cause trouble before you'll agree with me? I knew it would cause trouble. That's why I did it. Okay, I hear you but you had to know it caused trouble. Yeah, I don't know if you noticed that a lot of the conversations are starting to take that form but yeah. Did you notice that?

Right. So but then there was why am I complaining? Remember people kept saying why are you complaining because you knew there was the risk and I say when did I complain? I've described but I've never complained once. I think they accepted that because they have no — I mean there's no counterfactual. Nobody seemed to complain. I haven't complained privately, believe it or not. I mean there's no way to know that but even privately I have not complained because I'm not processing it as a complaint. Do you know why I don't process it as a complaint? Guess why. Why do I not process what I'm doing as a — well why don't I feel like I should complain? Do you know why? Because I'm not looking at the past. I'm looking at the future. And you know what the future kicked up? The future just kicked up me as the most prominent voice on an important trend and put me exactly where I wanted to be.

If you would ask me in advance Scott this is going to cost you — here's the number, it's going to cost you this many dollars but you get to be exactly where you are now, would you take the deal? Yep. Yeah, I would. I would. Now I know that doesn't make sense to a normal person and I've never claimed I'm normal so I get that you wouldn't make the choice. I get that. But I'm pretty comfortable with it. Pretty comfortable.

All right, what else? I made the claim and Chris allowed me to interrupt him to make this point because for a moment it looked like we were going to go to break or something before I made an important point. I claimed that everyone who understood the context agreed with me. But for a minute it looked like maybe that point was getting lost and there was some disagreement that quote everybody agreed with me. And then I got a chance — this is why you want an hour, right? This is exactly why offering me an hour is exactly the right thing to do. So I interrupted him because I had time, right? If I didn't have time I couldn't have done it. But I had time to interrupt and say no I just want to clarify it's only the people who've seen the context who are okay with it. And I got to like really focus on that.

In the end I think Chris Cuomo disagreed with me being canceled. I couldn't hear at that point but I think that happened, right? If you saw it would you call that a let's say a communication goal achieved? Because if the host actually says you shouldn't be canceled after hearing the whole context and really listening to it, that's about as good as it gets, right? Now I never wanted him to agree with the way I said it. I never asked him to agree with the hyperbole because the whole point of the hyperbole is that it makes you mad.

Now if you saw it there was a point where he asked a really good question and I think it was based on a caller's concern. You know what do you say to the caller who was hurt like her feelings were hurt by my statements? And under many normal circumstances that would be a normal apology situation but I would think I would hold an apology for this world. Anybody in this world, the real one, who wants an apology I'd probably give it to them. I'd probably give it to them and I wouldn't even — I don't think I'd hesitate. If somebody was standing in front of me and said you know hey you made me feel bad I'd probably say something like this: well I'm sorry it made you feel bad but I had a purpose in mind and all change is painful. I hope you can get over it. And hey, how about let's not focus on the past. I've got some really good tools for you that would make you more successful. Are you interested?

So let's see what else. So when the — oh let me say that there I did have a blind spot which I think explains a lot. Here's my blind spot which I think fills in the biggest mystery. Because when people said you had to know it would happen that sounds incomplete because I say I was surprised that it was that big and people say how can you possibly be surprised that the reaction was that big? And that's a — wouldn't you like to know that? Why was I surprised that the reaction was that big? Doesn't that seem like a blind spot? Because I was surprised. I was genuinely surprised. I knew there'd be a reaction. That was the point.

All right, here's why. It is impossible to sit here and talk to two computer screens and feel my impact on the world. You can't feel it. It's a total illusion when you're famous that you're not famous. Did you know that? I speculate that one of the reasons that somebody like Michael Jordan talks about himself with a third person like Michael Jordan would never do that or Michael Jordan isn't going to let you lose the game in the last second — like he's a different person — it's because you're a public person and you're a real person are completely different.

So did I underestimate my own — let's say I won't say importance — did I underestimate my impact on other people's minds? And I think I did. Or influence maybe. Yeah, reach. Reach maybe. So I underestimated my reach and my influence. Now the reach of course was accelerated by the fact that as I talked about on the show and I didn't see anybody disagree that we've monetized outrage. So I definitely underestimated the effectiveness of the monetization of outrage because I didn't think they would get to my choke points, right? I did think some newspapers might bail out. That was a risk. But I didn't think they'd get to my actual distributor. If you can turn the distributor off then all the newspapers turn off at the same time which is what happened. And the same with my books. Yeah, it's not like they have to cancel a book. They went after the publisher and the publisher had my entire backlog of books plus the new one. So with one cancellation they can get my whole catalog of books. So that's what happened.

Now I didn't — that was not something I saw coming. So if you want to call me dumb or say I have a blind spot because I didn't realize that people cared enough about my opinion — I mean honestly I didn't think people cared enough about my opinion. I really didn't. That was sort of a surprise. But I'm not sure they cared about the opinion so much as the outrage machine is so well oiled and everybody gets a payday. Click click click click click click. Everybody gets a payday. So I think I had not estimated how efficiently the cancellation machine is in February 2023.

So that's on me. Would you agree that's on me? So because one of the things that people want to say is you're not taking responsibility. No, I'm trying to take it as hard as possible. I'm trying. I'm trying to take as much responsibility as I could possibly can. If there's anything I'm leaving out remind me and I'll take that responsibility too. I'm a hundred percent responsible for what I did. Now I'm not responsible for the fact that we have a backwards-looking world and you know there's a cancellation machinery that operates efficiently. That's for other people to work on. But I'm completely responsible for any risk management decision I make if it goes wrong. And then other people just don't know how to do statistics well.

Let me get to this point. So one of the guests who came on they did a little mind reading. So one of the guests had two complaints which he emphasized on Twitter today. He's surprised that I was baffled by the outcome. That was his words. I was baffled by the cancellation. Does that word fit anything that happened? Because what I thought happened was it was a calculated risk and one of the outcomes was complete cancellation. Of course it was. It wasn't my expectation but of course it was an obvious risk. And he read my mind and after all this decided that I was baffled that I got canceled.

Now baffled is one of those words you use when you don't have an argument. If you don't have an argument you read somebody's mind and then you characterize it in a weird way and then you criticize your own characterization of the thing you mind read. That's called winning the conversation. For me if I could give somebody's only best argument to be that they imagined I was baffled when the evidence suggests exactly the opposite. But the way — I did have a blind spot that's true but I wasn't baffled. That was always a possibility.

Then this other one was he says he disagrees that I said it was the quote only way to fight racism. Did I say anything like that? Did anybody hear me say that getting canceled was the only way to fight racism? Nothing like that. So when somebody has to literally make up an opinion for you, assign it to you and then argue you shouldn't have that opinion, who won the conversation? That's me winning as hard as you can win. That's like game over.

All right, Dan Abrams argued — and keep in mind that he was an attorney, right? So he's somebody who's really good at arguing and breaking down logic and stuff. All right, so the guy who's a professional logical communicator had this to say. He said I can't have it both ways claiming that I was using hyperbole but I was also taken out of context. So he lawyered me and he said ah I found a technical problem with the argument. You can't use hyperbole or say you used hyperbole but also a completely different excuse that you were taken out of context.

To which I say the hyperbole was the specific sentence. The context is why I said it. Yes, Dan Abrams, you can use hyperbole and be taken out of context. There's absolutely no conflict between those two things. They work together really well. Yes hyperbole. Yes also taken out of context. And that was his best. I think that was his best criticism. Keep in mind that none of the points I made were involved in the criticism, right? The criticism is that you can't have it both ways when obviously you can quite easily and it doesn't take much to convince you it's true. That was the best he had. He's a lawyer. He's a smart guy. He does this for a living. Well he does this for a living and that was his best take. That's all he had. Can I win any harder than that? Seriously, would it be even possible to win harder than that? I don't think so.

And then there were some professor guy who somebody said that he was doubting that a qualified black applicant would have an advantage in a big corporation in America that is desperate to increase their diversity. Did that actually happen? Did he actually doubt the fact that a qualified black employee would have an advantage in corporate America? I didn't know that anybody questioned that but if there are other people in Black America who believe that's true think of the opportunity they just opened up.

Imagine if that's a common opinion and imagine some number of black Americans watched the show because there were a number of callers so I know he's got black watchers, viewers. So imagine you're a black American and you heard me say no if you get a good education you're going to actually be at the top of the hiring list. Imagine you'd never heard that before because I've actually heard other black Americans say that. They said no that's not true. There's no favoritism in corporate America. And I have to explain the long story of it is so true it's like the truest thing that's ever been true. Like there's no gray area. This is the truest of all true things. It just doesn't apply to small companies. So I think that's where the confusion is. If your experience is with small companies yeah they're probably pretty racist. So that would be a good strategy to not get a job at the Korean supermarket, right?

Have I ever advised a young black man to get an education and you know while he's working through school go work at the Korean grocery store? I don't know if they're going to discriminate but I'd worr