Name: Dr. Wayne Dyer Says People Aren't Crazy Enough | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-10-06T15:01:40.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dr. Wayne Dyer Says People Aren't Crazy Enough | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-10-06. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dr. Wayne Dyer Says People Aren't Crazy Enough | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-10-06. Transcript available.

It's the worst thing in the world.
No, this one's, that one's very nice.
I would, it's nice to have somebody to talk to in the morning when you get up.
The book, The Sky is the Limit.
What does that mean, The Sky is the Limit?
I don't know.
I have no idea.
Okay.
My next guest climbed Mount Everest several years ago.
No, I talk about no limit people.
I, you know, the earlier writings I did talked about helping people to manage
their emotions,
to be more in charge of themselves, to cope, to get along.
I've always wanted to write about people that we call self-actualized, or what
I call
no limit people.
What do those two terms mean?
Well, Abraham Maslow coined the term self-actualized, self-actualization to
describe human beings
who operate at very, very high levels in their lives, who have no depression,
anxiety, stress,
tension in their lives, who are creative, excited about what they're doing,
never seem to get
down, childlike.
But do you know anybody like that?
Certainly.
There are a lot of people who are like that.
I work at being that way myself every day.
Not just so involved in what you're doing in your life, and so excited about
everything
that you're doing, that you don't have time to worry and analyze and think
about it.
We've become probably the most analyzed generation of people in the world.
Everybody going to a shrink every time they, you know, someone says,
I love you, or let me call my therapist and see how I'm supposed to respond.
I'm not sure if I say I love you back or whatever.
And I just don't believe in that.
I believe in no limits.
So that is living in the now, you don't live in the future, you don't live in
the past.
Right.
It's like a holistic approach, right?
If you think of a continuum of, like, when do people go to doctors in this
country?
Let's say medical doctors.
If you think of a continuum between A, B, and C, A representing illness, B
representing
being okay, and C representing just being as healthy as you can be, the only
time you go
to a doctor is between A and B, when there's something wrong with you, when you
have a pain,
when you have a headache, or something like that.
But between B and C, imagine going to a doctor, not because you're sick, but
because you want
to get as healthy as you possibly can be, preventive medicine, the whole idea
of helping human beings
to achieve at their highest levels medically.
Psychologically, we can do the same thing.
Why should you go to a therapist just because you're collapsing, because there's
something
wrong with you?
Why not think about going to a therapist or working on yourself when you're
fine, you'd
like yourself, but you'd like to be operating at higher levels all the time in
your life.
You'd like to be as creative and fulfilled as you possibly can be.
Is this, we hear about instant gratification, or is this selfish?
Do you hear that much?
I think probably that's the biggest, you know, criticism of the work that I've
done.
People say that I'm on the side of people being selfish, which I've never said,
never done.
I don't believe in it myself.
Anyone who knows me personally knows that I don't endorse being selfish, but
the idea
of being selfish, meaning being inconsiderate, is what I'm against.
Being selfish in the sense of, hey, this is my life.
I've got one chance to lead it.
You're not going to tell me how to do it.
I'm not going to be somebody else's victim and pushed around in my life.
I'm going to make the decisions about what I'm going to do.
That's not, you know, that's not selfish.
That's just sensible.
The people who are the best at loving, the people who are the best at giving or
doing anything
in their lives are those who love themselves, who think positively about
themselves and
not putting themselves down all the time.
Yeah.
Do you know people who would rather be just a notch or two off?
They would rather be angry, not angry, but grumpy, grumpy.
They seem to function better in a grumpy mode.
Yeah.
There's a whole lot of people like that.
I talked to someone like that last night, as a matter of fact.
Isn't that okay?
No, I, well, it's okay as long as, but anything is okay.
It's just a matter of whether or not you're going to be fulfilled or not.
Is it fulfilling?
Does it give you a sense of, uh, of inner peace to be someone who's always down,
always complaining?
There are some people, the best you can get out of them, the best is it'll
probably rain
later today.
I mean, that's, that's, that's the best thing that they can possibly say.
Okay.
You, uh, we have to break away here.
We'll come right back.
But I want to ask you, you say that this is a neurotic country and that we're
not crazy
enough.
I want, I want to find out what that means.
All right.
And the, the, the statement was that we, uh, we ought to do more peculiar
things or we're
not crazy enough.
Well, not so much crazy enough, but being a little bit silly, being a little zany,
uh,
trying things that you've never done.
Do you do things like that?
Oh, sure.
I can remember being, working at the, on the ward of a mental institution, work,
doing, uh,
work for my doctorate as a, as an intern and a group of the, uh, the
ladies that were up on that ward got together, they found out it was my
birthday and they
brought me a nice present and it was a briefcase.
And they said, you know, Dr. Dyer, we like you better than the other doctors.
I said, how come?
She said, well, you're more like one of us, you know, and it's true.
I, I, there's a fine line between being, you know, just outright, uh, unpredictably
at
panic or being a little silly, being, uh, you know, trying crazy things, uh,
not always
having to be serious about everything you do in life, being a little bit silly,
you know,
the, the comedian in all of us.
Let me ask you this.
This is your third book.
Uh, it's the third book that I've written for them.
I've written several textbooks.
And these, these things sell millions.
Right.
Uh, now, are you a reflection of, of this?
Are you, I mean, what is your personal life like?
What kind of, uh...
I'm depressed a lot.
I suck my thumb.
Uh, do you, and you ask for my mother?
You have a family and stuff?
Sure.
I have a daughter back in Michigan.
Yeah.
Uh, my, my life is, uh, you know, I've, I've been married.
I've been married twice.
Uh, I have no regrets about anything that I've ever done in my life.
I think everything that you do, you learn from.
Really?
No regrets at all, honestly?
I think, uh, you never regret what you do.
You regret what you don't do.
I've, I've done, just about anything in my life that I've wanted to do, I've
gone out and tried it.
From, you know, running marathons to, uh, renting Carnegie Hall right here in
New York City in 1977.
I just, I went there and said, what does it cost to rent this place?
I've always wanted to do Carnegie Hall.
And everyone said, what is a therapist doing at Carnegie Hall?
And, uh...
What did you do there?
I don't know.
What did I do?
No, I talked there.
I, I, we sold the place out.
I had 200 people in the audience who had, I'd asked the question, how many of
you have ever wanted to do Carnegie Hall?
That's where you ought to do a show from, right from on Carnegie.
Everybody has that dream.
And I had people coming up singing and dancing and doing all kinds of crazy
things.
But, uh, uh, so, you know, a lot of times somebody will write a book and it
turns out to me.
It turns out that they're just miserably screwed up.
But, uh, you're not, I guess.
Absolutely not.
I, I, I, I, no, that, that technique will go away.
I, uh, I don't judge my value, my worth, my happiness based on books.
I really don't.
Or how much money I make or whether people recognize me or ratings or bestseller
lists.
I mean, I was looking at your thing.
You got a, uh, a resume about the size of the Manhattan Yellow Pages.
You're just, you've done a lot of TV and you're a real hot guy.
And, uh, millions of people depend on this.
So that, is that a burden to you?
No, not at all.
Absolutely not.
That's a burden to me.
Nothing is going up.
Um, well, you get, most people, in fact, many people in the business we're in,
and we're very much in the same business of being out in the public.
Many people are, uh, they judge their worth based upon how well they're
received.
If the audience likes me, if people buy my books, if people think that I'm, if
the ratings are.
That's a mistake, isn't it?
Absolutely.
Because you've got to go out there and you've got to do what makes sense to you.
You've got to operate in life on your inner signals.
And that's what I do.
If you like my books, terrific.
Let me ask you a question about being a sky's the limit kind of person
and also sustaining in a relationship.
It seems like there might be conflict.
The problem with most relationships is that people are trying to own each other.
They're always telling each other, this is what you're supposed to do.
I want you to compromise.
I want you to be more the person that I want you to be.
I don't want you to change.
A no limit person accepts human beings for what they are
and doesn't ask them to be anything other than what they want to be.
If we could just get this sentence out of everybody's vocabulary,
if only you were more like me, then I would like you better,
which is the source of almost every argument in this country.
And instead of saying, hey, you've got a right to be the person you want,
even if it differs from what I am.
That's what no limit people do.
Say two people are happily married and suddenly a guy picks up a copy of this
book
and he becomes, he goes off and he's tattooing himself and hang gliding
and his wife is depressed and sad and he says, too bad, I'm a sky's the limit
guy.
Is that okay?
Well, if that's what he wants to do, you know,
and that's really what his motivation in life is,
then he ought to have the right to do that.
His wife will have to say to herself, look,
I either choose to be with somebody like that
or I'm going to go on and have someone else in my life.
All right, Dr. Wayne Dyer, the book's The Sky's the Limit.
Thank you very much, Dr. Wayne Dyer.
We're going to visit the great outdoors right after this.