E152 - Mark Manson: Life Advice that Doesn’t Suck: Happiness, Identity & Success

Mark Manson dives deep into the messy reality behind personal growth and self-help, challenging the myths and misconceptions that hold most people back. From the hidden struggles that shape our identity to the sacrifices no one talks about, Mark unpacks why real change is so difficult—and why most advice fails to deliver. You’ll hear about the traps of chasing perfection, the struggle to live authentically, and the backwards logic that keeps us stuck. Try Pique Life tea and save 20% for life & get a free frother: https://www.piquelife.com/KnowThyself Andrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyself.one/books ___________ 0:00 Intro 1:12 How Our Struggles Shape Us 2:57 Building a Life Based on Your Values 10:00 Uncovering Your Hierarchy of Values 16:28 The Struggle of Transforming Our Identity 22:46 Breaking Free from an Inauthentic Version of Ourself 26:37 You Don’t See the Sacrifice that Leads to Success 27:49 Ad: Pique Life 29:11 Sacrifices that Lead to Success 34:10 The Backwards Law: Self Improvement vs Acceptance 38:38 What True Inner Freedom Means 43:44 Success & Failure Aren’t What They Seem 49:45 Worst Advice in the Self Help Industry 57:35 Self Help vs Self Obsession 1:02:19 Simple Formula for Massive Change 1:08:27 Beating Procrastination with Meditation 1:13:28 Allowing Ourselves to Evolve 1:17:36 Conclusion ___________ Episode Resources: https://www.instagram.com/markmanson/ https://www.youtube.com/@IAmMarkManson/ https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/ https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast https://www.knowthyself.one Listen to the show: Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

  What's the secret to being a great host this season? Keeping things deliciously simple. Like mixing Simply Cranberry into a festive drink as guests arrive. Or serving up a warm mug of Simply Apple on a chilly night. That means less time behind the scenes and more time in the moment with everyone. Crafted with real fruit, Simply juices and fruit drinks make any holiday drink effortless, inviting, and completely delicious. Simply. Say yes to simple.

• 1:00André Duqum?

  What, in your perspective, is the biggest fault of the self-help industry?

• 1:05Speaker 03

  Where should I start? There's a lot of advice that is optimized for making you feel very good in the short term. You run into a little bit of a paradox. The spiritual goal is the universal acceptance of what is. But if you're universally accepting what is at every moment, how do you ever get anything done? When does self-acceptance just become complacency? Are you in a place where the pain of inaction feels worse than the pain of action? Does the struggle of not doing something feel worse than the struggle of doing it? The advice that works to actually apply something into your life is so brain-dead simple that I feel like an idiot, even saying it out loud. The simple part is, it's easy to give up something that's not working. The hardest thing is giving up something that is working, but it's not fulfilling you. And then ironically,

• 1:49Speaker 03

  I think it's that willingness to risk it all is ultimately what, A, helps you make something great, and then, B, attracts people to it. That fear is there because it is valuable.

• 2:07André Duqum?

  Mark Manson. Welcome back, my friend.

• 2:10Speaker 03

  It's good to be here.

• 2:11André Duqum?

  Who you are is defined by what you're willing to struggle for.

• 2:17André Duqum?

  Elaborate.

• 2:22Speaker 03

  Well, we all have to struggle with something.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  You know, that's Buddhist precept. Number one, literally. But we have a choice. We have a choice of what we get to struggle with. You know, we have a freedom of choice. And so I think to put it in practical terms, it's like

• 2:40Speaker 03

  trying to be something great is a struggle. Not trying is a struggle. Being with people is a struggle. Being alone is a struggle.

• 2:53Speaker 03

  Being successful, making a lot of money is a struggle.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  Living frugally is a struggle. So pick your struggle. And we all pick different struggles. And I think that that is ultimately how we come to know who we are. That's what differentiates us.

• 3:10André Duqum?

  Yeah, who we are is defined by what essentially is worth struggling for, you know, and the inevitable challenges that come up after endeavoring after anything in life. And what we're worth struggling for is defined essentially by our values directly. I loved your new endeavor with Solve the Podcast, diving deep into these different topics. The first one you did around human values and knowing yourself. I think it's a good fit for this podcast. But how do you differentiate? And how would you support people? And kind of delineating between what values and needs are? And sort of discovering what is really worth kind of positioning themselves towards in life?

• 3:55Speaker 03

  Sure. So needs are universal. They're very basic. They're almost like, you know, a physical need is like food and sleep. Something everybody needs. It's, it's, uh, there's no discussion or debate around it. And there's certain psychological needs as well, right? Like we all, we have a need for belonging. We have a need to feel connected to other people. Um, we have a need for personal autonomy. We have a certain need for a certain amount of certainty or predictability in our life. Otherwise, we've become very anxious and scared. And what you notice with these needs is that when people don't, when their needs are not being met,

• 4:35Speaker 03

  they, their mental health suffers pretty consistently across the board. But what's interesting is that different people develop different strategies to meet their needs. Right? So my strategy for meeting my need or belongingness may be to, um, I don't know, join a church. And your strategy for meeting your need of belongingness might be-

• 4:59André Duqum?

  Starting a church.

• 5:00Speaker 03

  Starting a church. There you go. Uh, you know, and it could be anything, every, anything and everything, you know, from the pickleball group you're in to, um, the run club that you join to, um, staying in touch with family, you know, back home and calling your mom every day. Like, these are all different strategies that we develop and employ to like meet our needs. And what's interesting is that those strategies are very diverse and they're different. And, um, generally speaking, those strategies kind of fall into different categories.

• 5:33Speaker 03

  Different ways of approaching meeting our needs. And you could say that there's like different prioritizations. Like if you're a very extroverted person, you probably meet your need of belongingness by surrounding yourself by a lot of people and interacting with a lot of people. If you're very introverted, then you probably meet your need for belongingness with only a few people, but you spend a lot of time with them or you're like very deeply connected with them. And these different strategies, they result in prioritizations. And those prioritizations, um, are ultimately what we value, right? It's like, I don't value the pickleball club because that's not how I meet my need for belongingness. I value something else because that is how I meet my need for belongingness.

• 6:19André Duqum?

  It seems like our behaviors in life directly reveal what our values are. Right? Because it's easy to get super psychological with it and thinking about it. But ultimately, like, we move through the world motivated, inspired by what our our values are. If somebody's thinking right now to themselves, what are my values? As it's an important thing to reflect on because it's going to inform so much of the subsequent actions that are derived from it. What are the first steps that you like to look at?

• 6:48Speaker 03

  Well, you already named it, which is look at your actions. Because

• 6:53Speaker 03

  a funny thing happens with all of us is that we wish we valued things that we don't, or feel socially pressured into it, or bought into a narrative at some point of like, oh, this is something I should value. My friends value this, so maybe I should value that. Yet we struggle to actually follow through on it. You know, I'll use a really basic example that comes up all the time. So I hear from a lot of young people, right? Who they grew up, they went to a great, a great school, got a great degree. You know, maybe became a lawyer or a doctor. And then one day they wake up when they're 30 and they're like, I don't want to do this. And I don't know why I don't want to, I don't know why I don't want to do this. And

• 7:36Speaker 03

  likely what happened along the way is that they adopt, they convinced themselves that they valued something that they actually didn't. They thought they wanted to do law. But really what they wanted was maybe the approval of their parents. Or maybe all of their friends were going to law school and they didn't want to feel left out. Right? That is actually what they valued. And so there's this kind of like game of honesty that you have to play with yourself when you look at your own actions. Like really ask, why are you doing that? Or why are you not doing something?

• 8:10Speaker 03

  And be uncomfortably honest with with the answers that you allow to come up. Because ultimately, your actions never lie.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  Our minds and our mouths lie all the time, often without even us knowing it.

• 8:27André Duqum?

  It seems like as we grow and evolve as human beings, so too are our values. And I've heard you just speak to how, in many ways, values are an effort to fulfill our needs in some different ways. And of course, that's going to change throughout the different stages of our life. What's something that used to be a value for you that isn't? And what are some of your primary values now?

• 8:48Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 8:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, when I was young, what's interesting is that there are patterns around this, too. Like, it's generally young people really value exploration. You know, it's when you're a young adult, like, everything's new, everything's exciting. You want to learn everything, you want to try everything, you want to date everybody.

• 9:10Speaker 03

  And then slowly, you start learning what you really like and what you don't, and what works and what doesn't, and what's worth it and what's not. And then you eventually, kind of as you age and mature,

• 9:25Speaker 03

  you become pickier. So I'm in middle age now, and so I've just become a lot pickier about the things that I'm willing to put my time and effort into. So when I was young, I wanted to go to every party.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  I wanted to talk to every cute girl I saw. I wanted to visit every cool place. I wanted to read every book. You know, there was a genuine, kind of young excitement about it. And sometimes I get very nostalgic for that because I don't feel that a whole lot anymore. But I think what I have now that I didn't have then is a deep sense of peace of, I know what I value, I know what I care about. And I have been fortunate enough to successfully build a life around those things that I care about. So I have the privilege of spending most of my waking hours doing things that I like with people I like.

• 10:20Speaker 03

  And so while I may not have all the fun and excitement and crazy, whacked-out stories that my 20-year-old self did,

• 10:33Speaker 03

  I definitely, I'm very satisfied.

• 10:36André Duqum?

  Yeah. In like seeing how there's a hierarchy of values, I'm curious what your thoughts are in your own personal life of like, a couple of things that you value. There's probably one that you value more than the other.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:49André Duqum?

  Which, you know, maybe there's still, there's still some, some part in you that does value networking and connecting with people, or maybe that's completely abolished at this point. But there's a, there's another value that, you know, there are more, many more that just feel way stronger, you know, more present in this age in life.

• 11:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:07André Duqum?

  So yeah, as it's evolved in your, in your life now, I'm just curious your thoughts on allowing that to shift. And, and because it's, it gets really easy to kind of get calcified and how everybody has responded to what we think our values are, how we've been rewarded for living in accordance with old values that aren't, you know, exciting for us anymore.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  Sure. Or, or fail us, right? Like that, that's another way, you know, there's kind of the lack of excitement, but you know, often value change happens due to some terrible event in our lives, right? You know, a breakup, you lose a job, you lose a loved one, right? And it, and it shakes up your values, what you care about. It makes you question a lot of things like, wow, I used to think this was so important. And now I realize that I was, I was misguided or I, I didn't see the full picture, right? But what you were saying about the value hierarchy, like ultimately, this is one of the things I talk about in my books is like, everybody ultimately wants the same things, like we're, we're all human.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  So like, we all, we all like the same stuff in the abstract. We all like attention and validation and we all want to be loved and we all want to be admired and we all want to enjoy nice things and experience a sense of status. And, and it's all like, it's all actually very unoriginal. And, and this is why I find the struggles that people choose is actually a much better indicator. Cause it's just like, when you look at the, the dreams and the fantasies and the pleasures that people have.

• 12:44Speaker 03

  They're very similar. They're very, almost monotonous sometimes and how identical they are. So it's, it's not that like, I have certain values and you don't have them at all. It's just what changes from person to person is like the, the place on the ladder that we put them, right? So for one person, their highest value in life might be family. And it's, and if you walked up to that person, you said, um, you have to be willing to give up your career to, to, to make your family more stable and successful. That person would in a heartbeat say, absolutely, I'll do it. But then there's probably other people whose

• 13:28Speaker 03

  top value is their career. And if you offer them the same proposition, they would go the other way, right? And so again, that's the differentiation is like, which one are you willing to sacrifice for? And that determines where on your hierarchy the value is and kind of what the order of those, those values are. And then when life comes and, and you know, kicks you in the ass, which it does all of us, um, it shuffles that order a little bit, you know? It's like, maybe you valued your career for 10 or 20 years, and suddenly you, you wake up in your 40s and you're like just profoundly lonely and you feel isolated

• 14:10Speaker 03

  and you look at all of your friends and coworkers and they all have loving families that they spend time with and you're just like, oh my God, I can't believe I messed this up, right? Like that shifting, like moving one value down a peg and one value up a peg, it's like an inherently uncomfortable experience because you're, you're literally like rearranging who you are in that moment. And so there's a lot of, it comes with a lot of emotion. It comes a lot with a lot of psychological tension. It comes with a lot of like confusion and, and sometimes like guilt or embarrassment, you know, it's like you. You go out with friends who used to know you for being one way, but you're not that way anymore.

• 14:55Speaker 03

  And so you feel out of place and they're confused by your behavior. And so there's like all these awkward kind of moments of like, you're trying to figure out who you're supposed to be, and they're trying to figure out who you're supposed to be. And so it is like a very inherently deeply uncomfortable process. And this is why I've just said forever that like, change is inherently difficult. Like, there's no, nobody's gonna throw you a parade for, you know, discovering who you are. It's probably, you know, it's probably more like crawling through barbed wire. It's probably more equivalent.

• 15:34André Duqum?

  I think we do have that really idealized notion of transformation.

• 15:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 15:38André Duqum?

  You know, and the reality of growth is movement and expansion, which is often rarely comfortable.

• 15:46Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 15:47André Duqum?

  Hardly ever.

• 15:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I do think that like, I do think there are moments on the other side where you feel profoundly like deeply grateful and proud and joyous. You know, of like, oh, my God, I just, I overcame that, or I worked through that. But in my experience, that's usually, it's usually an experience that happens after the fact, when you're looking back. And when you're in it, you're like, this sucks. Get me out of this as soon as possible. There's a quote I love from Freud. He said, he said, "In retrospect, your greatest struggles will strike you as the most beautiful." And I've always loved that.

• 16:34André Duqum?

  That's so good. I think there is a shift where when you orient yourself to be more process oriented than goal oriented, you can actually find the joy throughout, in pockets of joy throughout the process of the struggle, you know? And I think it's it's more easily accessed when it's kind of slow habitual changes in your life and you can, you know, experience the pleasure of exercising your body even though it feels difficult at many times and it can be a it can be a enjoyable process for sure. But nonetheless, usually the most I feel like the most painful aspects of expanding ourselves is the transformation of identity because we hold it so close to us as us, you

• 17:19André Duqum?

  know, and becomes the most hard to let go. And as it relates to transforming our values and identity in life, it's nearly impossible to get someone to understand something or to change when their entire self-worth depends on them not understanding it or not changing, you know?

• 17:38Speaker 03

  Right.

• 17:39André Duqum?

  And we can get caught in this cycle of being rewarded for an outdated version of ourself.

• 17:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:43André Duqum?

  So as you've grown on your journey, both in the world and as a creator and an author and content creator, but then also as as a partner in your romantic relationships and friendships, I would just love to get your perspective on this evolving identity and how alluring it is and painful it can be to hold on to these past versions of ourself.

• 18:06Speaker 03

  It's natural, like you should evolve, like even without getting into all the stuff that you and I are into, right? Like it's it's just being a human, you should, your preferences should change, your values should change, your lifestyle should change as as you go through life. That's just a natural, a natural part of being human. But it is, I guess, the most the thing that's coming up for me, listening to you ask that is, I think, one mental shift that that just helps me a lot when I'm kind of in the middle of the confusion and the dissonance is reminding myself that like, this is part of it, you know, like there's, I think there's a tendency when we're struggling or when we're confused about who we are or what we should be doing.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  Somehow like work off the assumption that like this isn't supposed to happen. Like I'm supposed to have it figured out like, you know, Jim's got it figured out. Mary's got it figured out. I should have it figured out. And really it's like Jim and Mary don't know what the hell they're doing either. And like, this is part of it. It's like, everybody is completely confused for a large percentage of the time. And I think it's just finding, like reminding myself of that consistently is like very comforting. And removing the expectation to like, feel like I have all the answers. To the social point, you know, I think it's, I have found that it's like, both in my personal life and then also, you know, in my professional life with my audience and fans and everything.

• 19:33Speaker 03

  It's, it's, I think when you build relationships authentically, like when you're transparent and very clear about who you are and what you care about. The door is then always open to have those conversations of like, hey, I'm, I'm kind of changing. Like I don't really, this thing I used to like, I don't really like this anymore. So I'm going to go in this other direction. And because like, you know, with my wife, we have this long history of transparent communication around this stuff. She can then be adaptable to that. And I think it's the same, you know, with, with my audience that it's, I'm very fortunate that I chose at a very early stage in my career

• 20:14Speaker 03

  to just be very authentic and open with my audience of like, I'm not going to pretend to be anything I'm not. So when these moments do come where I want to take a left turn or pivot out of something or, you know, stop making a certain type of content. Like, I don't think, I would hope, like, I, I, I, I think most of my audience is like, they understand, they get it. Like they're, they're not. They don't feel cheated out of anything.

• 20:43André Duqum?

  Hmm. Eventually, it's you'll realize it's better to be disliked for who you are than liked for who you aren't.

• 20:49Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 20:53Speaker 03

  Yes. Um, I think I posted that pretty recently. Um, because even when you're disliked for who you are, there's a certain honesty. It's interesting. So like a good friend of mine grew up in a really dysfunctional household, like very dysfunctional parents and their father was abusive and, and then the mother was not. But it's interesting because this friend like has all of this resentment for their mother and not the father. And I was talking to him once and I was like, why is that? Like your dad used to beat the shit out of you. Like, but you're always pissed at your mom. Like, what is and, and they

• 21:37Speaker 03

  told me something really interesting. They said, you know, my dad is an asshole, but he never pretended to not be. I always knew who he was and I always knew where I stood with him to this day. My mom thinks she's a sane and like is completely delusional and I have, there's like no way to, for her to touch reality. And that drives me crazy because I never know where I am with her. And so there's like,

• 22:10Speaker 03

  I think there's kind of like a, a broader meta conversation happening here of like this assumption that struggle is bad or pain is bad. Um, you know, if, if your pain and struggle is what defines you, like that does, that means it's not necessarily a bad thing. And I think similarly in relationships, like having

• 22:33Speaker 03

  Animosity, or dislike, or disapproval between two people, it's not always necessarily a bad thing. If it's coming from a very authentic and transparent place, you might not like the person, but you respect them and you trust them, which is a weird thing. Whereas if everybody's just nice and kissing each other's asses all the time, like, sure, it's pleasant, but it like, doesn't mean anything.

• 22:59Speaker 00

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• 23:30Speaker 01

  What's the secret to being a great host this season? Keeping things deliciously simple, like mixing Simply Cranberry into a festive drink as guests arrive, or serving up a warm mug of Simply Apple on a chilly night. That means less time behind the scenes and more time in the moment with everyone. Crafted with real fruit, Simply juices and fruit drinks make any holiday drink effortless, inviting, and completely delicious. Simply, say yes to simple.

• 24:01André Duqum?

  It's so fascinating to see, and more social dynamics, this can often be a subconscious process, like when we resonate towards people who are authentically themselves, for better, for worse, whether they're genuinely a kind human being or they're an asshole. If they are them, there is a certain level of respect, I guess, because you're able to, there's a porousness there.

• 24:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:22André Duqum?

  You know? And it can be easy when we compare our lives and to other people's highlight reel to kind of forge a version of ourselves that is not actually authentic to us. And thus, people might love us for a version of ourselves that we're not.

• 24:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:42André Duqum?

  So how do you help people break free from that?

• 24:46Speaker 03

  I think it's very seductive. Like, there's... There's kind of like a shallow level of approval that is easily transmitted and easily like visible to others, right? You know, if you just think about like, I don't know, buying a fancy car or, um, you know, having like amazing photos on Instagram or whatever. Like it's, it's like the cheap candy version of belongingness. And there's like almost no sustenance there, but it's very, it's very easy to make that appealing. Like it's very visible and obviously desirable on like a very superficial level. Whereas I think the deep, meaningful sense of belongingness, that sense of like, I get, I can be who I

• 25:30Speaker 03

  am, completely authentic, warts and all. Like there's a, there's a certain level of discomfort and unpleasantness that is inherent in that, that is like, doesn't, is not easily transmitted on Instagram or in a YouTube video. Like it's not, you can't really advertise it. Like there's no magazine ad in, in, in vogue saying like 15 awkward conversations to help you be yourself with your partner on a random Tuesday night. Like that's just, it's not a sexy promotion. Like nobody's like clicking the buy button for that. In a way, like our, our, our needs get hijacked relatively easily by like the exposure, the

• 26:15Speaker 03

  amount that we're just purely exposed to. And I think there is a lot to be said of cutting a certain amount out of your life. I'm a big proponent of, there's different names for it, but I call it a information diet or an attention diet. So like being very mindful and thoughtful of like what content and information you're consuming and being careful, like the same way, I like the metaphor of a diet because I think it maps really well to kind of the information age that we, we live in. Like it's fine to have some of that content, you know, that like sexy social media content. Like it's fine to have a little bit of that, just like it's fine to have, you know, a little bit

• 26:58Speaker 03

  of dessert here and there or like, you know, a candy bar every once in a while. But like, if that is your primary diet, day in and day out. Then your mental health is gonna deteriorate. The same way if you just ate candy bars all day, every day. Your physical health just like completely deteriorates. So I think it's useful to think about like, what is like the, the, the vegetables of an information diet? And making sure that you have like a strong sturdy portion of that in your life. And then like, anything that is candy for you, like just being very conscious of how much of it you're consuming and when you're consuming it and like, and put guardrails on yourself. Because ideally, we would all have perfect self-control and we would like be able to manage our, but it's not, we're, we're fucking animals, dude. Like, it's just,

• 27:44Speaker 03

  put guardrails on yourself. Make certain things off limits, delete apps, block certain pages at certain times. Leave your phone out of the bedroom. But you know, it's like all this like basic mental hygiene stuff.

• 27:59André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 28:01Speaker 03

  That is, is, it's becoming commonplace, but it's becoming commonplace for a reason. Cause it's just like, it's, it's becoming like the, the nuts and bolts. It's becoming like the brush your teeth and floss of the 21st century. It's just like, put your fucking phone away, you know, like, stop following accounts that make you feel bad.

• 28:22André Duqum?

  Yeah, there is a interesting tinge when it comes to, I suppose, more of the self-help industry as, as it relates to this. But another quote of yours, I'm just pulling, pulling these Mark Manson writings.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  Bring them out.

• 28:32André Duqum?

  What a good author that guy.

• 28:36André Duqum?

  But that you only envy the life of people whose sacrifices you don't see.

• 28:40Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 28:41André Duqum?

  And it's an alluring and persistent delusion, you know, to idealize people's lives that we see, whether it's through social media or in, in different spaces. And it's one thing to be at, have something that's admirable and have it be inspiring for you to take action in life. It's another thing to think that people didn't work and have to forego many things that you don't want to,

• 29:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:07André Duqum?

  to get there.

• 29:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's because nobody shows the sacrifices. Again, it's like, There's no Instagram account of like all the sacrifices in somebody's life. Like, nobody wants to share that with anybody. Nobody wants to see it. But it is, it's inherent and like anything that's good. It's whether it's, you know, developing a skill or being respected or being loved. Like it's, it's, I don't want to say you have to earn it. Cause I think that's like a bad model. Like you, it's not, you're not earning things, but it is. It's just that like the, the, the sacrifices, like

• 29:43Speaker 03

  component of it. It's like the, it's the other part of the iceberg that's underwater.

• 29:49André Duqum?

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• 30:33André Duqum?

  No steeping, no mess, just pure, clean tea. Plus every batch is triple toxin screen. So you're getting all the good stuff with no pesticides or weird additives. And because you're a part of this community, Peak is hooking you up with 20% off for life. Plus a free rechargeable frother and glass beaker. When you grab their Pu'er bundle, which is this tea that I love every day, the black and green tea. They even back it up with a 90 day money back guarantee. So you can try it totally risk free. Just go to peaklife.com slash knowleself to grab yours now. That's peaklife.com slash knowleself. Link in description. As always, I hope you enjoy.

• 31:13Speaker 03

  I would imagine you're not a sports fan. You don't strike me as a sports fan.

• 31:17André Duqum?

  I watch like the NBA Finals.

• 31:19Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah?

• 31:20André Duqum?

  Kind of the postseason I say I pay more attention to.

• 31:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:23André Duqum?

  Other than that, no.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 31:25André Duqum?

  I watch chess sometimes.

• 31:27Speaker 03

  Oh, nice.

• 31:28André Duqum?

  I'm a chess guy.

• 31:29Speaker 03

  Nice. There's a, there's a story about Kobe Bryant that I love. So like, I think it was the 2008 Olympics. Kobe Bryant was like the best player in the world. And the US team was in Las Vegas practicing. And all the guys on the team like worshipped Kobe and thought he was like a god. And so they're like practicing with him every day and he's just, he's just kicking everybody's ass. And, and of course, all the other players, like it's Vegas, so they go out, they're at the club, they're drinking, they're partying, they're doing all this stuff. And one night they're out to like five in the morning and they leave the club, they're like absolutely hammered.

• 32:10Speaker 03

  And then they started like heading back to the, to their hotel rooms and they hit the elevator and the door is open and it's Kobe there with his gym bag. And the guys are like, whoa, Kobe, what are you doing here? And Kobe's like, I'm gonna go practice. What are you doing here? Like, all the guys were just like, oh shit. Like, we need to get our act together. So I just, I love, I love like little anecdotes like that. Cause it's just, that's shit you don't see. You don't, you don't see the guy in the gym at five in the morning every, you know, every day. Like you, you see the highlight reel, right?

• 32:45André Duqum?

  Yeah. Black Mamba.

• 32:47Speaker 03

  Black Mamba.

• 32:47André Duqum?

  Mamba mentality.

• 32:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:52André Duqum?

  It's so true that what, what you do in the dark shines in the light. And you don't see what other people are doing in the dark. It's like, not only do people not post it, it would be hard to really show that. Cause there's so many nuances to it and there's so many internal dialogues and conversations and things that lead up to the next iteration and, you know, development of, of what, of what you're doing.

• 33:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:13André Duqum?

  How have you found that personally in your path? Like, as it pertains to evolving your own style of content, the formats that you want to, you know, express yourself in? Like, have you struggled with any of that?

• 33:27Speaker 03

  Honestly, like, I think probably like half the reason I'm here at all is like, for whatever reason, I seem to be able to do that. You know, one of the things I, I point out to people is that And in the subtle art of not giving a fuck, there are four stories in that book about myself. And they're literally the four most painful experiences of my life. And I've like, talked to fans and pointed it out. And people don't realize, like, I don't think it registers consciously that it's. And I did that very intentionally when I wrote it. I was like, I want, I want people to know that this stuff is normal and it's okay.

• 34:08Speaker 03

  And you're not like a freak show or a weirdo if like something like this happens to you. And, and I think people really identify with that. But like it, we don't, we miss the fact that like, okay, yeah, the person sitting across your room is like going through something right now. Or that insecurity that we feel so deeply, you know, our friend is experiencing a similar thing, but they're just not talking about it. Like, there's just, there's this like delusion that we all develop that like, we are the only person in the world who understands the suffering that we're going through. And I would say that one of the things that's been very therapeutic for me is like, being on the other side of this, you know, for years and years and years, I've received thousands of emails from readers and fans, you know,

• 34:53Speaker 03

  telling me about their life problems. And it's, it's almost comical how consistently people will start an email with, I bet you've never heard this one before. And then they go on to describe a situation that I like literally heard every single day for years and years and years. It's just like, it's a really like, human, the human struggles are just, they're like so typical and consistent, but there's something about being in our own heads that we convince ourselves that, that they're not, that there's something like cosmically unique about your suffering and nobody will ever understand it. So, yeah.

• 35:32André Duqum?

  Yeah, it helps build significance in our own perception of these things. I think it, in seeing how they actually aren't that incredibly unique, it helps dissolve the, the weight we give to them.

• 35:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:44André Duqum?

  And at the same time, going through struggle, going through pain, going through experience from the first person perspective sucks oftentimes.

• 35:52Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 35:53André Duqum?

  And, uh, yeah. And so, and so, yeah, I think it's, it's an interesting, interesting balance. But I think. When it relates to kind of blossoming as a human being and wanting to develop ourself and our skillsets and our capacities in life, there's both the perspective of improving the things we can improve and then also accepting the parts of ourselves, which are, I think, conflated quite often. Like, we think they require the same things.

• 36:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:22André Duqum?

  And I would love to just kind of, even though we did a bit in our last conversation, which was a couple of years now, and it's been read by millions of people in your book, but like the backwards law and kind of diving a little bit deeper into that as an understanding of relating to our internal process.

• 36:39Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 36:40André Duqum?

  Because I think that positioning helps reframe what we would normally think of as, oh, I just got to keep improving all these aspects of myself.

• 36:48Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 36:50André Duqum?

  So.

• 36:51Speaker 03

  Yeah. Which, at a certain point, becomes part of the problem.

• 36:55André Duqum?

  Right.

• 36:57Speaker 03

  So, yeah, the backwards law, it comes from Alan Watts. It's very simple. So the way I phrased it is, the desire for a positive experience is itself a negative experience, and the acceptance of a negative experience is itself a positive experience. And so you get, you get a little bit of this like yin and yang type thing going, where the more you just kind of embrace your struggles, the more meaningful they become and the more they empower you. And, and the more you like chase the shiny object and the success, the skill, the admiration, whatever, just happiness in general, the more you remind yourself of how unhappy you are, the more you, you drive yourself into unhappiness.

• 37:42Speaker 03

  And, and so you end up with this kind of tricky thing. You run into a little bit of a paradox that you run into, I think, a lot in spiritual practices, which is that, you know, the, the spiritual goal is kind of a universal acceptance of what is in, in any given moment. Like, that's kind of what you're driving towards. But if you're universally accepting what is at every moment, how do you ever get anything done? Like, how do you ever improve? How do you ever strive? You know, who's going to make, build a bridge or, you know, cook dinner tonight? Like, it's just, you can't be like, so there's, I think sometimes there's a, there's a little bit of a tension of like,

• 38:27Speaker 03

  You know, when does when does a constant drive to improve yourself become toxic? Like, when are you actually? Is it just like a thinly veiled form of self-flagellation? And then similarly, when when does

• 38:43Speaker 03

  self-acceptance just become complacency and inaction? I'm curious if you've like dived into that at all? Or like what your thoughts are of that?

• 38:58André Duqum?

  Yeah, I feel like I kind of go back and forth this tension internally also. Like, I forgot who said the quote, but there is like,

• 39:07André Duqum?

  I no longer am accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept. You know, so there is that tension and balance of accepting what is and around you, but then also realizing you're a human being who has the power to influence reality in a powerful way.

• 39:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:23André Duqum?

  And so, yeah, I feel like for me and my own internal process, it's like, how does one come into right relationship? It's changing the things that I can and moving in that direction and then accepting the things that are outside of my control or require a confluence of different external factors that may or may not happen, you know, but it's not upon my own self-pointed will that is gonna only happen, you know?

• 39:48Speaker 03

  It's hard to know what's worth like changing and what's worth not. You know, like, that's I think that's where we most people get tripped up is like because it's unclear, you know? My first Zen master once said on a retreat.

• 40:06André Duqum?

  How many have you had?

• 40:07Speaker 03

  Well, not that many, just a few. But but this was like my, I think it was probably my first retreat. His Zen master just casually threw out there while everybody was sitting. He threw out, he said, "You are already perfect as you are, and you can always be better." And I think I'm still trying to sort that one out. Like, it just, that's always stuck with me.

• 40:30André Duqum?

  Yeah, my good friend Peter Krone says, uh, you're a masterpiece and a work in progress.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally, same thing.

• 40:38André Duqum?

  I'm curious what you think about the tension between, uh, this notion of freedom in our life. A lot of us think that it comes, that like, freedom means having as many choices and the optionality to do whatever we want in life, which, which is a sort of, a sort of perception of a freedom. But, uh, there's also a profound depth of freedom through commitment and choice. And so, yeah, this also just goes hand in hand with the backwards law too. And so I'm curious how you think about freedom in that context.

• 41:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. I love this topic because this was personally huge for me. I, I personally think American culture or Western culture, maybe.

• 41:17Speaker 03

  I think we often conflate freedom with optionality.

• 41:23Speaker 03

  I think it was Isaiah Berlin had this concept, he called it negative freedom and positive freedom. So he said, I might be getting these backwards, but I think, he said, negative freedom is the freedom from constraint, is that there's, nobody's imposing anything on you. And then positive freedom is being able to do and accomplish whatever you set out to do. And he argued that these are actually very different forms of freedom. And I think the negative freedom tends to be the, the Americanized one, which is like, you know, I'll do whatever hell I want, when I want, you know, I'll shoot whatever gun I want. Like it's, I'll do all the things. I'm, I'm free, goddammit.

• 42:07Speaker 03

  I've got 20 different types of cereal I can, I can eat and 50 pairs of Nike shoes in my closet. And, uh, you know, that's what freedom is. And it's just this like, just this lack of constraint. But the problem is like, without constraint.

• 42:23Speaker 03

  Like the the value prioritization we were talking about earlier, like to value something that demands that you constrain yourself, it demands that you give things up to prioritize one thing. And so there's this, there's an inherent tension between, I guess, negative freedom or optionality and then actually like valuing something, finding something meaningful in your life. And so positive freedom, which is, I think, probably more typical in Eastern cultures and, and also, I think, was the understanding of freedom in the ancient world with the Greeks and Romans is, is actually kind of a constraint

• 43:02Speaker 03

  based freedom. It's like having the discipline to do something. So like, from a positive freedom point of view, if you, you want to get in shape and, I don't know, lose 20 pounds, but you can't bring yourself to go to the gym, from a positive freedom point of view, a person would say you're not free. You're, you are essentially being oppressed by your own lack of self-control or a lack of discipline. And I think there's a lot more, that freedom is like where, where the meaning and, I guess, self-definition is

• 43:45Speaker 03

  found, right? It's like, because that, that's the form of freedom where you are, it's almost like the freedom to choose what you're giving up. It's the freedom to choose what you're not going to do. Like, that's, that is actually where I think the power is.

• 44:01André Duqum?

  Yeah, I think, I mean, you've spoken to this many times, the more you run on that hedonic treadmill and just follow the whims and dopaminergic, you know, urges throughout your life, your experience of life will not be free.

• 44:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:16André Duqum?

  You know, you have, you have, if you really value the sense of agency and be able, and choice in that way, it's like, your experience will be one of lethargy, essentially, you know? And so, I think the etymology of the word decide means to cut or to cut off. And so like, by, by becoming single kind of pointed focus in our decisions and our commitment and devotion, it's interesting how those things build, like, are those latent faculties and?

• 44:44André Duqum?

  Those those attributes of self that feel actually free.

• 44:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:49André Duqum?

  Which is like open, like having an adaptable mind, having a flexible and strong body, like all these things that require effort in many cases.

• 44:58Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:59André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 45:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's tricky too, right? Because you don't, you don't want to constrain people's ability to choose or decide.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  But at the same time, they need to be capable of choosing and deciding for themselves. And and I think we've probably, in the name of getting rid of the the former, we've like ended up in the latter, which is by trying to remove anything that could be potentially oppressive oppressive or constricting, we've ended up with like largely population of people who like are incapable of decisiveness.

• 45:34André Duqum?

  And the spirit of counterintuitive insights.

• 45:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:38André Duqum?

  Which I feel like you are a proponent of, stewarding.

• 45:41Speaker 03

  My bread and butter.

• 45:43André Duqum?

  Success never feels as good as you had hoped. Failure never feels as bad as you had feared. Things are rarely as good or bad as they seem.

• 45:53Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 45:55André Duqum?

  It's so, again, alluring to put our, to project our ideal state of being in the future and also the worst case scenario. And so I feel like this is an insight earned through experience also.

• 46:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 46:12André Duqum?

  Through living life.

• 46:13Speaker 03

  Right.

• 46:14André Duqum?

  Yeah. What what inspired that?

• 46:19Speaker 03

  That it's funny because that's a fast simile of like something that I told, I think my dad early in my career. Because like early in my career, I really struggled and to the point where like I was living on a friend's couch.

• 46:37Speaker 03

  I was in debt, like it was my girlfriend was at the time was supporting me like it was it was a mess and it was kind of like when I started, when I quit my job and like decided I was going to do this internet thing, I was basically kind of living the worst case scenario. And I remember talking to my dad, who was like, obviously very concerned.

• 47:00Speaker 03

  I remember like telling him, I was like, well, if this is, I'm already at the worst case scenarios and like, this isn't that bad. So I think I'm okay. And he thought I was absolutely out of my mind. But.

• 47:14Speaker 03

  I think I noticed that on the other side, too, which is when my career took off and I hit all my goals. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was great, like, not complaining, but like, it never plays out the way you think it's going to. Like, it never feels as good or satisfying as you thought it was gonna feel. And when it does feel as satisfying, it's like, it doesn't last very long. You know, you're always, there's something else you want pretty soon after.

• 47:41André Duqum?

  There's no there there.

• 47:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, it's, um, and so, yeah, I just think it's, it's, the conclusion I've come to, I guess, is that our, our minds are very dramatic. And so when we invent the stories of our imagined future, you know, we add a little Hollywood into it. We, we make it, you know, we make it very emotional and very like, oh, this would be incredible. Everybody will know how badass I am if this happens. And it's like, nah, no. Life's complicated. People have different things going on. Some people aren't gonna notice. Some people are

• 48:22Speaker 03

  gonna really notice. It's like, everything is a little bit messy in, in reality. And I think, I think one thing to just understanding the psychological literature is just like, understanding just how bad we are at predicting how we're gonna feel. Not only are we bad at predicting how we're gonna feel in the future, we're also bad at remembering how we felt in the past. Like, it's just, there's, there's a certain amount of, I think, distrust of those assumptions. That is, that is healthy. I'm, I'm sorry, I have to throw this back at you. Have you found the same to be true? Because you've had, you've had a roller coaster of a, a young career. I'm like, I wonder if, if there have been moments where you're like, I thought this was gonna feel better than this, or?

• 49:06André Duqum?

  I don't know. I feel like I'm, I'm, I'm really just enjoying the, like, laying brick by bricks, day by day. I don't, I don't feel like, um,

• 49:18André Duqum?

  I don't feel by any means I've like completed what I've set out to do.

• 49:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:22André Duqum?

  Even though I in many ways have

• 49:26André Duqum?

  accomplished things that I probably still have yet to acknowledge, you know, fully.

• 49:33André Duqum?

  I think as it relates to both sides, whether it's an idealized future that, you know, we hope for, or the negative, Mark Twain has something along the lines of, uh, like, the worst tragedies in my life never occurred, or something.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:46André Duqum?

  We live in this matrix of mind where

• 49:48Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 49:50André Duqum?

  And often the worst case scenarios are the ones that our mind has made up, that then it's spending its energy trying to prevent, and it's all like made up within itself. It's so trippy when we realize how we're living in this sort of mental reflection of our own creations.

• 50:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's funny too, because it's like,

• 50:10Speaker 03

  because we lose, yeah, like, we lose that perspective. And sometimes I have to remind myself that my biggest problem today is something that

• 50:22Speaker 03

  I would have killed for 10 years ago. Yet it's still my biggest problem today, you know, like it just, you forget like how, what the whole trajectory is and, and, you know, how far you've come, or, or even that you chose this, right? It's, it's like.

• 50:39André Duqum?

  Yeah, because growth happens like gradually. And so like, you don't notice the differences day to day. Of course, you can look back years after and be like, oh, there's a big change there. But almost, I feel like for success or like our goals to become materialized, there's a part of us that has to expect it and see it as possible.

• 50:56Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 50:57André Duqum?

  And so that when it comes, it's like, it, the, yeah, I guess how enchanting we, we thought it would be at one point. It just becomes normalized and like, yeah, like, I'm worthy of that. It makes sense that I have it in a sense.

• 51:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think you make a really good point there that like, there's almost a certain, I don't want to say delusional level of optimism, but like a heightened level of optimism that is very advantageous for, for achieving goals. And, uh, and I think it may be that same heightened optimism is.

• 51:31Speaker 03

  What causes, you know, once you do achieve the goal, you're like, oh, okay. Well, that was cool. Like, what's next?

• 51:44André Duqum?

  It's so great that we're both part of an industry that really gets to support people by oftentimes just, you know, sharing our own journeys. And yet, man, it's a trip being in, and what you might call is a personal growth, the growth or self-help journey in different contexts and different, slightly different avenues. But what in your perspective is like the biggest fault of the self-help industry?

• 52:07Speaker 03

  Oh, where should I start?

• 52:10André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 52:14Speaker 00

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• 52:44Speaker 01

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• 53:19Speaker 03

  There are two things that really bother me.

• 53:22Speaker 03

  I think one is kind of severe. It's like a severe problem. One is not. It's more just me being obnoxious.

• 53:30Speaker 03

  I'll start with the obnoxious one.

• 53:34Speaker 03

  It bugs me that there's, it's. Like we're, we have enough scientific basis to like know with a reasonable amount of certainty, like certain pieces of advice are probably better than others in most contexts. And so I just think there's like, I feel like we're long past the point of like, just bad bullshit advice. It shouldn't exist anymore. Like the information's out there. It's all free. Like we have the internet. You have Google. You have fucking AI. Like it's, it's not hard to find. Uh, like if you're somebody like us, like it's just like do your research and like know what you're talking about. Um, so that drives me a little bit crazy.

• 54:14Speaker 03

  That's, but that's more just me being an asshole. Um, because the truth is, is that everybody needs to hear something different and sometimes even bullshit advice works for people. Um, and so who am I to say like what somebody needs to hear and what they, they don't. So I'm like, that one, I'm, I'm, I'm willing to like-

• 54:37André Duqum?

  Just bad advice.

• 54:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. That one, I'm just like, I'm, I'm, that's, that's probably more my issue than, you know, than the industry. Um, but I would like to see, I mean, I do think the quality of advice has gotten a lot better over the last 10 or 20 years.

• 54:54André Duqum?

  And I think it helps to see how, I forgot the, the axiom or what, what the title of this is, but like, uh, what we can often attribute to malice can be well accounted for with ignorance.

• 55:06Speaker 03

  Right.

• 55:06André Duqum?

  You know, so it's like, it helps when you see a lot of it is actually coming just from a place, uh, you know, the road to heaven or hell is paved with good intention and intentions of the, as they say.

• 55:16Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Absolutely. So like, I, I'm, that, that's fine. Like that's fine. And like I said, I do think the trajectory is going in a good direction. Like I do think the advice has gotten a lot better over the last, you know, 20 years. Um, the one that I do think is a problem is just, is, um, misleading marketing and misleading expectations with people. I think, and I do think, again, I don't think there are many like consciously bad actors on this, but like the thing, the thing that I-

• 55:53Speaker 03

  Get deeply concerned about is that ultimately this is a market that a pretty large percentage of the consumers are like people in vulnerable places in their lives. Like they're, they're dealing with depression, anxiety, a tragedy, like trauma, a lot of stuff. And so there's, I definitely feel like a certain moral weight in not promising something or setting expectations of something that is unrealistic or unreasonable. And the sad fact of the matter is that the financial incentive is to make those promises and set those expectations because you're going to sell more shit if you do. And again,

• 56:35Speaker 03

  I don't think, I don't think most people like consciously do this. I think a lot of people, because I think what happens is there's, there's like, there's not perfect information. So like, let's say somebody has a seminar and they spout their whole spiel and do their thing. And it's, and it's all kind of made up, whatever. And like, and then one person comes up to him afterwards, like, it completely changed my life. Oh my God, I'm a new person. And like, it's very genuine. Like it genuinely worked, right? So the person who just put on that seminar, they're like, wow, I'm killing it. Right? You know, whereas like, what they're not hearing from is the 50 people that were like, what is this guy talking about? And so I think what happens a lot in this industry

• 57:20Speaker 03

  is that you, you don't get, there's not a proper feedback mechanism for the practitioners of like, what's actually working and what's not. And, and some, maybe that's by design. Sometimes that's just due to ego or like an unwillingness to, you know, to hear from people who, who got bad results.

• 57:42André Duqum?

  The financial incentives alone, I feel like is enough of an explainer, though.

• 57:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. Or there's also a tendency to like, I've seen, I've seen coaches and leaders do this too. It's like, if somebody's like, hey, this is, this isn't working for me, or it's making me feel worse.

• 57:59Speaker 03

  The, the coach is like, well, that's your problem. You're not doing it right. Right. And it's like, in this industry, you're dealing with a lot of people who are going to believe you if you say that. And, and you, you can hurt them. Um, so it just, it is, it is, and I, I, there should be more kids gloves. You know, like, it's like, we're, we're dealing with like delicate, fragile topics. And I, I feel like that's not respected enough. And, um, and again, yeah, the financial incentives, I think, nudge people away from considering those things. And so you do get, you do get some bad behavior and you do get some, um, some horror stories that come out periodically. So.

• 58:44André Duqum?

  Yeah. It seems like the best barometer internally for anybody navigating or deciding to like, dive deeper into someone's modality or a teaching is like your own growth to be able to actually discern what's real, what's BS. But I think part of being on the path and in those more vulnerable states is you don't know what you don't know. And so.

• 59:04Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 59:05André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 59:05Speaker 03

  If you never feel like you've grown before, how do you know what it feels like? And, and the thing is, is that a lot of, there's a lot of advice that is optimized for,

• 59:19Speaker 03

  making you feel very good in the short term. There are a lot of people who are very good at like getting a group of people in a room and like for 24 hours, making them feel amazing. And then telling them, you just grew. You just had a breakthrough. Right? And then, and then those people go home and they sleep in the same bed and they shit in the same toilet and they go to the same dead end job. And get ghosted by the same ex and like, did anything really change? You know, so it's, there's this, and this comes back to our point earlier is that like, like genuine growth is generally an uncomfortable, unpleasant experience. Like it's, and it's generally drawn out as well. And so I, I, um.

• 1:00:03Speaker 03

  It bugs me, like, just the false expectations and the false promises like bug me a lot. And I think it enables a lot of, a lot of bad behavior.

• 1:00:12André Duqum?

  How do you, from the individual level relating to this, how do you discern or draw the line of discernment between self-growth and self-obsession? Like, a lot of what we might label as a noble pursuit of self-development is actually avoidance, kind of masqueraded and rebranded.

• 1:00:29Speaker 03

  Yes, it's like, uh, spiritual narcissism.

• 1:00:31André Duqum?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:33Speaker 03

  It's a great question. I would say the best thing you can do, if you think you're like, even potentially this person who's like too in it and doing too much and is just like constantly obsessing over like optimization and improvement all the time, just stop for a while. Like, I, one thing that I've found with people, like, they'll come to me and they'll be like, "I'm like obsessing over this stuff, I'm feeling worse about myself, I'm just like constantly thinking about all the things I'm not doing instead of actually doing things." And it's, it's like the simplest answer, but it's just like, "Stop." Like, just stop trying to grow. Like, just hang out on the couch, play some video games, man. Like, it's, and then ironically, that will make you grow, right?

• 1:01:16Speaker 03

  Because it's like, you're not trying anymore. It comes back to the backwards law, like, you're not, you're not chasing this shiny object anymore, you're simply accepting that you're imperfect. And, um, so yeah, I, I almost think it's like, you know, if you, if you look at like fitness and workout advice, like, there's no fitness plan that's like, "Go to the gym four hours a day, every day for 10 years." Like, nobody tells you that. It's always, you have like, six or eight weeks on, and then you're supposed to take two, three weeks off. And then you're supposed to do six or eight weeks on, and you're supposed to be two or three weeks off. And like, that actually ends up being the optimal way to like, grow or develop your body. And I think the mind's the same way. Like, you, if you're on all the time and you're obsessing about this stuff all the time,

• 1:02:02Speaker 03

  you're just gonna burn yourself out and you're gonna become obsessed with yourself. You're gonna lose track of other people in reality, you know? So it's just like, stop caring for a while. Stop giving a fuck, right? Like, just be like, "Yeah, you know what, just like, just gonna chill for a month."

• 1:02:20André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:22André Duqum?

  Yeah, I think it's difficult on the personal level when you place so much importance on an aspect that needs to change about yourself. And it's like, the more attention and weight we give to something, the more it has evidence for its own existence.

• 1:02:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally. Yeah, it becomes self-induced at a certain point. And I guess one way to think about it is like, coming back to that paradox of like, self-improvement, self-acceptance is like, you know, maybe you just kind of like seesaw between them, you know, you have your self-improvement period where it's like, okay, I'm gonna like, drive on my goals and try to change things. And then you go into your self-acceptance season of like, okay, I'm just gonna like, embrace who I am and like, chill out.

• 1:03:05André Duqum?

  It feels like in an ever-growing landscape of more personal growth advice and podcasts and books, both of which we're a part of.

• 1:03:14Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:03:16André Duqum?

  It's become easier than ever to listen to and watch and read all this great advice oftentimes and wisdom and not actually implement much into your life. So this is what we were kind of also just speaking to about how self-improvement can very much so be to self-avoidance when we're not integrating these things into our life. And so, yeah, I'm just curious what you think about that tension and for like, anybody who's listening, who has maybe even listened to many of these podcasts or read your books and is on that pursuit, which, you know, like, watching and feeding and exposing your subconscious mind to positive content is gonna be more beneficial in the long run than reruns of SpongeBob.

• 1:04:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:04:03André Duqum?

  But, uh, but yeah, it can also become this trap where it becomes entertainment and it's not actually, you're not integrating shit.

• 1:04:10Speaker 03

  Absolutely. It's, sometimes they say that like, some people have self-help as a hobby. Like, it's like their favorite hobby. It's like, oh, I'm gonna buy the new book and study this thing. But-

• 1:04:22Speaker 03

  I agree with you. I think that trap is becoming more prevalent because the information is so prevalent and out there. You know, like back in the day, like it used to be so hard to find, like just this conversation, right? Like when I was a teenager, like you had to go pay thousands of dollars just to hear anybody talk about the stuff we're talking about, right? And now it's like, it's just a million podcasts and Instagram clips and TikToks, like every day, everywhere. So the information is ubiquitous at this point. And so I think it's, I feel like that trap is larger than it's ever been.

• 1:05:01Speaker 03

  Because if you just want to binge on, on info, you can. It's easy. The implementation piece is, um, it's frustrating because it's one of those like simple, not easy things. It is the, the, the advice that works to actually apply something into your life is so brain dead simple that you, like, I, I feel like an idiot, like even saying it out loud. And, and when people hear it, they're like, oh, it can't be that easy. But it like, it really is. It's just the hard part is actually just doing it. The

• 1:05:40Speaker 03

  simple part is take whatever you want, you know, whether it's change careers, find a partner, lose 20 pounds, whatever, break it down into small sub goals, find the minimum, I call it the minimum viable action, which is the, uh, minimum, the smallest step that feels easy to do today. Um, and then you just start there and you do that and you, then the next day, you take the next minimum viable action and you just slowly work up and you kind of develop a snowball. And

• 1:06:21Speaker 03

  It's like absolutely maddening how simple it is and yet nobody does it, including myself.

• 1:06:29André Duqum?

  Yeah, we want those existential solutions to what's a very practical problem.

• 1:06:33Speaker 03

  You want the lightning bolt that is just like, oh, that's it, eureka. Now I meditate an hour every day with no effort. Yeah, it's, it doesn't happen. I was, it was funny because the, so the way I, the minimum viable action thing actually came from a friend of mine who's a meditation teacher. And it was so funny because I was living in New York at the time and I was kind of, I was kind of complaining to him. I was like, man, I've just like really gotten away from my meditation practice. I just can't really bring myself to do it. And he was just like, can you do 10 seconds? And I was like, well, yeah, anybody can do 10 seconds. He's like, so do 10 seconds. I was like, wait, are you serious? He's like, yeah, sit down, do 10 seconds. So I sat down, did 10 seconds. He's like, yeah, you're meditating again. And I was like, god damn it, dude.

• 1:07:19Speaker 03

  I really don't have an excuse, do I? He's like, yeah, tomorrow do 20 seconds. I was like, ah, I still don't meditate.

• 1:07:33Speaker 03

  But yeah, it's, um, sometimes I think there's an emotional piece of this that like, because again, the, the information is brain dead simple.

• 1:07:47Speaker 03

  The, I think what has to align for people is that there needs to be a certain amount of combination of carrot and stick, you know, pain and pleasure that kind of lines up to, to, to the point where you get fed up and you're just like, I'm sick of this, you know? And, and there are like things you can do in your environment. You can kind of control incentives and, you know, find an accountability buddy or like sign up for a gym with a friend or something like, there's all like little hacks and stuff like that. But like really, at the end of the day, it comes down to emotion. It comes down to, are you in a place where the pain of inaction feels worse than the pain of action? You know, does the struggle of not doing something feel worse than the struggle of doing it?

• 1:08:31Speaker 03

  And there are ways to, to kind of manipulate the situation to set it up that way. But I think ultimately, at the end of the day, it's an emotional thing. And I think sometimes, to come back to your point about like, everybody has a different journey, like.

• 1:08:49Speaker 03

  Sometimes people need time to get to the point where they're like, struggling enough to be like, okay, I can't do this anymore. Like, I'm like, I'm getting this handled now.

• 1:09:01André Duqum?

  Yeah, the saying of, when the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of change, then you'll change. And it feels like we all have a different barometer for that. And it's such, it's relating to our lizard brain. Like, we want to have it be more like our frontal brain and have the intellectual reasonings for doing things. But it feels like so much of our, like 90% plus of our behavior is driven by this mammalian emotional center.

• 1:09:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was funny, we did, so our second episode on solved was procrastination. And we did a nearly five hour episode on the science and philosophy of procrastination. So if anybody wants to procrastinate anything in their life, you can go listen to our five hour episode on procrastination. But it was, it was actually really funny because it's like, I mean, we went, we dug into like, we went back to, procrastination was like, it was a big topic with the ancient Greeks. They called it a crasia. It was like this philosophical problem of like, if you know something's good, how is it possible to not do the good thing? Wouldn't that suggest it's not actually good?

• 1:10:13Speaker 03

  So there's like, there's philosophy on it going back thousands of years, research on it going back hundreds of years. And, yeah, at the end of the day, it's just like, people do what they feel like doing. That's like, really what it comes down to. And so if you want to do something that you're not doing, like, you need to find ways to make yourself feel like doing it. And you can do that by, you can make it fun. You can set up accountability for yourself. You can set up punishments for not doing it. Like, that actually works really well.

• 1:10:45Speaker 03

  It's actually really funny, like, when you look at the, when you look at the research on like, what interventions actually get people to like, adopt a new habit? You want to guess what like, the top intervention is?

• 1:11:02André Duqum?

  No, what is it?

• 1:11:03Speaker 03

  You pay them.

• 1:11:06Speaker 03

  Isn't that disappointing? Like, you just fucking give them money and then they start doing the thing. It's just like, like I said, man, it's, it's like this whole area. It's just, it's like disappointing how simple it is. It's like, I wish there was a magic formula. I wish there was a lightning bolt somewhere.

• 1:11:27André Duqum?

  It's wild to see how much mental energy we will spend in resistance to not doing something when in reality, doing it would like take much less energy.

• 1:11:38Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:11:38André Duqum?

  You know?

• 1:11:39Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 1:11:40André Duqum?

  Like, we'll spend so much time thinking about how we don't want to do something that by, by the time we could have just done it.

• 1:11:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:46André Duqum?

  It's like, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's so fascinating.

• 1:11:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:50André Duqum?

  Mechanism.

• 1:11:51Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, I, I think there's just a lot of inertia, like there's like mental, emotional inertia in our, in our lives and it's, it takes a lot of force to kind of like.

• 1:12:02André Duqum?

  I will say though, for, in my experience, meditation and self inquiry and contemplation on the self and also our, the nature of our own thoughts and emotions, which I know sounds like a lot of things I just write a lot off, but there are kind of, you know, the, the core thing that one awakens to through the practice of a meditative technique helps dissolve the resistance to existence, the friction that we have in relation to our own self, our own desires, our encounters and experiences with other individuals. And so like, uh, to me, meditation is in many ways, it's a weird way of saying it, but kind of like a great like lubricator of your experience of life.

• 1:12:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:44André Duqum?

  And it, and it makes making decisions and doing hard things less hard.

• 1:12:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, it does.

• 1:12:53André Duqum?

  Because there's less of a egocentric perception and the sense of I who needs to do the thing and the sense of I between me and, and what I want, you know? It's like, it's, you're just more with flow, I feel like.

• 1:13:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, it widens the gap. There's, it's interesting because it's in that procrastination episode, we, we dig in, there is some, some data on meditation and it's, it is, meditators procrastinate less and I think it's, um, the theory behind it is similar, like, I guess, kind of the scientific explanation of what you just said is, is, um, it, uh,

• 1:13:30Speaker 03

  It better allows people like disidentify with the uncomfortable emotion, right? It's like, I gotta go to the gym, I'm tired, I don't feel like it, uh, you know, blah, blah, blah. When you meditate, you get that, that gap between,

• 1:13:47Speaker 03

  you know,

• 1:13:49Speaker 03

  I guess your experience or who you are, and then like the emotion you're feeling in that moment. And in that gap, there's like freedom and liberation to be like, okay, well, you feel this way, but you can still go.

• 1:13:59André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:01André Duqum?

  Yeah, it's fascinating to see the studies in down regulating activity in the default mode network. The sense of I, who is the large, uh, who's the, what, that area in the brain is a neural correlate for the vast amount of suffering that that perceived I experiences in life. And so why aren't you meditating these days?

• 1:14:24Speaker 03

  It's funny, man. That's a good question. Um, I meditated a lot. I got into it, uh, probably 18 or 19 and I, and I meditated a lot through my twenties. And then around 30, I kind of got away from it. And then it was like, kind of on again, off again. And then it's just been off for like four or five years at this point. And every once in a while I'll go back to the mat and I'm like, you know, I'm gonna like start this back up. You know, like pull up Sam Harris's app or something and do a lesson and, and it's fine. And then I just like, I, I don't know what it is, but like I,

• 1:15:05Speaker 03

  I guess the kind of where I've landed at this point is that there was, there was something I really needed it for when I was younger, like it was helping me resolve something or make sense of something or,

• 1:15:21Speaker 03

  gain awareness about something. And I guess the only, the only way, way I can kind of put words around it is just like, I don't feel like it's showing me anything that I don't already know, um, recently. And, and I, and I totally understand that there's like deeper levels. And it's like, if you commit yourself and go super hard, like there are layers to it. And, and I guess there's just,

• 1:15:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm just not like, I haven't like ponied up for that commitment. I'm like, yeah, I'm good. I'm pretty happy.

• 1:15:56André Duqum?

  Yeah, also shaming ourself or trying to force ourselves with a militant discipline towards a meditation practice and is almost defeating in and of itself.

• 1:16:05Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:16:05André Duqum?

  So it's like, where is it coming from, you know?

• 1:16:07Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:16:10André Duqum?

  Yeah. One note to sort of wrap up on is I feel like

• 1:16:17André Duqum?

  through living life, you get to, depending upon our own evolutionary path and how we evolve and our identity and values and preferences and needs, like we spoke to at the beginning of this conversation, to kind of wrap a bow on it, I feel like so much of our self-discovery is coming through our creative acts in the world and allowing that to be fluid and flow and change, change careers, change formats of forms of expression. And I listened to your first, your podcast about like, why you stopped your podcast, why you rebranded it and you're doing a new format, which is like diving deep into one area of topic and getting to the bottom of it. And I really appreciate the authenticity and staying true to what's exciting for you, you know, instead of being on the rat race of like, well, the

• 1:17:01André Duqum?

  podcast circuit works and I can get, I have access to all the guests and it becomes this thing that is rewarding financially and the views grow and everything. I think there's this leap that you took with that, that a lot of people probably can relate to in their life, when they're going from something that maybe even is working really good.

• 1:17:19Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:17:20André Duqum?

  To forego that, to jump into the unknown of not knowing whether or not the next thing will, you know. But what have you found in your experience of what happens when you stay true to what you actually want to do in your experience of what's bringing you enthusiasm in life?

• 1:17:37Speaker 03

  Well, that's the hardest thing, right? It's like, it's easy to give up something that's not working, but the hardest thing is giving up something that is working, but it's not fulfilling you. And that's like the scariest part. But you know, it's funny, like, I've noticed this repeatedly throughout my career and, and I think it's true just in life in general. It's like, it's almost like the scarier something is,

• 1:18:02Speaker 03

  the bigger, like, the more important it is, like, the bigger the opportunity is. Like, if it wasn't so scary.

• 1:18:10Speaker 03

  Like if it wasn't such a big, it didn't have so much potential, it wouldn't scare you that way. And that feels like a lesson I have to learn over and over again. And I was telling you before we went live, like with the, with the new podcast, like it really was a leap of faith. It really was. I sat down with my producer and we kind of hashed out like, this is the format we want to make. We just want to get super nerdy and like go ultra, ultra deep on a single topic. And maybe half the audience leaves and thinks we're annoying and like never comes back. But are we okay with that? And, um, and we kind of wrestled with that and agonized over it, but it eventually decided that we were.

• 1:18:54Speaker 03

  And, and then ironically, I think it's that willingness to, uh, to risk it all is like ultimately what A, like helps you make something great and then B, like attracts people to it, right? Cause they see, they're like, oh, that's bold. Like

• 1:19:11André Duqum?

  There's like a stronger resonance and connection with people who it's meant for.

• 1:19:14Speaker 03

  Totally. And I just think that's true in life in general, you know, like it's going out on a limb. It, it, it seems scary before you do it, but then it's like, once you're out there, you're like, oh, this is like the most obvious thing in the world. And, um, so it is, that is something that like, I have to like remind myself or I guess relearn that lesson repeatedly throughout, throughout my life. But it's, I guess for anybody out there who's like, has a leap that they're afraid to take. It's, um, that fear is there because it is, because it is valuable, not because it's, you know, it's not about what you're potentially losing.

• 1:19:57Speaker 03

  It's, it's like what you potentially stand to gain is, is probably what's so scary.

• 1:20:03André Duqum?

  It feels like so much of the fear is wrapped up in the anticipation of it, too. I'm sure, I'm curious, like when you first sat down to do your first one and then like you get in the motion of it, it's like, okay.

• 1:20:14Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, like when the first cut came in, I was like terrified to open it. I was just like, please, for the love of God, be good. Like, don't be bad.

• 1:20:25Speaker 03

  You know, and then you get like 20 minutes in, you're like, okay, I think we're okay.

• 1:20:31André Duqum?

  Epic. Well, for people that want to find that, we'll leave a link down below. And any last words, man? This was fun. Thank you.

• 1:20:37Speaker 03

  No, dude, it's always a pleasure, you know, always thrilled to be barefoot, barefoot and cross-legged. The only, like I said, the only podcast I can come in and

• 1:20:48André Duqum?

  Anytime.

• 1:20:49Speaker 03

  Rub my feet on the carpet.

• 1:20:50André Duqum?

  Good coffee, dude.

• 1:20:54Speaker 03

  So, yeah, always a pleasure, man. Thanks for having me.

• 1:20:57André Duqum?

  Of course. Everybody, thanks for tuning to this episode. And let us know in what ways something in this episode ignited a perspective and insight for your own personal journey. And until next time, we will.

• 1:21:23Speaker 00

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