Moment 92 - How To Find Out EXACTLY What You Want To Do In Life: Mark Manson

What do you want to do with your life? Does your answer change if you remove the idea of getting status, respect and admiration from it? In this moment Mark Manson explains how to find out what you ACTUALLY want from life. Mark discusses how you need to ask yourself honestly why you want what you want, instead of what everyone else says you should value. Because chasing this inauthentic idea of success with only leads you to dead ends and dark places. Listen to the full episode here - https://g2ul0.app.link/mVt7Zig7hob Mark: https://www.instagram.com/markmanson/?hl=en https://twitter.com/IAmMarkManson?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor Watch the Episodes On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEO/videos 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.

• 0:03Steven Bartlett?

  You, um, I was, I was watching your conversation with, with Tom Bilyeu and I found it really, really interesting and important because one of the things you talk about when we're talking about, you know, deciding what you want to do with your life, whether it's a business or you want to be a pickup artist or whatever it is, is the importance of asking the question, why? And in the society and culture we live in, especially one that's so driven by comparison, where your values are almost being handed to you by Instagram and the Kardashians, like this is how, this is what you should value. Like I almost, I've almost felt, I remember one day a kid came up to me after I did this like big talk on stage and he said, I want to be a public speaker. And he was like 17 and you're thinking, but you've got nothing like you.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  What are you gonna talk about?

• 0:43Steven Bartlett?

  And it really, what he's saying is like, he doesn't want to be a public speaker. He wants the admiration he thinks public speakers get, probably because he's insecure.

• 0:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:52Steven Bartlett?

  And, and so many kids, including myself as a young kid, we don't actually know what we want. We have no fucking clue, but what we probably want is not to be insecure and get laid. Like at the heart of it. And the pursuit of that, as you've described, takes us down a dark alley to the wrong place, usually a dead end as well. So how do I figure out what, what I actually want in my life without it being Kardashian noise or Instagram? Like what does, what, what do I want? And how do I find out?

• 1:20Speaker 01

  I think, so it's a tricky thing, right? Because again, I think you, you kind of have to get it right. It's like the relationships. You need to get a couple wrong before you know how to get it right. And I think it's the same in pursuing a career or, or finding a purpose in life. Like you, you need to get it wrong a couple of times because we're experts at tricking ourselves, you know? It's like that kid, he wants admiration, right?

• 1:47Speaker 01

  But if you ask them in his head, he's like, no, no, I'm just really passionate about communicating with people. I love people. You know, and it's like, we all do that to ourselves. We all like, we find the, the admirable narrative to kind of explain what we're, what we want in the world. So I think you need to go through. You need to hit a couple of dead ends. You know, it's like, like that kid, he probably should go get on stage and give the speeches and get the applause and then realize that the applause doesn't solve anything. That he's still, he's still just as insecure as he was before. Because then, once, once he does that, then he'll be ready to ask that question of like, why do I want to do that? Like, why am I really doing this? It, it's almost a question you have to earn in a lot of ways.

• 2:32Steven Bartlett?

  Interesting.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  You know, and I feel like a lot of people, they just want to start there. And it's like, no, no, you have to like, cause look, we're all like the Kardashian thing, right? Like, like the reason that stuff is so popular is because we're wired to value it. We're wired to want status. We're wired to want to be beautiful and sexy. And we're wired to want to impress others. Like, that's never going to go away. The question is, is like, what do you want? Once that is kind of removed from the equation. But I think mentally, to be able to remove it from the equation, you have to try to get some of it first and, and, and see that it doesn't work. If that makes sense.

• 3:13Steven Bartlett?

  And what did you come to learn for yourself? Um, once you got that stuff, you had the money, you were, you know, had lots of, um, success in the field.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:23Steven Bartlett?

  With pickup artistry and you tried all of these things and you tried the cars. And what did you come to learn that you value?

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Well, I had an interesting experience in my career, which we were joking about it before we went live. Was like, I kind of had this realization. So I started the pickup stuff when I was like 21, 22. And, and then I started coaching and like teaching dating advice. Probably when I was like 23, 24. And I got to like my late twenties and I, it suddenly, it started to dawn on me that like, this is cool now, but in like five years, it's going to be really creepy. You know, like it's, it's one thing to be a 25 year old who's like taking a bunch of dudes out to like, talk to girls in a club.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  It's very different to be like a 35 year old guy who's taking out a bunch of dudes to talk to 20 year old girls at a club. Like it just, it's a much different look. And I also just realized, I'm like, I don't want to do this forever. Like this is fun, but like I, this is actually not fulfilling in any way whatsoever. Like I need to find what my next thing is going to be. And during that period, when I was doing all the dating relationship advice.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  I started to realize, especially like a lot of, a lot of clients, a lot of guys who hired me, you know, I take them out to the bar and we talk to some girls or whatever. But after a year or two, I realized like, what these guys really need is a therapist.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  You know, it's, it's their problem, you know, they're good guys, like they're, they're smart. There's, they're like, they've got a good job.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  They're sure they're a little bit nervous talking to a girl, but like, who isn't? What, really what their, most of their problems were is like very deep seated insecurities, emotional issues, and they hadn't dealt with it yet. And so the last couple of years I did that job. I would kind of just take the guys to the bar as an excuse and then sit down with them and be like, okay, let's like, what's really going on in your life, you know, like, like, let's get into, why do you feel so insufficient or unworthy of, you know, dating her or talking to her or whatever? And so I kind of realized that like, you know, what I should be writing about is this stuff. You know, the, the like,

• 5:46Speaker 01

  the, the three best first dates or like how to get her to reply to your text every time. Like I was writing stuff like that back then because it, it got traffic and it, it would, it would get sales. But I'm like, that's not what people actually need. That's not what they need to hear. What they need to hear is kind of this deeper stuff about self-esteem and self-worth and vulnerability. And, and so I, I made that decision to pivot into that, to stop being the dating coach and, and, and actually start writing about personal development and emotional health. Because that's something I knew I could be proud of and, and I could do for the rest of my life. You know, you, you, you can be a 50 year old, uh, talking about those things and it's still like,

• 6:29Speaker 01

  something you can hang your hat on like, but I never would have gotten there if I hadn't done the dating coach stuff. If I hadn't kind of been obsessed with the, like, yeah, let's go to the club and like, try to get laid. Like you, that's the entry point, right? And then you find the deeper stuff along the way.

• 6:46Steven Bartlett?

  And that's your, that's your sort of now your professional.

• 6:50Steven Bartlett?

  Value, I guess, the one of the things you value professionally. But in terms of like holistically, when you look at your whole life, what are the things where the values at the heart of Mark that allow him to be, you know, fulfilled, stable and yes, sustainable, like the sustainable values that you think can last you. Because of these values, I will be somewhat, you know, content and fulfilled for the next thirty, forty years, holistically.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Gotcha. So, I mean, the answer is gonna sound really banal, but like, but it's true. You know, I think probably the biggest one for me is honesty and not just honesty. You know, with the, with the people in my life, like honesty is a standard that I hold kind of everybody, all my friends and everybody I work with too. But it's also something I hold myself to, being honest with myself. I think generosity is one that I've discovered. Again, it's one of those things that when you do make all the money, like you do make a buttload of money, you learn that it's so much more fun to spend it on other people

• 7:59Speaker 01

  than it is yourself. Like it feels so much better and, and it means a lot more. Like it's, it creates those really powerful moments that you, you do remember for the rest of your life, whereas the Lamborghini you forget about.

• 8:14Steven Bartlett?

  Any two seats, right?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, you only got one ass.