Is Technology Ruining Our Minds? (ft. Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD)

Do I exist if I’m not on social media? Can I fake it till I make it? What’s the secret to a good life? In this week’s episode, I enlist my old friend and host of the wildly popular The Psychology Podcast, Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD. to dissect our psyche in the social media age. Reflecting on his personal experience and drawing on a wealth of psychological research, Scott asks—and answers—questions that might reveal aspects of yourself you never knew were there, and set you on the path to a better life. We’re going to dive deep and get existential. We’re going to talk neurodiversity, vulnerability, and Batman. What more can you ask for? Exactly. Go get it. CHAPTERS Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction: From Special Ed to the Top 0.05% 00:02:22 Breaking Out: The Teacher Who Changed Everything 00:05:36 The Problem With Standardized Testing and IQ 00:07:54 Neurodivergence: When a Term Loses Its Meaning 00:10:12 The Identity Crisis Generation 00:13:43 Confident Vulnerability vs. Lowercase vulnerability 00:18:57 Social Media and the Anxious Generation 00:20:56 Do You Exist Without a Social Media Presence? 00:24:10 The Legibility Problem: When Status Games Go Public 00:27:16 Scott's Twitter Break and Living Without the Algorithm 00:28:46 Mastery Goals vs. Performance Goals 00:31:58 When Psychological Concepts Get Watered Down 00:34:37 Healthy Authenticity: Four Components That Matter 00:36:13 Fake It Till You Make It: Does It Actually Work? 00:39:18 Behavioral Activation: Act First, Think Later 00:44:28 Just Get in the Arena 00:46:56 The Victimhood Mentality Across All Groups 00:50:28 The Self-Help Industry's Dirty Secret 00:51:49 Fuck, Marry, Kill: Psychology Edition 00:55:25 The Truth About Therapy Effectiveness ⇨ Sign up for my newsletter, Your Next Breakthrough. It will help make you a less awful person: ⁠⁠⁠⁨ ⇨ Get clarity on what actually matters. Try Purpose, Mark's AI mentor app that learns your patterns, challenges your blind spots, and helps you take action. Get started at ⁠⁠⁠⁨ FOLLOW MARK Mark's IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/markmanson⁠ Solved IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/solvedpodcast/⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://x.com/markmanson⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmanson/⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@IAmMarkManson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Mark Manson?

  20 million books sold, zero [bleep] given. It's the subtle art of not giving a [bleep] podcast with your host, Mark Manson. Scott, it's great to have you here.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Mark, it is so good to chat with you again.

• 0:17Mark Manson?

  One of the first guests on the new podcast, an old friend of mine. It's an honor to have you here.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  You know, I really don't like to make a big deal out of it, but technically my ranking put me at .05%.

• 0:37Mark Manson?

  Who's counting?

• 0:37Speaker 01

  I didn't want to be like douchey about it.

• 0:39Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  I just said, I did technically make the within the top 2%.

• 0:42Mark Manson?

  Okay, so we'll edit that top .5%.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  .05.

• 0:47Mark Manson?

  Oh, oh, oh, 5%, okay, 0.5%. What's interesting about that, though, and you mentioned this on Twitter, you were put in a special education class.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 0:55Mark Manson?

  And I've actually never talked to you about this, about your childhood, and I'm curious to open up with that and talk about it.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  Thank you. I mean, it is linked to this ranking thing because it didn't, it really didn't feel real at all, you know? And it's like, I wonder like, what point in my life am I going to feel like, you know, I didn't like fake it in some way?

• 1:14Mark Manson?

  We're all wondering that.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  About me? Way to make me feel better about myself. You're like, we've all been worrying about you, Scott. No, that's good. It makes me feel better when I hear that because like I had friends who were like, oh, we believe it. It was like, I wish I didn't need to hear that.

• 1:29Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, for the first couple of years of my life, I had a warning, just I had basically a lot of fluid in my ears. And it made it very hard for me to hear anything. I was effectively deaf for the first three years of my life. I was screaming, you know, crying a lot, walked from crying. It's funny. It's not funny.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  I couldn't express what I wanted to express and that was super frustrating. And teachers thought I was stupid and also they said I was immature. They had me repeat third grade and I was bullied a lot and kept in this kind of remedial classroom until ninth grade.

• 2:04Mark Manson?

  And what changed?

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Well, this teacher who had never seen me before, she was covering for the regular teacher, it was the start of high school. So by the way, it was like a fresh start. I love fresh starts, you know? I love when people like view you a new, you know, with fresh eyes.

• 2:17Mark Manson?

  Especially when you're not the cool kid.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19Mark Manson?

  The fresh start is.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 2:20Mark Manson?

  A godsend. That's so true.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  This special ed teacher took me aside. I was taking this untimed test. They take you out of the regular classroom and they put you in the special room. And I remember how frustrated I was and I think I made a stark comment like, I have the rest of my life to finish this untimed test. So what's the point? You know, what's the rush? She took me aside after class. Everyone was leaving and she, um, so she went to talk to you for a second and she, she like kind of tilted her head and she's like, I think I see you. And I was like, oh. Well, I see if my zipper was down. She's like, why are you here? You know, I see your frustration. Um, and I went in my head and I was like, why am I here? And then I, I, I replayed the, the, the question in my head and then it really got to like, yeah, why am I here?

• 3:03Speaker 01

  It's crazy how there are moments in our life where we are just kind of waiting for someone to ask us the right question and then it can just activate everything, you know? And I, this like surge of inspiration, you know, went and surged through me and I, I ran to the payphone, called my mom and I was like, I'm not reporting back to special ed tomorrow. She's screaming, freaking out. She's like, what are they doing to you over there? You know, what happened? But I became the first one in my school's history for the kid himself to break out of special ed. Yeah. I mean, I was the first one for it to dawn on me that I, wait, I can take myself out? I mean, it was nice to be prompted and to be asked, why am I still here?

• 3:41Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  But I said to her, you know what? What? You're right. Like, I want to see what I'm capable of.

• 3:46Mark Manson?

  Wow.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:47Mark Manson?

  And then did you excel in, in high school after that?

• 3:50Speaker 01

  I did. Um, I won't say I excelled at everything, but what I did is I really, um, became, fell in love with learning. And with just, I almost, it almost became like a challenge, a fun challenge for myself to see, well, what can I handle? Because I went through so many years where I didn't think I could handle anything. I mean, I was in all remedial classes. It was so boring. And so I was so curious, like, what could I handle? So I signed up for like some things I did well, like Latin, Latin scholar.

• 4:13Mark Manson?

  Wow.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was in front of my senior year of high school. Um, I, um, I signed up for a West Side Story, the musical, and that I did not do so well. I dropped out. I said I can't handle the dancing. It's just I couldn't handle it. Um, the orchestra. Um, so my grandpa, I asked my grandfather if he would teach me how to play cello because he was a cellist in the Philadelphia Orchestra and he was retired at that time. Um, and he was delighted to teach me how to play and I learned over a summer how to play, how to play cello well enough to join the orchestra, at least play the downbeat of every measure in the beginning. But I quickly, the crutches came off quickly and I've realized I had a knack for music. Um, must've been in the jeans, uh, somewhere with my grandfather. And I also joined the choir.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Um, joining the choir was actually a, a fluke. I was hanging out with my friends in the choir room after class one day and I was making fun of them. And I was like, you guys sound like this.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  And, and the choir teacher heard me and she said, but do you like to join our choir? You, I think you are really talented.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  And then I.

• 5:18Mark Manson?

  The rest is history.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Ended up becoming a professional opera singer for a short period of my life.

• 5:23Mark Manson?

  Wow, man. So, given your history, what, what's your take on standardized testing? That's been in the news a lot again lately. Uh, it's kind of a controversial topic within educational circles. What's your take?

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Quick question. Um, standardized testing, like, um, we're talking about academic standardized testing in K through 12 is actually very highly correlated with IQ tests. In a lot of ways, they're really thinly disguised IQ tests. So if you don't have the kind of mind that ACES, um, abstract reasoning and working memory, which a lot of people on the neurodivergent spectrum do have trouble with the working memory. That's kind of their defining thing is they have trouble with organization. They have trouble, um, keeping lots of things that are mind at once. You know, they, then you'll have trouble on standardized tests. Um, uh, not deterministically, but there's a probability that you'll, you'll trouble in standardized tests. So I think that we need to first of all, call spade a spade. In some circles, it's even controversial to say that they're thinly

• 6:20Speaker 01

  disguised. You know, the SAT is a thinly disguised IQ test. It is. I have research data proving. They don't prove anything in fact, but showing that it's

• 6:29Mark Manson?

  Sure.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Highly probable. The, you know, the SAT, the board, they don't want to say that. You know, they don't, they, they want to think that if, if rich people put in enough money, then, you know, for tutoring, then they can improve their scores. But no, it's a thinly, yeah, IQ test.

• 6:43Mark Manson?

  Well, which is part of the controversy, right? Because if you do have a very highly intelligent child from a poor socioeconomic background, that test can actually be the thing that kind of pulls them out of that or, or maybe sorts for them.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Excellent point. Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that, that doing well on standardized tests can actually be a golden ticket for people who are living in poverty and can't demonstrate their intelligence in any other way. By the way, I'm not one of these people who is anti IQ. This is how I phrased in the past. I'm not anti IQ, but I'm anti comparing everyone on a single step standardized metric. And that's different because there are people who are generally a high IQ minds and they are not winning either. And no one's winning in the education system. Intellectually gifted kids from an IQ perspective are not winning. You know, you put them all in one room and say, go be gifted together, you know, bye. And then the teacher's go drink coffee.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  How's that winning for them either?

• 7:40Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  So does that make sense? There's a certain level of nuance there I like to bring to the table.

• 7:44Mark Manson?

  Well, you brought up this term of neurodivergence and you were actually the first person I ever heard this term from.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Really?

• 7:50Mark Manson?

  Like maybe five or six years ago. And I love that it's starting to catch on and, and I'm starting to see it in a lot of different places, but talk about what is neurodivergence? How does it differ maybe from other definitions of, you know, the previous categories that were, are common in parts of psychology? And why is it important?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was just on a panel in New York on what is neurodiversity? And I think no one could agree really, could agree on a definition.

• 8:15Mark Manson?

  Classic psychology.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's become one of those things where when a term becomes so, uh, it's starting to mean anything, it's like a rubber band, it's going to snap and not mean anything. And I, I fear that's what's starting to happen with neurodiversity. It started off pertaining mostly or really just exclusively to the autistic community. And I'm happy. That it expanded to things like dyslexia and other learning disabilities, ways of learning in a school system. It has expanded even further and I'm I'm still okay with that to certain forms of mental illness. You know, I think bipolar, you know, it really does give you a different way of experiencing a world that puts you kind of in an extreme.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Modality, but right now where we're at with it is I I feel like it's it's if it hasn't snapped, it's very, very.

• 9:03Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  To snapping that rubber band because if you go on TikTok, everyone, every kid on there on TikTok has is neurodivergent now. The neurodivergent and trauma, you know, the two biggest, they both and they now, you know, you can't even say one without the other, you know. There's like a almost become like a now it's like super cool. Whereas back in my day, I was bullied every day for it.

• 9:24Mark Manson?

  Right, there's status attached to it.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  I wish I grew up in two thousand twenty three because I just want to say in my day in the eighties. Yes, that's how old I am. I wish I could have gone on TikTok and get like and for my peers to be like, oh, that's so cool. You're neurodivergent, you're weird, you're corgi, you're slow. That's so cool. Be part of our group. But instead I was, you know, just bullied every day.

• 9:49Mark Manson?

  Why do you think that that status has been associated with things like trauma, neurodivergence, gender identity, things like that?

• 9:57Speaker 01

  I think that these kids are having identity crisis. I think that we're living in an age of identity crisis. And there's just so much unknown, you know, whenever you're in environments where there's so much insecurity around you. Talk about, you know, pandemic, talk about uncertainty, people tend to cling more to belonging. And finding somewhere where they belong and and teenagers throughout the course of human history.

• 10:22Mark Manson?

  Sure.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Uh, it's no big shocker that teenagers are the prime identity crisis age.

• 10:28Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Right? So you just compound that with such great uncertainty and such a craving for belonging into some group. Personally, I think we need to help children and adult, all of us, learn how to belong more to ourselves. To our unique selves and lead from that sense of confidence and self-esteem. But I don't think that's what's happening. People are so desperate to seek belonging to a group. And they've forgotten to belong to themselves.

• 10:59Mark Manson?

  Sometimes I feel like teenagers unconsciously, they find the thing that is gonna upset the older generations the most, instinctively latch on to that. And if you look back through the generations, you see that happening repeatedly. You know, like in the sixties, it was free love. And then in our generation, it was sex, drugs, rock and roll. And then, you know, with this generation, it's social media and identifying with all these different ways of life and everything. But it's interesting because it's almost like now that I am one of the older generations, I think if I saw kids doing what I was doing when I was 16, I'd be like, ah, he's 16, of course he's doing that. He'll be fine, you know? It's like they need to find that new limit to test.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:43Mark Manson?

  And uh,

• 11:44Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 11:45Mark Manson?

  Get everybody, all the old people freaking out. I agree with you that adolescence period is is just an extended identity crisis. It's the first time in your life that you are discovering who you're gonna be in the world and who you wanna be and who you're gonna associate with. I also feel like that, you know, just on a more macro scale, there's kind of this like cohort, identity seeking process of like, who are we as a generation?

• 12:09Speaker 01

  I wish the kids didn't feel so much pressure to lock in their identity.

• 12:13Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  I wish we had cultures that really valued exploration. You know, think how many years it take for me to feel like I know who I am? Answer, I still haven't figured it out.

• 12:25Mark Manson?

  Yeah. You never totally know.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  I'm still like, I mean, I'm much clearer than I was when I was 17, but I'm still not quite there, you know, cuz I have like, there's so many sides of me, you know? And what I've learned to embrace isn't just that fact, there's so many sides of me.

• 12:39Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  But I don't feel like we encourage kids to embrace that fact of being human, being a whole person. Instead, I feel like they're putting so much pressure on themselves. And I think we put pressure on them too, to like, figure it out so you can write it in your college essay and get into Harvard. Interestingly enough, I think we're actually rewarding the kids the most who like are the most fragile. So that's an interesting one, you know?

• 13:01Mark Manson?

  How so?

• 13:02Speaker 01

  You sort of, you get so many points in college essays now for the more vulnerable you are, you know? You have all these vulnerable identities, you're as fragile as possible. You know, please take pity on me in 500 ways, therefore I shouldn't get into college. Whereas in my day, I feel like we had to like write in our essays how strong we were.

• 13:20Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  But I think that setting off like a, a, a process where we allow kids to show um over a longer period of time. Um, as they're trying to pursue their self-actualization, you know? Being vulnerable is great, being vulnerable is wonderful, but then also what do you do with that vulnerability? I, I have a phrase like according called confident vulnerability.

• 13:42Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  You know, where you can be vulnerable, but you can also have self-belief. As you're being vulnerable and also I'd like to distinguish between lower case of V and uppercase V. So lowercase V is vulnerability just for the sake of vulnerability, uh for getting attention, uh for getting uh something else. Capital V vulnerability is like being vulnerable in the service of realizing a future goal you have and dream, growth in the service of growth. Versus in the service of dare I say narcissism.

• 14:10Mark Manson?

  Sure, sure.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  You know, I think there's a difference between lowercase V and uppercase V and I think we should reward uppercase V more.

• 14:17Mark Manson?

  I wrote my dating book models 12 years ago.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  Which was about statistical models, right?

• 14:25Mark Manson?

  Yes, those models.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Did I read the right book?

• 14:28Mark Manson?

  The right book, yeah. But that book talked a lot about vulnerability and it was specifically directed at men. And I remember at the time, you know, vulnerability was much, wasn't as common, it was much more taboo back then, especially among a male audience. And I went through great pains in that book to point out that this is not wallowing on the floor in a fetal position saying, oh, poor me. Look at all the horrible things that have happened to me. It's actually, it's the opposite. It's being comfortable and sharing and expressing like not being owned by the pains or struggles that you've gone through and.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Your book is about confident vulnerability in so many ways.

• 15:05Mark Manson?

  It really is.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  Developing a confidence in your vulnerability.

• 15:08Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Because you know, when you uh with someone, a guy is shy, approaches a woman and is vor, it's a very vulnerable thing, right? To say like, you know, hey, like.

• 15:19Mark Manson?

  I like you. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  And then if you're rejected, the question is what, what happens? What do you do with that? I, I have um taken actually consent courses. I know it sounds really, not courses, I, I've been part of like, like there's cuddle party. Maybe this is too much information, but I've been to these parties where you

• 15:35Mark Manson?

  It is LA, so.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  They do a whole practice where you approach someone, you say, hey, would you like a hug? And if they say, no, I'm good, then you say, thanks for taking care of yourself. And anyway, smile and walk away. And you just practice, I don't think young people really practice that, you know? And really being able to, to still stay confident in who you are.

• 15:57Mark Manson?

  Well, I will say there's definitely much more awareness around it than when we were young.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  That's true. Actually, that's true. Yeah. I loved your book, by the way, I was joking about such a.

• 16:06Mark Manson?

  No, I know.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  And, and your book resonated with, with my soul a lot more than maybe some other how to pick up chicks.

• 16:15Mark Manson?

  Yeah, for sure. You know, it's funny, when I wrote that, I think Brene Brown had just come out like that year. And it's funny because the whole vulnerability thing, I was not aware of her when I wrote models. And then I became aware of her stuff around the same time that, that models came out. And I remember at the time, I was ironically being very vulnerable, like taking a big chance in my industry by saying like, hey, the, the path here is not to be more bullheaded and more aggressive and less sensitive. The path here is to actually be more aware of your emotions and your flaws and your issues and become comfortable with them, develop a confident vulnerability.

• 16:55Mark Manson?

  It's been weird over the last 10 years to see vulnerability to come in, kind of dominate the culture in so many ways. I never would have predicted that it would, it would get kind of turned into this toxic status signifier that it has become. And I remember in the early days after models came out, I, guys would email me. And they would say, hey, man, I tried your whole vulnerability thing. It didn't work. I like told this chick about this horrible thing that happened when I was a kid and she still didn't hook up with me. I'm like, that's dude, that's not it. Like.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  There's so much there, right? Because what you were selling is different than what the pickup artists were selling. And I don't need, we don't need to go to a whole rabbit hole, but there's, well said, I won't paint all the pickup artists with the same brush. But I'll say, some of them really were, their, their pitch was foolproof method.

• 17:47Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  To, to getting laid in five seconds upon meeting a girl. And so they already put in guys' heads some unattainable, and also I would say psychopathic.

• 17:57Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Way of thinking about women in the world and that you should be entitled. To anything. So that's that reeks of entitlement when someone says, hey, man, I was vulnerable and she and I didn't get laid. That's like the nice guy syndrome, right? You think if you're a nice guy, you should be entitled to get laid. And that's not how it works. I can assure you, that's not how it works.

• 18:17Mark Manson?

  You're like, I've been trying for 20 years.

• 18:21Mark Manson?

  It's interesting because I feel like a lot of this stuff that I see online now feels like a permutation of that. You know, it's like, I was so vulnerable about these things that happened to me. Give me attention, give me likes, give me, you know, share my, my Instagram or whatever. The, the social media question is interesting in general. I'm curious, what is your take on the supposed link between social media and mental health crisis?

• 18:48Speaker 01

  What I've seen on that data and from talking to my colleagues about it, social media has had a very significant impact on mental health. And especially young girls, like 13 year old girls, it has really magnified kind of the pressures we already put on young girls, right? Boys aren't winning either there, right? So there's a lot of anxiety. I think that's cool. They call it that Jonathan's calling it the anxious generation because there really is a lot of anxiety to keep up with, to be as cool, to get as many likes as this person. It creates a whole comparison game.

• 19:25Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  That is already, you know, since the dawn of human teenagers has caused anxiety, that game of comparison. And it's put it.

• 19:35Mark Manson?

  Puts it on steroids.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  On steroids. Yes, yes.

• 19:38Mark Manson?

  Amplifies it.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  And I'm 44 and I feel 17 when I'm on Instagram, you know, Instagram.

• 19:45Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  I feel 17 all over again. And I'm like, oh my gosh, how did that Bobby Schmull get so many likes for that post? And I didn't get any likes for my post. And I try to curb that. I mean, I, I better self-regulation skills than I did when I was 17, where I am like, ah, don't worry about that, Scott.

• 20:00Mark Manson?

  It's hard. I, I find myself getting sucked into it sometimes as well. And it's hard in, in our situation as people with online platforms and. Online businesses because like, let's say we post something on Instagram and it bombs. It does terribly and I'll get really annoyed and I always justify that annoyance or that being upset about that by like, well, it's bad for the business. You know, this is, this is reflecting poorly on the brand and it's going to lower conversions and all this stuff. And, you know, if there's a bunch of bad posts in a row, I'll get mad at my team and, and, but then sometimes like when I'm sitting alone, quiet at night, I'm like, am I really mad about the business? Or is it just, am I like that 15 year old girl who's like, well, Suzie is getting more likes than me. Like what does she have that I don't?

• 20:45Speaker 01

  There's something really profound there. So I want to double click on that, you know? I feel as though sometimes like I ask the question, do I exist if I have no social media presence?

• 20:57Speaker 01

  It's the weirdest thing where we become to the point where like the extent to which a person exists is the extent to which they have a big presence. You know, I, there's this one guy and I'm not going to mention his name. He's like my arch nemesis and he, he has, you know, like, like he can say the dumbest things and he'll, and immediately it gets like four million likes with four million comments saying, you're a genius. What? He'll say something like, to have confidence, you must be confident. And I'll look through like hot girl, hot girl being like, you're amazing, you're amazing, you're amazing. Okay. I'm not jealous. I'm not jealous.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  I'm not jealous.

• 21:34Mark Manson?

  Are you?

• 21:36Speaker 01

  But it's a fascinating phenomenon. So I sit back and I'm like, wow, does that motherfucker, does he, does he, can I curse?

• 21:42Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  On your old podcast called Go Fuck Yourself Podcast.

• 21:46Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it's the Fuck Yourself Podcast. We'll call it the Fuck Yourself Podcast.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  I just renamed your podcast to the Go Fuck Yourself Podcast.

• 21:53Mark Manson?

  This is the special edition of the Go Fuck Yourself Podcast. What's crazy too is that, I mean, at this point, at a certain level of social media following, like half the stuff that's going out isn't even created by the person whose face is on the profile picture. You know, I, I have a team that like goes through my 300 articles and sources, different quotes and creates lists and, you know, all sorts of stuff. So at that end of the spectrum, it gets, it gets weird in that way. And then I guess, you know, on the lower end of the spectrum, if you're like a teenager and you're probably living and dying by.

• 22:33Mark Manson?

  A dozen likes, right? Like it's you post and your best friend posts something and gets 10 likes and you post it and get four and you're like, oh, he's so much cooler.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  The core part is there and I also think the existence part, I can't get away from that, that question I just keep thinking about, yeah.

• 22:50Mark Manson?

  It's the new, uh, if a tree falls in a forest, then no one hears it. Like if, if a social media profile has no followers, does that person exist?

• 22:59Speaker 01

  It's exactly right. That's exactly right. I remember the time when, like I was in grad school and there was no pressure at all to signal or showcase anything that I was doing. I was proud of whatever I was doing, like during the course of my day, if I read a journal article, I was, and I understood it. I was proud of myself and I was good. Now there's this just feeling constantly like it doesn't matter if it's not for everyone else to see.

• 23:24Mark Manson?

  So, okay, I'm glad you brought that up because doesn't this happen a little bit in academia with how often you get published? Or, uh, what's the score on?

• 23:33Speaker 01

  H-index.

• 23:34Mark Manson?

  H-index on Google Scholar.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  That's what the rating was, that's what this ranking was.

• 23:39Mark Manson?

  See, you know, maybe, maybe you're not crushing it on social, but your H-index is fucking through the roof, man.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  I have a big H-index.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  I should put that in dating resumes.

• 23:51Mark Manson?

  I don't, that's why I have a big iPad.

• 23:55Mark Manson?

  Compensate for my low H-index. But seriously, I mean, some, some of this, like humans will always play status game.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 24:02Mark Manson?

  And I think there's this tendency, and this happened when I was a kid with different things. Whatever the new technology is, that becomes the organizer of the new status game. And then people blame the technology, they don't blame fucking humans being human. My personal opinion is I'm a little bit more skeptical of the social media stuff. But I think if there is anything inherently problematic with social media, it's that it, it accelerates and amplifies the status game that's already there. It makes it way more legible, it makes it, uh, way more widespread, easier to communicate, easier to reference. Like when we were in high school, if you were kind of a dork or if your friend was cooler than you.

• 24:45Mark Manson?

  Nobody really noticed, except maybe like the 10 kids in closest proximity to you. Maybe the 10 kids that knew both of you. I think the problem now is it's if your friend's cooler than you, the whole school knows. Because the whole school sees, they have more followers.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  It's so true.

• 24:59Mark Manson?

  You know, so it's like, it's almost like ranking people, instead of ranking people by grades. It's like, social media is like a never ending high school and we're all stuck in it.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  It's exactly, that needs to be a social clip.

• 25:09Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  What you just said.

• 25:10Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's so true.

• 25:12Mark Manson?

  Clip that.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  It's so true. It's so true, but you feel cool if you're winning in that world.

• 25:19Mark Manson?

  You feel cool if you're winning at any.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  You're winning in that world, Mark.

• 25:21Mark Manson?

  Well, I mean.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  You're cool.

• 25:22Mark Manson?

  We both are. We tend to justify and sympathize with the status games that we win. And we blame the status games we lose.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  You know, Mark Leary, the social psychologist, has this idea of the sociometer. It suggests that our self-esteem rises or falls to the base to which we're perceiving that we have social value. Or he calls it relational value. But I feel like social media has created a sociometer where our self-esteem rises and falls based on how many likes we get.

• 25:48Mark Manson?

  And I think part of the, the trickiness there is that there was no legibility for that. Right? So you could easily, kind of easily convince yourself that you were much cooler than you are. You could easily convince yourself that people like you more than they actually do. Whereas with social media, where everything is being measured and the numbers are public and it's all there, completely legible for anybody to see, it becomes much harder to kid yourself. Like if you're posting things into the void and nobody's responding, including your own family and friends, it's really hard to convince yourself that you're actually a really interesting person, that.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  So sad.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  I feel really sad almost.

• 26:27Mark Manson?

  It is fucking sad.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  For people who. But, but also, you know, I think that even add more complexities to this conversation. There are some people where I, they have huge audiences, but I don't want that audience. Like, I wouldn't feel cool if I had neo Nazis, you know, like being like, oh, we like your stuff, Scott. I think who your audience is matters as well.

• 26:46Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  As just the metric, do you have a big audience?

• 26:48Mark Manson?

  A hundred percent, a hundred percent. You took a break from Twitter for about a year.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  You're giving me way too much credit.

• 26:54Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  I mean, two months.

• 26:55Mark Manson?

  Two months? It felt, it's.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  It felt like.

• 26:59Mark Manson?

  It felt like an eternity, Scott. I, my feed was so empty without you on it.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  It might have been four months. No, it wasn't a year, but it was less than six months.

• 27:11Mark Manson?

  So we'll say half a year.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, half a year, half a year.

• 27:14Mark Manson?

  The break from Twitter, how did that affect you personally?

• 27:18Speaker 01

  I was more in touch with my body. I noticed that I was more, I felt more, my actions in my everyday life felt more authentic. I felt like I didn't, I wasn't worried or thinking about, you know, if I do that or that or that, you know, like, how am I gonna be judged? Which is weird because it's not like I broadcast everything I do anyway when I am on Twitter. So it's, it's not like, but for some reason, when I'm, when I'm online, I feel like every single thing I do in my life, like, has a different layer of, it's like a Black Mirror episode that we're living in. I can't really describe it.

• 27:53Mark Manson?

  Is it, is it like the potentiality of sharing something?

• 27:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, everything has the potentiality to get likes.

• 28:01Mark Manson?

  So it's like your dinner conversation, you say something really clever, funny, and you're like, oh, that'd be a killer tweet.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  I absolutely do do that. You know, I'll be in situations where I will say, oh, that would make a good tweet. Hold on, like, I'll be in a conversation with someone, like, let me tweet that out. Yeah, there's something extra in life that it brings me that I'm not sure it's a good thing. But someday I just want to be like, Harry, when I'm taking a break from public life. So that, that would be the big one. You know, someday where I have enough certain number of books, I'm like, you know, I'm good, like, I'm good for a year or two, you know, like, I want to just say, I'm taking a break from public life and see what that's like.

• 28:35Mark Manson?

  So in one of your earlier books, you talk about mastery goals versus performance goals. And I think this relates to social media. And by the way, I selfishly really like this concept because it maps really well to one thing I've long talked about in the relationship space, which is that there's two ways to approach relationships. One is through authenticity and the other one is through performance. And approaching relationships through performance, seeing people as kind of algorithmic, if I say or do this, then they will like me, they will give me the affection I want. When you see it in a transactional way, it, That's actually what undermines the intimacy and the health of the relationship. And so when I came across the mastery versus performance goals, it struck me how similar

• 29:18Mark Manson?

  the way you were describing how people's attitudes develop towards their pursuits is very similar to that. Like when people are too performative, they become overwhelmed with anxiety, they start struggling with self judgment, they feel lots of shame. And and I was like, wow, you can have a toxic relationship with a goal.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  You know, it's such a good point. You know, a lot of people talk about the growth mindset. They're like, they go crazy over growth mindset. Some research shows that more educators have heard of growth mindset and they've heard of the name Freud.

• 29:49Mark Manson?

  Wow.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  So it's, it's big in education circles. I know it's also kind of concerning that there are teachers out there that who have never heard of the Freud.

• 29:58Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  That's also a problem. And what I like to say is, um, I'm more into growth motivation than I am into growth mindset, because you can have growth mindset up the kazoo for the things that are wrong for you.

• 30:08Mark Manson?

  Growth mindset towards alcoholism or something. It's like, wow, you know, I blacked out last night, but I think I can blackout better tonight.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Yes. But yeah, no, exactly. And, uh, I think that growth motivation is, it's the motivation that matters, you know, like, are you going toward goals that, um, are wise goals for you that fit your deepest skill set, interests, and will also be likely to improve the world in some way, you know, growth goals are what really matter. So I just, I just think just like this blanket love for growth mindset, you know, as well as grit, you know, people, the kind of person who likes growth mindset, they also like grit, you know, and, um, and I think, I'm not saying I'm anti grit. No, grit's important,

• 30:55Speaker 01

  but blind grit, blind growth mindset, you know, are, uh, not, nothing to be celebrated. Serial killers are gritty.

• 31:04Mark Manson?

  Very true. Very true.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Some of them.

• 31:06Mark Manson?

  Yeah, some of them.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  The ones that don't get caught.

• 31:09Mark Manson?

  Some serial killers are lazy. Let's be honest.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  That is what I'm saying.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  I don't mean to shame, I don't mean to shame.

• 31:19Mark Manson?

  Yeah, we don't want to shame serial killers.

• 31:23Mark Manson?

  Here's serial killer out there, Doug. Scott's not trying to shame you right now.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Oh my God, so ridiculous. I'm so ridiculous. Sorry to interrupt you.

• 31:34Mark Manson?

  What I was gonna say, I feel, so I feel like this is a story that plays out in psychology over and over, which is a brilliant researcher finds a, a concept or some measurable thing, does a bunch of research around it, gets a lot of great results, everybody gets super excited. And then when it comes to the implementation into the real world, it gets watered down, like you lose all that context. This is the thing that's, that's so frustrating about psychological concepts. Everything's interrelated, like everything matters to everything else. And so as soon as you remove, like you disembodied that shiny new concept of all the context of like,

• 32:16Mark Manson?

  well, you need to make sure that you are properly motivated and you have good values and you have a strong support network around you and, you know, all this stuff. And you just kind of put it in a vacuum. You start to see mixed results or unintended second order effects, you know? And I feel like we saw this with, with self-esteem decades ago. And I didn't follow it closely, but it seems like this has happened a little bit with the growth mindset stuff.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  It's also happened in the trauma world.

• 32:45Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, like the body keeps the score has just expanded in the public eye to everything. Like everything's trauma now, you know? I got an ad on my Instagram the other day that said like, do you procrastinate? It's a trauma response, you know? It's like, you know, okay.

• 33:02Mark Manson?

  Okay, yeah. Apparently we're all fucking survivors then.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's an easy way to blame anything and so you don't have to take responsibility for anything.

• 33:12Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  You can say, oh, that was my trauma.

• 33:14Mark Manson?

  Well, this is another interesting tendency that I think happens with these. Kind of nebulous concepts, which is, I don't know what the term is, but like the the expansion of the definition.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, everyone's an oppressor, depends what your vantage point is. I mean, that's like a profound truth.

• 33:32Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Quite controversial, but your perception matters, you know, and whether or not your your perception is from the in-group or it's from the out-group completely matters.

• 33:42Mark Manson?

  It's, uh, it reminds me of, um, the Solzhenitsyn quote about the line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  You know, like, it all is perception. It's hard to stand back and objectively kind of have the nuance where you say, well, there's not always just one oppressor. Uh, or, um, you know, you can have, you're allowed to have more than one victim at a time.

• 34:05Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  You're allowed.

• 34:07Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  And yet no one ever brings up that possibility. It's always like, there's the victim and there's the perpetrator, you know, but like things often emerge and things often interact and it gets complicated and then there's complexities there. You know, humans are messy. The whole idea that we can reduce one person to an angel, another person to the devil is, is ridiculous.

• 34:28Mark Manson?

  Yeah. It's never worked before, so there's no reason it would start now.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:33Mark Manson?

  Why is self-expression potentially healing or therapeutic?

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Um, you know, I like to distinguish in my work between, uh, like healthy authenticity and asshole worry authenticity. You know, just saying whatever's on your mind at all times. Some people have a concept in their head that's authenticity. But I think healthy authenticity, um, it involves four components. One is radical self-honesty. You're really honest with yourself about your talents, your skills, you know, your areas of strengths and weaknesses. Radical, um, self-awareness and, and not just self-awareness, but just awareness, awareness in general of the world. You know, you, you know, if you're talking to someone, you're aware of what's actually going on in front of them and in front of you and, uh, and you're also aware of what's coming up inside you, things like that.

• 35:22Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I also think that another aspect of it is integrity.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  And really staying true to your values, acting in accordance with your values and who you wanna be as well, you know? Authenticity is allowed to not always be aligned with who you are. It can also be aligned with who you would prefer to be. There's, there, there can be authenticity to a future self that you wanna become. Um, I think that's important.

• 35:48Mark Manson?

  Would that be kinda like fake it till you make it or?

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:51Mark Manson?

  Where does that come in? Does that come in?

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it's the, the whole idea of faking it is interesting. You are doing the action.

• 36:00Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  In that moment, that is who you are, you know? If I do something that goes against the grid of my normal patterns, that still was a real new action. So the idea of faking is, is an interesting one to me because, yeah.

• 36:13Mark Manson?

  Actually, so I'd like to dig into this a little bit because this is a topic in the self-help space that makes me squirm a little bit. But you do see it a lot and some people, you know, classically it was fake it till you make it. I think these days there, it's a lot more around kinda doing like hypothetical visualizations. So like asking yourself like, what would this feel like if you were a confident person? Or how would you do this presentation if you were a great speaker? And I can see the utility of that, that to me, for some reason, that feels more authentic than fake it till you make it. There's also a strand that is, is kinda into this idea of a, like an alter ego, like kinda

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 36:59Mark Manson?

  Creating like a kinda side personality that you step into, kinda like a one Batman puts on his mask and cape. It's not necessarily inauthentic. It's just a separate identity that you've kind of constructed within yourself to perform in this particular context. And then when you're out of that context, you take it off. I'm curious what you think about that.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  This is a great topic of conversation because I'm a big fan of integration. I'm not a big fan of having multiple personalities.

• 37:24Mark Manson?

  Me too.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  And there was like, you know, now this, now in this extreme thing that I usually am never, never am. And usually never is in contact with that guy. I really like the idea of an inner harmony where multiple sides or selves are working as a team. Right? I don't think that inner peace comes when you feel like you're fighting a civil war within yourself. You know, the sides like, oh, I hate that guy. And that guy's like, oh, but that guy comes out when I have my alter ego, you know, then I'll ignore the rest of myself. When that guy, just fuck you all. Yeah. Because this is the fuck you podcast.

• 38:02Mark Manson?

  Yeah, go fuck yourself.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  That guy, the alter ego is basically like, go fuck yourself, Scott.

• 38:08Mark Manson?

  That's the, this podcast alter ego is to go fuck yourself.

• 38:14Mark Manson?

  So I see why that advice is effective.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too. For people that really need confidence to.

• 38:21Mark Manson?

  And it feels like a short term tool.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  To short term.

• 38:24Mark Manson?

  Right? Like, so it's if I'm going to go on a speaking tour and I'm really anxious about it. And it's a month long and I'm going to do like 10 dates. I could see like, okay, for this tour, I'm going to have like my little alter ego. I'm going to have my pump up music. I'm going to have my outfit that I put on every day. Like, I get that, like that, that, that can help you get to the finish line. Where I started feeling uneasy is I'm like you, that like my, my instinct and based on everything that I know and understand about psychology is like, yeah, you want. Our harmony and integration are good things.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Well, I'm a big fan of the behavioral activation approach to change.

• 39:02Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Within psychology, big, big fan. My dear friend Seth Gillahan pioneered the field mindful cognitive behavioral therapy. And he has this whole approach act, think, and be. And all three are important, but interesting enough, if you know, his act was the first one.

• 39:18Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  And then think, and then be. And I love it because he does make a point, which is we can overthink things, we can get in our own. Too much and there is a great value in even though we're not waiting till we're ready for it. But to be activate the rest of the system by through actions to move in the direction of where we want to go. So I can say I am a fan of that. Fake it, you make it phrasing, the alter ego phrasing. You know, that's like, I feel like those are, that's like a different thing, you know, you can, you can be, to me, you can be aligned and integrated. And have the behavioral activation approach. The point there is don't wait until you're ready to act because you'll never act. Yeah, yeah.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  That's the, that's the important point there, but still get in touch with your being, with your align. Is this something I really want to become? Is this, you know, is this someone that I really feel aligned with? And if it is, you know, there's a great, there's, there's integration there, you know? And how often, how many young men in the clubs, you know, like, I want to talk to her, but I'm just not, you know, I'm not ready. I'm going to wait and have two more drinks and then I, and then do you, does that person ever talk to? No, she's off making out with someone else before you have your second drink. That's a story of, you know, my life.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  But my young, when I was younger. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I think a lot of people can, a lot of guys can relate to that. But the real key there is the behavioral activation rate says, don't, don't wait to that conditional. Another big, I'll, I'll generalize this more to all our listeners, not just men, but I'll be happy when. Yes. I dot, dot, dot. That's a huge one. Huge cognitive distortion. This is why I like the mindful CBT approach because that is, that falls in the category of a cognitive distortion. But being mindful about it, that wow, mindful that I have that cognitive distortion and I'm going to override that through the behavioral activation approach. I'm not going to wait till I do X, Y, and Z to be happy. I'm going to go towards this action right now that I know is going to make me happy. I mean, it's so weird, like we have a thing right in front of us.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  We can be happy if we want to, but our mind has this cognitive distortions like, oh, but I'm not ready for that. Or I need this, this, and this before I'm ready to accept that. And if someone's giving you love, you know, how many people with low self-esteem are like, oh, I can't accept that love until I've done something for them first. Or that I've done this, this, and this. Yeah. Just accept the love. Just accept it.

• 41:46Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  And do you know what I'm saying?

• 41:47Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:49Mark Manson?

  But it's why is it so hard to act before thought?

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. You're right.

• 41:54Mark Manson?

  So hard to flip that around.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Flipping the script is, is, and yet that's what really calls real transformations in one's life is if you make that flip. We get stuck in our heads. We overthink things because of our cognitive distortions. And that can go down the list. There's like 14 to 20 cognitive distortions that we all would resonate with. You know, like if I was like, black, how often, of course, your day to have black and white thinking? Do you have catastrophizing? You know, do you have, I already talked about the conditional, I'll be happy if thing. Entitlement is a cognitive bias that you, it's such a distortion, cognitive distortion, to think that you're entitled to everything.

• 42:32Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Good in the world, you know, get rid of that, you know, like.

• 42:34Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  You just go down the list. And then if you have mindful, if you practice mindful CBT, as I've really been trying to practice mindful CBT and I love Seth's new book on the topic. You just, throughout the course of day, you really are mindful about this cognitive distortion and you realize, holy shit, I have been walking around with just a nonstop replay of cognitive distortions that are holding me back from my own well being and growth, you know? And then once you're really mindful of that, you're like, wow, I can really change.

• 43:02Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:03Mark Manson?

  The best way I ever heard it expressed was in the context of meditation. A good friend of mine, who I've known forever, is a meditation teacher. And I remember I was talking to him once and I was saying like, Tom, I, I'm so, I can never stick to a meditation habit because at least one or two days a week, even if it's 10 minutes, I, it just feels overwhelming. It's like, wow, I don't have 10 minutes. I've got all this shit to do this morning. I didn't sleep well last night. I gotta go to do this thing. I gotta do a podcast, you know?

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. The irony there is that the second you shift into a mindful state of being, that whole way of thinking disappears immediately.

• 43:41Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  The more when you act.

• 43:42Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  To be, and you spend five minutes in a mindfulness meditation, that all of that disappears.

• 43:47Mark Manson?

  But that doesn't matter, Scott, because it's.

• 43:52Mark Manson?

  Like I've known that for fucking 20 years and I still do it. But I remember I was talking to him once about it and he was like, well, why do you need to do 10 minutes? And I was like, well, I I picked 10 because that just seems, and he's like, why not just do one?

• 44:05Speaker 01

  It's so true.

• 44:05Mark Manson?

  And he he said he was like, lower the bar until it gets you to go sit on the pillow. And then once you're on the pillow, be like, I'm gonna go do 30 seconds. You could always do 30 seconds. And then once you've done the 30 seconds, be like, okay, I'm gonna do three minutes.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  So true.

• 44:21Mark Manson?

  And then and then once you do the three minutes, they'll be like, you know what? I'll stay for 10.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  I'm getting chills because this is a topic that is just gets me emotional. You know, there's, um, I've been obsessed lately with the in the getting in the arena idea. It's a Roosevelt thing, but I'm obsessed with this because

• 44:36Mark Manson?

  Great quote.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  It's really kind of changed my life. I start to think of my every time I want to do something and it feels like such a big, big task. I think to myself, my only goal is to just state my intention that I'm in the arena. Just get in the arena, even if it means you just you're you're watching everyone else in the arena. You're still in the arena, you know? Like to me, that is so important in various areas of your life to just get in there.

• 45:00Mark Manson?

  I've found it with writing, like I find that I'm, I need to write a script for a video or something and I'm procrastinating for days. I just force myself to open up an empty document and like write the title. And then it's, once I've done that, I'm like, well, I'm here, so I might as well.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  It's so true.

• 45:16Mark Manson?

  Start writing the first

• 45:17Speaker 01

  It's so true. That's the hardest part, right? But that's the hardest part is just the phase shift between you don't exist in this person's life. And now you just said, hi, there's a world of difference between not existing and hi.

• 45:31Mark Manson?

  It's like zero to one compared to like one to two, like it's

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Like not even being on Sol's radar.

• 45:36Mark Manson?

  It's infinite.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  An infinite difference and and you, we can build this up to any example of anything, you know? Just you don't know the ripple effects that can happen. You need to trust in the universe. You know, that sounds really

• 45:48Mark Manson?

  Trust.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  I know, that sounds unscientific.

• 45:50Mark Manson?

  Scott Perry Cock, PhD.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  But in a certain sense, isn't that what you're doing technically? Even scientifically, that makes sense. You can't control all the factors.

• 46:05Mark Manson?

  Whatever you want to call it, trust the universe, reality, the future, just existence. Trust yourself.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  Let go.

• 46:11Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Because you can't control and you also, there's also a kind of entitlement there. You, a big presumption that you know how someone's going to react to you or you know, yeah, the universe is going to do its thing. We're often surprised. So you have to kind of let yourself go to the surprise of life.

• 46:31Mark Manson?

  So we've, we've spent a lot of this conversation talking about victimhood culture, which you're writing a book about right now.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  I haven't announced that, but you know, why not? Let this be the announcement.

• 46:43Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 46:43Mark Manson?

  If you're cool with that, we'll leave it then.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Why not?

• 46:46Mark Manson?

  We talked a lot about social media. We've talked a lot about education and the younger generation. I'm curious, since you're very focused on this topic at the moment, this kind of group of topics, what do you think is the most under broadcast piece of advice or piece of wisdom out there? That like, what's the thing that needs to be said more, but it's not getting said enough?

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Let's, let's double click on the victimhood mentality for a second. What is, what I think I bring to the table about that is that I'm not the guy you'd expect to write about overcoming a victimhood mentality. What I see in this is that the people that are, people of victim mentality, they're always pointing their finger at someone else. You know, like, you know, if you're on the far right, you're like, oh, those liberals with a victimhood mentality, you know?

• 47:33Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  Even liberals saying, oh, look at these publicists are always crying, you know, about their, you know? What I want to bring to the table is this notion that all of us, no matter our political party, no matter our background, whether we've gone through trauma or we haven't gone through explicit trauma, we can really make profound transformations to our lives with a simple mindset shift of, I am not a victim of my circumstances. I mean, to really, to get, to get in the arena of, I'm not a victim of my circumstances is a, is a true game changer for your whole life. But it's something that has, I want to divorce it from its political connotations. I want to divorce it from, because it applies to all of us. Again, I don't care, you know, I mean, I do care if you're in poverty, but I'm saying

• 48:18Speaker 01

  regardless of if you're in poverty or you're. You're, you know, how many people within the top 1%, how many billionaires have a victim mentality right now, you know? So this is not something only, you know, to a certain, you know, everyone's playing this kind of card right now and, and they're holding themselves back from growth and their own self-actualization.

• 48:38Mark Manson?

  I don't remember if I wrote it in subtle art or everything is fucked, but I made the observation that it's an interesting period in history in that every person in group seems to feel victimized simultaneously. And it's just such a strange situation, like how that's come to be. When my last book came out, I talked a lot about entitlement and kind of victimhood and entitlement, developing a sense of, of, you know, control over your own life and...

• 49:08Speaker 01

  I think I blurbed that book.

• 49:09Mark Manson?

  Yeah, you did. Yeah, you did blurbed that book.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  I loved it.

• 49:12Mark Manson?

  Yeah. And as a result, at the time, given kind of everything that was happening politically, I got invited to go on the Fox News a bunch of times. And it was funny because one of the times I was on one of the Fox News shows with one of like the more popular anchors and the whole time they're just peppering me with questions about snowflakes and, you know, victim, all the people complaining about their lives and how nobody takes responsibility anymore and all this stuff. And I was, I was like, man, it feels kind of shitty. Like I, I'm totally getting used for this political narrative right now. Like I can feel it. I'm like trying to stay as neutral as possible on the show, but they're, they just keep framing it the way they want to frame it.

• 49:53Mark Manson?

  And, and it goes to commercial break and during the commercial break, the, the anchor leans over the desk and they go, you know who the biggest snowflakes are? The people who watch the show. I was like, oh shit. It's like, holy fuck.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  I wish that was a hot mic moment.

• 50:12Mark Manson?

  Oh my god.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  It's obvious, right?

• 50:14Mark Manson?

  But I think, I think... I think the media on all sides, they know.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  Not only do they know, they use that knowledge to get more.

• 50:20Mark Manson?

  They're taking advantage of it.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  Take it, exploit it.

• 50:22Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  And, uh, you know, I would say trauma is big business right now. Victimhood culture is big business. Keeping people there is big business. Not, um, helping to get people to the place of healing. I mean, that's where my heart is at, is that I, I want to get people to the promised land. I don't want to keep them stuck. I don't make more money if I keep them stuck in the victim of mentality.

• 50:42Mark Manson?

  This is a criticism I've long written about the self-help industry is that as soon as you feel better, you're no longer a customer.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Boom.

• 50:49Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying.

• 50:52Mark Manson?

  Yeah, so it's, it's.

• 50:53Speaker 01

  I'm okay for you not to need me someday.

• 50:55Mark Manson?

  Exactly. That's it. That's what a great coach or teacher is. Like the whole goal of being a good coach or teacher is to get you to a place where you don't need the coach or teacher anymore.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  I want you to get to that place.

• 51:04Mark Manson?

  And so if you are following somebody or listening to somebody who is keeping you in the same spot emotionally.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  We had, remember we did, we had our podcast in Proud Jam on, on my podcast. And, uh, and I said something which you really agreed with. Uh, I said, the whole self-help industry dynamic are grandiose narcissists who exploit vulnerable narcissists in a codependent relationship with each other.

• 51:27Mark Manson?

  A hundred percent. And they, the advice is basically teaching the vulnerable narcissist how to behave like grandiose narcissists.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, correct, correct. I mean, I think.

• 51:38Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  That's it, that's it.

• 51:39Mark Manson?

  Fucking nailed it.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 51:42Mark Manson?

  All right, on that note, I want to go to the last segment. I'm doing this segment with each guest. Are you familiar with the game Fuck, Marry, Kill?

• 51:49Speaker 01

  I'm not familiar with that, no.

• 51:50Mark Manson?

  Okay, so Fuck, Marry, Kill, traditionally, the way it works, um, is a popular game among teenagers. So you pick three people and out of those three people, you have to pick one to fuck, one to marry and one to kill.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  I got you, I got you.

• 52:03Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  So you're not going to make me play this game, are you?

• 52:06Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  On, uh, for a million people.

• 52:08Mark Manson?

  Yeah, we're totally going to play Fuck, Marry, Kill right now. But don't worry, we're not going to do people.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  I thought you were going to say, don't worry, we're not actually going to fuck, marry or kill them.

• 52:16Mark Manson?

  That's what you were going to say. Okay, so Fuck, Marry, Kill.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Who, who the people here? Oh, not with people though.

• 52:22Mark Manson?

  No, no, no. So, okay, Fuck, Marry, Kill. Meditation.

• 52:26Mark Manson?

  Therapy. Psychedelics.

• 52:32Speaker 01

  Okay, um, now, this is forced, forced choice. So I just want to make this clear that I would not have said this just

• 52:38Mark Manson?

  We understand.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Out of the context of.

• 52:39Mark Manson?

  We understand. I mean, we're gonna edit to make it sound as horrible as possible.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  Okay, kill, kill meditation. And I have nuance there because I prefer mindfulness every day than meditation. Meditation's different than mindfulness.

• 52:51Mark Manson?

  Okay, well, let's call it mindfulness.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Oh, really? Oh, shit, you're teaching the... Oh, no, don't do that. Don't do that. Because then I, you get me out of my, I could...

• 53:00Mark Manson?

  First of all, what's the difference between meditation and mindfulness?

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, when I think meditation, I think of a specific practice where I sit on a cushion and I close my eyes and I have a certain designated period of time. Um, whereas mindfulness to me is something that you apply in your everyday life. I'm applying it right now with you in action. You know, not just sitting in a cushion and closing your eyes and

• 53:23Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 53:23Speaker 01

  tuning yourself out from the world.

• 53:25Mark Manson?

  Okay, so let's do meditation. Yeah.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 53:28Mark Manson?

  Okay, yeah, mindfulness is more of a, okay, yeah, that's a, that's too broad. So you'll kill meditation. Why, why do you kill meditation?

• 53:34Speaker 01

  Well, hold on, hold on, hold on. If we, if we make, I, I would marry mindfulness. So can we actually make it, can you actually make, because I would kill therapy. I would kill therapy.

• 53:45Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  I would marry mindfulness.

• 53:47Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  Um, now, what's the third thing?

• 53:49Mark Manson?

  Psychedelic.

• 53:50Speaker 01

  And so what is, what, what am I doing to psychedelics then?

• 53:53Mark Manson?

  Poking them.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Perfect, that's perfect, perfect.

• 53:59Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  I feel aligned with all three of those.

• 54:01Mark Manson?

  Awesome. So explain yourself.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Oh, I have to explain it too?

• 54:04Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  Well.

• 54:05Mark Manson?

  What's, what's the reasoning?

• 54:06Speaker 01

  I definitely would love to marry mindfulness. I would love that to be something that is just incorporated into my moment to moment existence, you know? And to make mindful decisions and not be controlled by my naughty subconscious. Ultimately, when therapy is done, right, we talked about this, it's, it's, it's whole function should be to erase itself. That it should be its function. I mean, uh, being a codependent relationship with your therapist is horrible.

• 54:32Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  You know? So, yeah, ultimately, if I was able to kill, that means I'm in, I'm in a place where I can really, um, be more mindful in my life and, uh, and maybe even get my therapy through, um, making sweet, sweet love with psychedelics.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  There's actually a lot of good research suggesting that psychedelics can be a good integrative form of therapy with a good guide.

• 54:54Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I believe it. I totally believe it.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  I understand that what I said doesn't paint therapy in the best light.

• 55:00Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  And that's, you know, funny for someone who hosts the psychology podcast to say that. So I just do want to clarify that, like, ultimately to kill it, you know, will be good. But I don't want to kill therapy. You know what I mean?

• 55:11Mark Manson?

  Therapy is a funny one. I think it's actually, it's probably good to dig into this a little bit because I, I have recommended therapy to my audience my entire career. I still actively recommend it. I think it's something everybody should at least try at some point in their life. And it does have pretty incredible benefits for a lot of people in a lot of circumstances. That said, it is so, it's so situational. So much of it really seems to depend on the unique relationship between the patient and therapist. So much of it depends on finding a good therapist. So much of it depends on your attitude going into the therapy and like what you're willing to focus on and work on, how mindful you're willing to be about what's going on in your life. Therapy has had the best PR.

• 55:56Mark Manson?

  It's, it's like the most widely accepted mainstream form of psychological intervention. And when you actually look at the data on its track record, it's not stellar.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  There's actually men analysis shows not a very high, yeah, very small effect size.

• 56:12Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it's barely above placebo. Not to say that anything else in psychology has a stellar has a stellar track record either, but you know, it's, it's, therapy is, it seems to be very effective in specific contexts, generally mildly effective across many contexts, and also often not effective at all. Unfortunately.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and there are so many different orientations. And I think that depending on the orientation, the proved effective, the shown effectiveness differs quite dramatically. And also, what complicates that whole situation is that, so you can look at these meta-analyses and pull out different factors and see which ones increase effectiveness versus decrease it. Like, overall, it's looking bad for therapy. But when you zoom in on certain things, like the presence, you can actually rate the presence of the therapist and you look at that factor, that's actually a big one.

• 57:11Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  The extent to which a client feels, a patient feels seen and heard, I don't like calling them patients.

• 57:17Mark Manson?

  I vaguely recall, yeah, seeing some data on that and it kind of found, there's almost like, kind of, therapists, superstar therapists.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, there are superstars.

• 57:26Mark Manson?

  Who, who just consistently get great results and then they kind of pull the average up for everybody else.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  They have great presence.

• 57:34Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  I think the ACT approach has been getting some good effectiveness.

• 57:40Mark Manson?

  ACT is acceptance and commitment therapy.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 57:43Mark Manson?

  I'm a big fan of as well.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  Yes, but he, he makes it very clear that it's not an acronym.

• 57:49Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  I was on a, he was on a podcast once and I said, "What does ACT stand for?" He's like, "It does not stand for anything."

• 57:57Speaker 01

  No, I love it.

• 57:57Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  I love him. And CBT has a lot of research, but it's not the right fit for everyone. See, the fit is what also complicates the situation.

• 58:07Mark Manson?

  From what I've seen, CBT is greater for anxiety. Like, it seems to outperform people with anxiety issues and then everything else, it's kind of in the miasma.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  And I think, I'm a fan of bringing back depth, depth psychology, Jungian depth psychology, you know? That, I've argued that that's really missing. And then humanistic psychology is not as prominent as it once was. And also, I think psychoanalysis can be incredibly beneficial. Just, you know, not always, I think that a multi-targeted approach is going to be the best therapist.

• 58:44Mark Manson?

  All right. One more.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay. This is fun.

• 58:48Mark Manson?

  Fuck, marry, kill.

• 58:50Mark Manson?

  Extroversion, conscientiousness, openness to new experiences.

• 58:55Speaker 01

  Okay, well, oh, I mean, that's really hard. That's really, really, it's like killing my babies.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  That one's really hard. Um, I guess, you know, I, I have to choose, right? This is a, this is like one of those horror movies is a for, forced choice.

• 59:10Mark Manson?

  It's like Saw six.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Yes. No, Scott, you have no choice.

• 59:15Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  I openness to experience is my favorite. So I'm, I'm gonna say love, uh, marrying openness to experience. I'm marrying, cause that leaves me two others. I extroversion is not my defining, uh, trait. Um, so I'm gonna kill it. Yeah. And conscientiousness, that leaves me, what am I doing conscientiousness?

• 59:37Mark Manson?

  Fucking it.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  I'm fucking conscientious. Wow, that's so interesting to think about. Fucking conscientious. Maybe, maybe I should be fucking openness. Oh, maybe I should be fucking openness. Yeah, yeah, no, I, okay, I'm fucking openness. And I'm marrying conscientiousness and I'm killing extroversion. That feels more aligned. That feels more aligned.

• 59:56Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  Cause I don't know what it would mean to fuck conscientiousness. You know, to have, like, I feel like that's something you really kinda need in your life on a regular basis.

• 1:00:07Mark Manson?

  So explain yourself. Why are you?

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  I'm being ridiculous.

• 1:00:09Mark Manson?

  Why are you, well, this, the whole game is fucking ridiculous. So, uh, explain yourself. Why are you marrying conscientiousness? And by, by the way, for people listening, these are three of the big five personality traits.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  And now I feel like I'm going back. I'm feeling, I'm going back. Now I feel like I wanna marry openness again. This is, this is why I have commitment issue.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  This, you, you have inadvertently, if I've triggered all of my issues that I have in my life right now.

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  I just don't know what it would mean to make love to conscientiousness. That I just don't even know.

• 1:00:43Mark Manson?

  It just means that you would be, you would fuck it very conscientiously, like take.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, you know what?

• 1:00:49Mark Manson?

  Care, a lot of care and.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Wait, but, but fucking is not love. Wait, so actually fucking is different than marrying, right?

• 1:00:56Mark Manson?

  It's fucking.

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  The point is that you're fucking it. So which is like, that's not even love.

• 1:01:00Mark Manson?

  It's kinda like a fling.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  So therefore I am fucking conscientious, yes. And I am, yes, that makes sense now. That makes sense. Now it all makes sense because I don't want conscientious. I, I do wanna live in an open state of being.

• 1:01:12Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  All the time. And I would, and I love it. I marry it. Consciousness comes along every now and then when I have to get something done.

• 1:01:20Mark Manson?

  Ah, gotcha.

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  And then when I have to pound it.

• 1:01:23Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  I'll, I'll pound it, but I don't wanna pound it all the time. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:27Mark Manson?

  No pounding.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  When I wanna crush something.

• 1:01:31Mark Manson?

  Awesome. Scott.

• 1:01:33Mark Manson?

  It was a pleasure.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  So much fun. I'm fine, very nice.

• 1:01:37Mark Manson?

  Very nice.

• 1:01:39Mark Manson?

  Thanks, man. This was the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck Podcast. Sign up for the newsletter, your next breakthrough. This is Scott Barry Kaufman. And we will be back next week. So don't fuck your conscientiousness. Too much.