Mark Manson - 11 Uncomfortable Truths About Life | Modern Wisdom Podcast 340

Mark Manson is an author and blogger. Mark is the king of telling people things they don't want to hear, but need to hear. I couldn't bring him on without using this as an opportunity to dig out some of his most insightful and painful lessons about life, so here we go - hold on tight. Also find out what it’s like to work with Will Smith. Expect to learn why almost nothing is ever about you, why there's a fundamental selfishness attached to anxiety, how Mark transitioned from partyboy to fatherhood, why you're probably the problem in all your relationships, why contrarians aren't as smart as they think and much more... Sponsors: Get 10% discount on your first month from BetterHelp at https://betterhelp.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get over 37% discount on all products site-wide from MyProtein at http://bit.ly/modernwisdom (use code: MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Preorder Will - https://amzn.to/35LTkOv Check out Mark's website - https://markmanson.net/ Follow Mark on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/markmanson/ Follow Mark on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0TnW9acNxqeojxXDMbohcA Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #markmanson #lifeadvice #relationships - 00:00 Intro 00:42 Upcoming Book with Will Smith 09:38 Imposter Syndrome 12:43 Setting Boundaries 16:18 Stop Taking It Personally 18:48 Build Relationships 26:54 Stop Overthinking 31:50 Don’t Pursue Novelty 33:34 Acknowledge Negative Emotions 35:53 Why Contrarians Aren’t Smart 42:29 Success is Pain Tolerance 43:44 Be Comfortable with your Flaws 46:37 Mark’s Relationship Advice 1:09:00 Where to Find Mark - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

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

• 0:00Chris Williamson?

  Hello friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Mark Manson. He's an author and blogger and we are talking 11 uncomfortable truths about life. Mark is the king of telling people things they don't want to hear, but probably need to hear. I couldn't bring him on without using this as an opportunity to dig out some of his most insightful and painful lessons about life. So, here we go. Hold on tight. Expect to learn why almost nothing is ever about you. Why there's a fundamental selfishness attached to anxiety. How Mark transitioned from party boy to fatherhood. Why you're probably the problem in all your relationships. Why contrarians aren't as smart as they think. And much more.

• 0:45Chris Williamson?

  On top of that, Mark's also just announced that he is releasing a book with Will Smith, of all people, The Fresh Prince. And you get to find out what it's like to work with Will Smith for a couple of years, which to be frank, sounds like perhaps the best job in history. On top of that, Mark sold 15 million books and that he's completely worthy of the success as far as I can see. His insights into human behavior and the way that our minds work and how we engage with other people is, he cuts through and does a lot of sense making. So I really hope that you enjoy this episode. And if you do, hit the subscribe button. It's the only way that you can ensure that you will never miss an episode every Monday, Thursday and Saturday when they get uploaded. It supports the show.

• 1:29Chris Williamson?

  It makes me very happy that you have no reason not to do it. Take your fingers for a walk, please, and just make sure that subscribe button is pressed. I thank you.

• 1:39Speaker 01

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• 3:04Chris Williamson?

  But now it's time to learn some uncomfortable life truths with Mark Manson.

• 3:27Chris Williamson?

  Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome back. I'm joined by Mr. Mark Manson. Welcome to the show.

• 3:34Mark Manson?

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

• 3:37Chris Williamson?

  My pleasure, man. So you are as much of a fan of truth bombs and red pills and uncomfortable insights as I am. So what I've done is I've scraped your social media from the last few months and pulled out some of the best ones. And I've kept some absolute corkers for the end. But before we get into going through those, you're writing a book with Will Smith. Or you're producing, releasing a book with Will Smith?

• 4:00Mark Manson?

  Yeah, so I mean, my part's kind of over.

• 4:04Mark Manson?

  But yeah, he, he and I linked up in 2018. He wanted to write kind of a memoir slash life lessons kind of from his career and his life. And he was looking for a co-author and so he and I just hit it off. Had good chemistry and it was.

• 4:22Mark Manson?

  I was, I, you know, I was a little bit hesitant at first, you know, I was like, I, I don't want to do this just because it's a celebrity, you know, I don't want to be part of like a PR puff piece. You know, it needs to be real, it needs to be raw, like there needs to be a good reason behind it. And when I met him for the first time, and I asked him why he wanted to do a book, he, the first thing he said is, he said, look, like, my whole career, I've been like hiding myself. You know, as a, as a, as a huge celebrity, like you hide yourself from the world, you like, everything is polished and pristine and kind of catered for the viewer. Um, he was like, I want, I want to put the real me out there. And, um,

• 5:07Mark Manson?

  I was like, fuck yeah, dude, I'm on board.

• 5:12Chris Williamson?

  What's it like working with Will Smith?

• 5:15Mark Manson?

  Honestly, man, he is, uh, he's a dream. Like he,

• 5:21Mark Manson?

  and I've heard this is not the case with a lot of famous people, but he, he is honestly one of the easiest people to work with. He's really professional, he's super nice, um, very smart, very down to earth. Uh, we honestly, like, we just had a blast. Like, we just, we just hung out. He took me to all these crazy fucking places that he was going to and, uh, and we just sit around and like, talk about his life and talk about his ideas. And it, it was easy for me because I just, I just sat there and listened. And then I got, I like basically just pick out like his greatest hits, you know, like, like, oh, that, that's a really good one. We'll use that, you know, and, um,

• 6:04Mark Manson?

  so that was it, you know? And then I did the first draft and that, and he's done the, uh, he kind of did a revision of that.

• 6:11Chris Williamson?

  Oh, that's cool. So you, you sort of ghost wrote it and he edited his own work, kind, kind of?

• 6:18Mark Manson?

  Yeah, like we did the outline together and, and kind of came up, like agreed on the structure. And then I, I did that, the first draft, which is generally more agonizing draft.

• 6:33Mark Manson?

  And then, yeah, and then he kind of revised his voice onto it and added little details and, you know, style, stylistic things and stuff like that. So it's great. I'm super excited. I'm excited for him. I'm excited for me. Like, it's, it's a really cool book and I'm proud of it. So it comes out November 9th.

• 6:54Chris Williamson?

  That's sick, man. Pre-order link will be, I'll make sure the pre-order link's in the show notes below. Yeah, I think more sort of heroes of Hollywood, you know, obviously McConaughey released his greenlights this year and that's absolutely smashed it and kind of added value. It wasn't just, as you said, this sort of puff piece about I'm a rich, famous person, you should find out about my life. Like, it's actually adding genuine value. And yeah, I mean, I'd learn shit from Will Smith. I feel like I've got stuff to learn from him.

• 7:25Mark Manson?

  I, he's got a lot to share, man.

• 7:28Chris Williamson?

  Did he impact, given the fact that you've sort of learned a lot about this world sense-making and kind of understanding the way that the world works, did he impart sort of lessons or change your worldview profoundly at all?

• 7:39Mark Manson?

  He was very impactful on me in, in kind of a slightly different way. I mean, I'll, I'll say this, when I met him and he really started sharing his story, like his childhood and growing up in West Philly and, you know, like being a rapper in the, in the 80s, like it, I quickly realized that this is one of the most emotionally resilient people I've ever met. Like, the, the stuff that he went through and, and not only like went through it, but surmounted it and then came out the other side like a, a positive, healthy person.

• 8:18Mark Manson?

  It's just incredible. Like, it's, it's a real, there's a real kind of survivorship aspect to his story that I think most people don't know about him. Like, people don't realize that.

• 8:31Mark Manson?

  And so that really excited me from kind of a writing standpoint, you know, being in the personal development world like that's, you know, we kind of like live and breathe stories like that. So I'm super excited about that. But in terms of like how he affected me personally, actually, most of what I learned from him was very much kind of like professional based, you know, like seeing the way he built his team and the way he thinks about, you know, creative projects or collaborating with people, seeing the way he deals with his fans, kind of just hearing his ideas of like, on just, you know, being famous or being a thought leader, or being somebody who people like being a role model. You know,

• 9:16Mark Manson?

  this is a guy who's done that at the highest level for 30 years now. And so for me, you know, I'm still a fairly young guy. My career just kind of took off four or five years ago. It was like a masterclass of just, you know, how to like, be a professional in a creative industry and how to like, handle success well and maintain success and, and work with people. It was great.

• 9:44Chris Williamson?

  That really is pretty invaluable, right? Because as you get further and further up the totem pole of success and away from the normal distribution of normal, right? There's like, who the fuck's teaching Mark Manson how to deal with fame? You know, like the guy that, the guy that sold 13 million books? Like, who's, who's the one that's like, oh yeah, I'm five steps ahead of you, mate. Like, you know, hold on to the coattails, good luck. But there's a very, very small number of people that can do that. And I think, I heard recently Rogan had a reverse interview with, I can't remember the pair, they're really good podcasters, actually. They sat him down in his own studio and, and interviewed him. And you find out he, he has the same challenges. And you're talking about probably, perhaps the most influential person in America, one of. And he's like,

• 10:27Chris Williamson?

  I haven't got a fucking clue what I'm doing. He doesn't even have a P A. Like, you just realize, everyone. And again, that's, that's quite an interesting thing or a humbling thing for normal people, normal, to realize, right, that The people that you care about and think have got it all sorted out, they're just fucking about as well. Like, they haven't got a clue. No one's got a clue. Like, if Will Smith's like, if you have to get to Will Smith's level to have your shit sorted, there's no hope for any of us.

• 10:54Mark Manson?

  Well, it's funny too, because it's, you know, at this point, I've spent three years around him and his team. And I mean, I love the people on his team. He's got great people who work for him and I really like them. But it's funny because I mean, they have the exact same challenges of like any business organization that you would ever come with, you know, it's like the same kind of bullshit and miscommunication and like, you know, egos bumping into each other and stuff and it's.

• 11:21Chris Williamson?

  Haven't got the designs done on time and too many emails and can somebody set such and such up with the SSN3P server and all that bullshit?

• 11:29Mark Manson?

  Exactly, exactly. You know, it's funny. I've got a, I've got a friend here in New York who's kind of, he's, uh, he's pretty high up in the VC world here and, um, and he kind of, he just had like kind of a stratospheric rise in his career in the last five years as well. And I remember I was talking to him. So suddenly he's taking meetings with like high level people that, you know, he's getting invited out to like, you know, meet with CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and, you know, being brought on like as a consultant, you know, because it's like, this huge company is thinking about doing an internal incubator for a bunch of startups within and they, they need advice on like, what's the best way to go about it?

• 12:11Mark Manson?

  So he's like meeting all these like CEOs and billionaires and stuff. And I remember I was having dinner with him. And he was like, yeah, I just, I think I realized, you know, I always just thought like, if I just go one rung higher, like everybody's going to know what they're doing. And now I'm like at the top of the ladder and it's just, it's morons all the way down.

• 12:35Mark Manson?

  It's like, nobody has a clue, man. It's like, it's the difference between the top and, you know, maybe like, you know, slightly above average is maybe you're like, you have 5% more of a clue. You know, that's probably it.

• 12:50Chris Williamson?

  Fuck. Well, I mean, I've been thinking about this a lot recently. How many times do you have to disprove your own imposter syndrome with success in the real world? Before it fucks off for good? Like, what's the nail in the coffin of that? Is it 14 million? Is it 15 million bucks? Is it like?

• 13:09Mark Manson?

  I'm not there yet.

• 13:10Chris Williamson?

  17, like 7 million email subscribers, like 8 million? Like, where does it stop?

• 13:17Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I mean, if there's, if there's ever a number that brings total confidence,

• 13:26Mark Manson?

  I have not found it yet.

• 13:30Mark Manson?

  And it's, you know, and it's funny too, because I, you know, I've still, I think I've got my imposter syndrome's gotten a little bit better. You know, I, I think anytime you have a sudden burst of success, you know, imposter syndrome's probably like a normal, healthy reaction, because there's a little bit of like a, whoa, what the fuck? What did I do to deserve this? You know, like that, it's kind of a natural. And then you start settling into it, realize that, that, you know, you worked pretty hard and you, you did something great. But like, I still have some of it, but it's funny. I feel like part of me is a little bit afraid to let go. Because I feel like if I, if I let go and I'm like, yeah, I'm Mark fucking Manson, my books like crush it.

• 14:14Mark Manson?

  You know, as soon as I, if I let myself fall into that, then I, I just feel like it's going to backfire so hard. So it's almost like, it's almost like there's like an optimal amount of insecurity.

• 14:27Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. People use.

• 14:29Mark Manson?

  You know, let's say.

• 14:30Chris Williamson?

  People, people.

• 14:30Mark Manson?

  It's like a little is better than none, I think.

• 14:32Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Yeah. I would, I would say that that's not a bad way to look at it. People use imposter syndrome as a proxy for humbleness sometimes, because it actually manifests in a really sort of similar way. And if it kind of constrains your ego. Perhaps the, if the outcome is worthy, perhaps that's a way to look at it. Seth Golden said to me that if you're doing something that you've never done before, or that maybe no one's ever done before, of course, you've got imposter syndrome. Why wouldn't you? By definition, you're breaking new ground. You're in an area of the terrain that you haven't yet, you haven't yet explored.

• 15:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah. And I, and I think there's also, there's kind of like, um,

• 15:16Mark Manson?

  I don't know, like a more philosophical element to it too. You know, it's, I know so many smart authors who work so fucking hard and like, they write great books. And so there's a little bit of like a why me? Like, you know,

• 15:30Chris Williamson?

  Kind of like survivorship guilt type thing?

• 15:33Mark Manson?

  Yeah, almost. Like it's, it's like, like, I think my, my books are good, but they're not like, you know, 50x better than like this other guy, you know, but it's so, why do I get 50x the result? Like that doesn't, there's something that just seems like strange about that. Um, so yeah, it's weird. It's a weird thing.

• 15:54Chris Williamson?

  Right. Okay. Uncomfortable truths. First one, you don't attract shit into your life, and it's not the universe's fault. You probably just suck at boundaries.

• 16:13Mark Manson?

  Wow. That's a good one. I like that one.

• 16:16Chris Williamson?

  I really do as well. But I don't talk about, so here's the thing, man. I don't really talk about boundaries that much. It's never really been one of those terms that I've brought into my lexicon of normal, daily sense-making use. So what are you talking about? What sort of boundaries?

• 16:32Mark Manson?

  So in terms of boundaries, um,

• 16:36Mark Manson?

  I mean, in terms of, I usually use them in relation to relationships. Um, but it's, it's basically like understanding what you will and will not tolerate in your life. And,

• 16:51Mark Manson?

  And I think a lot of people kind of get, you know, the stuff that I mentioned there, you know, believing the universe is giving you something and blah, blah, blah. Like a lot of these ideas about like law of attraction or whatever, they kind of get close to that. You know, law of attraction tells you like, you know, whatever you think about, that's what you like manifest in your reality. Well, it's more like your expectations tend to partially dictate your behavior and then your behavior is going to partially dictate your reality. And so if you're expecting to get screwed over all the time, then you're going to behave in such a way in which you kind of invite it into your life. And where, and where this is just fundamentally

• 17:32Mark Manson?

  a boundary issue is that if you, if you simply decide like, you know, I, I will not accept dishonesty in my life and I'm going to like enforce that boundary by like actually eliminating people who are dishonest from being around me. Um, you know, like that's actually a healthy way to manage your life. It has nothing to do with the universe. It has nothing to do with like laws of attraction or vibrations or energy or whatever. It's like, it's simply making a decision. It's deciding like, this is something I don't want in my life, so I'm not going to allow it. Um, and it's, it's like, it's such a simple concept, but we, we struggle so much with it. Like it's a very, it's one of those things that is very easy to understand, but incredibly difficult to

• 18:17Mark Manson?

  actually like enforce.

• 18:20Chris Williamson?

  Well, unless you've taken the full non-dual enlightenment red pill and you're walking around part of the substrate of the world, you feel like an actor, right? You feel like an agent that has thoughts and very much is the center of the universe. Like it, because you are, everything emanates out and comes toward you, even the light, you know, the sun doesn't shine anywhere except for on you, as far as you're concerned. And yeah, I think as well, think about how the reticular activating system works. Like if you tell someone, as soon as you buy a new car, you always notice that new car everywhere. Everyone's got this car. No, you're just looking out for it. And the same goes with this. Like if you prime someone, this is what guys like Derren Brown and these other sort of quasi illusionist mind mental melding people do,

• 19:04Chris Williamson?

  right? They just prime people and then they put them into a situation and the brain does the rest.

• 19:09Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I mean, it's our perceptions are highly inaccurate and they're very much they're very much affected by the nature of our thoughts. And you don't need a magical explanation for that. They're like very logical scientific explanations for that. But it's, you know, I think what matters is that people adapt their behavior to it ultimately.

• 19:30Chris Williamson?

  Next one, stop taking things personally. It's rarely about you.

• 19:37Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I think this is this kind of harks back to what you just said about everybody's the center of their own universe. You know, like we all, we all experience everything through the lens of our of our own physical experience. And so it's it's kind of our default. You know, David Foster Wallace has this great passage in his speech, This is Water, where he talks about like, everything that we experience, it's happening, it's experienced like relative to us. You know, it's impossible to experience something as somebody else. And so our default setting psychologically is to assume that until proven otherwise, everything involves us,

• 20:18Mark Manson?

  where this is just like a highly inaccurate assumption. And it's just something that I've always I've found helpful throughout my life. Especially, you know, it's something I really realized back when I was young and I was dating, you know, like I'd go to a party or something and start chatting with a girl and she kind of blow me off. And, you know, the natural reaction is to just assume like, wow, I'm such a loser. Like, if I was a cool guy, like, every girl would just immediately want to go home with me. And it's like, no, man, like, you don't know what she's going through. You don't know where she is in her life. Like, maybe she just got dumped. Maybe she's seen somebody else. Maybe she's leaving town tomorrow

• 21:01Mark Manson?

  and never coming back. Like, you know, it's not only do you not know, but it's also none of your fucking business. It's like, get out of your own ass and empathize a little bit.

• 21:18Chris Williamson?

  Well, we'd never claim that for ourselves, right? If somebody said, why did you cut me up in traffic? You'd say, oh, well, I was late for this thing, or I do whatever. But when it's someone else, the fundamental attribution error kicks in. And you think, that guy, that guy did it because he's a prick. But I did it. I did it because I'm late for work and they should understand.

• 21:36Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, it's like when you, when you reject somebody, it's like, you know, you're thinking, you're like, oh, I just don't really have time like meet somebody new right now. But when they reject, it's like, oh, I'm such an idiot, loser. She's a bitch. She's so selfish.

• 21:55Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it really is always about you. Right, man. This is, I really enjoyed this one. So you can't get far alone. And another one, if you think it's you against the world, chances are it's just you against yourself.

• 22:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Yeah, I, I think, um,

• 22:15Mark Manson?

  one thing,

• 22:18Mark Manson?

  I, I think, look, look, like, the world's an incredibly complicated place. And I talk about this in my book, Everything is Fucked. Is that like, the world is, sure, the world's fucked, but the world's always been fucked, and it's always gonna be fucked. Like, there's no,

• 22:32Mark Manson?

  pick a place in history where things were, were okay. Like, there's literally not a single moment in history that things were okay. And, and so it's just, I, I think, just conflict and strife and corruption, like, these are just natural states of human society. And, and I, I've just found through the years and through experience and, and talking to a lot of people that, um, generally, like, the more zealous a person is about some sort of, like, global cause about saving the world and, uh, you know, ridding the world of evil,

• 23:10Mark Manson?

  usually the, the more fucked up that person is themselves, you know, like, the, the more dysfunctional their own life is, the more dysfunctional their own relationships, more, you know, the more dysfunctional their own, uh, you know, ability to accomplish goals or, or get something done. Like, there, there seems to me to be like a one-to-one relationship between those two things. Uh, so I, I just think it's, we tend to, like, when you become comfortable with your own flaws and shortcomings, you tend to be more comfortable with the world's flaws and shortcomings.

• 23:42Chris Williamson?

  And what about not being able to get far alone? Obviously, as a guy that was quite self-sufficient, dating and that sort of early life and stuff like that, what, what happened there? How did you make that kind of pivot?

• 23:54Mark Manson?

  Um, I just found that, you know, wherever you get alone, it doesn't, it's, it feels kind of meaningless. Um,

• 24:05Mark Manson?

  For some reason, you know, and I think there's probably an evolutionary explanation for this, but it's accomplishments, isolated accomplishments feel very superficial, whereas like group accomplishments feel very profound and meaningful. You know, it feels much more powerful to do something as a team, or to do something for a family, or to do something for your partner than it does to just, you know, collect accolades for yourself.

• 24:37Chris Williamson?

  I had Jordan Peterson on the show and we talked about how to deal with the pain of losing friends as you get older. You grow, people drop away, the ones that were part of your life. And it really struck me some of the comments from people, and I think this perhaps skews just because YouTube generally invites a type of audience that's maybe a little bit more introspective and doing that kind of self-inquiry and perhaps is used to solitude. In any case, but I was really surprised at how many people were not bitter, but were a little resentful at the world and were kind of saying, I don't need anybody. I can make it on my own. Friends just slow me down. A lot, a lot of sort of

• 25:19Chris Williamson?

  bits and pieces of feedback like this. And I thought, that's interesting because these people have come because they know my content and Jordan's as well. I don't, I don't think that either of us have really pushed that sort of a rhetoric. If anything, I've, both of us have said, try as hard as you can to find relationships that make you feel good. And this is something that's interesting where people like to talk about leaning into discomfort and finding the struggle and overcoming obstacles and stuff like that. But those are only within quite a narrowly defined domain. It's like, I'll deal with the struggles, but I'll deal with them in the gym, or I'll deal with them in business, or I'll deal with them financially, or I'll deal with them existentially, or whatever it might be.

• 26:00Chris Williamson?

  And then you pull people outside of that, and it seems like it correlates. There is a significant minority of people for whom one of the areas of discomfort that perhaps they're less comfortable with being uncomfortable in is building relationships and so on.

• 26:18Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it's um, I used to be like that and um, I just found, it was funny because it, you know, like I just said, it's like the more, the further I did get by myself, the more pointless it seemed and um, and the more I started to, you know, kind of lament my, my isolation, my social isolation and I, I, you know, one of my biggest discoveries in my adult life is what you just said about like taking that same willingness to lean into discomfort in other areas of my life to, to sacrifice and make commitments for my business, you know, the sacrifice, make commitments for my health or

• 26:59Mark Manson?

  for my writing, like apply that to, to personal relationships, like sacrifice and make commitments to, to my friends, to my wife, um, to my kids if I have them like, and as soon as I stepped into that, it's like the most meaningful and profound thing you can have. Like it makes everything else seem very trivial, very quickly. Um, but it, it's hard to explain that to people and I think a lot of people who are in that place, they're probably like me where they've, you know, their history, like I had never really had like a healthy, close relationship with somebody and until my probably late twenties. Um, you know, my family was quite dysfunctional.

• 27:40Mark Manson?

  A lot of my friendships had let me down. Uh, my early relationships were very toxic and dysfunctional. Um,

• 27:50Mark Manson?

  so it, it's, it's something that you can't really see until you get there, but, and it's so it's hard to describe to people who aren't there. But um, it's, I mean, if there's anything, uh, you know, I

• 28:04Mark Manson?

  believe, and I know Peterson believes very, very strongly, like it's, it's just, there's really no point unless you're, there's really no point in doing anything unless you're, you're doing it for, for some, something greater than yourself.

• 28:21Chris Williamson?

  What's the first step? For something like that, or can you remember the first step that you took to transition?

• 28:28Mark Manson?

  You know, I, I think.

• 28:32Mark Manson?

  I think there is, there is a lot of, there's a certain amount of inner work that kind of has to happen first. A certain amount of

• 28:42Mark Manson?

  dealing with, you know, your own pain and beliefs and emotions. You know, I, I had to reach a certain level of like emotional maturity to, you know, and that's not to say that everybody who feels this way is emotionally immature. Like people have different levels of needs, but like for me, it was, I was carrying around a lot of resentment and

• 29:07Mark Manson?

  and I, there was also a lot of, like, I took a lot of pride in being, being able to like, do things on my own, you know, the fact that I could pick up and go to another country for like three months and not tell a soul. And people are like, oh my God, how did you do that? Like, that's terrifying, you know? It's like there was a pride that I could do that. You know, but it's after a certain amount of time, you start to realize that stuff like that is, it's kind of silly. It's ego based, you know, and so it's silly. And at some point, you just kind of have to get over yourself and realize that

• 29:38Mark Manson?

  it's,

• 29:41Mark Manson?

  I think, I think as, as you get older, or at least as I got older, you, you, you gain enough perspective to be able to look back and see like, wow, the five years I dedicated to that one thing does not feel important to me anymore. Yet, wow, I really, I really miss my friends I haven't talked to in five years, you know? And then it starts like sinking in.

• 30:05Chris Williamson?

  Might be something to this. Right, next one, next one. You're overthinking it because you assume you're more special than others.

• 30:17Mark Manson?

  Now, I, I'll add a caveat to that. See, this is the problem with social media is, and this, you always get in trouble with this on social media. Cause it's, you try it, like, social media is optimized for piffiness.

• 30:27Chris Williamson?

  Narrow bandwidth, eh?

• 30:29Mark Manson?

  Yeah, and, uh, you know, it is, when you compress things like that, obviously you, you start losing accuracy. So stuff like this, I'll always get in trouble because people will reply, well, it's not the only reason you overthink things. Well, yeah, you're right. It's not the only reason you overthink things, but, but often it's, um, it's a reason you, you overthink things.

• 30:56Mark Manson?

  You know, I think there's something, anxiety itself.

• 31:04Mark Manson?

  And I'm trying to think of a way to say this that's not going to sound absolutely horrible.

• 31:11Mark Manson?

  There's a fundamental selfishness that kind of comes attached with anxiety. Because when you're anxious, it very much, and it's involuntary. It's not that you're a bad person or that you are a selfish person, but there's an involuntary kind of selfishness that comes packaged with anxiety and that you become overly preoccupied with yourself. And you know, you kind of become obsessed with like, oh, what does he think about me? Or did the thing I say, was that stupid? Or am I going to be a failure? Or is anybody ever going to like me? And it's always me, me, me, I, I, I.

• 31:56Mark Manson?

  And there's a real kind of just,

• 32:02Mark Manson?

  you know, I've found, you know, kind of dealing with some of my own social anxiety in the past, there's a really profound effect of if you're able to like invert that focus

• 32:14Mark Manson?

  and kind of turn it more into compassion or empathy for others, start worrying about, like wondering what they're worried about. You know, it's like if you're like the anxious mess in a crowded room, who doesn't know anybody, like maybe look around and wonder like, you know, is it, other people are likely feeling similar things. And it's just that that simple ability to kind of step outside of yourself is often alleviates.

• 32:46Mark Manson?

  You know, it removes that sense of specialness. It removes that like, I'm the only one who feels this way. I'm the only one suffering this way. I'm the only one who understands what it's like. And you start realizing that everybody else like has very similar problems or is thinking very similar things or worried about similar things. You no longer feel alone in that suffering.

• 33:08Chris Williamson?

  Well, the common thought razor is if you have a thought, assume that at least some other significant minority of people also have it. But the way that our emotions feel, right? They're like, they're like bestowed on us. Like curses, individual diseases that have just been given purely to us by some higher power. And this is why, when you actually think about how emotions feel, almost all of the stories that kind of ancient religions spoke about, you know, thinking about how the goddess of lust and envy and anger and stuff like that, like, of course, it makes sense because it feels like it's so much more. The phenomenon of having an emotion is so much more than

• 33:48Chris Williamson?

  just the wiring going on in your brain. And that leads us to have that kind of very self-focused, neurotic view of the world, right?

• 33:59Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting too, because if you generally, if you look at

• 34:06Mark Manson?

  all the negative emotions, the negative emotions are very self-focused, you know, so anger is always like this horror, you know, I'm, I need to, you know, I need to, this horrible thing happened to me and now I'm angry, you know, anxiety is this horrible thing's going to happen to me. Guilt is, this horrible thing happened to me in the past. Whereas if you look at positive emotions, it's very outwardly focused. It's very much, you know, happiness or joy. It's, it's, it's kind of this like gratitude for the place you're in, the people you're with, the experiences you had.

• 34:45Mark Manson?

  And I don't think that's a coincidence. So I think that that's, you know, there's a fundamental connection between those two psychological phenomenon. And it's probably not, not expressed super well in a, in a pithy tweet.

• 35:02Chris Williamson?

  All right, next one. The more we seek change, the more meaningless that change becomes. I didn't understand this one.

• 35:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah, this one didn't go, this one didn't go over so well. This was one of those ones that I looked at afterwards and I'm like, ah, yeah, I probably could explain this better.

• 35:18Chris Williamson?

  Now's your chance.

• 35:20Mark Manson?

  You know, I would say change isn't the right word. I think novelty is the right word. I was trying to kind of make a point about thrill-seeking or novelty-seeking. You know, it's, it's, there's a diminishing returns to novelty-seeking. You know, it's like, the, the example I always use is like, the, the first time you go to a foreign country, it's like, it's huge, not like, life-changing experience. Even like, the 10th foreign country you go to is like, a very exciting experience. But, you know, country number 62 is kind of like, oh, okay, sure, whatever. You, you require, generally, anything that

• 36:04Mark Manson?

  drives kind of a sense of novelty or excitement requires like, greater and greater quantities of that experience to, to kind of get the same, the same feeling, you know, whether that's travel, or cocaine, or sexual partners, or money, you know, whatever it is. Social book sales, social media follower, you know, it's like, whatever it is, whatever that, that dopamine hit is, there's always a diminishing returns to it. So it, so it, they, they make for poor, long-term strategies.

• 36:42Chris Williamson?

  The hedonic dreadnoughts are a hell of a drug, man. Absolute hell of a drug. Right. To deny negative emotions is to ignore useful feedback from the world. So I wanted to ask how much we should notice our negative emotions if they're good teachers, because Buddhism would instruct us to not identify with them, and some of the good elements of Stoicism, which I know you have criticisms of, would also suggest detachment, don't fixate or suppress, you know. How can you avoid denying negative emotions to acquire the lessons from them, but then also not identify with them too much? That seems like a little bit of an oxymoron.

• 37:23Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I, I definitely subscribe to kind of the Buddhism slash Stoicism school thought of like notice emotions, but don't, don't be dictated by them. And I, I think it's, you know, one of the things I'm highly critical of, you know, kind of the whole positive thinking, self-help genre, sub-genres, is that it's, it often gets interpreted by people as, as like a simple denial of negativity. You know, it's like pretending like everything's great, you know, it's like the dog in the, in the burning house, like this is fine.

• 38:00Chris Williamson?

  I love that meme. There's so many uses for it. It's endlessly useful.

• 38:05Mark Manson?

  It is. Um, you know, so, so the goal is, is to not deny, you know, I, people generally have two problems around negative emotions is either they, they deny it in the first place, or they indulge it, they kind of live in it, you know, so they, they experience their fear, they experience their anger, but they like latch on to it and don't let it go. And so the trick is to be open to it, but also part of being open is to let it leave when, once it's ready to leave. But I generally, you know, the, the argument I always use for, for kind of the denier, positive thinking crowd is I always, I, I say like negative emotions, like they, they

• 38:48Mark Manson?

  evolve for a reason, like they, they have survival purposes. Um, you know, and so if you don't, like, if you train yourself to never be afraid of anything, like you, you're, you're gonna put yourself in some pretty dangerous situations pretty quickly.

• 39:04Chris Williamson?

  Right, next one. Just because you're contrarian doesn't mean you're smart.

• 39:10Mark Manson?

  I love this one. I, I mean, I was probably, I was probably a little bit bitter on Twitter when I wrote this one. It's just like all these contrarian assholes thinking they're so much smarter than everybody else.

• 39:34Mark Manson?

  You know, speaking of McConaughey, like, McConaughey had a... One of the parts I really liked about McConaughey's book is he had this whole section where he was talking about how like, you need to know the rules before you can break the rules. Which, you know, I, when I was young, I was that, I was that guy who just broke every rule. I'm like, "Rules are stupid, I'm gonna break every single one." And you quickly realize that rules exist for a reason. And I think the same thing can be said for institutions. It can be said for cultural norms. It can be said for, you know, manners or language. Like, these things, they evolve and they exist for a reason. And so if you're gonna break them, you need to have a good reason.

• 40:18Mark Manson?

  It doesn't mean they're always right, but like, the default assumption should be that they're right. It should, the default assumption should not be that they're not right. And so it's, it's correct until proven wrong, not the other way around.

• 40:32Chris Williamson?

  Well, I mean, how much are we seeing this with the current debate over the COVID vaccine?

• 40:39Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I mean-

• 40:41Chris Williamson?

  Like, the most, apparently the smartest people on the internet are the ones that have this super-secret, gate-kept knowledge with regards to the COVID vaccine. And you think, 50% of Americans have had their first dose, and 66% of British citizens have had their first dose. Here's a thing that I found out, which is fucking brilliant, man. Only 20% of the UK population is on Twitter. So even when you think, "Well, everybody thinks this," even if you were to max out everyone on Twitter to get agreement, you've only got 20% of the UK population. What the fuck?

• 41:19Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Yeah, I, I actually just wrote an article about social media a couple of weeks ago, and I talked about this. Like, it's really fascinating, when they analyze social networks, they tend to find kind of the same distribution of users, and they call it the-

• 41:36Mark Manson?

  The 1-9-90 rule, which is basically 1% of the users generate 90% of the content, 9% of the users generate 10% of the content, and then 90% of the users generate basically no content whatsoever. Like, they're just, they're observers. And if you ask yourself, like, okay, who are the 1% generating the 90% of content? Like, it's, a large percentage of those people are the fucking crackpots and nutcases, you know, and trolls. And it's, um, you know, it's, one of the, one of the big take-home points in that article was like, like, everybody needs to learn that social media is not reality. Social, I call it,

• 42:21Mark Manson?

  like, social media is a funhouse mirror of reality. It reflects reality, but it's, different parts are elongated and exaggerated, and other parts are kind of minimized. And, you know, so it's, and, and I, I think it's, we're not, especially kind of people in the media, um, or people who read a lot of news, or trap, you know, follow the media very closely, like, a lot of people have not figured that out yet. Like, this is not, it's not reality. It's, it's a, it's a really skewed version of it. But yeah, I mean, coming from being like an online brand or whatever, myself, you know, one thing I learned very early on, early on in my career is like, if you want clicks, like, just be contrarian.

• 43:04Mark Manson?

  Like, you know, it's like, I, it's kind of how I got my start as a blogger. Like, I, I write an article called, like, you know, "You Are Not Special," and sure enough, it would get a shitload of clicks. And I'd write another one saying, like, you know, "Fuck positive thinking. Get a ton of clicks." You know, so it's, disagreeing with something or tearing something down is a great way to get attention. Like, our, you know, coming back to the human perception thing, like, we are very biased to notice Flaws and negativity much more easily, like give it more attention or more importance than things that are functioning correctly.

• 43:43Mark Manson?

  And the fact of the matter is, is like, if you want to find individual flaws or failures or inaccuracies in pretty much every institution in the world, like you can find plenty of them. They're run by humans. So like, of course, you're going to find plenty of them. But that doesn't mean we need to like overthrow the world order or like take down the government, take down the CDC or the FDA or like destroy the the Fed, like all this shit that people, this like like legit revolutionary conclusions that these people are coming to.

• 44:16Mark Manson?

  Is is a disproportionate response to to the actual flaws in the system that they're exposed to.

• 44:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it needs to be iteration, I think. There's this Donald Nuth quote, which I always come back to, and he says, "Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems."

• 44:33Mark Manson?

  Yes, for sure.

• 44:35Chris Williamson?

  And you just think if it's that fence in a field analogy, which now actually I don't think works, you know, there's a fence in a field and a liberal goes up to it and says, we just need to tear this down. The conservative goes, well, hang on a second. We don't know why it's there. It might it might function, might have a purpose. I don't think that that divide occurs anymore. I think that both groups are now looking for revolution by by any means. I don't actually know who is pro institution anymore. Both sides have problems with the same things for completely opposing reasons, but the solution is the same. Tear it down. It all needs to fuck off. Yeah, it's an interesting one.

• 45:08Mark Manson?

  It's like, it's like, it's like the right's like, let's take a chainsaw to it. And the left is like, fuck chainsaws. Let's blow it up.

• 45:13Chris Williamson?

  Nuclear bomb, yeah, precisely.

• 45:15Mark Manson?

  You know, and they're just arguing. They're like, chainsaws, bomb, chainsaws. But uh, but the funny thing is, is like, this comes back to like the social media not being reality. It's like, there's a silent majority of people who do believe in the institutions. They're just not on fucking Twitter. Like, they're taking care of their kids. They're going to the

• 45:34Chris Williamson?

  Even the silent majority on Twitter probably also does as well. And then, yeah.

• 45:40Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 45:40Chris Williamson?

  Fuck, man. Right. Okay, okay, okay. Next one, next one. The secret to success is pain tolerance. Do you not think that success can be easy then?

• 45:51Mark Manson?

  No, no, if it was easy, then everybody would have it, then it wouldn't be success. Um, cause success is by definition, something that is, is, uh,

• 46:02Mark Manson?

  you know, on the extreme, uh, fuck, what's the word I'm looking for? Um,

• 46:09Mark Manson?

  it's something that's, that's, you know, extraordinary means something that is not ordinary. It's like beyond ordinariness. So if you're getting the same result everybody else got, then it's not, it's not success. It's not.

• 46:22Chris Williamson?

  And I suppose that the success is a function of the discomfort to get there as well, right? The satisfaction of getting to a higher mountain is greater than that of getting to a smaller mountain because of the challenge that it took you to get to the top.

• 46:33Mark Manson?

  Absolutely. I mean, it's people like, like if you went and climbed Mount Everest and I went and climbed like whatever shitty hill is in upstate New York, like, you know, who's, who's gonna be more impressed?

• 46:50Mark Manson?

  It's, it's, it's just, it's just how it works.

• 46:55Chris Williamson?

  Right. This one, this one I really like. The only way to become truly confident in yourself is to be comfortable with what you lack.

• 47:02Mark Manson?

  Yep. Yeah. Confidence is not hiding what we lack. It's not even, and it's not even exposing what we have. It's, it's, it's a comfort and a calmness about our shortcomings and failings because we all got them. It's just, it's our relationship to them that kind of determines our, our mental health.

• 47:22Chris Williamson?

  I was speaking to a special forces operative, British one, and he was talking about how all of the guys use quite morbid humor to get past these scary situations. And it's this pressure release valve because all of them are shitting themselves. All of them are scared. It's like, if you don't think that we're scared, you're wrong, but we just have ways of coping with it. And most of them coped with it by making jokes about stuff, by laughing, by laughing about stuff. One guy got, uh, shot like a, a single pellet from a shotgun or something went through the meat of his ass cheek. And all of them couldn't stop laughing about it. And

• 48:03Chris Williamson?

  this guy's got to have like, he's off work for, he's off the, like off the unit for God knows how long. And he's got to have stitches and all of these operations to get it fixed. And he was laughing and so was everyone else.

• 48:15Mark Manson?

  Yeah, man. Gallows humor.

• 48:17Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, but it's, it's, you're right as well that confidence from most people isn't due to a presumed lack of capacity. It's due to an exaggerated presence of insufficiency.

• 48:33Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 48:34Chris Williamson?

  And embracing that is the solution.

• 48:37Mark Manson?

  Yeah, and I, I think it's, it's easy to mistake.

• 48:42Mark Manson?

  You know, there, there's

• 48:45Mark Manson?

  a lot of people in the world compensate for their, their lack or their flaws by overly boasting about their successes or their positive traits. And, um, and I think people,

• 49:01Mark Manson?

  people wrongly attribute that to confidence. You know, if somebody's like, I'm the best so-and-so ever, I'm the best mountain climber ever. Like, man, that guy's confident. It's like, no, it's actually quite the opposite. You know, it's, it's, he has to say that or else he doesn't feel comfortable actually going and doing it. You know, if he was confident, he wouldn't have to say it. It's like, uh, you know, where I grew up, we have a group in Texas, we have a lot of corny southern sayings. One of them is, uh, the, the smallest dog barks the loudest. And, um, it's like, yeah, if you've got a, if you gotta tell everybody you're rich, you're not rich. Like, you gotta tell somebody, if you gotta tell everybody how smart you are, you're not smart. You know, you either are or you, or you aren't.

• 49:44Chris Williamson?

  Right. We're into the meat of it now. This is, this is my favorite section. So, if all your relationships have the same problem, you are the problem.

• 49:59Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 50:01Chris Williamson?

  How did this one go down?

• 50:06Mark Manson?

  You know, you know what's funny? So this was originally, I wrote a short article.

• 50:12Mark Manson?

  I wrote a short article, I think in like 2012 or 13, and it was called, it was called like All The Reasons You're Still Single. And

• 50:24Mark Manson?

  and I published it on Valentine's Day. And you know, I just got like a sick pleasure out of that, you know, it basically said, it was like, look, all these problems you think all your partners have, or all the people you date have, like, guess what? You know, the only thing they have in common is you.

• 50:37Chris Williamson?

  Common denominator.

• 50:39Mark Manson?

  But I repost that probably about once a year in different places and different.

• 50:44Chris Williamson?

  On Valentine's Day, just let's schedule it every February 14th from now until the end of time.

• 50:51Mark Manson?

  I had a pretty sick thing going on my blog with Valentine's Day for a while, like, like I did that one year. And then I think the next year I did like a how to break up with somebody. Like guide on Valentine's Day. I did like a bunch of like kind of fucked up, you know, dark humor type things. But um, yeah, I repost that one quite frequently because um, I mean, I always get a lot of people get mad at me when I post it. A lot of, you know, because everybody's got that, well, you don't understand, my ex is different, you know?

• 51:22Chris Williamson?

  Well, all four of them have the exact same problem that you, you happen to be the single thread, but they don't know each other. They're not even in the same city. And yet they all ended in the same way, but it's all their fault, not yours.

• 51:34Mark Manson?

  Yeah. It's, it's always, I'm always, you know, I, so I get lots and lots of emails over the years and I'm always amused that the people who get really upset at my relationship advice. They're, they always send emails like this long and it's always like, well, you don't understand, my situation is different. And then they go on to tell this like, you know, five stage, five page sob story about, you know?

• 52:04Mark Manson?

  God knows what. And in every, in every case, it's, it's exactly the same. It's like, no, you're, you're still the problem. You're just, you know. But yeah, it's also, I keep posting it because it is such a powerful realization. It was very powerful in my own life. And I've, you know, just heard from hundreds of people at this point, who've told me the same thing, that it was very powerful for them to hear as well. So I, I'm willing to deal with a little bit of hate to get the good word out.

• 52:34Chris Williamson?

  Doing God's work. Right. Lots of people who are still single, but want a relationship, simply have absurd expectations.

• 52:44Mark Manson?

  Yes. I, I think one of the problems with, I mean, look, like, I think one of the side effects of, of the internet, like, kind of the effects that the internet has, has had on culture is that it's exposed us to the most extraordinary aspects of society. You know, so it's, if you're interested in, you know, mountain climbing, you can like go on YouTube and find amazing videos of people summoning Everest, like left, right, and center. And so I, I feel like this is, without us realizing it, has skewed our expectations for our own lives. It's kind of like moved the goal back about 50 yards from where it

• 53:29Mark Manson?

  would normally be, without us necessarily even recognizing it. And I think this applies to dating as well. It's like you, you, because you have access to so many people through dating apps, or online, or, or whatever, you, you start developing these kind of unrealistic standards of what a partner should be. You know, people develop these insane checklists of, you know, well, they, they need to be like...

• 53:57Mark Manson?

  They need to be a concert pianist and they need to have a PhD and they need to be a part-time model and they need to speak six languages and you know, it's like, good luck, man. Like, good luck. So I just, I think sometimes we need to be brought down to earth.

• 54:18Chris Williamson?

  I wonder whether, as well, part of it is just that we, we constantly are looking for something that's going to fill the hole. And perhaps by setting our standards so absurdly high, we never actually have to enter the world of a relationship with people. Also, here's another thing, man. How much do you think this is because we live in a meritocracy? Like, if you teach people that they can become anything that they want to be, your success is completely yours to bear, why shouldn't everyone want to try and date Angelina Jolie? Well, I can become anything I want to be. I can date anyone I want to want.

• 54:55Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I think it's, there's kind of a missing counter narrative to meritocracy, or not counter, but like a kind of a parallel narrative that needs to exist where it's like, at some point, you need to, to like, pick your spot to be satisfied.

• 55:14Chris Williamson?

  What's the hill that you're gonna get married on? Yeah, exactly.

• 55:16Mark Manson?

  Exactly, exactly. Like, it's, and this comes back to what we were talking about earlier about like, this, this kind of unwillingness to sacrifice and commit for others. Like, it's, the thing that makes a relationship strong is the ability to be like, okay, I see what's wrong with you, but I'm gonna love you anyways. Like, that, like, getting to that point is what makes the relationship work. But I just think, like, fundamentally, the way the incentives and culture is set up right now, it's like, it's, it's harder than ever for people to get to that point.

• 55:50Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. You classed yourself as an ardent zealot of marriage. Have you got any advice for young guys who want to kind of transition from fuckboy to fatherhood?

• 56:03Mark Manson?

  From book boy to father, it'd be a good book title.

• 56:05Chris Williamson?

  It would be, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 56:11Mark Manson?

  Well, I do want to say I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a zealot for marriage, but like I, I think it's underrated these days, and I think there's not enough people arguing for it, especially, especially in my generation.

• 56:26Mark Manson?

  I would say that, you know, to make that transition, it's kind of the best piece of advice I've come across is, is asking people, you know, because when you're dating a lot of people, part of the excitement is there's so much diversity of dating experience. Like you, you date people with different backgrounds, different ethnicities, different nationalities, different professions, all this stuff. Like it's a very exciting time to kind of like sample the buffet of what's out there. But at a certain point, like when you want to get serious, the thing I always ask people is I say like, okay,

• 57:04Mark Manson?

  what are your three non-negotiables? Like what are the three things that like you just cannot be with a person if they don't have them? And it's, I've noticed that people who really struggle to name those three things, like they're kind of just like, kind of lost on this hamster wheel of dating the next person who pops up on Tinder.

• 57:29Mark Manson?

  But like, you really need to figure out like, what are your non-negotiables? What are the things that you really can't live without of, without in a partner? And then figure out if those are good non-negotiables, you know, there, there are bad things you can kind of put in those three spots. But generally it's going to be stuff like, you know, honesty or trustworthiness. You know, for me, intelligence is huge. Like I, I need to feel like a good conversation.

• 57:55Mark Manson?

  You know, and, and for me too, it's, it's ambition. I just find, I'm very, very attracted to ambitious women. I, I don't, I always get frustrated, you know, whenever I dated women who weren't super ambitious, I'd get very frustrated. So it's like, part of it's just learning through the act of dating, but then once you have them, you look for those non-negotiables and then you just don't worry about the other things. Cause it's, I think part of the trap of the dating environment these days is like, you know, it's like, well, she's really great at these four or five things, but. You know, she's got pointy elbows and I prefer redheads and you know,

• 58:39Mark Manson?

  she's from California and I don't want to travel to meet her family. You know, like it's shit like that, that people like, you know, move on from potentially really good relationships. And so it's like, get your three non-negotiables and then just fucking forget everything else. Like, just, just look for those three things.

• 58:56Chris Williamson?

  What do you think people should stop believing about relationships? Are there any sort of common myths that you think most people hold?

• 59:05Mark Manson?

  Um, I think people mistake, uh, I think people mistake compromise for settling. Um, you know, there's, there's a strong, I've noticed that a lot of people, especially younger people, have this strong like ethos of like, I'm never gonna settle. Like, I'm not gonna settle for somebody who like, doesn't make me happy or whatever. Um, and that's fine. Like, you shouldn't settle for a person who, you know, has a, like, somebody you're not attracted to, for instance.

• 59:39Mark Manson?

  But at the same time, it's like, any functional relationship requires compromise. And compromise requires you foregoing some of your own happiness to create, you know, more general happiness in the, among both of you in the long run. And, um, and I think a lot of people just mix up those two things. You know, I've, I've talked to a lot of people who, who have ended relationships for like, in my mind, it's just like insanely dumb reasons, you know? Um, it's like, oh, well, she wanted to move, you know, her, her company wanted to move her to another city and I don't want to deal with that. It's like, well dude, you were like, a month ago, you were telling me how in love you were. Like, he's like, yeah, but I don't want to settle for somebody who like, it's just

• 1:00:24Mark Manson?

  like, they're not even, it's like, yeah, she wants me to travel there every two months or something, you know? And it's like, I don't have time for that. And it's, it's like, okay, this is why you're single. You're literally not prioritizing. You wonder why you're single, decade after decade, it's because you don't fucking prioritize your relationships.

• 1:00:43Mark Manson?

  It's really simple.

• 1:00:45Chris Williamson?

  I mean, think about it, man. There's even, there's even subcultures and lingo around what people should and shouldn't do when they get that kind of pushback in a relationship. So for girls, it's like clapping back, right? Or for guys, it's not being a simp, or not being a cook, or not being like a soy boy or whatever, like not being weak. And you think, like, if both of these things are happening, because they're coming at it, these are two very, very polarized types of approaches to relationships. Men want sexual variety, women want sort of commitment. And somehow, both of them have arrived at like the same conclusion. It's the same as the left and right thing that we were talking about before. And the thing that I can

• 1:01:26Chris Williamson?

  only think about is that one of the things perhaps is an increasing ubiquitousness of people being exposed to perfect seeming relationships on social media, in press, so on and so forth, and in romance movies. One of the few places that kind of the cancel culture mob hasn't yet gotten to is that most relationships should finish with a happy ending. And she built her business and made a billion dollars and lived happily ever after. Like, that's not really usually the way that the story ends.

• 1:02:00Mark Manson?

  Sure.

• 1:02:01Chris Williamson?

  So I'm wondering whether or not people, again, the unrealistic expectations thing that we're talking about and kind of this, yeah, this conflation that anything shy of absolutely perfect is you being taken for a ride?

• 1:02:15Mark Manson?

  Yeah, well, it's, so the people have always, and this is true of men and women, but you know, in the dating realm, men and women, you see the same patterns, but it plays out with different language and different, it's expressed with different language. But like, everything you just listed, I mean, it's basically seeing relationships as a power game. And one thing I've written before is that like, the definition of unhealthy relationship is when people see it as a power, like, people perceive the relationship to be a power struggle. It's always like, who is, has more influence, who is getting their way more than the other person, who is getting what they want from the other person?

• 1:02:56Mark Manson?

  Any relationship, romantic, friendship, business relationship, any relationship you approach as a power game, as like a zero sum power game, it's by definition toxic. It's gonna harm your life, it's gonna harm the other person's life. Even if you're winning that power game, it's gonna harm your life and it's gonna harm the other person's life. A healthy relationship is, the way I describe it is, is both people act unconditionally, which is basically like, look, like we're equals, we both wanna be happy, we both want the other person to be happy. So what do we need to do to make that happen? And sometimes that might, might mean, you know, in the case like my wife and I, maybe

• 1:03:40Mark Manson?

  that mean, like, maybe a couple of times it means I give up something, or I don't do something. Couple of times it means she gives up something, she doesn't do something. Like, there's, there's no scorecard here. Like, there's no, we're not keeping a tally in the bed.

• 1:03:53Chris Williamson?

  It's not a transaction, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:55Mark Manson?

  Yeah, we're not, we're not like adding up who gave up more, when, or whatever. It's like, you know, maybe one, if she's having a tough year, maybe I give up more that year. If I'm having a tough year in five years, she gives up more that year. Like, it's that, you don't, you don't ask those questions or try to count those things because it's the act of counting itself that undermines the relationship. And it's funny too, because a lot of the dating advice industry, both for men and for women, focuses on that scorecard. It's like, you know, there's, there was a book in the 90s called The Rules, which was all about, it was teaching women, you know, stuff like, don't pick up the phone the first

• 1:04:39Mark Manson?

  time he calls, or, you know, get up and go to the bathroom when the check comes, or something to make him pay it, like, stuff like that. And it's basically teaching women how to, how to tally it, like, win more points on the scorecard. But it doesn't realize it's teaching them to have toxic relationships with people. And it's the same thing with the game in 2005, with the whole pickup artist thing. It's the exact same, it's teaching men how to win at the scorecard.

• 1:05:06Chris Williamson?

  And look at fucking, look, look at Neil Strauss now.

• 1:05:09Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:10Chris Williamson?

  Look at, look at.

• 1:05:13Mark Manson?

  I mean, it's and the thing is, I mean, Neil made it out better than most of those guys. Like it's, it's, I mean, talk about train wreck on top of train wreck.

• 1:05:23Mark Manson?

  So it's, and I, you know, I was part of that world when I was young and it took me a couple of years, but I soon figured out, I'm like, man, this is not going to end well. Like, sure, I'm getting laid a lot, but like, this is not like, it's not making me happy. It's not, it's not making, you know, the women I'm, I'm hooking up with are not happy people. Like, um, this is, uh, this is a dead end. I need to find a different road.

• 1:05:51Chris Williamson?

  That's the ultimate red pill about pick up artistry and kind of the whole men inism movement at large. And then there has to be a, an equivalent for women. I just don't know what it's called. And this is why your first book, Models, is, I've just completed, yes, everyone that's listening, I've just finished the reading list today. So there's a hundred books and it's taken me fucking ages, man. It took so long. And the only book, the only book that's specifically about dating and pick up on that is Models. And the fundamental reason is that pick up artistry and the female equivalent of it is teaching you tactics to appear like an attractive mate, but it doesn't make you an attractive mate.

• 1:06:35Chris Williamson?

  Like, it's the same as going to a powerlifting competition and wearing a secret mechanical exoskeleton that allows you to pick the weight up. You win, you get the gold medal, but you're still not that strong. And if anyone asks you to replicate that again, you can't do it without all of the tactics that you have. And I think pick up artistry as well actually causes a lot of men to lose confidence because what they see is the chasm between what the girl is attracted to in this caricature, the alter, alter ego that they've created for themselves and who they actually think that they are. And this gap, the, the, um, delta between those two is fucking huge.

• 1:07:18Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I mean, it's. Obviously, it objectifies women. You know, when you treat them as objects to be manipulated by using lines and stories and whatever, you're objectifying them, which is bad for them.

• 1:07:35Mark Manson?

  But what men don't realize is that they're objectifying themselves as well. So it's they're choosing to ignore who they really are, what they really want, what they really believe in, what they're really attracted to, and instead adopting a fake persona, adopting scripted lines, a scripted identity essentially, kind of like downloading an identity onto themselves,

• 1:08:00Mark Manson?

  to just get this, to get a, you know, real world result, to get like, to get laid a few times. First of all, not only does it make the sex horrible, because, because, first of all, it only attracts women who are also hiding their real selves, who are also don't have the confidence to, to show up authentically, who don't, who have low self-esteem and are very needy. So it brings two emotionally unhealthy people together to kind of do this performance, where, at least for the pick-up artists, like the, the goal is sex. But because sex is such a vulnerable and intimate experience,

• 1:08:43Mark Manson?

  it's really unenjoyable, like 99% of the time.

• 1:08:47Chris Williamson?

  Super performative.

• 1:08:49Mark Manson?

  Yeah, and it's, and so it's just, you get the little ego boost, you're like, oh, okay, I got laid now. But yeah, I think in the long run, it, it makes guys feel very empty and feel very lost. And so, so my book Models was very much written, I wrote it specifically to kind of, to be like the antidote to that. You know, I, I had spent some time in that community and then I kind of got out, but I still coached men's, gave men's dating advice, still coached men. And I just started to realize, like, you know, most of these guys, like, their, their problem is not that they don't know what to text a girl, or that they don't know where to take her on a date.

• 1:09:30Mark Manson?

  You know, like, that's not the problem. The problem is like, they fucking, they, they don't believe in themselves. Like, they don't, they don't stand for anything. They don't have an identity. Like, they don't, they don't have social skills. Like, it's... You know, deal with these fundamental things first and and the dating stuff will just take care of itself. And so Models was very much like a, I felt like there was not an emotionally healthy uh guide to men's dating in the world. And so I wanted the right one that would help men, but also um do it in a way that like they they don't have to like sacrifice their self-worth.

• 1:10:08Chris Williamson?

  Is there anything that you changed from it or that you think you missed? Looking back now, whatever, seven years later on, you're thinking, ah, that would be awesome to add that in.

• 1:10:16Mark Manson?

  Um, I revised it twice. So I revised it once and so it came out 2011. I revised it in 2012. And most of that revision was kind of just making it, getting rid of typos, like making it a little bit professional. Uh, because it was, it was in rough shape when I first released it. And then when I revised it again in 2016, um, I was actually pleasantly surprised that like probably 95% of it, I still stood by and felt really good about. Um, the one, the revision in 2016, I, I kind of updated it. Because the original version was slanted, you know, I wrote it when I was like 26. So it was still slanted more towards like being a single guy, going out and partying, hooking up.

• 1:11:01Mark Manson?

  Um, I wanted, I wanted it to be kind of relationship neutral, you know? So it's like, if you just want to get laid, that's fine. If you want to like get married, that's also fine. So I, I revised it to kind of, you know, speak to, to everybody. Um, and then the other thing, the, the thing that really surprised me, but Models developed a, a real following among um among women and among LGBT people. And um, and so I, I kind of.

• 1:11:34Mark Manson?

  Edited, you know, there were little like, simple examples or lines and stuff here and there that I kind of edited just to like, be applicable to a broader audience. Cause the, the central concepts of the book are universal. Like the, the things that make, ultimately, drive human relationships and make people happy in human relationships and turn people on are, are pretty universal. They're just expressed slightly differently, based on gender and then they're expressed slightly differently based on sexual orientation. And so I, I wanted to just make the book, even though it's written for men, I wanted to make it as universal as possible.

• 1:12:11Chris Williamson?

  Got you. Right. What do you think people are giving too many fucks about that they shouldn't?

• 1:12:18Mark Manson?

  Whatever's being posted on Twitter.

• 1:12:20Chris Williamson?

  Fine, fine. That is, I think that can get universal agreement from everybody.

• 1:12:26Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Period.

• 1:12:27Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Full stop. Man, thank you so much for coming on. Uh, this will, just will, uh, November 9th. And, um, dude, I'm so, I'm so gassed for that. Awesome. Like really, what a cool project to have worked on. And, um, yeah, I can't wait for that to come out.

• 1:12:49Mark Manson?

  Yeah, me too, man.

• 1:12:50Chris Williamson?

  Well, look, dude, markmanson.net for all things you, uh, models and subtle art and everything else will be linked in the show notes below if everyone wants to check that out. And what are your socia's? People want to follow you on that?

• 1:13:04Mark Manson?

  Uh, Twitter is I am Mark Manson. Uh, Instagram is just Mark Manson. Um, and then I think Facebook's Mark Manson net.

• 1:13:12Chris Williamson?

  Does anyone use, anyone use Facebook anymore?

• 1:13:14Mark Manson?

  No, nobody uses Facebook anymore. But, um, old people use Facebook. Oh, and I'm also on, I'm also, I have a YouTube channel now as well. So I, I do, um, I do a few videos each month. So check that out.

• 1:13:27Chris Williamson?

  Brother, thank you so much.

• 1:13:29Mark Manson?

  Thank you, man. It was fun.

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company foreme of the explosion on our rig.

• 1:13:46Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 1:13:48Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:13:52Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:14:00Speaker 03

  What would happen if I stopped going? You stall, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 1:14:04Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:14:07Speaker 03

  I'm not the first nanny.

• 1:14:08Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.