Self-Help Junkies, Stupid Experts, and the Worst Life Advice I've Ever Heard

Are you addicted to self-improvement? Are experts really any better than the rest of us at knowing how to make positive changes in our lives? What are some common pieces of life advice that just don't seem to work? Drew and I tackle all of these questions today in our brand new, updated format for the pod. Find out why self-help can turn into pseudo-religion (and why we should bring back exorcisms), whether or not a huge mega-study by a bunch of fancy experts can tell us anything about behavioral change, and some common self-improvement tropes that just don't do it for us. Here's the study we discuss: Megastudies improve the impact of appliedbehavioural science Let us know what you think of the new show format in the comments below. CHAPTERS Chapters 00:00:00 New show format 00:03:15 The F*ck of the Week: When self-improvement turns into addiction (or a cult) 00:17:06 Brilliant or Bullshit? Do experts actually know what they're talking about? 00:31:13 Your Questions Answered: Life advice that doesn't work? ⇨ Sign up for my newsletter, Your Next Breakthrough. It will help make you a less awful person: ⁠⁠⁠⁨https://markmanson.net/breakthrough⁩⁠⁠⁠ ⇨ Get clarity on what actually matters. Try Purpose, Mark's AI mentor app that learns your patterns, challenges your blind spots, and helps you take action. Get started at ⁠⁠⁠⁨https://bit.ly/4w46FMH⁠⁠⁠ FOLLOW MARK Mark's IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/markmanson⁠ Solved IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/solvedpodcast/⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://x.com/markmanson⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmanson/⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@IAmMarkManson Theme song is "Icarus Lives" by Periphery.

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

• 0:00Mark Manson?

  Welcome back, everybody, to the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Manson. I'm here with Drew Burney. This is a special episode because we are doing a little bit of a refresh of the show. We're about 10 months in, not quite a year in. We've tried a bunch of things. We've had a bunch of different conversations. Drew and I have done episodes together. We've had a bunch of different types of guests. Some have gone well, some have not gone so well. Some have been huge audience favorites, some have not been audience favorites. It's been very educating and interesting, like what has resonated with people and what hasn't. We've decided to, as any good creative does, double down on what's working and forget what's not.

• 0:41Mark Manson?

  And so we're introducing a little bit more of a consistent talk show format. Every week, Drew and I are going to go through three different segments. First one is what we're giving a fuck about, what we're worrying about, anything that's going on in the world that is causing us to stress or lose a little bit of sleep. The second segment is brilliant or bullshit, where we will talk about studies, trends, interventions, practices, things going viral online, and talk about whether it's brilliant or whether it's bullshit. And then finally, we will be answering audience questions. We will not always have guests. We will occasionally have guests. And when we have guests, we're not going to interview them because we don't give a fuck. We're going to make them do the format with us.

• 1:26Mark Manson?

  We're going to make them share what they give too many fucks about. We're going to make them tell us if they think it's brilliant or bullshit, and we're going to have them help us answer your questions. So this is the new show. Welcome, everybody. We are on the forefront of fuckology here at the Fuck Podcast. And I'm excited to get into this. This feels like, I feel almost like the last year was like a beta test. You know, it's like, we tried all the stuff, all the other shows are trying. You know, there's a bunch of big podcasts in our space. You know, we gave everything a little bit of a test drive. We did the big, long intro monologues. We did the big, famous guests. We did like all the fancy shit.

• 2:08Mark Manson?

  You know, at the end of the day, you kind of just learn that you have to go back to being yourself.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Yes, we've learned a lot. We have. I feel like we have, don't you?

• 2:19Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah, I mean-

• 2:20Speaker 01

  We fucked up a lot.

• 2:23Mark Manson?

  We've learned a lot the hard way.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 2:25Mark Manson?

  Like, just, uh, everything from like guest bookings to, uh, you know, prepping for an interview that like does not go the way you expect to, you know, it's given me a lot. I will say this, it's given me a lot more respect for the prep and interview skills of podcasters.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 2:42Mark Manson?

  Um, it's definitely, it's one of those things that looks simple from the outside, but, uh, you can spend days reading somebody's work and planning a conversation out and then they sit down in front of you and it just goes completely off the rails in a completely different direction than you expected. So, uh, so here we are. We are in a controlled, we're in a safe space, Drew. We've created a safe space for ourselves.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  It's the subtle art of not giving a fuck podcast with your host, Mark Manson.

• 3:15Mark Manson?

  Let's kick off this inaugural, uh, refresh episode. What, what are we giving too many fucks about this week?

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Uh, self-improvement this week, Mark.

• 3:24Mark Manson?

  Okay, we, we give a fuck of, okay. Do you want to start that over?

• 3:30Speaker 01

  This one was yours, though. This was when self-improvement kind of becomes religion and what you've seen out here in West LA and that sort of thing. So how do you want to do that?

• 3:39Mark Manson?

  Well, introduce it.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Well, that's what I'm saying. This was yours. This was yours, Mark.

• 3:46Mark Manson?

  Oh, I'm supposed to introduce it?

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Well, well, yeah, the fuck of the week, right?

• 3:49Mark Manson?

  Oh, the fuck of the week. Okay. Maybe I should have looked at the outline before we started. Maybe I gave two, uh, just one too many.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  You, you came to me the other day. You came to me the other day and you said, one thing I've just been like, just been grinding on me lately. It's just how everyone out here is obsessed with like self-improvement in ways that it creeps into their lives.

• 4:14Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  And, and it affects everyone around them.

• 4:17Mark Manson?

  In some ways it's addiction, in some ways it's culty.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:20Mark Manson?

  Um, so just to give people some context here, uh, I now live in California. One of the great things about California is people are like super conscious and aware of making themselves better, making the world better, which is great. I love that intentionality. Just going to put it out there, you know, it's, there's a lot of great stuff that goes on in this part of the world. But there's this weird kind of junky culty vibe here where.

• 4:48Mark Manson?

  It's almost like people don't know how to just hang out.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Like just be.

• 4:54Mark Manson?

  Like, like, yeah, my wife and I, we constantly get these invitations. You know, it'll be like, come over for a Saturday brunch with our friends and we're gonna have mimosas and we're gonna do this. And we're gonna do guided meditations with our personal guru and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Put a gun in my mouth. God.

• 5:17Mark Manson?

  It's like, you had us at brunch. You didn't like, you didn't need to like introduce a whole fucking ideology into our Saturday morning. So like that.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Set your intentions.

• 5:28Mark Manson?

  That's gotten a little bit tiresome and I think it just, it particularly, it's bugging me a lot because I'm in this industry. And what I've found out here too, is that everybody out here thinks that, they assume that I must be into it. They're like, well, he's like a self-help author.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Of course he would be, yeah.

• 5:45Mark Manson?

  Of course, he's gonna be totally into the like, the guided meditation sound bath before he eats his eggs at brunch. And I, you know, I'm like, no, this is my job. Like I'm, I'm, I'm off the clock. I don't wanna be like thinking about this stuff. Uh, so it's bugged me a little bit, but I do think there's an interesting conversation around here of like, when does self-improvement become compulsion? When does it turn into an addiction? You know, it's, it's admirable to always wanna improve yourself, but it's also an affliction if you don't know how to stop. Like sometimes the most, like the best thing you can do for yourself is nothing.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Is nothing, right? Yeah.

• 6:28Mark Manson?

  Is just enjoy who you are in the moment, uh, without any sort of like, you know, production or, or process or whatever. So.

• 6:39Mark Manson?

  That's been like, that's been grating on me lately.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:42Mark Manson?

  I don't know.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, we just did an episode not too long ago on the backwards law, right?

• 6:47Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  And at what point does like trying to improve yourself only highlight all of the things that are wrong with you? And I think that probably gets lost in some of this too.

• 6:57Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Right?

• 6:58Mark Manson?

  I, the irony is, I think at a certain point, it becomes a form of avoidance.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:02Mark Manson?

  You know?

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 7:03Mark Manson?

  It's like, it's like, well, if I, if I just keep booking all these new like gurus and sound baths and all this shit, then it's like, I, I'm always being introduced into a new modality. So I'm always learning a new modality. So I'm not actually responsible for changing anything in my life because I'm always like, there's like this constant process of like learning the new thing. Instead of just returning to your life and living and like trying to integrate all the things you're learning into actually like being a better person. So, yeah, I don't know. The, it's a funny thing of like, I tend to write about self-help or self-improvement. Like it's not an intervention. It's not like steroids.

• 7:42Mark Manson?

  It's not like, like, oh, you went to this seminar and now you're just going to get like 40% more jacked than you would have otherwise. Self-help is more like hygiene. It's like you.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  It's boring.

• 7:54Mark Manson?

  It's boring, it's dull, it's repetitive. And if it does get too exciting, it's actually probably not doing a whole lot.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  And so you think a lot of these, like a lot of people who invite you to these things, they're trying to put on these like little mini self-help seminars themselves. It almost feels like that.

• 8:07Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:08Mark Manson?

  Yeah, there's, there's a ton of that here. There's a ton of that here. And it's actually, and it even gets to the point where it's like, you know, you'll go somewhere, you'll go to like a dinner or something. And they'll curate the conversation. So like they'll put six people at a table. And then the host will break out like no cards. And like, there'll be like a guided conversation of like, everybody, everybody's going to take turns and have five minutes where they talk about what they're working on in their life right now. And it's like, can we just talk about like the Netflix show we're watching? You know, like, I don't know. It's, I like some of that, some of that can be useful and good, but it's just like when it's, when it's a constant thing and it never stops. Like when people don't know how to socialize without that. Then that's a problem.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Right. It's like alcohol, right? They don't know how to socialize without alcohol. It's like the addiction that you're talking about, that part of it.

• 8:57Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:59Mark Manson?

  So I think the the lesson here is just like being aware of when the like the the drive to improve and change yourself is is actually part of the problem.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  You read Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind, right?

• 9:13Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  You remember that part in there that he he has this I can't kind of saying throughout it, I think, where he's like, I I had to be very conscious of not doing being. Remember that? Like, I'm trying to, I'm trying to just be.

• 9:25Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  But trying to just be.

• 9:27Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  You know, like, I feel like this is like an extreme example of that. People are like, I'm trying to be and live in the moment. I'm trying so hard that I'm doing being.

• 9:36Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? That's a, that's a mindfuck in its own, but yeah.

• 9:39Mark Manson?

  There are some things that that it's, you only improve them by like letting go and not try. And and I think a lot of like psychological based stuff is is similar to that. I don't know, I sometimes I, I have a few theories around this. You know, one of them is like, it's funny, I wrote about this a little bit in my second book, Everything is Fucked. But like now that I'm out here, I definitely feel it. It feels like church. It like feels like

• 10:06Speaker 01

  Oh, it is.

• 10:07Mark Manson?

  It feels like

• 10:07Speaker 01

  It is church.

• 10:08Mark Manson?

  No, it feels, it feels like it's almost like a religious thing. Like, it's, it's like everybody, you know, is into the same yoga, does the same meditations and and you know, takes the same ayahuasca. And so they like get together every week and they like practice rituals around it.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  That's church.

• 10:25Mark Manson?

  It's totally fucking church, but if you, if you tell, tell them that, like, if you say that, I don't know, it's, it, I think they don't conceptualize. They don't realize what they're doing is actually quite religious and faith based. And I feel like if if you said that, if you, if I expressed that to them, they would probably take offense or get very defensive about it. Maybe not, I don't know. But so that's like, that's one working theory is that it's, it's like a, it's a church thing. We already talked about the addiction thing. I also think that some of it is just like. It's a higher order way of coping with neuroticism. So, you know, William James believed that it's actually impossible to solve addiction. You just replace one addiction with others.

• 11:10Mark Manson?

  And I think in, in some of these people's cases is like they're, they are like highly neurotic or compulsive people. And if they're not compulsive towards self-improvement or like biohacking or meditation or whatever, they would be very compulsive towards like very destructive things. Okay. And so this is kind of like, it's almost like this is the least worst. Cause I've noticed a lot of, I think there, there's a, for a place that it has a reputation for being very laid back, I actually find a lot of people out here in California are very compulsive, like they're very. There's a lot of neuroticism. There's a lot of neuroticism. Yeah. And, but again, there's like a lack of self-awareness around it.

• 11:49Mark Manson?

  Like it's, uh, because the compulsion is around things that we, uh, associate with relaxation, things like yoga, meditation, spa treatments, beauty, nature. I think people assume that they must be very relaxed and like low key. But, um, as somebody who's not from here, coming out here, it strikes me as a very neurotic place. So some of it strikes me as like, and I, part of this too, like this is where I identify with it because it's like, I, I think one of the things that I'm learning the last couple of years is that I'm a lot more, uh, addictive or compulsive than I thought I was.

• 12:30Mark Manson?

  And, but when I'm here, my, my addictions and compulsions are like quite healthy or fairly healthy. Whereas if you put me in like New York City or Brazil or wherever.

• 12:44Mark Manson?

  I'll just like fucking destroy myself. Right, right.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Well, and going back, relatedly, going back to the religion thing, what is, what is self-improvement or self-help?

• 12:54Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  If it's not like a form of religion.

• 12:57Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  In a way, right? I mean, if you take a lot of the mysticism out of the major religions, really looks a lot like self-help. I had a friend one time who like made this observation. She went to church, it had been a long time, and she came out and she's like, that felt like a mini self-help seminar.

• 13:12Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Because it is very much prescriptive, and this is how you should live your life and all that.

• 13:16Mark Manson?

  Well, religion was, it was the original self-help, right? You know, it's like, it used to be if you had marriage problems, you went to a pastor, right? It used to be if you had psychiatric issues, you got an exorcism.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:28Mark Manson?

  You know, let's bring exorcisms back.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Fuck, yes.

• 13:33Mark Manson?

  Let's make that a thing. That would be pretty cool, actually. Play some metal music. Awesome. I'm so in for an exorcism. Wouldn't that be funny? Be like, you know, I should try this. I should go to like, like the next California dinner party I go to, and everybody starts talking about their shaman. I'm gonna be like, guys, you know what the next, you know what the new thing is? Exorcism.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Exorcism, bring a priest in.

• 13:53Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I found this great Catholic priest. He's fucking, he will, he will pull all the demons out of you. It is life-changing. You guys need to check this out. I wonder if they would, if they, if they would bite.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  I kinda doubt it, but I don't know. I don't know.

• 14:08Mark Manson?

  Something, it's not very California, it's Catholic.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  It is really interesting, though, if you do point out to somebody that, hey, this is like really kind of like religious behavior.

• 14:15Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  And, or it mimics a lot of things about religion, and they get very defensive about it.

• 14:21Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  That, to me, like, I don't know.

• 14:24Mark Manson?

  Well, and historically, when I've brought this up in writing, it's a very polarizing thing.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 14:30Mark Manson?

  And the funny thing is, is I think religious people recognize that. Like, so I've been invited on religious podcasts with pastors and preachers and priests and stuff.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Which is insane if you.

• 14:45Mark Manson?

  And, and, and they are 100% aware of that. I've had conversations, you know, I've spoken in the Middle East, I've had conversations with audiences of Muslims, and they're like. Yeah, everything you talk about like we're here for it.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  There's a crazy number of like Muslims who come and say, this is actually, you know, this is all in the Quran.

• 15:00Mark Manson?

  Yeah. So I think religious people get that like self-help is kind of just the secularized version of religion. Where it's the secular people who are like, nah, no, this is scientific.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 15:14Mark Manson?

  Whereas if you actually go look at the research, there's not a whole lot of science going on.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. And science itself can turn into a religion pretty quickly too, so.

• 15:22Mark Manson?

  That is true. That's a whole nother episode.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  There's that.

• 15:26Mark Manson?

  What else?

• 15:27Speaker 01

  I think that's it for that.

• 15:29Mark Manson?

  Yeah?

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:30Mark Manson?

  All right, well, if, if any of you out there know a good Catholic priest, I'm, I'm interested in an exorcism. Who can, who can give me a good rate on an exorcism? Maybe, maybe give me like, you know, one of those cards when you get like 10 exorcisms, they give you the 11.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  At their local coffee shop and you like a punch card?

• 15:50Mark Manson?

  Like the Jimmy John's, you know, frequent, frequent sandwich card. Yeah, hit me up, Catholic priest. I think on that note, we'll, we'll take a break.

• 16:06Mark Manson?

  All right, it's time for Brilliant or Bullshit. What are we deeming brilliant or bullshit in all of our infinite wisdom today?

• 16:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're looking at experts and are experts any better than us common folk at coming up with interventions that actually work to help us change our lives? Okay.

• 16:23Mark Manson?

  Okay. I have a prediction.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Okay, okay. Well, there's a huge study, a huge study done by a whole bunch of experts who came up with a whole bunch of interventions. And it turns out that like.

• 16:35Mark Manson?

  This was, this was for what? What was the intervention?

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, sorry.

• 16:38Mark Manson?

  Like the, the goal?

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. The goal was to get people to go to the gym more.

• 16:41Mark Manson?

  Got you.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  So they got, yeah, this giant study.

• 16:43Mark Manson?

  Bunch of psychologists get together, they're like, we think we know how to get people to go to the gym.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  So here's 50 some different ways that we could get people to go to the gym. Let's test them all out.

• 16:51Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  And they had like 60,000 people in this study. So it was a huge study.

• 16:54Mark Manson?

  That's a lot.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, very, very comprehensive.

• 16:57Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  And it, it solves a lot of the problems with like, you know, you compare one study to another, they have different sample sizes, they had different outcomes, different.

• 17:04Mark Manson?

  Sure.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Whatever. This is like, we're going to compare all of these huge giant study and compare all these different ones all at the same time.

• 17:10Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Get a nice clean result. Well, it's not quite that simple, as you can imagine.

• 17:15Mark Manson?

  So how'd they do?

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Well, what they found was that. Experts were no better than laypeople at predicting which interventions were going to work.

• 17:23Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  So you just, you just feed these to people, a man on the street and be like, is this gonna get people to go to the gym more? Yes or no? They're just as good as the experts at predicting which ones will work.

• 17:32Mark Manson?

  So is, is this a case where the psychologists were? Cause you can frame this in two different ways. Would you frame it as the psychologists were just as bad as the average Joe at predicting what gets people to go to the gym? Or is it that the average Joe with his like folksy wisdom, common sense is just as good as the expert? Like what was the hit rate on the predictions here? Was it abysmal or was it just kinda like everybody's like, oh yeah, obviously that would make somebody go to the gym?

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Well.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  The hit rate, according to this study.

• 18:06Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Okay. The hit rate was about 45%. So just less than half of the interventions worked.

• 18:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah, that's not very good.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Right? So a, a coin toss, right?

• 18:13Mark Manson?

  Sure.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  If you really dig into the data though, it's only like four of these interventions worked. Out of the 50, I think it was 54 interventions that they tried.

• 18:21Mark Manson?

  Wow, that's depressing.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  So it was, yeah, it was.

• 18:26Mark Manson?

  So, so basically, yeah, it's like the news gets worse, folks.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  It does, yes.

• 18:32Mark Manson?

  Not only do, do like almost none of the interventions work, but um, experts were just as clueless as to would the fact that none of them worked as, as laypeople.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  As laypeople were, yeah. So everybody was bad, basically.

• 18:43Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  There's, it wasn't like laypeople were good and.

• 18:46Mark Manson?

  Gotcha.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Experts were bad or anything like that. Everybody was just bad at it, yeah.

• 18:49Mark Manson?

  And also worse than a coin flip.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Yes, much worse, much worse.

• 18:56Mark Manson?

  So not only, not only bad, but like you could literally just flip a coin and you'd get better results.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  More or less, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 19:02Mark Manson?

  God, dude.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, it's so, you know, there's, there were like these four things that they found.

• 19:06Mark Manson?

  I love science. I just love science.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  Well, it's insane. What's crazy to me is that like they're billing this as, you know, oh, this this mega study is great. And we just how we should do all these. And it is.

• 19:18Mark Manson?

  Sure.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  It's a very well done study, but they it's like they missed the lead completely. They missed the actual takeaway, which was, oh, my God, we're really bad at this. And it was one of the one of the least researchers on this is Angela Duckworth.

• 19:30Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  Like, you know, a very well known.

• 19:32Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Person in behavioral intervention and psychology. And still.

• 19:39Mark Manson?

  It blows my mind after, I mean, we are, what, 150 years into the field of psychology? And we are, I mean, psychology was kind of a quack science. Maybe it's first 60, 70 years. But I mean, we're like, at this point, we're probably 60 years into like 60, 70 years and like very serious, well funded psychology programs and research. And it blows my mind. I mean, and it's not just psychology either. Like, you run into a similar thing in like nutrition and sociology and.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  All the so called softer sciences.

• 20:19Mark Manson?

  Criminology. Yeah, like, it's just like, we still have no fucking idea. What, why things happen? Why people do things and don't do other things? I'm curious, what were, do you know the four interventions that actually had a really strong effect size?

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Yes, I got I got them right here. The the one that worked the best, I think, was bonuses after messing up. So if the way they incentivize these people to go to the gym was they would, I think they give them like an Amazon gift card and they would add money to the to the gift card if they, you know, showed up or whatever. If they messed up, if they didn't go, they would give them a little bit of a bonus for going the next time. And correcting the behavior, which I found very, very interesting. Yeah.

• 20:59Mark Manson?

  That is interesting.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Another one was just giving bigger incentives, simply that one's not a big surprise.

• 21:04Mark Manson?

  Shocker.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, you get a bigger incentive to go to the gym, the more people will go. Um, this was an interesting one, too. Information about what's normal. So like telling people that the majority of Americans or wherever you are, exercise frequently and that the rate is increasing. If you just tell people that, they're like, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna follow this trend, I guess. Which was kinda interesting to me, too.

• 21:24Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Huh.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Just, just kind of that social.

• 21:27Mark Manson?

  Social pressure.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Social pressure, social, social proof.

• 21:30Mark Manson?

  Yeah, you wanna be one of the cool kids.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:32Mark Manson?

  Going to the gym.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  And then this last one was really interesting, too. There was a, a framing the choice of a gain or a loss. So they gave, they either, they told people they could either choose, you can start out with this much money and you'll lose as you, um,

• 21:48Mark Manson?

  Fail to go.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  As you fail to go.

• 21:50Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Or you start out with nothing and you gain. Um, either one of those, as long as you just gave the person the choice.

• 21:56Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  On that, and they picked which one they wanted, that actually had a noticeable effect on that, as a significant effect on that, on, on gym attendance.

• 22:04Mark Manson?

  So it didn't matter if it was which direction.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  Didn't matter, it was just, they had a choice. And I, I thought about this, too, and I'm like, which one of those would I choose? I would choose the, give me all the money upfront and then I, I wanna see it.

• 22:16Mark Manson?

  I think I would too.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  I would go that way.

• 22:17Mark Manson?

  I think I would too. I think that would, that's more, you know, the loss aversion and everything. I think that's more painful.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Ah. Yeah, but I just.

• 22:25Mark Manson?

  So a whole lot of bullshit here.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Well, I.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  The thing is, it's a really well-done study. I just think what they learned from it was bullshit.

• 22:33Mark Manson?

  Well, it's, the irony here is I think the study itself is brilliant, but what the study shows is that there's a lot of bullshit. Like, we still don't know what the fuck we're doing. And like, I, we've talked about this before, uh, on the podcast. Like, I remember, I think five or six years ago, I got really curious of which modalities of therapy were the most effective for patients. And there's all these meta-analyses, like hundreds and hundreds of studies with thousands and tens of thousands of, of patients who have been tracked and all this stuff. And when you really, when you crunch all the data together over the past like 30, 40 years, and you look at all the modalities of therapy.

• 23:14Mark Manson?

  They basically all work roughly the same and it's they're all slightly better than a placebo.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:21Mark Manson?

  Like marginally better than a placebo. And so like that's none of them, I think none of them have a hit rate over 50%. Which is like, again, in a field that's 150 years old and, you know, just a tradition from Sigmund Freud, the fucking Dr. Phil. Like, we can't bat over 50% is still mind boggling to me.

• 23:43Mark Manson?

  So this, this kind of reminds me of that, of just like, everybody's kind of throwing shit at a wall. And some people are able to throw nicer looking shit. Uh, and so they get, uh, you know, they get tenure and they get a bestselling book and, uh, yeah, you know, like a TV show, um, but it's like, ultimately, I, I do have to say the more, the older I get and the more it well researched and informed I am about this field, like the more I come to respect, just like ancient timeless wisdom.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:16Mark Manson?

  Shit that's been around for 2000, 3000 years, like, because clearly that has, that must have some value. Otherwise it wouldn't have survived for so long. Um, whereas a lot of, a lot of this stuff, you know, I've been in this industry long enough now to see a lot of quote unquote, true psychological findings, be proven and disproven. Um, so yeah, this is just another, another reason to stay skeptical.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, there, there was kind of a, a parallel in this study with the, the interventions that you're talking about. There, there, they had kind of two control groups in this.

• 24:54Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Which is, this is kind of interesting and, and relevant. The, the original control group, they just gave them an Amazon card and, and filled it up.

• 25:00Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  Said, here you go, go nuts. That was it. Their baseline group though, they give them an Amazon card, uh, Amazon gift card, and sent them reminders to go work out and I think like a planner or something like that. And that's, that was their baseline. Just doing that alone.

• 25:15Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Was significantly better than the control group.

• 25:18Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  So, so any intervention whatsoever, basically is, is effective.

• 25:24Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  And this is one of the reasons why I think they're. Some of their conclusions were a little bit bullshit was because they were comparing all these interventions to that original control group.

• 25:33Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  When really what they should have been doing, which this is what Spencer Green pointed out on Twitter. What they should have been doing was comparing it to the baseline because we know that any intervention works.

• 25:43Mark Manson?

  Literally just like a text message.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  A text message said, go to the gym. That like had a significant increase in getting people to go. Yeah. Not even incentivizing them. It's just, yeah, there was no incentive. They, I mean, they got the Amazon card just for like participation. They didn't, they didn't get extra incentive.

• 25:57Mark Manson?

  So this is where I can't help but bring it back to self-help. Our industry, like where people are spending tens of thousands of dollars on coaching, seminars, training, like all sorts of accountability systems and.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  And at best, that's an incremental.

• 26:12Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  One percent.

• 26:14Mark Manson?

  That's taking, you know, it's the 80, the, the, the thing that drives 80% of the result is like getting a text message and like buying a planner.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:21Mark Manson?

  Right. And it's like, all that other stuff takes you from 80 to 90% or something.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  It goes back to, it's being boring. It goes back to, you know, you don't need these like mini interventions.

• 26:31Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Uh, or huge interventions at, at any stage. It just goes back to being boring and consistent.

• 26:36Mark Manson?

  It really makes me wonder how much of the monetary value that is being spent in this industry is, is actually being spent. This comes back to the dinner party thing, right? Like it's actually being spent on something that makes you feel special.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:51Mark Manson?

  You know, it feels really special having a high-end coach checking in on you is like made a personalized plan. And it's like, got all these systems for you set up and is gonna like go stand in the gym with you and like watch your forum and everything. And like that, there's an emotional satisfaction that comes with that. You know, that maybe that's actually what you're mostly paying for. I don't know.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it just comes back to like, these days, I'm just like, if it works for you, go for it.

• 27:20Mark Manson?

  Yeah, whatever.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Just do it. Yeah, fine. Whatever.

• 27:24Mark Manson?

  Spirit crystals.

• 27:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, just be happy.

• 27:26Mark Manson?

  Whatever.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:27Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  Who am I to say?

• 27:30Mark Manson?

  That'll be a, maybe that's the slogan of our podcast. Be happy, whatever.

• 27:37Mark Manson?

  On brand. It reminds me, it reminds me, I saw there was like, there was a viral quote of Keanu Reeves a while ago and he said, he was like, I've reached the stage in my life where I don't, I just don't want to argue with people anymore. He said, if you say one plus one equals five, that's great, man. I hope you're happy. I saw that. I saw that.

• 27:57Mark Manson?

  Wise. Yes, very wise. All right, we'll be back after this.

• 28:07Mark Manson?

  All right, we're back. What have we heard from the audience?

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got a couple of questions here. This one's from John, who submitted this on YouTube. And he asks, is there any popular life advice that consistently doesn't work for you or has failed you in important situations?

• 28:21Mark Manson?

  Ooh.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:23Mark Manson?

  That's a great question, John. So when I was younger, I tried a lot of the classic

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:28Mark Manson?

  self-help shit.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  You went to some seminars and

• 28:31Mark Manson?

  Went to some seminars, had a great time, you know, back to, back to that, the original point, had a great fucking time, didn't really change a whole lot. You know, the, the stuff that never really worked for me was the affirmations and the positive thinking. And I think it's just like, I always knew I was lying to myself. Like the fact that I felt like I had to tell myself some, like that something was actually good.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:59Mark Manson?

  Or that I'm great, I'm smart, and I'm, I'm brilliant, I'm attractive, all this stuff. Like the fact that I felt the need to say those things to myself would just remind me that I was lying to myself. And so I actually found that that stuff made me feel worse. And it actually made me more stressed and anxious than, than less. And it's funny, because when I was young and immature, I, I was like, well, clearly I'm doing something wrong. Cause, you know, all these Great famous people on Oprah like say this is how you do it and and it just it never really sat right with me. And then as I got older, I started to realize like, oh, maybe those people

• 29:40Mark Manson?

  on Oprah like, don't know what the fuck they're talking about. Back to the point of experts not knowing what what actually works or not. So yeah, that would be the main one. That's the main one that comes to my mind. Is there one for you?

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Um, I've talked before about the gratitude thing. Yeah, that's not really good. I've also just kind of had mixed results with meditation.

• 30:00Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  I don't think it's as cracked up as it is. It's all that's cracked up to be really.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  I've found, yeah, sometimes in some situations it can calm my mind. You used to meditate a lot and you don't really anymore, right?

• 30:13Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  What have you found with meditation? I think there's some research coming out too. That's like, ah, yeah, for some people, it's really not that great.

• 30:21Mark Manson?

  You know, there's this pattern with research and you and I've talked about this before of like, when something's new.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:28Mark Manson?

  And it's and it's a small sample size and it's like, people like really tough cases. Almost everything looks great. And then as soon as you expand that sample size and get like, a lot of people from kind of the normal population into the sample. The effectiveness of almost everything kind of goes away. And I think meditation is another story of that. I I found it really impactful when I was young. I but I mean, I think a lot of that was, you know, I I was diagnosed with ADHD. I found it very effective for like helping me focus. I also just kind of had this period where like I, I, you know, when I was younger,

• 31:11Mark Manson?

  I really got into Eastern philosophy, Buddhism, psychedelics, basically all the shit that's popular now, you know, like I I hate to be the guy who's like, I did it before it was cool, but.

• 31:24Mark Manson?

  I was really into that stuff. And so I remember like I I found that meditation was like intense meditation for multiple hours was kind of the only thing that gave me the same sensation that some of my more profound psychedelic experiences have gave me. I've since learned and understood that what was happening is that, you know, both psychedelics and intense meditation deactivate what's called the default mode network, which is essentially your ego. And there are pros and cons to that. I think it is useful to deactivate or

• 32:03Mark Manson?

  as Ken Wilber would say, transcend your ego, like see that you are not necessarily limited to your ego. That there there is a certain connectedness between you and the universe around you. I think there's a lot of profundity in that, but I don't know, it kind of felt like I hit a point by like my mid twenties where I'm like, okay, I get it. Like the ego is just kind of this made up thing. Like there's a story in my head of like who or what Mark is. And I I don't have to necessarily believe that story at any given time, especially if it's hurting me. Once you learn that lesson, or once I learned that lesson, I I I kind of struggled to see a reason to like just keep fucking sitting on a mat for hours and hours every week. Like I

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think that that goes for you've you've said this about other things as well, like the point of any self improvement is to

• 32:56Mark Manson?

  Stop doing it.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Where you stop doing it.

• 32:58Mark Manson?

  Right? Yeah.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  And there's a lot of people who think, well, no, meditation, you can always find another level. And I'm sure there is. I'm sure there's different things you can find, but you know, this like with gratitude with me, it's like, um, for one, like when I did it at first, I was like, okay, yeah, there's some benefit to this. But then I found that I was actually a very grateful person to begin with. So maybe there was some value in that, I guess. Maybe it wasn't a total loss for me, you know? But I was a grateful enough person that I didn't need it. And so I just don't, I don't have like a gratitude practice.

• 33:26Mark Manson?

  Sure.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  If you're an ingrateful, ungrateful, ingrate, if you're an ungrateful person.

• 33:32Mark Manson?

  Jesus Christ. An ingrate who's ungrateful.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  If you're an ingrate who's ungrateful and there's nothing great about you.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  You maybe need to practice it a little bit, right?

• 33:40Mark Manson?

  Well, I think, you know, we all have natural strengths and natural weaknesses. So it makes sense that like certain tools are going to be more effective than others. One thing that that I I started to run into with the meditation thing that like kind of left a bad taste in my mouth is like, once you get a, you know, once you get a certain depth into meditation and that whole world.

• 34:03Mark Manson?

  You know, you start going to a lot of retreats and you start meeting Zen masters and gurus and all this stuff. I started to notice that like the people who are really hardcore into it. And it's ironic because the whole basis of Buddhism is non-attachment. I started to feel like the people who are like really deep into that world were quite attached to achieving non-attachment.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Ah, right.

• 34:31Mark Manson?

  Yeah. And I I don't know, it just felt like a little bit contradictory. And I think at the end of the day, like you, you have to go live your life like you can't. For me personally, I found that at a certain point, sitting for hours and hours and hours in a quiet room was like just kind of another form of avoidance of of dealing with life. And that's not to say that that's true for everybody, but I I found that true for myself. And so, I don't know, meditation, I dabble in it. Like, I still kind of go back and forth. Like, I'll go through phases where I do it a bunch again and and I, it feels good and, you know, I do think my brain is probably optimal on a, at least a small amount of meditation, but

• 35:17Mark Manson?

  it's not really a priority.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:18Mark Manson?

  These days.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Okay, well, you you said one thing earlier that I want to bring up because I think there might be some subtext in this question about it. You said, you know, like, if something didn't work for you, well, Oprah must be wrong, or these people must be wrong, right?

• 35:36Mark Manson?

  Oprah's definitely wrong.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  I think, I think what happens is a lot of times people have the opposite reaction of that. I think that's not a very common reaction.

• 35:45Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  I think people say, oh, there's something wrong with me if this isn't working.

• 35:48Mark Manson?

  Totally.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Right?

• 35:49Mark Manson?

  That's the default reaction.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  That's the default reaction and it's for whatever reason, your brain works like, oh, that, that maybe, maybe you're an asshole about these kinds of things or something. I don't know.

• 35:57Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I mean, I've definitely been like, yeah, maybe it's like my, my anti-authority streak or something. I don't know. But it's my initial reaction, when I was very young, my initial reaction was like, oh, I'm doing it wrong. Right?

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 36:11Mark Manson?

  And I think it, I had to get older to realize that.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:14Mark Manson?

  Wait, wait a second. Who says like, this zen master knows what he's talking about, right?

• 36:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:23Mark Manson?

  But that, that is the, that is the danger of, I think this industry in general, or like anything around this industry is that whenever you're dealing with vulnerable people, like whenever you're dealing with somebody who is, say, in a depressive episode, or somebody who's deeply insecure, or somebody who's dealing with trauma.

• 36:44Mark Manson?

  Their natural default tendency is to blame themselves for any sort of disappointment or failure. And I don't know, I just, I, I think, I think that's, it's really important for practitioners, leaders, thought leaders, authors, speakers, whatever, to be very conscious of that and like, understand that like whatever you're pitching or selling, um, isn't going to work for everybody. Everybody's different. And so if it doesn't work for somebody, there's nothing wrong with them and there's nothing wrong with you. It's just like, it's just not a, it's just not the right fit.

• 37:23Mark Manson?

  Like I, I don't, I just don't think that message gets broadcast enough.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  No, definitely.

• 37:27Mark Manson?

  Like there's nothing mystical or magical about, uh, life and self-help or personal development advice. It's, it's like any other industry. Like there's, there's like dentists and nutritionists that, you know, are going to be great for you and terrible for me and vice versa. And like this, why would this be any different?

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So I, I, it goes back to what we said earlier. It's like, well, if you find something that works for you, good for you.

• 37:52Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Do it.

• 37:54Mark Manson?

  Be happy, whatever.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  No, for sure.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  Okay, I got one more question.

• 38:00Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Uh, this is from Arthur, also came from YouTube. He's got a question that knowing that most of us won't reach the level of success that we see other people have, especially online, like money, fame, you know, YouTubers, that kind of thing. How do we reconcile this fact with our ambitions? I don't want to give up on my ambition, but I also don't want to be unhappy for not fulfilling it.

• 38:19Mark Manson?

  I think it, this is a case of like, just being careful of how you define success for yourself. Like, you don't... Just because you see somebody online and you maybe look up to that person or envy that person a little bit, like that, that doesn't necessarily mean that that is success. I think what often gets lost, and this kind of comes back to like the, the central point of subtle art, is that it's easy to see somebody online or on TV or in the movies or something and be like, oh, that's success, I want that. When really you're just seeing the best aspect of that, of that person's life.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:54Mark Manson?

  You're not seeing all of the cost, the sacrifice, the neuroticism, the insecurity, the obsession, the unhealthiness that went into achieving that thing. So, I'm a strong believer that if you are going to desire what somebody else has, you need to also desire the costs and sacrifice that were required to get what that person has. So I would say just think about that. Like, don't think about, oh, I wish I had as much money as, you know, this dude on Twitter. Ask yourself, do you wish you work as long and hard as this guy on Twitter? Do you think, do you wish you had as, the same dysfunctional relationships that this guy on Twitter has had?

• 39:36Mark Manson?

  Like, uh, there's like so many examples of like insanely successful people who are on their like, fourth or fifth marriage, right? So yeah, that, that stuff needs to factor into the equation. And I would say that to any young person is like, because we all want to have, like, it's good to have role models, it's good to have people that you kind of aspire to, to be, but like, you need to pick the, the full picture. You can't just like... You can't just pick the best, you know, the highlight reel and be like, I just want to have the highlight reel. I don't want to like actually give up anything.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Right, right. Yeah. And I mean, this part of his question, I don't want to give up on my ambition, but I don't want to be unhappy not fulfilling it. I think what you said right away was, well, how are you defining success?

• 40:24Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  That's, that's the issue. It's not that you're not succeeding. It's that you have this definition of success.

• 40:30Mark Manson?

  Yes. And it's, you might feel like you might be disappointed in yourself for not achieving that definition of success, when the definition was the problem, right? You, this comes back to your point. It's like, you're not the problem. The definition was the problem. You chose a bad definition. And so even, you chose a definition that is not realistic or does not suit your, your talents, your strengths, your personality.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Your values.

• 40:54Mark Manson?

  Your values, what actually makes you happy, your relationships. And so you need to like, recalibrate your definition of success. You know, the way that's phrased too, it's like, I would, I would like, fuck ambition, like, just focus on being slightly better than you were last month or last year. You know, like, it's nice to have like some kind of long-term vision or goal in your head of like, oh, this, this would be really cool to be here in 10 years. But like, that shouldn't be the thing getting you up in the morning. The thing that should be getting you up in the morning is like, okay, how do I do better than I did last week?

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:32Mark Manson?

  What can I get better at this week? You know, take it in like smaller increments, because it's harder to fuck up small increments.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:39Mark Manson?

  It's very easy to fuck up like a 10-year vision.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Right. And it just, it, it grounds you a lot more if you're looking right in front of you, right?

• 41:47Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Instead, you get lost in these big goals and they seem insurmountable, focusing on just like you said, improving from yesterday.

• 41:54Mark Manson?

  Yeah, for sure. Well, that's it for this episode. Tell us what you think about the new format. Like I said, Drew and I will be doing this every week. We'll have guests come in and out, join us for this format. If you have questions that you want answered on the show, please submit them to us. You can submit them to us in the comments on YouTube, or you can email us at [email protected]. So yeah, please, like, follow, subscribe to the show. Let us know what you think. Leave a review and we'll be back next week. What is the wisdom of the week?

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Uh, this comes from Tyler Durden.

• 42:29Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Self-improvement is masturbation, now self-destruction.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 42:37Mark Manson?

  We'll see you next week.

• 42:40Mark Manson?

  The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck podcast is produced by Drew Burney. Edited by Andrew Nishimura. Jessica Choy is our videographer and sound engineer. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.