How to Truly Not Give a F*ck (And Find Your Passion) - Mark Manson

not giving a [ __ ] is imagining worst case scenario and being like I can live with that yeah what's up party people Mark Manson here the concept of not giving a [ __ ] really the book is about values it's about what are you prioritizing what information are you letting into your life you know writing a book about values nobody's going to buy that if you put [ __ ] on the cover it turns out make a couple clever jokes it works so after the book blew up and it was like number one everywhere I started getting all these like ridiculous care offers huge book advances Amazon wanted to do this huge thing with me I made a movie Will Smith wanted me to write his book I said yes to everything cuz my mentality at the time was like let's just [ __ ] go how much of this the algorithm of Tik Tok social media like the stuff that we've seen over the last decade do you look at with disgust this is ruining your civilization one of the things that does concern me a lot of the discussion around mental health that's happening particularly with Jin Z I think vulnerability has been very weaponized you know it's turned into I think the the whole idea of pursue your passion got oversold a little bit because when you actually look into the research we tend to be passionate about things that we are either a good at or B mark thank you so much for being on the show yeah thanks for having me man dude it's so good to to connect in person I literally just found out that we live pretty close to each other it's awesome 15 minutes yeah that's amazing um I got to say I have a funny story about your book so you know I started seeing your book kind of cropping up all over the place and when it shortly after it was launched I feel like I started to get some good momentum attraction and back in the day do you remember a book called uh don't sweat the small stuff oh yeah yeah it was like 20 years old or something like that now at this point like and so I had read that book and so when I looked at the title of your book and like the classic like do not judge a book by its cover like [ __ ] you know I looked at the title book and I'm like I've kind of already read that book you know like I felt like I had and then sure sure [ __ ] like every time I'd go to an airport it's like right there I'm like God damn it like and then like I'd have friends be like oh no if you picked it up like you know and eventually you got to the point where I picked it up I read it and I realized like with with don't s the small stuff it was very much like you read three pages like bathroom book whatever and you like pick up a little nugget or whatever yours was so much deeper than I think the the cover kind of gives it credit this is this is the cover the cover and title is both the the blessing and curse of my career bet for this reason because some people must just be turned off by the cover I don't mind the word the [ __ ] so I wasn't turned off by the cover but I can imagine people being like Oh like what what is all that but you get into it and you're like holy [ __ ] this is a new way to think about how to live life yeah and you it was the depth there was was beautiful but uh for for people that haven't read the book yet sure probably 10 people out there not I me I think a lot of people read the book right how would you how would you frame it how do you frame it today essentially the the concept of not giving a [ __ ] I I always thought of it as like a trojan horse right really what we want people to think about is their values what are they prioritizing in life what are they choosing to give their attention to to give their emotional energy to because my belief I believe really the inspiration for the book was in this day and age the the post social media age being conscious of where you're giving your attention and where you're investing your emotional energy is probably the most important and also under thought about issue that most people go through because we're just being bombarded with so much stuff so really the book is about values it's about what are you prioritizing what are you choosing to focus on what what information are you letting into your life what information are you blocking out of your life are you blocking any information out of your life mhm and but you know writing a book about values nobody's going to buy that so if you put [ __ ] on the cover it turns out and you know you like throw some f bombs around and make a couple clever jokes it works it was a very funny book it was like like I you've been cracking up like all throughout the entire thing um you know you mentioned you hinted on it a little bit here it's like I feel like with any author you know I've been lucky enough to sit at the front row watching Tim Ferris launch a bunch of books and yeah you know Gary ve and a bunch of a handful of other friends have launched uh books and um I had a great conversation with Michael pollen on the show about launching his book and his journey which was amazing fantastic I mean everything he's touched has been great great literature fantastic um you know every author that I've spoken with there's like this moment where they've like ah [ __ ] I have something that the world doesn't know yeah that I want to like actually put into written form and and it's largely driven the best books are from personal experience so it's like what about your life was not working to where you're like I need to change something up here yeah I honestly maybe I'm maybe I'm downplaying myself I have a tendency to like give myself not give myself enough credit I think at least that's what my wife tells me uh I think I have benefited a lot I am I am the in the older cohort of Millennials so I'm like one of the oldest millennials and when I look back across my career it's everything that my generation has gone through I have tended to go through it two three four five years before them and I think you know I I started doing the digital Nomad thing probably about 5 years before it became really popular I was doing the online business thing the influencer thing 5 10 years before it was it was popular I was on social media from day one I think my Facebook ID is one of the first half million IDs wow I was at school in Boston when it was launched so were you like a MySpace user too and all those yeah friender Friendster oh [ __ ] you go way back yeah I thought I was the only one that had a Friendster account there was like a million of us or something yeah yeah right um so I you know I've always been an early adopter and I've always been very interested in in in culture and everything um so I don't think I was necessarily aware of it at the time but I just I would write very honestly about whatever I was going through and I think a lot of the traction that I got throughout my career was people kind of coming up a year or two behind me and being like Oh my God he's so right like this new social media thing it's it's making me feel different and I'm paying attention to a lot of things that I used to I don't really like paying attention to and I kind of wish this wasn't on my feed and like why is that there and um so I I think I think think I've I've benefited just from that quite a bit um being observant writing clearly about what's going on in my life honestly like the the things that I'm struggling with on an emotional level a psychological level but um but also just being fortunate enough to be a little bit older and a little bit ahead on the adoption curve yeah what what um when you're putting together this book I see hints of different types of philosophies like that are kind of interwoven at one point uh quite a ways in the book you you had mentioned Buddhism as being kind of like U maybe an inspiration or like where did you pull from like this just seems like a it's it's so deep I have to imagine that in the research mode of the book like did you pull from um were there historical figures that you're like okay this person got it right yeah and or or like yeah where did you was it all just personal like experience or so my personal background is in Zen Buddhism so first of all dude we shared that I had no idea which which flavor of Zen um is it like uh like what did you study like what a classic Zeno like um zazen I think like is it I I'm actually not familiar with the different sub branches of of Zen um I didn't go that deep into it but there was like a Zen Buddha Center in Boston when I was young and I used to go to Retreats St oh that's end Master there and so I did that for probably three four five years read a bunch of books read a lot of DT Suzuki and Suzuki's the best man yeah man you can reread that book like a thousand times and always pick up something new every time you pick it up it's always relevant any stage of life and what I loved about Zen is Zen is is very much it's like the Practical no [ __ ] flavor of Buddhism you know a lot of Buddhism it has a lot of ritual you you've got chance you have um mantras uh even some areas of Buddhism have their own kind of demig gods or um I guess their version of like patron saints and things like that um a lot of mythologies Zen is just like shut the [ __ ] up look at the wall and see what happens right no it's so true it's like eyes open look at the wall and just sit yes just sit that that that's all the instruction you need yes and and it's there's almost like this deep skepticism in Zen of like anything that arises any sort of insight or realization like nothing is the solution it's simply the introduction of a better problem you know it's okay you had that beautiful insight about your life there but that's also something you can get attached to and that's also something that can lead you you know into samsara an attachment suffering so even though you have that beautiful realization don't get too attached to it right and I just feel like that sort of wisdom is a little bit lost as somebody who was also a big consumer of self-help that is diametrically opposed to self-help you know self-help tells you go to this seminar you're going to have this big breakthrough and it's going to change everything and then you're going to be happy and successful yeah forever right and Zen's saying the exact opposite it's saying that thing that you that you think is going to make you happy and successful might for a little bit but it's actually the attachment to that's going to cause the next problem and you're going to have to go back to the wall and stare at it until right you find your way out of that conundrum and that was very influential and profound for me because when I started writing I guess in the personal development space or the self-help space I tried to really bring that with me of like your life okay here are some psychological principles that you know the really smart researchers at Harvard figured out around happiness but by the way that's not going to make you happy forever right there's going to be another problem it's going to be a better problem but it's still going to be a problem and you're still going to suffer and it's never going to end it's just like one endless stair step of suffering until you die yeah I mean you gave a great analogy one time around um a homeless person and waren Buffett yes yeah like tell me about that a homeless person has money problems War Buffett has money problems the only difference is that Warren Buffett's money problems are way more desirable than the homeless guys you know Warren stresses about money like his whole profession is stressing about money right what to do about it where to invest it how to get more of it it's just that you would much rather have his problems than the homeless guys so this idea that we're ever going to arrive at some sort of state or place in our lives where like there's not a problem anymore yeah is not only is it false but it's we delude ourselves actively like our mind is very much kind of set up to delude ourselves to not realize that and but isn't that part of the problem the fact that we think there's not going to be any more problems yes you see what I'm saying like cuz you're sitting there and you're like okay well if I only obtain this thing I get this nicer car I get this nicer watch I get this you know my life will be filled and full and joy and I got the hot wife the sports car blah blah and it's like but there's it's it's never ending yes so if you can if you can like you know Alan W talks about this a lot it's like it's like just this this flexibility and malleability of being a human that can kind of Bend and flex and more like water yes than than trying to say you know I'm aiming for perfection in the perfect like which will never happen right you're going to be in a hell of a lot better place mentally if you can have that that level of flexibility absolutely and this is I don't think I talked about this in subtle art but you know in my articles I I often talk about it as like your brain is wired to play this game the game is X is going to make me happy let's go get X yeah and there's a lot of evolutionary value to that game that your brain is playing you know it's what got our our species here is that that silly little game that we keep playing with ourselves and you actually can't really stop playing it in fact one thing that I started to notice uh in in my Buddhist practice and it actually turned me off from Buddhism for a little while is uh you know when I started to get really deep into it and start going all these Retreats and hanging out with other people who are on Retreats I started to notice that for them meditation Retreats became the ex that's going to make me happy right and I'm like but you're doing it again right like this is actually the whole thing we're trying to not do is you're just replacing you know the fancy watch or the nice car you're replacing it with if I could just do three meditation Retreats a year then I oh my I would develop so much further and I'd be more enlightened and I'd be at peace and and so the game's even there too and when I started studying a lot of psychology I you know that's when I kind of realize it's just like okay we're just evolved to play this game psychologically and the best thing you can do is simply be aware of the game you're never going to turn the game off you're never going to win the game just recognize it's a game and you're going to play it and so just make sure that whatever that X is there are better and worse things that you can pick to put there you know like a fancy car is probably not a good thing to pick and put there right because it's just it's very arbitrary and material and superficial and it's but I I would argue it actually might be a good thing to pick and put there because you have to learn that that's not going to give you satisfaction that is true I mean that is one way to learn to not put it there I mean you're going to waste a [ __ ] ton of money in the process cuz the resale value is going to be [ __ ] yeah right but like there is there is a um cuz I've been there you know like I I I got really lucky and you know had some good Angel Investments um you know 32 at the time or something like that and I went out and did something really stupid which was by an Aston Martin and it it's not the douchiest of cars but it's also not not douchy and it like they're they're I mean they're beautiful machines they're absolutely and you know I was driving it down to Google and I remember just being like cuz I was working at Google at the time and I remember just being like Oh no I'm that Tech bro douchebag with an ason with an Aston Martin you know and then literally that was like two weeks after I got the car and it was gone on the third week I like I was like I can't I can't do this but there there is no additional satisfaction that comes with that and if it is it's just like it's fleeting but let me let me ask you this was the Aston Martin the reason you started your first companies like was that like were you did you have a vision board and were you like dreaming at night yeah no I was never one of those guys me neither and I think it's largely because I well I don't know I I think I would say like my upbringing but I will tell you that some of the the most memorable moments of my childhood were camping with my father and you know we had a beat up pickup truck standard lower middle class and we actually used real tense on the ground trying to move the rocks out from underneath the [ __ ] cuz they didn't have those inflatable ones back then so I could like lay comfortably but it was those special moments in connection with my Dad yeah where I was like there is no this is you know dollars a day to camp at a recreational like public campsite sure like I don't need that to be happy but yet there's something that like as you start to gain more momentum in your career you think well it's it's like this idea of this like um this this this experience uh have you heard about experience stretching all MH so it's this idea that like you see a Sunset and you're like oh it's a really beautiful sunset and you know you're in Hawaii and the next day you come back and you have like a cocktail with your Sunset you're like oh well this is even better you know and the next day you add like a cigar or whatever and you're you're stretching that that experience and now that original Sunset was never yeah like not even in today's uh world it would be like we pull out our phone and we're not even looking at the sunset we're looking at the phone through the you know so it's just like at what point how do you coach someone through that if someone is like perpetually addicted to more and more things um is it starting with values is it sitting down and saying I need to Define my values or how do you get someone unhooked from those things well I I think getting kind of back to why the book took off so much I think this is what you just described is kind of like an unintended side effect of all the amazing technology that we've developed over the past 50 years or whatever is you that set point for happiness Baseline happiness keeps going up and up and up you know the E the cheaper airfare gets and the easier it is to travel to amazing places the higher people's expectations adapt and the less satisfied they are with any given trip that they end up taking and this happens across an infinite amount of dimensions vectors and and so I think it It ultimately It ultimately if you aren't aware that that's what's happening you start to become dissatisfied with everything and not only you are you dissatisfied with everything but you can objectively look at your life and you're like man I'm taking all these great vacations I have a cool ass job I get to work from home why am I so dissatisfied with everything like it doesn't make sense it doesn't and I think what we need is there needs to be a reset of that Baseline and the way you reset that is to actually intentionally lean into uh hardship or deprivation or challenge you know go on a phone deto go on a you know do a a rugged camping trip that you have to go sleep on rocks and stuff because it's like once you do that you go back to the Sunset and you're like oh my God this sunset's incredible and so I think that's what we've been seeing over the last 10 years in a bunch of different ways is that uh I think it's what a big reason why my work you know so much of my work focuses on the importance of struggle in pain in terms of actually leading to happiness I think it's why we've seen stoicism yes resonate so much with people I think it's I think it's why you you see um you know people like like Goggins and and willink have built these huge audiences you know with that kind of military mentality of just like suck it up like stop being a [ __ ] you know go go for a [ __ ] run because people are realizing that like yeah I do need a little bit of struggle and hardship in my life because I'm not going to appreciate all the stuff I have otherwise yeah it's so true and I know you quoted Ryan holiday in the book as well I believe yeah and uh he's been so instrumental and kind of bringing back or bring to the surface stoicism after all these years a lot of really good teaching there as well it's amazing what he's done with it it's funny too because uh you know for a long time people mistook subtle art for a stoic book and you know this all this stuff that we're talking about in in terms of the suffering I think that's more I got that a little bit more from from like existentialism you know existentialism this idea of like you can't life is is inherently meaningless and you have to choose what you're willing to suffer for um but once you choose that thing it's not a pleasant Choice it's actually a very scary choice of like what are you going to commit to with your life with your finite amount of time but once you make that choice and that commitment that's what fills your life with meaning yes and purpose and happiness um that's that's where a lot of that stuff came for me like I found a lot of value and insight in that but it's it's interesting because stoicism kind of overlaps Buddhism a little bit it overlaps existential ISM a little bit um but it kind of lives in this this other middle area um that like I didn't read the stoics until until probably Ryan stuff came out you know so uh I was late to that party one of the things that that you mentioned and I'm going to get it wrong because it's been a minute since I've read it in your book uh was this idea that um you're essentially if you want to find your career it's not about going after the dream career but it's about the to become good at that thing do you know what I'm talking about can can you kind of elaborate there a little bit right so this is a very practical thing I think the the whole idea of like pursue your passion got oversold a little bit Yeah because when you actually look into the research about what makes people passionate about something we tend to be passionate about things that we are either a good at or be socially rewarded for MH so everybody kind of thinks that they have this magical passion that's like hiding under a rock and they just need to go try enough things to go find it but if you're always trying a new thing to see if you're passionate about it that's actually the worst way to build a passion in something because it's a very transactional relationship with each activity that you're doing ultimately what you're looking for is you're looking for an activity that you have some sort of natural Talent OR Advantage at something that comes easy to you that is difficult for others because that is going to I mean it's just human nature that is going to feel more rewarding you're going to feel like a badass when you do this thing uh so that's the first piece of it and the second piece of it is just to put yourself in an environment where that that Talent OR that ability is is rewarded um so it's it's actually the other way around it's you go Cal Newport has this great this great book called so good they can't ignore you and he basically says it's completely backwards you don't find what you're passionate about and then get good at it you find what you're good at and then as a side effect you naturally become passionate in the process of becoming good at it um so I think it's it's actually more important to think about it in terms of skills and and just adding value to the world you know like where can you Schwarzenegger has got this great new book it's called just called be useful you know it's like it is kind of that simple it's just like find places you can be useful because that you're going to be socially rewarded for it you're going to develop a sense of competency autonomy so it's going to be naturally satisfying to to Simply do it for yourself um and then that's where all this other stuff comes off the back of it if you're someone like me that has just uh I'm I go and I try a lot of different things cuz I'm always like curious about you know whatever whatever the latest hottest thing is like I I always want to like just play and experiment and see if there's anything there uh I bought a book on Japanese joinery uh like a couple days ago which is literally like how you assemble planks of wood using no nails but these just amazing joints that you know use hand carving tools and whatnot that's it's fascinating to me because I've always every time I've gone to Japan I've always been drawn to that type of AR that style of old school architecture and just the dedication to still maintaining that craft even though it's long been replaced by Steel and you know everything else that that we have in the Modern Age you know how do you approach something that you may be interested in and and give it enough time to know if there's something there right versus just saying like well I'm not good at that right away so I I probably shouldn't double down on it like where do you draw that line I think you use the word in passing there that is the key which is play like when you are experimenting you need to go in without expectations you need to go in with I'm going to play with this I'm just going to see if it's fun right like see if it's enjoyable and a lot of things that you play with it's like yeah that's fine but it's not really it doesn't really stick you want to see where where where is the thing that the more you do it the more interested in it you become and you don't want to try to force that or obsess over it or worry about it because that's going to prevent it from happening um so so the concept of play of just zero expectation I think gives space for that to occur and then once it starts occurring it's like okay let's do it again and let's do it again and let's do it again and and that's where you start to see the Improvement and the development and that's where the joy starts that's yeah that's that's Sound Advice that's something that like I once that Joy kicks in and then I I'm like really having a good time it kind of compounds like I took pottery and I was like all right I'm not good at this like I did like for like a few weeks and I made one decent looking bowl but I'm like there's no joy here this is like I I I think it's beautiful but it's like I just don't have the time and bandwidth and like that much connection to it to stick with it dude I did that with golf I so I always hated Golf and then I became a grownup and I realized like wow all the really successful people play golf and if you play golf you get like 4 hours on you get 4 hours uninterrupted with really really success people like man I should pick up Golf and man I just kept going back again and again and I'm like you know if I just get better at it if I just learn a few things if I just work on my swing like it's and finally after about 6 months I'm like [ __ ] this sport I'm so done I'm turning down every golf invitation sorry everybody yeah I mean pickle Ball's the new [ __ ] anyway so I haven't tried that yet but that's on my listed to um so one of the things I'm I'm I'm curious about around you know not giving a [ __ ] is like what just to to dive into that just for a quick second like that term itself like is that when I first read it I thought like well that's just a way to say like I don't care and push it to the side and I've gotten myself in trouble mentally that way because like I've said well I don't care about this this doesn't mean anything to me and push it aside only to have it kind of Stew behind the scenes because did care right and so maybe it's a character flaw I don't know how common it is but like how do you actually release something like how do you let it go how do you truly not give a [ __ ] like do you know what I mean like because there's some stuff that you can act like you don't care or you can push it to the side but it always comes back I feel like the improper way or the the the failing way to not give a [ __ ] is when you when you decide you're indifferent about something because you think that will affect it right it's like this thing's bothering me you know what I'm just not going to give a [ __ ] I'm not going to care this person is like doing this thing that's annoying you know like I don't [ __ ] care do whatever you want but secretly there's a little anger there deep down you're like hoping that that like person dies could be that uh either that or you know maybe the that person gets upset and then changes their behavior it's like I I really think the you know Tim Tim talks about this thing uh negative visualization I I really do think a big part of not giving a [ __ ] is imagining worst case scenario and being like I can live with that yeah I'm fine with that yeah that's how you stop giving a [ __ ] is like I can see how this can go completely wrong and I I'll be okay yeah that that's super helpful it scares me sometimes because my I have such a um kind of one of these Minds that that can really spin up the the visuals not in terms of like what I see but how they feel right and um so I guess they wouldn't be visuals but they they you know it's like picture like some stoic [ __ ] like picture your kids dead you know and you're like Jesus like I you don't need to take it that far like you know it's like there there's there's a cut we crossed the line but so here's the other thing too is that and I talk about this in in the first chapter of the book because it's I knew most of the people who are going to be coming into that first chapter are going to have this conception of just like yeah bro I don't give a [ __ ] ex and that's just not a realistic life strategy um you have to give a [ __ ] about certain things yes you know you should give a [ __ ] about your kids it would be weird and horrible if you didn't right um there are going to be things in your life that you're just it's it's going to be impossible to not give a [ __ ] about them and that's okay right like it's the issue ultimately the question isn't give a [ __ ] or not give a [ __ ] it's where are what's the prioritization you know are you taking something that deserves very few [ __ ] or very small [ __ ] and making it a big deal or are you taking something that's a big deal and not giving enough attention or Focus to it like that's I think that's where things get mixed up and again I think to come back to kind of the technology piece I think the techn an unintended side effect of the technology is that has scrambled our ability to prioritize those things a a a silly tweet that goes viral appears to be way more important than it actually is and you know your kids coming home and complaining about something appears much less significant than it actually is and it's unscrambling that that Mis prioritization that's the actual project here of like a lotting the proper [ __ ] and then understanding where the threshold is and anything below that threshold it's like whatever you just let it do what it's going to do so is is a bit of that kind of setting boundaries at the same time about what what's allowed to come in or not 100% right and I'm glad you brought that up because it's I think a lot of people who struggle with this it's because they don't know how to set those boundaries so they have I don't know that's my problem so yeah so it's they've got somebody in their life uh their like uh this person you know brings all these problems or complications or drama to them and they don't know how to say no they don't know how to cut it off they don't know how to tell that person don't bring that here I don't want to hear it it's not my problem you go deal with it because they don't know how to say that they keep getting all these problems thrown into their life that they they don't really want to actually deal with I had um an exchange I I don't think you mind me saying this with with Tim Ferris on text yesterday and um really well-known author um had approached me and was like hey um you know can I send Tim a book like I CU I just would like to get on his radar you know and Tim has this blog post like no new books like it's like this like whole post of things and he I write back to him and I'm like dude like I mean come on this is like a a decent author and it's a really good human like and he's just like he's like dude I got to I got to say no I have to have this boundary for everyone I can't make an exception break exactly if he breaks that rule with with one person I mean how many kids do you have about two kids okay so imagine if you like made an exception once with a house rule with one of your kids I've done that yeah it blows up in your face how did that go exactly so you know boundaries they have to be rules and and it and it has to be you know it it there can't be exceptions I know I I put Blue on in the back of my [ __ ] car and now anytime we travel anywhere they're like it has to be blue and I'm like Jesus Christ because it takes over the entire speaker system and Blue's funny but like it's just it's just too much but yeah that's that's important to have those boundaries um so in the spirit of the book you know what what would you say is something that's popular right now that you just can't bring yourself to jump on or give a [ __ ] about is there is there anything that like comes to mind it's been interesting okay so I have a little theory around this I I love the Creator economy like I just I love being in it I love being a consumer of it I love watching it strategizing like just observing like what's going on in social media and YouTube and everything like it's it's I think I'm one of the rare freaks that it makes me more happy like not not less um it's been interesting to see all of this make money get Rich content come back with a vengeance over the past couple years and and a lot of the people who are who are doing it you know a lot of them seem legit and are actually giving really good advice but it's just so interesting to me that five years ago 10 years ago you know if I if I wrote a Blog article like three steps to be a millionaire half of my audience would have mutinied and left they'd be like what the [ __ ] are you talking right like get your priority bare minimum to get any attention and now it's now it's like now now they're people that that's all they WR of course and they M and they're getting millions of readers so I find that fascinating and my theory behind it is that um there's all of these Highly Educated laid-off Tech workers who maybe don't have a job maybe want to start a company quiet quitting quiet quitting everybody all the remote work everybody's sitting around home they're like well I'm already like working from home working online like how can I make a little bit more money and so it's been interesting to see how economic realities and demographics and and things like that like feed into the memes of the moment and that but that's definitely something I didn't have on my bingo card you know it's like I YouTube videos pop up in my feed now that I'm like that's atrocious I never would have imagined that that would would have 5 million views or whatever so that's been really interesting I I mean I find that sort of content I mean it's it's like the car thing right it's the Aston Martin thing I look at that stuff I understand why people watch it I understand why it's getting so much traction but I also understand like that's not really going to solve your problems right but maybe you need to go through that to figure that out um yeah like most people do so how much of this you know the algorithm of Tik Tok social media like the stuff that we've seen over the last decade do you look at with disgust and are just like this is going this is ruining our our civilization like do you do you do you see it as that or do you see I mean obviously in certain contexts like for me like I don't know how I got into it but like I I just get like either the most insanely funny videos which are had have me it's mostly like old lesie nelsson clips or something that just me like laughing my ass off or it's like you know inspirational stuff which some of that stuff is actually quite good you know like old old great I just saw one from Hitchcock that he was talking about what makes him happy in life and it was just like I'm like ah I'm better for see have having seen that right but then I look at like you know people around me younger people that are related to me that are in their teens and their feeds are just like this push for Perfection this push for more this push for and I'm just like oh my God these people are [ __ ] like so okay here's here's something I the the make money thing is is a little bit uh what's the word I'm looking for uh not indifferent but like uh benign you know I it's there it's not necessarily it's not necessarily a bad thing but it's also not something I'm like super hyped about one of the things that does concern me is a lot of the discussion mental health that's happening particularly with j z I think there are a lot of really good terms that have their definitions have been construed by the algorithms and by things getting repeated um terms like vulnerability I think vulnerability has been very weaponized you know it's turned into what real vulnerability is is like me coming on here and being like sharing a a personal thing in my life that maybe makes me a little bit uncomfortable but being okay with the consequences and saying you know what like this is who I am and that's okay that's a very healthy form of vulnerability yeah what we're seeing a lot more of these days is a lot of tick tock of people like balling their eyes out and being like here are all the horrible things that have happened to me and they are it's very much constructed and designed to get attention and sympathy m it's not like a it's not really an authentic sharing of like you know hey this is who I am for better or worse I haven't seen this like vulnerability porn or something like where that's a perfect term for it it's vulnerability porn and it's I think a a similar kind of destruction of the term of trauma has happened um trauma I think is is been incredibly overused and what's worrying about that to me is that when it comes to psychology definitions matter because one of the things you see in Psychology is that expectations have a significant vote in how we perceive reality so if the most obvious example is the placebo effect so if you know if you're in a double blind study and doctor gives you a placebo you might feel better yeah and you might think you got the medicine and part of that is because you expect that taking a pill is going to make you feel better in fact the placebo effect is so powerful that they have studies that even when the doctor tells you this is just a sugar pill it's not going to do anything you feel better afterwards and it can change biomarkers which is just [ __ ] nuts it's insane it's totally insane like you're like the cholesterol will drop in some people and you're like how the [ __ ] did this happen so what we're seeing there's a little bit of a definition creep going on with psychological terms right now which is the bar of what trauma is gets lowered it got lowered for every decade for multiple decades and then I'd say in the last 10 years years it's gotten lowered every year you know to the point where it's like I got stuck in traffic it was traumatic or my teacher gave me a bad grade it was traumatic right and that worries me because when you start defining things as traumatic you will start experiencing them as traumatic even if they're not because of that expectation effect and I think you're seeing a lot of that in the younger population they've discovered that um I think with a lot of the well ition mental health conversations that have happened over the past couple decades they've discovered that if they talk about their trauma if they've talk talked about um things in terms of like emotional abuse or psychological abuse that gets them a lot of attention and sympathy and when you're a teenager that's kind of all you want is attention and sympathy and so it's we've created these incentives for them to move the line move the lines of these definitions and that moving of the line then uh has a downstream effect on how they actually experience just normal everyday life yeah it's like because there's certain [ __ ] that's just going to happen to you that should be considered normal that you don't need to like if you put it in the bucket of trauma then you're giving it you're actually giving it more power yes by classifying it as such absolutely and don't get me wrong there there are very traumatic experiences that that people need to seek out therapy for like no doubt but not everything yes no there there there there's a there should be a hard line yeah right it's like life sucks things are gonna go wrong if you got oat oat milk versus soy milk in your latte like shit's going to be okay right or even unless you're allergic to it then [ __ ] yeah or something even as like consequential as a you know being dumped or failing out of school like these are those are legit awful experiences they're they're very very hard but they're not insurmountable right in in fact they're completely surmountable and in fact I would argue that to be a well-functioning adult in the world you should be able to surmount those those challenges challenges of that level right like getting dump getting your heartbroken having a mean teacher who fails you you know for arbitrary reasons like these are this is life like this is [ __ ] life and so you you better learn how to deal with it um I think about this a lot by the way because when I have a couple little kids yes it's like there is this natural parenting thing that kicks in um don't want to throw my wife under the bus but a little bit more than in her than it does me where it's just like their protection nature yes and it's just like oh don't do that thing don't run too fast because of this and in my head I'm like okay if this goes sideways like how bad is it going to be right and it's like because I want them to have a little bit of grit and it's not grit it's you can't tell someone about a mistake no they have to experience the mistake because that's when it gets cemented in the brain yeah you know it's like so these these these things have to be learned through experience not just through through reading a book yeah it's so that concerns me a lot a lot of the the mental health culture um in conversations that happen around that uh concerns me there you know it's things like trauma vulnerability these they've been kind of fetishized um and and it's especially in my industry you know subtle art was very much written to kind of just be a big middle finger to yeah conventional self-help and and I guess you know when the success of the book gave me a lot of Hope of like you know maybe we're turning a corner and and there's going to be a much healthier version of this industry out there and I do think that's true to a certain extent you know I I look at people like James clear and and Reuben and Tim and myself and Ryan like the fact that we have such big audiences like that gives me a lot of Hope yeah but um but man it's it's like Michael Myers dude like that that touchy feely woooo you know coddle every problem you've ever had in your life tell you it's not your fault tell you that the world's evil and it's you don't deserve this like that's just [ __ ] people even more taking vulnerable people and then like just making them worse it's still there like that it's it's a beast that just um that never goes away you know I'm really curious this could be we can always cut it from the video if you want to talk about it but I'm I'm really curious because I got to tell you that some of the [ __ ] that I watch some the old clips of Mr Rogers I like absolutely love cuz he just seemed like such a kind caring dude like you ever watch his Senate speech that he gave when he was younger oh my God so good amazing um what are your thoughts on Mr because he was very much like all about like you are special right you are I mean I guess there's nothing wrong in saying that because we all are our own unique characters yeah um I think he had a lot of good value there but people blame him and they say oh if everyone's special no one's special and it's just like a god that one that was a hard one for me to kind of wrap my head around I think a big part of it so there there was that movie that came out about actually two movies came out about him one with Tom Hanks I thought it was great which was phenomenal and then there's also out about him which is also excellent both of those are worth watching uh and as somebody who grew up with Mr Rogers uh you know I have a soft spot my heart for Him I think two things come to mind when he comes up the first one is that um developmental age matters a lot right so he's targeting very young children you know two three four 5 years old um and children at that age are legit vulnerable like they don't have a sense of self yet they don't have understandings of social relationships yet um they they they've hardly even developed an ego yet much less like all sorts of neuroticism around that ego um so the the proper advice for like a three-year-old especially a three-year-old that maybe is growing up in kind of harsh conditions it's it's not going to be applicable to an 8-year-old and and that's it's also not going to be applicable to 12 year like those are going to be three different pieces of advice just because those are three brains in completely different phases of their their development so I with that in mind I think most of what he says is is good and also you know my recollection is that his motivation was was very much to take you know kids in underprivileged positions one parent homes kids who parents aren't around who have been neglected you know and and like really try to bolster them up a little bit and so that seems very rightmed and and on point he was so early in introducing diversity too remember that whole story around how he had uh was it the blackid yeah on the show and I was like oh my God like what's going on here it it was amazing yeah wonderful guy um I think and this is not a criticism of Mr Rogers I you know if I was to have any criticism it's I I think we've extended the Mr Rogers advice to too far in the childood exactly right so it's like you know the the meme the memes right now are like Jin Z are bunch of children like they it's 22y olds who are acting like 15 year olds right it's like well it's probably because you've been treating them like 15 year olds and when they were 15 you were treat them like 8year olds and when they're eight you were treat them like 5-year-olds so yes it there's a there's an evolution that happens as the child grows and matures and I I would say you know probably by the time they're 8 nine 10 they've got a little bit of an ego identity they've got a little bit of a sense of self they're starting to notice their social relationships and the social relationships are starting to matter a little bit more um they're starting to test you know a lot of their boundaries with the parents and with teachers and other authority figures so you know it's like that's when things probably need to turn a little bit more Stern and boundaries become way more important and um letting them fall and hurt themselves and sit there and cry for a while figure it out and get back up to me that makes more sense yeah 100% I we're on the same page uh one of the things that your book uh talks a lot about um is this idea of one individual defining their values um what's your recommendation for people on how to because I think most people like honestly they just don't think about their values like it's just not even like if you sat down with an average friend and be like hey uh [Laughter] they cared about or what was important to them they would just kind of automatically download the average of what the people around them cared about which was probably the same things which is probably the neighborhood organization the church the local school Etc so it works it's fine where things get all scrambled and me messed up is when you connect the world and you're interfacing with w a very wide diversity of values and viewpoints from all over the planet people you don't know people you don't know people with different walks of life people with all sorts of biases and prejudices that you didn't even know existed it's it's again it's kind of it's like the dark side of the best thing about the internet you know the best thing about the internet is it connected the world and it introduced just an endless variety and diversity of values and viewpoints the worst thing about the internet is that it connected everybody and and exposed us to the wide diversity of of values and viewpoints and so that kind of natural human condition of like if you don't set your values for yourself it'll be set by yeah the people most approximate to you they used to say it was like the sum of your five closest friends and so what you're saying is this is switching somewhat to like the sum of the 100 people you follow well think about it right like yes so think of your favorite podcast you probably spend more time listening to that podcaster than you do with your closest friend on a week to we Bas absolutely right yeah or you could and then you could switch that out for your favorite YouTuber your favorite substack author you know whatever so and this doesn't even get into you know whatever the algorithm decides to show you right um so I think it is it's imperative that we become conscious of this process of like that are what we are caring about is being influenced by others so your question was how do we Define that for ourselves and and and I would love to hear any like real physical tactics like do you do you get out a piece of paper do yeah how do you how do you think about getting into it so what I would think about there are a lot of different exercises you can do I used to do this uh with some people a long long time ago is like a desert island exercise which is basically like you're stranded on a desert island you can only take three things you know and their infinite supply for the rest of your life you know what are they right write down all the things you would take you could do the same thing with relationships you can only see three people for the rest of your life who are those three people I'm imagining it was probably your wife and your two kids right it's like not even a question I my labber dooodle wouldn't sadly I love him so much I love him so much God damn it why couldn't you give me one more you know you can extend it to five or seven or whatever you know but like you you should do those things with with everything right it's like if I could only follow three people online who would those three people be fascinating if I could do you do this it's been a while but I used to do I I so I call this uh an attention diet which is like the same way like so it's the food analogy is actually great right because most of us eat on autopilot and our autopilots terrible because there's just so much amazing food that is delicious and uny so if you go autopilot you're inevita start worse and worse decisions and at some point you have to be conscious of the decisions you're making of what you're ingesting and make a conscious decision you like you know what no more chocolate ice cream I'm going to buy broccoli especially as you age yes exactly I know you're big into compounding which we can talk and do a bit Yeah so the same thing happens with the information we consume right like if you go on autopilot you're brain is just naturally going to take you into more obscure and strange and occasionally Dark Places and if you're not aware of it you can kind of get lost there and and almost become like intellectually obese um where you're just there's you're not Nimble you're not flexible you're not resilient um and so the way you reintroduce that resilience is you go through and you start cutting the junk out of your information diet start looking at all your accounts I used to do this once a year I haven't done it in a few years but uh I used to go on every platform and I would look at everybody I followed and uh I I have this rule [ __ ] yes or no it's actually originated with Derrik cers um he called it hell yeah or no but [ __ ] yes or no I used to go through all my platforms and I go through every single person I follow and I was like is it a [ __ ] yes if I even have to stop and think about it for a minute then it's a no and I'd stop following them and I would do that uh with all the people with all the the channels with all the authors the the writers um just get really really clear about who Am who am I letting whose viewpoints and what information am I letting into my life uh and is that is that good is it is it healthy for me is it making me a better person is it making me more intellectually curious and Nimble and one of the things I did too like this exercise let's take polit I don't want to get into politics cuz [ __ ] politics but like it it's I think it's a good example where I very intentionally when I was going through these these prunings of my of who I followed if I notice that a bunch of like left-wing people got through I would intentionally go find like a right-wing person yeah right to like counterbalance it yeah 100% And it's especially right nowe right now need that counter especially right now and it's or if I if there was somebody who you know subscribe to like one particular like health and nutrition school of thought I go find somebody from another right school of thought cuz you don't want to get caught in intellectual cold dis that's that's what I was going to ask you like in my mind as you were talking about this I was like okay I'm thinking about how I would set up for myself and I'm like okay if I'm going to follow these you know 10 podcasts per year or five or whatever it may be maybe I set it up so that I have to kick out two every year and introduce an additional new two because you don't want to be locked into just those opinions right exactly exactly um another exercise I do I do this there's a we've got a on my website we've got a thing called a life audit um that that we've offered to readers a number of times usually around January 1 but what we do is we have people write down every activity that they've done in the last week or that they do like on a weekly basis and roughly estimate like how much time they SP on that activity you can also do this like you can also track your behavior for a week or two and and figure this out but then we also have them go and rate each activity of like from 1 to 10 how much value does this add to your life and then you go and like match up how many hours you're spending and how much value it brings and like people are often completely shocked at like the thing they're spending 15 hours a week doing is like a three on the value scale and the thing that's a 10 on the value scale they're spending two hours a week doing I love that and and so then the final step is to kind of come up with some like practical like okay how can you take the the lowest thing that you're spending time on cut that out out of your life entirely and then take the top thing what can you do to double the amount of time spent doing that like what are practical steps you can take next week right to do those things um so I think you know a lot of exercises like that you you can and it's again it's it's a regular practice because life changes you change the world changes so your values are are inevitably going to change and evolve over time and so I I I almost see it as like a psychological hygiene right it's like I need to I find I'm wasting a lot of time doing a lot of stupid stuff on Tik Tok or something or I'm not like I I don't feel my social life doesn't feel super satisfying I should sit down and kind of like start mapping out do doing a bunch of these exercises to get back on track yeah I I know that I no in in recent videos you've been talking about um exercise that being a big part uh obviously meditation for you being a big part of of some of these uh external things that you're doing to take care of your body over years um how do you feel about you know alcohol consumption so I'm coming up on don't say you've been sober for like five years no no no a year and a half wow holy [ __ ] walk me through that uh how first of all what were you like before tell me if this this maps to you well I'll just say yeah tell me I'll will say getting in a car would have been a dicey proposition that's a great that's a great proxy okay so I felt fine but but your reaction time was not there a police officer might not agree with me no no slurring words no throwing up nothing like okay yeah no I hold I think that's actually and it's dumb like so this is the really dumb thing too like uh I come from a a a family of very highly functioning alcoholics uh and I always knew that I'm like family trees is full of them right but when it came to me it's like oh I'm just having fun yeah like this is no problem like I didn't I can stop for a week you know I I like I didn't drink last week I was working doing all this stuff you know it it was I don't know if I like had a problem I don't know if it was alcoholism but I look back I was a heavy drinker I was a little bit delusional or unaware of being a heavy drinker er um I kind of convinced myself that it was normal and and I I by the time I got to my 30s I was paying a a very significant physical health and honestly mental health yeah toll for it energy the next day not being the same just that the whole works yeah MH um so it actually started so I I lost a bunch of weight starting in the pandemic um so since 2020 I've lost about 55 pounds how does that work like everyone gained weight during the pandemic like how did you flip that I wasn't going out and drinking oh so you stopped in well no I still drank a little bit but you know I was living in New York so as you know New York City lifestyle you're going to restaurants every other night you're going out your happy hours networking events conferences concerts like for sure and no kids it's like you can so you're going nuts you're you're eating these big lavish meals you're having amazing Cocktails so just that even though I was at home just having a little bit of wine with the wife occasionally just that made it gave me enough uh uh Tailwind to to lose some weight and and I mean it was lockdown so like what else are you going to do but I don't know we I was fortunate our bill our building had a gym in it so you know I could go down there and get workouts in um I mean you launched the book in 16 mhm so this is like a postbook revelation for you like so at some point you're like I don't I have to make a change in my life so okay if we if you want to back up even further um I in 2018 so after the book blew up and it was like number one everywhere I started getting all these like ridiculous career offers to do amazing things uh huge book advances Amazon wanted to do this huge thing with me I made a movie couple TV deals came in Will Smith wanted me to write his book and did a big world tour in 2019 went to like 25 different cities over the course of like two months um like seven different countries I said yes the everything cuz my mentality at the time was like I'm like 30 I don't have kids this might be my 15 minutes let's just [ __ ] go like like let's just I'll live I'll survive you know I'll worry about it three years from now yeah um so I went hard really really hard 2018 2019 leading into 2020 and actually in 2019 I started having chest pains uh and I have a lot of heart disease in my family yeah same um so that started freaking me out and I went to a doctor and ran all the tests did all the the scans and everything like you've had your apob checked you've had the calcium score with contrast done like we got to get you on the program if it runs in your family no no no not at that time I have S okay good good but at that time no it was just I went to a Cardiologist and they just checked make sure nothing was happening um basically the doctor was like it was one of those like he's like you're fine uh have you been stressed lately and I was like uh well let me tell you about it and then his next question he was like how's your diet how's your alcohol consumption and I was just like oh my God I hate when they ask that I always lie a little bit yeah and I was like man and basically long story short you know he kind of looked at me he's like dude you're a ticking Time Bomb he's like you're fine you're like fine today um he's like you're a ticking Time Bomb he's like I I would get this straightened out so that was kind of what inspired I started actually started trying to lose weight a little bit before the pandemic yeah congrats on that by the way that's a lot of weight to lose that's a lot yeah uh it went from 43% body fat to 18% holy [ __ ] um yeah it's it's been a journey that's like close to seeing a single AB at some point like you're not too far off from from one popping out I'm literally a different person inside and out so uh as part of that Journey you know as with most Health Fitness Journeys like there's progress Plateau progress plateau and so around the I think probably the third Plateau um you know my my my health coach had kind of like hinted he's like you know maybe you should quit alcohol for a month or two you kind of drink a lot and I was like n fine I'm tracking my calories I'm like I'm good you know and then finally after a couple years you know get to another plateau and he's like he's like dude just take a month off drinking like at least just show me you can do it like at this point we've been working together for two years like prove to me you can actually stop drinking I was like like all right [ __ ] you sure sure yeah so I stopped drinking and yeah I lost a bunch of weight it blew my mind the the changes that took place uh just almost immediately the Sleep Quality Clarity of thought energy in the morning energy just period 24/7 yeah um and like texture of your skin like all kinds of stuff skin got better hair got better um my wife told me she was like yeah you never have bad breath anymore like even like R you know it would be like 3 days after I lost a lot I hear you talk about it in your videos so that's that's a big you know me man I just live got floss right here yeah exactly um crazy stuff just like crazy stuff um I found my my emotions were more level um so anyway I did a month I was like this is going so well I'm going to do a couple more months [ __ ] see this is where I stopped I did a month and then I'm like okay I've done a month and then I go back back in and many people when you go back in you go back in even harder yes so I I did a month and then I went to a wedding and then I drank at the wedding and I was like you know this was fun but like I don't know like I'm a little bit worried about this I'm a little bit worried about like falling back off and I still wanted to lose more weight so I was like you know what I'm going to go I think there was like three months left in the year I was like I'm going to go to the end of the year and that's when like the real effects kicked in I was going to ask you about that because it's funny uh my therap IST she was like encouraging me the same thing she's like take a month off no I said I'm going to take a month off and she's like golf clap she's like she's like okay everybody does the [ __ ] month off like she's like let me see you do three months and I'm like ah God okay I'll do it and I'm about to kick that process off there's always an event always a wedding always a something you just kind of have to go for it so I've been I've been cutting down quite a bit but I need to I need to officially cut I need to to really do the the full three months I he at month three it's like a like some [ __ ] happens was that the case for you I never went back but was was what happened so I so I set in I was going to go to the end of 22 and I got to New Year's Eve I think I had like two drinks at New Year's Eve couple shampers or something uh and I was like what am I doing the whole time I'm like this is I'm like drinking poison what am I doing like that's that's the only thought that kept going through my head it's like what are you doing what are you doing and I woke up the next day I was like I'm going to do all of 2023 over and and then I did and then I just I haven't had a drink sand so um but yes the first month's the hardest honestly the hardest part is the first wedding it's the first conference it's the first social event what are your what are your tactics there like you're just like hey I'm not drinking like this is the cuz it's it's interesting like you had um You' mentioned this somewhere it was either in the book or or somewhere else that I saw where when you change something like this that is really kind of a value in some ways uh of the drinking culture yeah you're going to lose some friends along the way it so the reverberations across your life I I underestimated so I started realized that a lot of things I used to think I like doing I don't like doing uh I just like drinking like it was an excuse to drink like what like nice restaurants like I I used to my my wife and I we used to go to fine dining like all the time fancy [ __ ] or sometimes but like or just like you know a new big restaurant opened up you know downtown like let's go check it out that used to be a really fun thing we used to do that all the time we do that now it's like our date night like find like a hot new restaurant and then you try and get in and if you can get in you go and then of course you're going to have amazing cocktails right and you're like well [ __ ] I got to try this like smoked [ __ ] whiskey thing exactly and it's like well I'm already spending $300 on dinner so I might as well just like really enjoy it and get a nice bottle of wine do this and that and and we realized like wow this is like not nearly as cool so like I mean it's still cool don't get me wrong but it's it's it's definitely not the same experience and I started realizing like we hit a point where like I just told her I'm like I think I'd rather just cook and and like hang out and watch Netflix or something you know it so you moved to the home game that's a that's a big piece huge thing can you can go to dinner now though and enjoy it or no for sure for sure but it's just not um it's not like a regular thing like it's not I wouldn't now it's like a special occasion type thing right do you buy into any of these like freaking there's like if I go to aana or Whole Foods or whatever there's now like this anti-drinking culture which is great but it's been replaced with like all of these herbal adaptogen [ __ ] like Eline and like all these like things that are just like you know supposed to like have the the sensation of drinking without actually consuming alcohol do you do any of that stuff or like weed gummies or any you have any other vices my my vice is my my vice is caffeine is energy I think you almost the ketamine I was like oh Jesus yeah give up alcohol in the ketamine um no I'm not a big fan of the the alcohol replacement first of all they're they're like they generally loaded with sugar yes 100% that's just going straight to your guy yeah it's it's really unhealthy uh I yeah just water you know it's cool yeah yeah it's it's it's it one way I describe I described this to a friend recently I was like the drinking life is uh volatile unpleasant but very exciting sober lifestyle is stable pleasant but boring and you have to be willing to make those tradeoffs right like you're going to get cuz that was I remember when I drank and I I had friends who would stop drinking or stop going out I was like man there's so boring yeah like what do they do all weekend that's so [ __ ] boring and yeah it is boring but you're happy yeah and you feel good yeah no it's so true it's like you wake up that next morning it's so funny cuz you for me it's like this thing where it's like can I get to 7:30 yeah if I can get to 7:30 then I'm good and then I'm like okay I'm I'm wrapping up I got pass it blah blah blah and then if you have't any drinks and then you go to bed and you wake up the next morning it's like the clouds part and you're just like like it's it's amazing and then I got this freaking Cal plunge yeah and so now I do a single cup of coffee I do the cold plunge and I swear to you that's better than that's better than two martinis like it's amazing 6 a.m. on a Saturday in a cold PL [ __ ] [ __ ] are you hitting the cold plunge [ __ ] yeah dude that's yeah that's the new martinis on Friday night for sure but it's so the funny thing about the social thing like that was the hardest thing for me it's like going to a wedding not drinking going to a birthday party not drinking first of all everybody around you is drinking usually second of all it's for me like I I had a lot of social anxiety well I should say I do have a lot of social anxiety I I I I I used to say I had social anxiety when I was young I think I just buried it in alcohol but uh um I do have I I do tend to have social anxiety in like large groups yeah same and it made me realize first of all that alcohol was medicating that 100% makes it so much easier the second thing I realized was and it took me a few times to realize this because I would go to a social event I wouldn't drink I'd be bored and I'd want to leave after an hour and I felt really guilty I was like man I'm like ruining this for myself for my friends like this is this sucks but after a few times I realized I'm like wait a second if you don't enjoy hanging out with them sober they're not your friends like you shouldn't go to that party because you don't actually enjoy them right right and that was a really tough pill to swallow yeah really tough yeah and so did you swap out I mean you you some friends kind of fell by the wayside and there there'll still be I've had a couple things like this where I'm still really friends with them we're just not tight like we used to be you know that's kind it goes it's different it's different yeah um happy belated 40th birthday thank you just a couple weeks ago yeah yeah um I know that uh not because I stalk you but because um I watched a video that you put out sure that had uh it has a [ __ ] ton of traction yeah it's like uh what is it 40 things I wish I knew 40 things I know at 40 that I wish I knew at right and so I pulled out just a handful of my favorites and I was wondering if we could just jam through them real quick and cover them as a way to kind of like wrap up cuz you have some nuggets in here yeah that that are really good um first of all the whole video was cut insanely well do you have like a whole video production team you work with like that's awesome I'm going hard on YouTube right now good that I'm glad to see it yeah um all right so I really like number three which is uh the only failure is not trying the only rejection is not asking the only mistake is not asking for anything success and failure are fuzzy Concepts that only exist in your mind before you do something yeah wow yeah that's a good one I it took me a long time to figure that out and I'm I'm sure you can probably relate like when you think back to your first companies like you have this very well defined idea of success and you're it creates all this anxiety and expectation of like oh what if I don't hit it what if I don't hit it but once you do enough things you realize a you never hit it yeah and B that definition was wrong in the first place you actually had no idea what success was right and in many cases the the thing that you were scared of the scary rejection or the product launch failing or the the media piece that's making fun of you in many cases that ends up being the best thing that happens to you because it leads to some other great thing or helps you understand or change some Behavior or decision um so I just realized at some point that our conceptions of of success and failure are there may be a little bit useful in the short term like when you're kind of deciding what to do but you don't actually it kind of comes back to like your brain's playing a game and you just need to know that your brain's playing a game it's true with success and failure your brain's going to Define success and failure for you but they're not real and anything you do no matter how successful it is there's going to be failure mixed in and no matter how disastrous a failure is there's going to be little nuggets of success that's brought out of it as well the number one thing I've had uh wouldbe entrepreneurs approach me after you know you give a talk and you have people come up and want to ask you questions and whatnot and it's always looking for validation of their idea yeah where it's like hey I got this thing what do you think you know like like tell me this is going to be good you know and I'm like one I don't have enough context here like we just met 30 seconds ago but two if your gut is telling you this is the thing right like you got to go turn over a few more stones and like actually give it a shot yeah and I feel like that is one of the things um you know if you can realize that like as you said here success and failure are a fuzzy concept that only exist in your mind before you do something it's like if you can kind of just set that aside for a minute go try the thing and say [ __ ] it worst case I learn something new that's all failure is yeah and I parlay that into my next thing and it becomes better right that's so okayy yeah that that's so okay it's it's yeah the classic amateur mistake is is thinking it's the idea that matters and it's like no it's the fact you got off your ass and started doing something that's actually what matters the idea is just the vehicle that gets you to do that yeah and that you just when you when you have the idea it's not the the motivation do it is not the outcome yeah but it's the idea because if it's the outcome inevitably things will get hard yes and and you the idea will seem less sexy and you'll just like Drop it right but if it's truly the mission and the idea you'll iterate like hell because it must exist in your mind like this has to work right right and so you'll spend more time working through the hard times I feel than than if the outcome is the Aston Martin you know what I mean totally totally um number six you said the most Val things in life compound over a long period of time health wealth knowledge confidence relationships so true yes again confidence for me was a big one where it took many years for me to build that up yeah it's also it's one of those classic things that I think you only really understand by getting older like you need to live a certain amount of time uh to actually experience it and and understand that that like a true deep level of confidence very much in the same way true like deep wealth is like is built through a long series of ups and downs you know short-term volatility that is like moving up and to the right right gradually over year over year over year for 20 and if you pull out far enough you see that it's actually a smooth line but it feels very much like short-term volatility it is in the moment yes and I I think I think that that analogizes very well to relationships um and I think very much the same way the the worst thing you can do for your your wealth is uh you know sell on a bare Market you know it's probably the worst thing you do you can do is divorce and like the middle of your biggest fight um because you should just expect over a long period of time with a certain person uh that there's going to be ups and downs there's going to be boom times and bus times there's going to be really hard slogs and sometimes it's going to last for a couple months sometimes it's going to last for years but you know you don't want to interrupt that compounding unnecessarily uh if you can the the um the relationship piece I I found that was really interesting because you talked about how you're not just marrying like someone you love but you're marrying a financial partner a like what did you like how many different things it was like six different things it was like yeah you're not just picking a a romantic partner you're picking like a a therapist a teacher a counselor a a career advisor a uh investor a business partner a co-parent a roommate a best friend a travel buddy there was like a bunch of them and it was so funny when I posted that I got a bunch of blowback from that because people were like they're like this is unrealistic I shouldn't have to expect my partner to be all these things I'm like you're clear Lally not married because anybody who's married is just like sitting there nodding their heads a well they are those things whether you like it or not exactly it's like it's not you can be like hey this isn't my investing partner it's like or my like so yeah exactly and it's okay for one party to say hey I got this or I I want to take a bigger role here an outside role here in this particular responsibility I I actually think I mean that's one of the best pieces of relationship at device is realizing that it you'd be crazy to make everything 50/50 like you people are different some my wife is better at a lot of things than I am like I shouldn't be doing those things right so uh I think it's I think the best couples are very realistic about that yeah very true that is um this this idea of everything must be 5050 I think is is just setting us up for failure because we all have our strengths and weaknesses and why not just identify those and and celebrate them yeah you know if like my wife is like really good at a [ __ ] ton of stuff and she's definitely a lot smarter she's PhD in Neuroscience so like when she tells me something some research that she's read about you know certain ways to um raise our kids like I need to be paying more attention to that because she's the researcher it doesn't mean that I can't disagree with it or have a different perspective on it because I think honestly that that kind of like back and forth and and healthy um you know if you can get to a point of a healthy back and forth in a debate that doesn't drain you which is hard for me sometimes uh it it leads to a better outcome than any one person just making a decision totally totally um this one's really good number nine uh taking respons take uh taking responsibility for your problem so like you should take responsibility it alleviates more suffering than it creates yes I think people who avoid responsibility avoid it because because they're afraid of the added suffering right like if they have to admit that they are responsible for their problems or what's hurting them or that it's on them to take action to fix things that it's very intimidating and it's very scary yes before the fact it's it's kind of like it's kind of like cold punch it's kind of like jumping into a cold pool like when you're standing on the outside like all you can think about is like how much this is going to suck but as soon as you get in it it still sucks for a few seconds yeah yeah it still sucks for a little bit but but as soon as you get in a you're like wow this is not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to and B if you stay in there long enough you're like this is amazing I feel so much better yeah and I think it's I mean a lot of my profession is just trying to get people off the ledge of the pool into the pool right like convincing them to jump in where do you think people aren't taking like when you if you take a look at just the population in general and you say you know they're not taking enough responsibility they put blame on other people where do you think that manifests most it's a good question I mean I see it a lot in relationships um generally people who I generally find that the the the more unhealthy a person's relationships or the more failed relationship the less responsibili being taken by either person cuz they say well this person wasn't ask this and like and that happens enough times you have to be like maybe there's something with me a little bit exactly generally when you see really happy couples it's two people who are very good at taking responsibility for the [ __ ] they contribute to whatever issue or problem is going on um I think you see it a lot I I've never worked in the corporate world but from what I've heard you see it a lot in the Cor corate world you know it's like well my boss is just a dumbass and doesn't know what he's doing and you know it's his fault that our team is H missing their numbers right you had this great example in your book where you talked about someone that thought they deserved a race yeah you know and they were like hey well I should I should you know I'm a great employee I've done X Y and Z but in reality they were just blaming their boss for not giving them raise or whatever and like they didn't ever ask for it either yeah because they were afraid and they're so they're not actually Tak responsibility for that outcome they're just complaining about what's what's not happening right because if they took responsibility for it a they'd have to ask that's scary and B they might hear no you're actually not worth that much right which is terrifying right right so but at the same time how will you ever improve unless you get that feedback exactly and so again it's like the pool right so it's like you go ask the boss for the raise the boss is like no I don't think you deserve it and here are the three reasons why you need to get better at a B and C you'll be upset for a day or two but by day three you're like oh my God now I know what I need to do now I know how to move up right and it's going to feel you're going to be better off for it yeah makes sense um couple more real quick um you give power to who you blame that's uh kind of more along the same lines yep um but what do you mean by give power to when you blame somebody for something you are giving them credit for whatever it is and in in a in an obvious situ you know like let's say I walk out of here and I get hit by a car right it's like I can blame the driver of the car we'll give him credit for hitting me right that that's an obvious situation we like okay yeah I had nothing to do with that I think when you get there's like fuzzy abstract situations um where you say like you know I'm shy because my mom never encourag me to go out and make friends well now you're giving your mom power over your entire social life anything that goes wrong or anything that's not satisfactory well it's it's Mom's problem right so what can I do about it right well I mean it could have been shitty but but that doesn't mean you can't go and Now's the Time to make the change like why dwell in the past and it's it's the crazy thing is it doesn't even you could even be right right mom could have sucked it doesn't matter right right it's it's and I I in the book I talk about theault I call theault responsibility fallacy it could be mom's fault that you're socially anxious but it's not her responsibility you still got to go meet people you still got to like develop social skills right it's not my fault I get hit by a car but it's sure as [ __ ] my responsibility to recover right and get better right so people merge those two concepts in their head uh as like easy out yeah as an easy way to avoid dealing with hard things yeah I don't want to take up too much of your time but two things I want to touch on one I want to talk about your most recent book which we haven't gotten into and then also um I think number 40 in your list here yeah was probably my favorite and it felt very like heartfelt and real because you know one of what it is is you said it's never too late to change and you had this amazing story about this grandmother yes can you share that with us I have a an old Italian friend named wter if he's listening shout out to Walter uh he he actually told me the story like eight or 10 years ago so he had a grandmother his grandfather passed away grandmother was 62 and her lifelong dream was to play the piano so she started playing piano she started taking piano lessons at 62 at 62 and at first he said everybody in the family was like oh well that's cute you know she's she's sad like let's let her and he said that she would play and practice all day it's like all day every day not leaving the house just plinking away at her piano a couple months ago by the family starts to worry about her they're like you know Nana what are you doing like you're 62 come on like it's time to get out of the house I know you're sad you know and she's like no I I need to practice piano she's like still playing like eight hours a day that's a lot of stamina at that age [ __ ] and he said she wasn't drinking no yeah exactly no no atla for her uh so she did this for months went on started going on for years like people he said the family was really worried about her like man she's she's not grieving she's depressed like is she okay what's she doing anyway Jump Ahead 30 years when she was 92 she went into a retirement home and they had a piano in the retirement home and by that time she had been playing for 30 years holy [ __ ] every single day which is longer than most professional pianist have been alive she went into this retirement home and was playing Bach and rook manov and chopan and Mozart which is insane given how your finger dexterity much must be at 90 yeah like to have that skill even at 90 up and he said that everybody who met her was like oh you must have been a professional musician and she was like no I started in my 60s and nobody believed her they're like H that's funny yeah and she's like no really I started in my' 60s and so I I love that story just because it's we lose track I I don't know we we're so like youth focused in our culture and and it it is true that I think the rate of change slows as you get older but the change never stops and it's never too late and it's and I think we lose sight of how much time is actually left you know like I just hit 40 I imagine you're in my mid 40s late 40s we're like probably given our like demographics and everything we're probably just below half through our life yeah which is crazy to think about we're not even halfway through our adult lives we're maybe halfway through our professional lives yeah that's insane to think about because it's you know in society would tell us oh you're in your 40s like you're you're over the hill like that's literally what the term means you're over the Apex of your career if not you're kind of [ __ ] now it's downhill from there right so um so yeah I I just I get emails one of the most common emails I get from readers is people saying you know I just read this article I'm 55 my wife just just left me is it too late I'm like what are you talking about yeah like what are you talking about no of course not it's it's better late than never right 100% like it's there's nothing immutable uh that happens past a certain age yeah I love that great way to end um but I do want to mention you have uh another book out I mean obviously uh the subtle art is is is is like a a classic now but how many languages has it been translated into 70 something holy [ __ ] insane congratulations man it was uh it's in Zulu usbeck greenlandic greenlandic I didn't even know there was greenlandic um yeah no we've gotten languages that have come in that I'm like I didn't know that existed I didn't mean to offend anyone from Greenland but like I I didn't know there was GRE I didn't either I didn't that sounds cool yeah yeah um well what's the new book about uh which one the the most recent one you have another one out oh the follow-up yeah the followup what's oh everything is [ __ ] yeah uh everything is [ __ ] book about hope it is uh basically looks at how kind of what we were talking about how like everything if you look at every objective metric of society in the world it's better than ever by most measurements yet Mental Health Data is worse than ever by most measurements and so there's this this unbelievable pervasive irrational P pessimism that's going on uh and so it's it's kind of a Philosophical Investigation into that very cool that's one I haven't gone through yet but that's next to my reading list yeah check it out man it's um and uh yeah stare into the void for a little while yeah this has been so much fun yeah man thank you for coming on and where can people find you I mean your YouTube channel is insanely good thanks man can we point people there is that the main place also your your blog as well obviously yeah markmanson.net is the blog YouTube channel going hard on that uh launched podcast about four months ago oh nice what's it called subtle art not giving a [ __ ] podcast pretty straightforward and yeah and then I'm on every social platform so that's awesome I I got to um I got to go check that out and uh we're neighbors now so hang more often yeah man be great all right

Channel: Kevin Rose

Views: 8,052

Keywords: Kevin rose, kevin rose show, kevin rose interview, kevin rose podcast, kevin rose mark manson, mark manson, mark manson podcast, mark manson interview, mark manson books, mark manson subtle art, subtle art of not giving a f, self improvement, personal growth, self development, mental health, mindfulness, social media, harsh truths, sobriety, zen buddhism, creator economy

Id: ObyNc05EZv0

Length: 95min 2sec (5702 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 01 2024