Unknown: In the book, The Fountainhead,
there is a character
that is
a nice guy. He is has every element of the nice guy. He can't stand
his own thoughts. He can't be comfortable
in
making his own decisions.
We're gonna be talking this week about Peter Keating, the nice guy, in episode 234
of The Relaxed Male.
This is The Relaxed Male,
a show that comes to you each week helping men to remove the nice guy from their life so they can actually live their life on their terms.
Join the host, certified coach, Brian Goodwin, as he helps
men step out of their heads and become free from the thoughts that bind them.
Amen. Hello, and welcome to the relax mail. I'm your host, Brian. I am a certified men's coach, and I help men who are just neck deep in the day to day suffering.
We're trying to figure out
what is
causing their relationship
to not be at the level that they would like for it to be. Men who want their relationship
to grow, to flourish,
to still have that beautiful bride that they had before instead of having
the stranger that they pass on in the hallway.
And this is what we're doing. And 1 of the big things that keeps
men from being able to just
step into
the lives that they want, the marriage that they want,
is the fact that they are so darn busy
trying to be the nice guy, trying to people please, trying to manipulate, trying to shove everybody into their own little corner
so that they can get what they want instead of living on their own merit, on their own abilities.
And that's
why we're talking looking at
the the character from Ayn Rand's book, the fountain head,
and seeing
why Peter Keating
failed
as harshly as he did.
Because it wasn't,
wasn't a a sudden just bam, everything's gone.
Though,
because of who he associated himself with, there was a lot of
that going on.
But
there was also
just the fact of all the actions that he made
leading up to
the end of the book
that shows this, this man who has
a promising
career,
who just
kinda lets it wither and and die because he is too busy trying to
please everybody else instead of living
for
himself.
And now the fountainhead, I don't know if you've ever read it, is about
living up to your ideas.
And there's talks about it's about a guy whose name is Howard Rourke, and
he is
a
either idealist.
He has a certain idea. He's not going to bend his ideas, his dreams, his will
to the will of anybody else, even society. And he tries
so many times, he gets kicked out of his architectural school because he is
not willing to do any of the classical,
building styles
like
Renaissance or Greek or or
or Tudor or anything like that.
And there's many times in the book where he has somebody come up and go, hey, I would like to
I like what you've done with your buildings. I would like to have
a a nice tutor style home. And he's going, Paul, I can't help you.
And there's times where he
failed at his business because Howard Rourke stuck to his ideas.
But because he stuck to his ideas,
people's he started to find
his audience.
And this is with any business out there. And this is such a great set of of
of insights for business wide business,
sided
people.
Because
if you're busy doing what everybody else thinks you should do,
nothing's ever gonna work. You have to work according to what your
thoughts are.
Do you think you need to take this step or this other step? Do you need to be going to chamber commerce meetings,
or do you need to be going out to, to the local coffee shop and shaking hands?
How are you supposed to meet your clients? How are you supposed to meet your customers?
Some people think 1 way, and they and it works for them.
While other people
try that way, and it doesn't work. But if they try it in in different a slightly different manner, all of a sudden, it kicks off for them and it starts working. This is why
business
coaches
never give you an idea. It's like, oh, should should I
use, use Facebook ads or should I use
radio ads?
90% of the time, they're gonna tell you, I don't know. What do you think?
Because
they really don't know.
We don't have a froggiest clue as to what of of which 1 you should use.
The only person who actually knows that is you.
If you're willing to try and you're willing to take a swing at it, then sweet. Awesome. Thumbs up. You, you know, you're going to either win or not. And if you fail,
it's on you. You get to learn from that failure
and try it again.
And Peter Keating
is a
is not the antagonist
because,
Ellsworth Toohey
is the antagonist. He is the
exact
opposite
of
what how Rourke is.
Tuohy
is,
well, he he is the socialist of all socialist.
Everything should be done for the betterment of society,
not for the betterment of the individual
because he thinks that the individual is not worth the effort.
Yet, if you want society to get better, you have to improve the the individuals first,
which is just kind of the fallacy of what
a lot of socialists end up having.
And when you have somebody who does not have their own ideas, they when they are a people pleaser, they're out there. They're schmoozing. They're great schmoozers
like Peter Keating is. Peter Keating,
they the, Ayn Rand talks about in in the book that everybody at,
at the Stanton
School of, of Technology,
they all they all loved him. They all thought,
Peter Keating was the greatest guy around because he
gave them
what they wanted to see.
A knowing wink or a a smile or a hug, an arm around the neck, whatever it was that each person needed,
Peter had that ability to read the person,
to apply what they needed
so that he could get them to
those people to like him back.
He ran around doing nothing more than seeking approval.
And when you run around seeking nothing but approval
on based on what the other people want,
yeah, at first, you're gonna skyrocket.
Boom. Everybody loves you. You're amazing. You you hit the highest highs
at in record time.
Yet, you also
run the risk of falling off
because eventually the people get tired of that particular gimmick.
And the attentions,
that people have, they turn and stray and veered off to other places.
The first interaction that we had with Peter Keating and
Howard Rourke
was right after,
Stanton's
graduation where Peter Keating graduates.
And Peter
turns and wants
Howard Rourke's
opinion because he get has 2 options that he can go on. He can either go and work for Guy Francone,
at Francone and higher,
or
he can go to,
the Beaux Arts School of of Architecture.
He's got a and got a, a a scholarship to that because he
was the valedictorian.
Either one's a great
great deal.
Knowing that
Guy Froncon would end up hiring
Peter Keating, if he did go to to the Beaux Arts,
he doesn't. He decide he talks to his mom. He well, he really wants to hear from Howard.
And Howard tells him, well, the first mistake you've already made the first mistake. You asked me.
You and what Howard was getting at on that is you don't need to ask for permission. You don't need to ask me. What do you wanna do? And around the time that they're talking about that and Howard's trying to show
Peter, hey, man. You can there's a better way to live life.
Stop running around going, hey, do you think I ought to do this? Hey, do you think I do this? And giving yourself all these, all this anxiety, all this stress, all this frustration.
Live your life on your terms is essentially what he's saying. Live your life how you wanna live.
Do you wanna go to the beaux arts? Do you wanna go ahead and go straight into work and start building houses and other buildings? That's all up to you. Howard Rourke can't answer that. I can't answer that. You can't answer that. They'll or, you know but the only person who can is
Peter Keating.
But as they were talking and as they were having this very
powerful moment with each other,
Peter's mom
steps into the picture
and completely interrupts
Peter's line of thinking.
And
mom says a whole bunch of absolutely nothing.
Doesn't give any advice. Doesn't doesn't
help,
doesn't help to,
to rectify the problem.
She essentially just comes in and says,
you know, you can and by doing types of manipulation, because she knows her son
is competitive.
Because there was his, the person, the his biggest adversary in school was a kid named Shlinker.
And he's like, well, Shlinker will, you know, will probably,
take it.
Knowing that
if that
Peter Keating
hated Shlinker.
Even though he acted the best he was acting like the best friends for Shlinker. Shlinker, he still
fought him and and wanted to be up on top, wanted to beat him, which is just a natural instinct to men.
But because he couldn't stand
the fact the the thought of Slinker getting the
the job,
he sat he made up his mind. His mom
pushed him into making up his mind of going to work for Guy Fron Cone.
As the as things go along, he didn't, he didn't he even states in the book, he didn't care to hear what his mom had to say. He didn't wanna hear anything. Knew that she was just
pushing him into what she wanted to hear
instead of actually
providing any type of positive,
of information,
positive insight that might help direct him.
And so he he starts down this path by going to work for Guy Francois. Now he takes off. He's great because and he's able to use
his powers kind of for for evil a bit.
Because 1, he
he completely knocks his competitor, the person at the the head drafting board,
knocks him
out of standing by just taking over his job by making it and and doing it kind of under handedly,
just kinda sneaking in there going, hey, I'll help you out with this. I'll help you out with that. Oh, yeah. Go go hang out with your your your girlfriend
That becomes the wife.
That becomes
the the problem that he's having. And eventually, Guy Frank Hong has to let
that guy go because he's the highest paid draftsman,
but is not doing much. Everybody's he's handing all his all his
tasks over to
Peter Keating. Peter Keating slid into that position
very effectively. And then on top of that, didn't just kick him out to the cold, but went ahead because Peter couldn't handle
somebody being mad at him.
So what does he do? He actually
helps
the the lead
draftsman find a new place.
And he finds himself being guilty,
feeling guilty of what he's doing. Because whenever he's around
his his
his girlfriend, which is Catherine Halsey,
he
opens up and he talks about how he
really thinks and how he really feels. He's comfortable enough around Catherine, knowing that she doesn't judge him for anything.
He could do good. He could do bad. It doesn't matter.
She likes him for who he is. And so he's this she becomes he becomes this very open person.
And so Peter talks about how he should or shouldn't does or doesn't like a person and how he
shoves people out of the way and how he, is alters people's lifestyles
and alters, people's trajectories. And he finds this power to be
almost intoxicating because he does it from there.
He actually sacrifices
a, a a contract
to get the head,
designer
because you had the head draftsman, and then he goes after the head designer. And the head designer was a no BS type of guy.
Everything that Keating tried to do,
the head designer was just going, yeah, dude. Yeah. Well, it doesn't work on me.
You're you're full of crap. We all know this. So carry on, kid. Go on, punk. Go go your own way.
Until
he learned that the head draftsman
actually wanted to strike out on his own. And so he sets it up to where
he directs a
a well paid
contract
over to
the the lead designer.
And the lead designer calls him out, and he's like, man, you're bigger
you're a bigger jerk than I thought you were.
And says and goes on ahead and goes to the dinner, meets up, and takes on the contract. And and the lead designer steps out of the way and goes on and starts his own life.
And, again, Peter Keating won again. He was able to schmooze
his way into the next level.
And through life, Keating who had this great
ability, he loved
he actually wanted to be an artist to start with. But, again, because he talked to his mom so much and because his mom had such a powerful influence on him,
she directed him, no. Don't go into art.
That's that's where you wanna go. Go to where you're gonna make you're gonna be successful where I can brag about
you. And that's what she does. She
directs him over into architecture. Yeah. He gets to draw a little bit, but it's not for his inspirations.
And
because Keating is all about
the adoration, he is the nice guy. He doesn't wanna upset anybody. He just, he wants to get his own way. And so he does it in the most sharmy, underhanded way possible.
But because he's in a perpetual state of scarcity,
anytime something really big
and he has the opportunity to step forward and really let his light shine,
he has to go and find somebody to boost him up, typically, Rourke.
And, he'll go to Howard Rourke. Howard will help him with it. Howard Rourke
sees what Keating is doing.
And because
Rourke is able to work on
in his own term, he's able to come in and
and look at what Keating's doing. And at least say, it's like, Dave, well, this I mean, this is okay. I mean, if you're gonna do at least do good renaissance, you know. He will direct him. He'll
help guide him knowing that Keating isn't actually a threat or a
element of competition.
Because
Howard Rourke's
line of thinking is
I am an individual.
I have my own set of ideas. I draw and I design my buildings
to my own purpose.
While Keating draws his eye his buildings
to other people's purposes. He doesn't
do
anytime they're wanting to wanting to do a a building,
it's what the customers is is wanting. While Howard Rourke turns around and goes, looks at everything and goes, okay. This is what how we're gonna build this.
And anytime somebody comes along and goes, well, can't you just kind of change up the portico, give us a portico of some sort? And honestly, I don't know what a portico is, but they talk about porticos a lot in this book. And, Howard's like going, no.
It doesn't need that. It needs what I've given it, and that's it. Nothing more, nothing less.
And he makes these buildings the way they kinda describe it. I think she's he's
kinda modeled
after Frank Lloyd Wright
because Frank Lloyd Wright did a lot of incredible things. I mean, there's a couple of, houses that he actually modeled that
the light
that comes in is actually part of the decoration.
The he's got little cutouts along the, along 1 of the,
the southern I think it's on the southern side of the building
of the house. And as the years go, as the or as the sun goes by
in the
months,
different
elements of the light are cut out through the, through the holes. And so there's different things going on
on the, on the wall,
which is a fascinating to actually put that type of thought into
into designing a house.
But Peter
and his perpetual state of scarcity
was always having to run back to to Rourke. But every time he got a win,
he felt a little more kinda confident. And it's a kinda confident. It wasn't confident,
but it was just kinda to the point to where he was able to actually
he thought that
that
Howard Rourke might actually wanna talk, you know, spill the beans about who's actually building his,
building his his buildings, his well,
prized buildings, like the Kosmoslodnik
or or any of the other types of buildings. The Kosmoslodnik
was a big 1
that he really did. And then there was also Cortland,
which both kinda fall into the line of the stories. And
Cortland was just kinda this
design that was originally started out as
as Rourke because
Peter
made the designs and then went over to
to Rourke and was like, hey. What do you think of this? Could you give us some ideas? And Rourke went through, cleaned everything up,
became very disciplined in how the floor layouts were.
And then Peter went through and put his own facade on there. And Peter start to get get a little nervous about, hey. You know?
I
I don't want you to be saying that I I that you designed this building. And Howard's like going, dude, why would I want to even have my name associated
with that?
And that pissed
Peter Keating off because all of a sudden,
he couldn't he knew he Peter realized he still couldn't have any type of control over Howard Rourke because Howard's ideals
are so pure in his
in his actions that, yeah,
I don't wanna be associated
with anything that's got classical or Tudor or Renaissance or whatever
style of building.
I wanna be known for Howard Rourke style buildings, and that's all I plan on build.
And Peter's known for
doing whatever is at the time. I mean, you had Tuohy actually
points him,
points Peter Keating over to this 1 lady who wants to make the ugliest house possible.
And he does. And he does it. And he's just kinda, well, that's real you know, no electricity in the house. I want nothing but lanterns everywhere
and just this kinda
weird gothic, the ugly,
the ugliest house possible on the block.
All because he can't stand on his own 2 feet.
He won't stand. He is always
having to, turn
to
everybody
for attention.
And because he is
able to read people, he is able to to
get Dominique Francone, which is Guy Francone's,
daughter.
And
he ends up marrying her, But the reason why he marries her or she marries him is because
she throws
who he is right back at him.
And
it's at in such a severe degree that anything he wants to do
is up is is completely up to him. She will not make a decision
and it irritates him and aggravates him
because when as they're married,
so do you wanna go,
do you wanna go watch a movie? Her response is, I don't know. Would you like to go watch a movie?
And a long time, his his response was, oh, it'll kill some time. Oh, do you wanna kill time? And then she's just she's being very honest, very forthright
in her questioning,
but at the same time, she is not willing to put
any of herself out
into this marriage.
While he is desperately wanting her to take over everything in the marriage so that she her influences
are there, but she refuses that. And there's this dynamic of this bash of of wills.
He wants her to he can't
he can't manipulate her
the way that he is able to everybody else.
And she refuses
to let him just get off on no not making any decision.
And eventually, their marriage fails, but that's because
a stronger a guy who can punish
Dominique. And it sounds weird, but she wants to she's out to be punished
and she feels like that she needs to be punished
because she is not
the world is not in a position to where they need anything beautiful.
And, again, you have to read the book to fully understand.
But so she
ends up going to Gail Wynon, who is
kind of a sleazeball, but at the same time, everybody starts to kinda like each other because they are, Donique lives her life on her own terms.
Gail Wynan lives his life on his own terms.
But Rourke built
several of the several
astounding houses,
like the Heller House, the Sanborn House, the Gallon Service Station,
the Stoddard Temple, which then
became a
verse torn down, and I love the name, of the, of the building after it stopped being the temple, it became
Stoddard's home for sub, subnormal children,
the monadoc,
monadock
Valley Resort.
Okay. The Accord building, which was
what Cortland Hill or Cortland,
building was before it got blown up and stuff. It was rebuilt as the cord building.
And then,
there's also,
the Aquitania,
which was built and and finally, eventually he got the, the wining building.
But
when it came it comes to
to
Howard Rourke versus Peter Keating, Peter Keating just
a lot of his stuff was very
average.
It honestly wasn't all super wasn't any anything great.
A lot of the characters often describe Peter Keating as, quote, unquote, safe,
playing it small.
And
and because he wasn't what was it because he
Peter wasn't willing
to
take a swing,
he lost a lot of it. So he
the
while
Howard Rourke was
an individualist, he was all about, I have the idea, I have the vision, a group of people doesn't.
Peter Keating was more about the collective
when it come to designing. He would be okay with having
4 or 5 designers to work on a really cool big building.
And
when it came out looking like
a bunch of a bunch of crap,
Society was ready to stand around and go, yay. That was a great piece of crap. Alright. Look at that. You made something. It's a it's a something for sure.
While people
couldn't put Howard Rourke into into a particular category because he was all the he could the closest they could come to see is a modernist.
Well, no. He designed his buildings according to what
the environment was, according to where the location, what the what the materials around were, what's gonna fit.
Much, again, much like how
Frank Frank Lloyd Wright
built his,
buildings.
And as things progressed,
heating kept getting great and greater and greater and greater until he hit
the
hit the the Kosmoslodnik.
And that was the epitome, the and that was at, like, the first third of the book.
He he
topped out. That was his best building. It was the Kosmoslotnik,
which actually was just Howard Rourke with a different shell.
And then from there, he gently
slid down, and he could never quite get
up high enough.
Couldn't quite get back up to that Kosmos Slotnick level.
And his slide was slow, ever so slow that even he struggled. And that's when
Dominique Francone came in, and he was he thought he got big got wanted big because he got the hottest looking girl instead of the 1 that he was best for him.
Catherine Halsey
inspired him to do better,
but instead, he went with the girl who was just
not gonna let him
be.
She wanted him to become better, and so he was
that marriage failed.
And eventually, Gail, like I say, Gail Wynan comes in and takes runs off with
with
with Dominique,
and
and Peter just stays stuck. He stays where he's at.
He eventually becomes
the sole proprietor
of Frank Cohen Keating
after Lucianne l, Lucianne Hyer
dies off,
but he never is able to quite reach the lofty goals
that Howard Roark is.
And I take this whole,
this whole line of thought
with how I'm doing my business
and how you wanna do anything. If you have an idea,
follow that idea.
You know how you wanna live. And, yeah, it's scary sometimes.
Sometimes you think you're gonna be able to go off, and you're gonna be able to you open up your your account your your architect
building
office, and you're you just get to work, and you've got 1, 2, 3 contracts to come on to play, and you you're doing great, and then
everything dies off.
And everybody starts to make it comments about how you're not very good at whatever it is you do. So you
give up
and you go work a quarry.
Sometimes we have to do the quarry work, and the
the people pleaser
will struggle with that
while the ideal
the idealist, the man who is willing to live his life on his terms,
knows that
that quarry work is just a phase, just a a a certain season.
And after that, things are gonna get better.
And then when Cortland comes along, he tried he's,
Peter struggles and struggles and struggles to where he finally goes to Elmsworth, Tuohy,
and goes, dude, give me this, this
Cortland job.
And
Tuohy
says you're not gonna do very good because you have to hit a certain level.
And
Peter
agrees. I I I'll try it. And he tries it and tries it and he can't because he's using, he's not willing to think outside of the box. He has to stay being
comfortable.
And so he talks to
talks to
Howard Rourke, and Howard Rourke's like, alright. We're gonna do this.
But it's going to be done exactly as I said, because he knows that anything government, all of a sudden, everybody else is gonna start sticking their fingers in there and thinks, oh, well, we need this. We need this. We need this.
And it's going to destroy it. And unless he Peter Keating can
get enough
gumption in his gut
to say no,
He knows that it won't get built right,
but he takes a chance. He's like, alright. We're gonna try this because
he wants to help Keating. He sees Keating
always trying to
get out of playing small. He just keeps sliding back into that hole.
And so he, Howard
Vork has no problem helping his,
his college made out.
And so he does, he designs this, this
modern,
low income housing homes that could be done for just fractions of a dollar
and comes in
under budget
and everybody is surprised.
And so he gets the,
he gets the, the contract and he starts trying to build,
but then all of a sudden here comes
these other
architects that are part of Tuohy's little troop,
and they all start making changes and expanding and taking stuff out. And some, some apartments don't have closets while others have
others do, and some have different types of of of
syncs because, hey, I you know, it just seems like it would work better with with this type of sync other than this type of sync. And eventually, the the committees that are all involved with it come in and start going, well, we wanna have a a gym. We it's not fair that we don't have a gym here because we're all the little poor kids gonna play if they don't have a gym? And so they start adding stuff. And as they add stuff and more stuff and more stuff, and all of a sudden, they balloon the payment.
So now to be able to make this
this low income housing thing
work, they've gotta make sure that it's
priced out of the range of the poor people,
which is exactly what Howard Wark knew was the problem.
And because he saw that the government was destroying
something beautiful,
Peter Keating tried his damnedest, but could not didn't have the strength to be able to to withstand them. He then blew it up, and then the remains were bought up by 1 of his friends, and it became the cord building. But Peter Keating threw everything here slowly
slid, and he even tried going back to painting. He realized he loved painting.
He loved drawing. And so he wanted to do that. And he actually reconnected and he disappears for,
almost every weekend
to a little shack that he rents
so that he can,
he can paint.
And he says he wants to go show Howard Rourke some of his paintings and Howard Rourke's like going, oh, the other they're paintings, but you've kinda
it's too late.
You missed your time.
And to a point, yeah, that's 1 way of looking at it. I don't think you can miss your calling time.
If you're meant to be a artist and start drawing and painting.
I mean, look at grandma Moses. I think she started at, like, 68,
69 years old and became world famous with for her painting styles.
If it's your calling and it's your passion, that it's going to work.
But to,
but to to
to give up on your your
your calling completely, that's the great sin.
To ignore your calling because somebody else thinks you need to be a dentist
is a great sin.
Stop being the nice guy is what Peter Keating is showing you. Peter Keating is telling you stop being the nice guy. It's hard to have your own thoughts. True.
But when you have your idea and you have your vision and you have your dream and you stick to it,
the landing the takeoff is a lot lower and a lot slower,
but you get to greater heights
than if you instantly take off like a rocket because eventually you're gonna run out of fuel and you're gonna come tumbling back down to the ground. And if you wanna not
tumble back down to the ground, you wanna have a better relationship with your wife. If that is what you wanna do, you see yourself having an incredible marriage with your wife. It's gotten a little slow, gotten a little stale, and you're trying to figure out how to get
the juices, the proverbial
creative juices flowing again,
then I recommend you go over to relax mail.comforward/coachingoffer.
Fill out the form.
And and
if you want to start building
a better relationship with your wife, then I recommend you go to relaxmail.com/lovebirds,
all together. L o v e b I r d s, lovebirds.
And
click the button on there
and sign up
for a consulting call. We'll sit down. We'll talk it through. We'll have a we'll have a discussion as to when we can what it is you wanna accomplish,
what would it's gonna take to be able to accomplish that, And then we will we'll do 3 different types of 3 different meetings just to fully understand what's up for you, what's up for me. These meetings are completely free.
You get some 3 day 3 weeks worth of free coaching out of it.
And then on top of that,
if you do sign up, I've got 4 spots
for $300.
That's all. $300,
that's 95%
off
the $6, 000 package
that we will have. It's
$300
for 3 months.
You get a 3 month co coaching package, and that will take you from where you are right now
to seeing exactly what is possible.
And you can then start making the needed changes that want that need to be done. But you can always do you do that by going to relax mail.comforward/lovebirds.
So, guys, with that, I wanna say thank you very much for listening.
If, anything I said here rang a bell, you wanted to have a a discussion with some of your friends about Peter Keating,
point this over to him. Send him over to to, to relax mail forward slash,
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be able to get this podcast sent to him every single Thursday morning. So guys, with that, thank you very much for listening. Y'all take care.
Till next week.
Bye.