Mark Manson on Embracing Pain for Personal and Professional Growth | Human Behavior | YAPClassic

Mark Manson’s journey into the workforce started during a challenging time: the Great Recession of 2008. After struggling with various odd jobs, he shifted his focus to blogging and became a bestselling author. In this episode, Mark explores human behavior, the psychology behind success, and how the critical thinking needed to develop a growth mindset is key to navigating career and personal development in a rapidly changing world. In this episode, Hala and Mark will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (02:40) Mark Manson's Journey to Becoming a Blogger and Author (05:13) The Evolution and Challenges of Blogging (06:39) Key Takeaways from Mark Manson's New Book (09:43) Understanding Hope and the Uncomfortable Truth (14:09) The Thinking and Feeling Brain (20:18) Pain as a Currency of Our Values (22:14) The Concept of Anti-Fragility (30:37) Defining Adulthood and Real Freedom (39:35) Hope in Science and Technology Mark Manson is a three-time New York Times bestselling author and entrepreneur. His books, including The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, have sold over 20 million copies in 75+ languages worldwide. He has also built a thriving online business, offering courses, podcasts, and one of the most popular self-improvement newsletters. Known for his brutal honesty and dry humor, Mark has established himself as a leading voice in the fields of mindset, self-improvement, and human psychology. Sponsored By: Shopify - youngandprofiting.co/shopify Open Phone - openphone.com/profiting Airbnb - airbnb.com/host Indeed - indeed.com/profiting RobinHood - robinhood.com/gold Factor - factormeals.com/factorpodcast Rakuten - rakuten.com Microsoft Teams - aka.ms/profiting Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services - yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Podcast, Business, Business Podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Starting a Business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side Hustle, Mental Health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth Mindset, Positivity, Critical Thinking, Robert Greene, Chris Voss, Robert Cialdini.

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

• 0:00Hala Taha?

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• 0:45Hala Taha?

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• 1:35Hala Taha?

  Hey, Yap fam. I hope you enjoyed my interview with Mark Manson this week, in which he showcased his wonderfully candid perspective on discovering life's deeper purposes. Mark is the bestselling author of many books, including The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F, and was also on my show way back in episode number 65 during the early days of the pandemic. And so, we decided to give you a double dose of Mark Manson for this week's Yap Classic. In that episode, Mark talked with me about the downfalls of hope and why we'll never be satisfied unless we face the uncomfortable truths of life head-on. That's deep. He also had some great, actionable advice on how to gain more self-control, make better decisions, and even how to use pain to strengthen your relationships.

• 2:19Hala Taha?

  So, enjoy this hard-hitting, classic conversation with the always entertaining and thought-provoking Mark Manson.

• 2:29Hala Taha?

  Welcome to the show, Mark.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.

• 2:33Hala Taha?

  For my guests who don't know you, I would like to get some color about your background. I read some of your blogs on career advice and you note that you're living out your dream job currently. And I say that with like air quotes because I know there's no such thing as 100% perfect job. So how did you end up becoming a blogger and an author? Was that something you always wanted to do or did that sort of like fall into your lap?

• 2:58Speaker 02

  It was kind of an accident.

• 3:01Speaker 02

  See, I graduated from college in the last crisis we had, which was the financial crisis in 2008. And there was like zero job market and I kind of bounced around a few odd jobs. I lived on a friend's couch for a while and I started doing freelance web design. And around the same time, I read Tim Ferriss's Four Hour Work Week, which talked about building online businesses and automating them and you know, how you could work four hours a week and go live and play in Argentina or whatever. I was like, hell yeah, I'm in. That sounds perfect. And so I spent the next couple of years trying to actually build ecommerce sites and like affiliate marketing sites.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  And it turned out that like I was kind of bad at it.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  I'm not a natural salesman or marketer, but the funny thing was, was at the time, blogs were kind of like all the rage back then. And so

• 3:59Hala Taha?

  When did you start?

• 4:00Speaker 02

  I started blogging in 2008. And so if you wanted people to come to your website, if you wanted to rank on Google, if you wanted, there wasn't much sharing on social media back then.

• 4:10Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  It was, you had to be blogging. You had to be posting articles and coming up with stuff. And so that's actually how I ended up blogging. Originally, it was just to like promote these crappy affiliate sites I had. And it turned out I was much better at blogging than I was. E-commerce.

• 4:27Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 4:28Speaker 02

  And by 2011, 2012, it was blogging was all I was doing.

• 4:33Hala Taha?

  Yeah, you are such a good writer. So many people like really like your writing style because it's so different. It's like a breath of fresh air. It's like a little witty and cheeky. So props to you. I actually had a website as well. I had an entertainment news website from like 2010 to 2013, and I think that was like the height of blogging. But I couldn't monetize it. And so I shut that down. And your blog is one of the only blogs, I think, that really has been able to monetize. You've got like a premium subscription. I know you also have a podcast, which is sort of like the audio version of a blog, in my opinion. So would you recommend like going, uh, starting a blog or a podcast? Or, or do you think those things are saturated now?

• 5:14Speaker 02

  I definitely think blogging's in a tough spot. I, what happened with blogging is just that all of the smaller and medium sized websites, they either, they couldn't monetize anymore.

• 5:26Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  Or, or they got eaten up by larger networks and large websites. So people went to Huffington Post, or writing for Huffington Post, or Business Insider, or whatever. So i- it's a tough spot to start. And I, I mean, I don't want to discourage anybody from blogging, but if you're looking to build a content business, blogging is probably one of the worst options right now.

• 5:48Hala Taha?

  I totally agree.

• 5:50Speaker 02

  If I was starting today, I would start a podcast or a YouTube channel. Those are the, those are the spaces that are, are still growing very quickly. Those are the spaces where there's still a lot of opportunity, you know, like the big media companies haven't totally figured out what works or how to do it. And so those are always going to be the spaces where young hustlers have an advantage.

• 6:11Hala Taha?

  I totally agree. And I'll be more frank with my listeners because I have a more personal relationship with them. I would totally avoid blogging if you don't blog yet because unless you're Mark Manson, who was able from back then when it was like at its peak to get all these subscribers and things, it's really hard. And I would, I would suggest working on something like he mentioned, like podcasts or YouTube instead. Okay, so we have limited time and like I mentioned, your new book, Everything has so much content and I definitely want to get into some of the key takeaways that I've found. Just to summarize in my opinion, at a super high level, what this book is about, it's really about becoming an adult and not just any adult, but the best adult that you can be. And some people think that like when you turn 18, you automatically become

• 6:55Hala Taha?

  an adult, but that's not really the case. 13% of adults actually behave and think like adults, according to some studies. We'll get into that later. I just want to say that I read that book. It was great. I felt like I was getting a philosophy lesson with a modern twist and I really learned about philosophers I didn't really know much about, like Nietzsche and Kant and Plato. And so I wanted to say thank you for writing something that's like easy to understand for somebody who's not really into philosophy. I want to go back to when you actually started first writing this book. So it released in May 2019, so I'm assuming you wrote it like the year before. At that time, why did you think that everything was?

• 7:36Speaker 02

  Well, it's funny, it's funny talking about this now when, when actually there is a real crisis happening because I think we, it's, we so easily forget that, I feel like that period of 2017, 2018, 2019, there was kind of like a fever pitch in our culture where everything felt like a crisis, but nothing was actually a crisis. Like people were always freaking out over everything that happened. Whereas, you know, you look out the window and everything's great and job market's best it's been in 50 years and economy's doing great and all the metrics in terms of like life expectancy and health

• 8:18Speaker 02

  and education are like all time highs. You know, meanwhile, you could, you go on Twitter and you would think that like the apocalypse was happening. So I, the book was Very much written to address that. What is it about not just our culture today, but our generation that we get so worked up about things? And trying to put those things in perspective. And it's ironic, because one of the things that I talked about in the book is that it's there's a little bit of a paradox where when things are great, you kind of have to make up problems to be upset about.

• 8:52Hala Taha?

  Yes.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  Because it's by being upset about things that you give your your life a sense of meaning or a sense of hope. And then it's when it's things are actually [BLEEP] up as they are right now.

• 9:02Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  You don't have to go searching for a crisis. You don't have to go searching for problems. The problem's right there in front of you. So in a weird way, crises are almost psychologically easier for us to bear because we know exactly what to hope for.

• 9:20Hala Taha?

  Yeah, so it's almost like when things are going so great, we end up making it worse for ourselves because we imagine things to be so bad, or we make things that we wouldn't otherwise think are bad, just to like kind of satisfy our need to have a crisis and our need to kind of like hope for something. So tell us what the definition of hope is, in your opinion? Like, how do you define hope?

• 9:44Speaker 02

  I define hope as some sort of vision of the future that we believe will be better. There are a couple of things that are interesting about, I guess, that definition of hope is one is is is just simply that if we don't have some vision of our future that is better, that's when we fall into depression or despair. You know, it's one of the things I talked about in chapter one is that, you know, the opposite of happiness is not sadness or anger. The opposite of happiness is hopelessness, is a sense that nothing we we do matters, nothing that we do will affect any sorts of change.

• 10:17Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  But but but the other thing about that vision of a better future is that Paradoxically, that it's easier to have hope when times are bad. And it's more difficult to find hope when things are good and comfortable. And so for me, that's I present, there's a lot of statistics like, you know, suicide is the highest and the wealthiest and safest countries in the world. People who, once they reach middle class or upper middle class, you you see things like depression, anxiety, mental health issues start to start to increase. And that doesn't really make sense. But when you look at it in terms of the difficulty it comes with hoping for something in the better in the future,

• 11:02Speaker 02

  it kind of explains that.

• 11:04Hala Taha?

  And so I know that a way that we can kind of deal with the issue of hope is to deal with something you call the uncomfortable truth and take that head on. Can you explain that concept to our listeners?

• 11:18Speaker 02

  Sure, the uncomfortable truth is that, you know, in the grand scheme of things, the vast majority of the things that we say and do are not going to matter.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  Period.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  You know, it's it reminds me like when I was at school, I remember taking an astronomy course and like just learning how vast the universe is and how like long the history of the earth is and how many billions of people have come before. And just and it's just like that feeling of smallness and insignificance. You know, it's like, it's like, wow, and I was really upset over what my mom said this morning. You know, like, it just seems so trifling by comparison. So the uncomfortable truth is is just this realization that like, the vast majority of the things that you spend your energy, time and energy caring about are not going to matter in the long run. And on the one hand, that can be a very depressing realization. But on the other hand, it can be a very liberating realization.

• 12:16Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  Because it allows you to let go of those things.

• 12:19Hala Taha?

  But how how would somebody get motivated from that? Or is your point not to motivate someone from the uncomfortable truth? Is the point for the person to feel like less stressed about everyday life? Like, what's the point of acknowledging that uncomfortable truth?

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Well, I think we all spend a lot of our energy avoiding that truth. So we convince ourselves that some little project in our life is like life and death important. Or, or something we say to another person is like, if we embarrass ourselves in front of somebody, it's like, oh, my God, our lives are over. It's the uncomfortable truth. It's, it's a, it's a scary thing that we avoid accepting. But if you are able to accept it, it, it shows you that most of the things that stress you out are actually not that significant. And so it kind of has a, it's a double, a little bit of a double edged sword. It can, it can make everything feel meaningless.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  But at the same time, if most of the things that you say or do or pursue are meaningless, then that means you're completely free to do what matters to you.

• 13:26Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  To, there's no excuse to not embarrass yourself or to not fail at something or to not pursue a dream or to not tell somebody that you love them. There's, because it's, we're all gonna die anyway. So you might as well live each moment to its fullest.

• 13:42Hala Taha?

  Yeah, totally. It's like, gives you some perspective and also helps you with your priorities and makes you realize that like this big problem that I have isn't really that serious. Who's gonna remember it when I die? Who's gonna? So that's a good point. Something else in your book that I really thought was interesting was the concept of the thinking and feeling brain. And so this is something that people have been talking about for a long time. In the Christian era, I think that it was, people thought that it was more like the thinking brain that was in control. But now, more recently, people are saying it's really the feeling brain that's in control of our mind. You have this awesome analogy of the conscious car. Would you explain that to us and, and help us understand your perspective

• 14:26Hala Taha?

  between the thinking and feeling brain and how they react with each other?

• 14:29Speaker 02

  Sure. So the, the consciousness car is... You know, if you think about the two aspects of our minds, kind of the emotional side of the mind and then the more rational side of our mind, most of us operate under the assumption that the rational side of our mind is like the adult in the car who's driving and is in charge. And the emotional side of our mind is like the obnoxious kid in the passenger seat, who just like won't shut up and is like demanding ice cream all the time. And a lot of what we understand as being like a disciplined, mature human being

• 15:08Speaker 02

  is like teaching that kid and that the emotional side of our brain to just shut the [bleep] up for like forty percent of the time, so that the adult, like the rational part of our brain can like get to work and do the right things and be a be like a functioning human being. But what's interesting is that if you look at psychological research, it's like, it turns out that we're all very driven, it's actually the emotional side of our brain is the one that's driving the car. And it's the thinking part of our brain is very good at explaining our emotional impulses in a way that sound very reasonable and rational, but they aren't necessarily.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  And so, really, we are very impulsive creatures. We all make most of our decisions based on our emotions, based on our feelings. And if we're not aware that we're doing that, then our, the rational side of our brain is kind of enslaved by our emotions to always just justify whatever we feel about ourselves. And so, what I argue in that part of the book is that instead of working, trying to work against our emotions or like suppress our emotions or deny our emotions, we need to work with our emotions. We need to understand the role that each part of our mind plays. Because our, the emotional side of our brain is incredibly important.

• 16:34Speaker 02

  It determines our motivation, it determines our inspiration, it determines where we feel value and significance in our lives. And so if we deny that part of ourselves and just try to be rational all the time, then we're kind of gutting ourselves of the meaning in our lives. So, what I, what I argue is that, you know, we should get the two sides of our brains talking to each other and listening to each other, which is difficult, because they kind of speak different languages. But- In my opinion, that's kind of what emotional or I would say even mental health is.

• 17:10Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Having the rational side of our brain and the emotional side of our brain interacting with each other and and understanding each other.

• 17:19Hala Taha?

  So give us like a real example of doing that, like a situation where, let's give an example of like, you don't feel like going to the gym, but you know that you should, like, what's the dialogue that you should be having in your head?

• 17:31Speaker 02

  Right, so you know, i- if you feel like you should be working out, but you're not, you know, we've all experienced that before. And most of us, we we judge ourselves. We're like, man, I'm such a loser. I can't get out of bed and go to the gym. And we see it as a failure of willpower. We see it as a failure of kind of like our rational side of our mind. But the fact of the matter is, is until we are emotionally motivated to go to the gym, until we enjoy going to the gym to some extent, we're not gonna go. We're always gonna find a reason not to go.

• 18:02Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  And so in in that sense, it's an emotional problem. It's not a problem of knowledge. It's not a problem of willpower or whatever. So if we understand that, what we can do, instead of like trying to will ourselves to the gym constantly, what you can do is you can set up your environment in such a way in that you make it enjoyable to go to the gym. So maybe you find a friend who goes to the gym with you and it's in that way, if you wake up and you're supposed to meet your friend at the gym at eight AM, the fear of embarrassment of of not being there, like your friend arriving and you not, like, that is an emotional motivation that will get you out of bed and go to the gym. You know, another way to do it is to hire a trainer and be like, well, I spent all this damn money

• 18:49Speaker 02

  and I'm gonna feel awful if I don't use it. So it's using your rational mind to create.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  Parameters and circumstances that make something emotionally enjoyable to do.

• 19:00Hala Taha?

  Yeah, it's like tricking your feeling brain into something that you want to do.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 19:06Hala Taha?

  So another piece of this thinking and feeling brain in your book that you talk about is how the thinking brain tries to maintain a sense of hope. And we were talking about hope before. Can you help us understand the connection with that?

• 19:19Speaker 02

  Well, the thinking brain is always, you're always trying to envision some sort of better future for yourselves. And whether that's like you as an individual, or if it's the world being a better place, or impressing your parents, or whatever, like it's, we all need some sort of carrot dangling in front of us to, to give ourselves direction and purpose in our lives. And so the thinking brain's job is to kind of come up with those sorts of things, is to, to figure out that equation of if I do X, then I will be happy, you know, whatever.

• 19:57Hala Taha?

  Okay, so let's move on to another big topic, which is pain and values. Now, you say pain is a currency of our values. I thought this was super powerful. Help us understand why you think that like pain is what really keeps us motivated and things like that.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Uh, well, generally, people, you know, people like to avoid pain. But the problem with avoiding pain is that we only value things in our lives in proportion to how much we feel we have to give up for it. So like, if you think about like a spoiled child, like a child that's just given everything he or she wants.

• 20:38Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  The reason there, these spoiled kids grew up to be like awful human beings is because they never understand the value of anything.

• 20:48Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  Everything is, it's just a frivolous thing for them to experience from moment to moment. It's only when you're able to go through some sort of challenge or hardship, that you, you are able to understand like what is worth sacrificing for and what is not.

• 21:04Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  You know, it's, it's only once you've lost something that you understand how valuable, how meaningful it was in your life. And so I just, through all my work and all my books, I consistently make the argument that pain and suffering is important.

• 21:19Hala Taha?

  Yes.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  And not only is it impossible to get rid of pain and suffering, but like, We need to have pain and suffering because psychologically it is kind of like the fuel that generates our sense of meaning and importance in the world.

• 21:34Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 21:34Speaker 02

  And so it's not a question of getting rid of pain, it's like choosing better pain.

• 21:38Hala Taha?

  Totally. Yeah, and we can go back to the workout example. The more you put yourself in pain with working out, the more you're able to keep working out and kind of like build that strength. And everything is pain. When you're happy, it's just like your pain is alleviated. When you're sad, it's just your pain is amplified. So, let's talk about anti-fragility. This is a really cool concept that you have. And basically, it means that we need to kind of, like you said, choose our suffering and be okay with choosing pain and not avoiding it. Can you, can you tell us more about that?

• 22:13Speaker 02

  So, anti-fragility comes from Nassim Taleb. It's a really cool idea where he talks about how, you know, the opposite of fragility or being fragile, it's not necessarily being robust, it's actually being anti-fragile, which is you gain from pain or disorder in your life. And so if you look at things like the human body or the human mind, the human body and human mind are actually, they're not resilient, they're anti-fragile. The reason you get stronger at the gym is because you are breaking your muscles down and making them stronger. The reason that you get better after failure is because you are breaking down a lot of

• 22:54Speaker 02

  your assumptions and beliefs and your fears and building up better experiences over them. And so, in that sense, by actually inviting certain amounts of pain and struggle into your life, you make yourself a stronger individual with far more, more potential. And one of the big arguments of the book is, is what I, and what I fear is that, you know, in our culture, there's been such a...

• 23:22Speaker 02

  It's been, it's becoming so taken for granted that, you know, we're all like, we're all supposed to be happy and we all deserve to be happy and we all deserve to have a great, easy life and nobody should suffer and all this stuff.

• 23:35Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  And it's, yes, we should try to get rid of injustice. We should try to get rid of people who are predatory or people who are, who are evil, but you shouldn't try to get rid of suffering because suffering is necessary for growth. It's necessary for making people stronger, more resilient, more mature human beings. And so what I fear is that as our culture kind of has turned towards this obsession with positivity and feeling good all the time.

• 24:05Hala Taha?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  We are losing that ability to grow from our pain and our failures.

• 24:09Hala Taha?

  And I think you say this in the book. You say that everything you do, everything you are, everything you care about is a reflection of your choice, your relationships, health, work, emotional stability, your integrity, your breadth of your life experience. If any of these things are fragile in your life, it's because you've chosen to avoid pain. I think that's so powerful because it's so true. The way that you grow is through pain. Let's stick on that a little bit. Tell us about how pain helps you grow and how if you don't choose to accept pain and if you avoid pain, how you kind of stay as an adolescent and you don't ever really grow up to be an actual adult. Tell us about that.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  So I think for me, and I define this in the book, but like what defines an adult or just being a mature, healthy individual is that ability to understand what is worth suffering for and when is it worth suffering for it. In the simple example of like, say, a romantic relationship, for that relationship to grow, you have to understand when a fight needs to happen.

• 25:13Hala Taha?

  Hmm.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  Some people, and I think kind of younger, more idealistic people, their idea of a good relationship is a relationship where you just never fight. But it's like, that's not a healthy relationship because that means you're hiding things, you're pretending things are not happening. And that makes you more fragile as a couple. Whereas if you get very good at noticing the things that need to be addressed and being able to address them, even though you're not, you know, you're going to fight about it, you know, it's going to be painful, you know, you're going to be angry at each other for a day or two.

• 25:44Hala Taha?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  If you're able to do that, you actually become a stronger.

• 25:49Hala Taha?

  Yeah, your bond is stronger.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  For it. It's the same thing in business, you know, is you, you don't, if you've got employees that are, that are messing up, like you can't pretend they're not messing up.

• 26:01Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  You have to say something. Uh, or if you've got a coworker that's screwing around, like you, you have to say something. So it's, there are so many incidents, you know, everywhere you kind of look in life, there's, there's like a skill set of understanding what pain is necessary for growth to occur and then having the ability to step into that pain.

• 26:24Hala Taha?

  I loved the fact that you brought up how like pain can strengthen relationships. So just to relate to that a little bit, my listeners don't really know this. I haven't really shared this, but I shared it on LinkedIn, but not on my podcast. I actually went home to take care of my whole family who got coronavirus. So like my mom, my dad, my brother, and my brother was home from California and you know, we haven't spent that much time together in a long time, you know, and it was such a hard time, but now I feel so close to my brother and my mom and everything because it's like, we like went through that crazy time together and we'll never forget that. And it was, it sucked. It was horrible, but at the same time, like my relationship, particularly with my brother, is like so strengthened

• 27:06Hala Taha?

  because we went through this horrible experience together. So it's just, it's funny how like, even if it's a horrible experience, there's always some silver lining and actually like that kind of pain can, can grow a really big bond.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. And it's, I talked about this in my first book, Subtle Art. I said that if you think about the most important experiences of your life, probably three out of four of them were negative experiences. Very like a breakup, a death, losing a job, like these all, they're, they're horrible in the moment, but like when you look back on them years and years later, you're like, wow, I'm so glad that happened. I'm such a, such a better person for that happening.

• 27:48Hala Taha?

  So you say that living well does not mean avoid suffering. It means suffering for the right reasons. So tell us, what, what do you suffer for? What, what suffering do you do to provide value in your life?

• 28:00Speaker 02

  Well, I stay inside. That's, that's one way I suffer for the right reasons. Um, you know, I think there are a few fronts. One, I think the most obvious example is just my career. So it's writing is.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  I mean, it's fun a lot of times, but a lot of times it's suffering. You know, it's I'm finishing up another book right now and I went back to revise a chapter that I hadn't looked at in a few months and I just looked at it and I'm like, this is terrible. This is absolutely terrible. And it's just, it's like almost heartbreaking. Like I had to take the rest of the afternoon off because to have something that you've been working on for over a year and you think you're almost done and then you go look at like an early part of it and you're like, wow, that's, I can't publish that. That is awful. It just flattens you and, and I, I think writing is, it has its emotional struggles that a lot of people just don't, I, I seem to be constituted for it.

• 29:01Speaker 02

  I like being alone. I like working by myself. I don't mind rewriting something like eight different times. And so that's, that's a form of suffering that I'm well adapted to and that, and that I, I even get a little bit of a sick pleasure out of. And so it's, that's kind of why it's become my life is, is, you know, one, one thing I always say in my talks is that it's not being good at something that's not because you enjoy it necessarily. Being good at something is you enjoy the sacrifices that are involved in it.

• 29:32Hala Taha?

  Totally.

• 29:32Speaker 02

  In a way, it's the thing you end up best at is just the, the pain you can tolerate better than most other people.

• 29:39Hala Taha?

  Totally. And that's kind of like back to like you're in your dream job. Not every job is perfect. It's like, what job do you enjoy the most? Like even the shitty parts of the job, can you tolerate the most? That's how you find your dream job. It's not like something that you like all the time and you're always happy doing it. It's just like the parts that do suck, are you able to manage that suffering enough?

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's even if you're in your dream job, like your dream job's going to suck about 30% of the time. Like there's just no such thing, like we all have to do taxes. Like there's just no such thing as a job that is fun every single day that you do it. Yeah.

• 30:15Hala Taha?

  So I do want to talk about the difference between a child, an adolescent and an adult. You say it's not how old they are or what they do, but why they do something. Can you unpack that for us?

• 30:27Speaker 02

  Sure, um, so when I go through this, I'm summarizing. There's a field called developmental psychology and so I'm kind of just summarizing this entire field. But basically, you know, human, the human mind develops in a series of stages. It doesn't, you know, we don't just come out of the womb, you know, knowing how to drive a car and send an email. So when we're kids, we're generally very, everything we understand about the world and understand about life is very much just derived from pleasure and pain. Toys make us happy, candy makes us happy, falling off the bed makes us sad, you know, like it just, we don't really think past that.

• 31:09Speaker 02

  Kids aren't able to think about the future, they aren't really able to reason about the past, they aren't able to think about other people's feelings or what other people might do. It's just all they know is like, this is fun, this is not fun, I want to do the fun thing. As we get older, though, we start to realize things. We start to realize that sometimes something is pleasurable now, but it causes pain later. Um, you know, so maybe it feels good to eat like a pound of candy right now, but when I'm like sick in six hours, you know, last time I did that, I got sick and I felt awful. And so kids start to understand that there are repercussions for things. They, they start to understand that there's cause effect.

• 31:51Speaker 02

  Um, they understand that other people have thoughts and feelings that are affected by their actions as well. And so around late childhood or early adolescence, maybe around ages like eight, nine, 10, kids start to, to figure out that the world is very transactional. Like if I agree to do what mom says today, she will reward me tomorrow. And so the adolescent phase is very much built off of a life of managing transactions, of understanding that if I behave in these certain ways, people will be nice to me and I will get good things that I want. Now, the tran, the transactional approach to life is fine, like we all need to be able to do it, we all need to be able to think through those things.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  But the problem is, is that it kind of objectifies everything. So if, if your approach to all of your relationships is, well, I'm going to say this to Holla because I know she likes to hear that, so if I say this, she'll like me. That's great if I'm like trying to get a favor from you, but if I'm trying to be a friend or if I'm a family member, that's a really crappy way to have

• 32:59Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  a personal relationship with somebody that like everything they say to you is based on what they think you want. Like it's just, you can't really operate in life that way. And you run into the same thing, you know, if you look at businesses, for instance, like some people are very good at the transactional game of, okay, if I put this product out or market it this way, I'll get a lot of money. That's one way to play that game, but at a certain point, you have to ask yourself, okay, maybe this will make me a lot of money, but am I screwing over my customers? You know, am I willing to screw over my customers? Or am I willing to like break a law to add profit to my bottom line? You start running into situations like that. And so it's only when you get to adulthood that you understand that

• 33:43Speaker 02

  sometimes you simply have to willingly take on pain for no other reason than it's the right thing to do, that it's, it's better for you in the long run. It's better for society in the long run. It's better for the people you care about in the long run. And so a lot of kind of like the highest virtuous concepts that we've had throughout human history, things like honesty, charity, compassion. These are all things that can really only be attained in adulthood. You know, I have to be willing to sacrifice myself for my family or willingly sacrifice myself or give up potential profits to make sure my employees are taken care of, you know, it's those sorts of actions and behaviors can only occur

• 34:26Speaker 02

  once you've kind of transcended this transactional view of the world. And so that's the adult view.

• 34:31Hala Taha?

  Yeah. And if I remember correctly from your book, to think and act like an adult, you need to endure pain. You need to abandon hope and you need to let go of the desire for more pleasant and fun things like, and you have to act unconditionally. That's something else that

• 34:47Speaker 02

  Yes, the unconditionality. Yeah.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  And the thing about adulthood, I mean, I go kind of hardcore on it.

• 34:54Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 34:55Speaker 02

  But I think people should understand that it's like an ideal. And I even mentioned that often this kind of ideal, this selflessness of adulthood is something that's been canonized and crystallized in religious myths and heroes and stories and things like that. Like, none of us are actually like fully that way all the time.

• 35:14Hala Taha?

  Yeah, it's impossible.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  We've all still got like our inner child that like just wants to

• 35:19Speaker 02

  drink ice cream for the next three hours, you know, and then we've all got the adolescent in us who's like, hmm, maybe I can scheme a little bit and get a little bit more for myself. Like, it's, those things never, you never completely leave those things.

• 35:31Hala Taha?

  It's like, what point of the spectrum are you on? Totally. So, one of the other topics, there's so much content in your book. I'm actually having a hard time like trying to grab everything that I need to talk about. This is definitely one of the hardest interviews that I've had in terms of that, of tying everything together. But one thing that I wanted to talk about is fake freedom versus real freedom. I thought this was really important for my listeners to understand your perspective on. Can you talk to us about that?

• 35:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I feel like this is very important in this day and age, and especially in the US. I think if you look historically, the idea of freedom and liberty is not what we traditionally think of it today. Today, we think of freedom and liberty as simply being able to do whatever the hell we want, when we want to do it, without being constrained by any sort of outside force whatsoever. In my opinion, this is a very childlike, entitled version of freedom. This idea that it's like, I should be able to do whatever the hell I want, and [bleep] you if you don't like it. Like, that is like an angry child sitting

• 36:38Speaker 02

  on the floor of a grocery store demanding that he can eat as much candy as he wants. The truth is, is that we all live in a society, we all have to make compromises because we are all better off for it. And the truth is, as well, is that when you do indulge everything you want...

• 36:55Speaker 02

  It makes you more fragile. It makes you a weaker human being.

• 36:58Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  It makes you a more susceptible individual to outside forces. In chapter eight of the book, I spend that whole chapter kind of arguing that we need to redefine freedom the same way that the philosophers and the Greeks and Romans understood it, which is that freedom is the ability to choose what to give up.

• 37:17Hala Taha?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  Freedom is choosing what you will sacrifice. And so, freedom is not sitting on the couch, eating whatever the hell you want for the rest of your life. Freedom is actually getting up at six in the morning and going to the gym because by building up your body, you are actually giving yourself more options for the future. By limiting options today, by choosing which options you're gonna limit today, by choosing not to eat Cheetos, you are giving yourself more options in the long run. And so, freedom is actually, it's a personal form of discipline. It's a constant choice of what sacrifice am I gonna bring into my life and what is gonna be important to me?

• 38:03Speaker 02

  And so, in that sense, I see things like, and I just have to bring this up because we're in the middle of it now.

• 38:08Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 38:08Speaker 02

  There are people protesting during this coronavirus thing, saying that the government shouldn't tell me to stay home, I shouldn't have to stay home, blah, blah, blah. You know, and it's like, it's like, guys, you can't, like, you're okay if the government tells you you can't smoke next to a pregnant person, or like, you can't smoke in a restaurant.

• 38:26Hala Taha?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, you're fine if the government tells you you can't scream "fire" in a theater. How is this any different? At some point, you have to, you have to accept that it's not about what you individ-- freedom is not about what you individually want, it is about what you are individually capable of sacrificing and giving up, both for yourself and for the greater good.

• 38:49Hala Taha?

  And also, because I think you talk about this in your book, that if freedom is variety or, you know, unlimited experiences, like, you'll never be satisfied, you'll never actually be free, because you'll never be satisfied, there'll always be something else that you're trying to attain, and so you'll never really be free. You say that freedom isn't what you can experience, it's what you can limit yourself to. I think that's really powerful stuff. Okay, so the last question I'm gonna ask, it's on the last chapter of your book. You ask us to abandon hope all throughout the book, but when I was reading your last chapter, it's clear that you have hope in science and technology and AI. And you imagine the world in the future where AI has taken over humans and ultimately

• 39:33Hala Taha?

  does a better job of running the show than we do. And that's terrifying, but then it's oddly hopeful. So talk to our listeners about this world that you imagine in the future with AI.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  Well, first, I would argue that it's not even the future, really. It's already, it's already happening. I think the AI runs the world better than humans in many ways already. You know, the last chapter is a little bit tongue in cheek. It's a little bit just me being a little bit crazy and being like, you know what? Let's see how far I can take this. I kind of, one of, one of the more tragic things I talk about in the book is that ultimately we do have to hope for something, but our hopes inevitably end up causing everything to be [BLEEP]. You know, it's, everything is [BLEEP], which is why we need hope, but then it's, our hopes are what cause everything to be [BLEEP]. So it's kind of like this vicious, vicious cycle that keeps happening.

• 40:28Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  And it's, it's just kind of an inherent part of our psychology. It's, there's not really any way around it. And so really the message of the book is like, since we can't get rid of hope, we have to just be very, very careful about what we hope for. And the last chapter is kind of my very, very careful, slightly facetious hopes, which is just that I personally think, you know, one of the cornerstones of my personal philosophy and kind of all my work in general is that humans suck. Like we are just, we're not.

• 41:04Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  The human mind is not very well equipped to handle global ethical moral questions. If you look at human history, it's just full of violence and screw ups and disasters. So it's, my starting point is like, if there's any way we're gonna kind of save ourselves from ourselves, it's gonna happen via science and technology in some form. So that is the, the thing, the one thing I dare to hope for, although I, I am also very skeptical of my own hopes.

• 41:40Hala Taha?

  Yeah, well, I hope our AI masters are nice to us.

• 41:46Hala Taha?

  They're not evil. Okay, cool. So the last question I ask all my guests is, what is your secret to profiting in life?

• 41:55Speaker 02

  A secret to profiting in life? I think if you just make it a habit to give more value than you consume, good things will happen everywhere. It'll happen with people and relationships, it'll happen in business, it'll happen in your own life. Like, it's just build a habit of give more than you take.

• 42:16Hala Taha?

  I love that. That reminds me of David Meltzer. Thank you so much, Mark. You have such great content. Your books are amazing. I would highly recommend everybody to go get your latest book, Everything is [BLEEP]. You can find it everywhere. And thanks so much for your time today.

• 42:31Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 42:32Hala Taha?

  Thank you.