Advice To Avoid, The Dark Side of Therapy, and Taking Your Own Medicine

You ever notice how some people can’t stand being told what to do—even when the advice is good? Yeah, that’s me. In this episode, Drew and I dig into why so many of us rebel against advice, why others chase it like their life depends on it, and whether all that “actionable advice” we’re constantly fed is actually helping anyone. Spoiler: I’m not a fan of cookie-cutter solutions, and I’ve got some opinions about the self-help industry’s obsession with telling people exactly what to do. We also get into the bigger picture—how advice often misses the mark when it’s not tailored to someone’s unique situation, and how therapy culture might be trying to replace something deeper that’s missing in our lives. I’ll share why I don’t give rigid life hacks, the trouble with universal solutions, and the surprising reason why most breakthroughs aren’t about the advice at all. If you’re tired of “do this, don’t do that” advice, this one’s for you. Enjoy. CHAPTERS Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction: The Compulsive Contrarian 00:02:30 The Problem with Actionable Advice 00:04:09 Why One-Size-Fits-All Advice Fails 00:06:44 Bad to Okay vs. Good to Great 00:09:05 All Advice Is Autobiographical 00:13:16 The Boring Truth About What Actually Works 00:16:50 Self-Help as Entertainment and Hobby 00:20:12 Therapy vs. Therapy Culture 00:24:26 Why Therapy Doesn't Scale 00:29:05 The New Morality of Self-Fulfillment 00:31:55 The Pendulum: Self-Indulgence to Self-Denial 00:35:46 Taking Your Own Medicine 00:39:30 The Materialism Trap 00:41:53 Wisdom of the Week: Advice Like Snow ⇨ 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: Icarus Lives by @Periphery , used with permission from Periphery.

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

• 0:00Mark Manson?

  Drew, I feel like I have this like chronic inability to do what people tell me to do. Like I just, anytime somebody suggests something for me to do, especially if they're like an authority figure, my immediate reaction is to do the opposite.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, you are a little bit of a rebel. Would you call yourself a rebel? I don't know.

• 0:19Mark Manson?

  A compulsive contrarian is actually something that I have, I've actually come to terms with.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 0:25Mark Manson?

  And communicated to some people in my life.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  How's that going for you, Mark?

• 0:28Mark Manson?

  Uh.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Let's see, it's okay, maybe.

• 0:30Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it's, you know, when it pays off, it really pays off, right? Cause it's, if you, if you're contrarian and correct, that's when the huge payoffs come.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah.

• 0:43Mark Manson?

  But if you're contrarian and incorrect, you just look like an asshole.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 0:47Mark Manson?

  And that happens quite a bit.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  And that happens just as much as, yeah, probably more so.

• 0:50Mark Manson?

  Probably more so, yeah, yeah. What about you? Do you?

• 0:53Speaker 01

  I hate being told what to do too. I get.

• 0:55Mark Manson?

  I've noticed, yeah.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  Well, well.

• 0:59Speaker 01

  Oh no, I'm the exception. Sorry, Mark. I love, I love taking your direction and you're always so logical and you're always, you're like, you have the best ideas ever. And so I don't question anything you tell me to do.

• 1:11Mark Manson?

  Drew, I'm detecting a hint of inauthenticity in your voice.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Well, trust your instincts on that one.

• 1:18Speaker 02

  It's the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck Podcast with your host, Mark Manson.

• 1:28Mark Manson?

  Are you, but do you feel contrarian? Are you like?

• 1:30Speaker 01

  I don't know if I feel contrarian so much as just like when somebody tells me to do something. Oh, fuck you. I'm not doing that. So I guess that is contrarian in a way, but.

• 1:37Mark Manson?

  Yes, a little bit. I don't know.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  There is just something about that though. You're just like, it could be the best advice ever and somebody tells you to do it and I'm just like.

• 1:45Mark Manson?

  What is a situation where you got really good advice and you didn't take it? And why didn't you take it?

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Oh man, I feel like that's.

• 1:53Mark Manson?

  Your whole life?

• 1:54Speaker 01

  My whole life.

• 1:55Mark Manson?

  The story of your life.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  That has up to this very moment, actually.

• 1:59Mark Manson?

  Cause I did that around health stuff all the time.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 2:02Mark Manson?

  All the time.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I mean, people, for years, people told me, they're like, you know, if you, I don't know. If you didn't order a drink at the beginning of dinner, then you wouldn't eat as much later. You know, like all this shit. And I'm just like, I'm fine. I'm fine.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18Mark Manson?

  Sure enough, they were right about everything.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, health stuff is a big one. I think that a lot of us, money too.

• 2:23Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  You know, the big ones like that, money, relationships, taking people, taking relationships for granted or anything like that. Yeah.

• 2:29Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Those are common.

• 2:30Mark Manson?

  I, it's funny because I, I think this is, this is a weird thing, you know? In the self-help industry, it is pretty much standard to include actionable advice.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:42Mark Manson?

  In, in everything you do, right? Like, I remember when I was writing both of my books, uh, one of the first notes that came back from the publisher when I submitted my drafts. They were like, oh, you should put exercises and like bullet points for things to go do, people to go do.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  I remember this.

• 2:56Mark Manson?

  After each chapter. And I was like, fuck no.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 2:59Mark Manson?

  Absolutely not.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:01Mark Manson?

  And I, I had to butt heads with them about it. And, um, my argument was always, no, the whole point of the book is that they're supposed to figure it out themselves, right? Like, the book helps them ask better questions, but then ultimately they have to go figure out what the answer is. But I do notice there is a endless, insatiable demand for basically just like, tell me what to do.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:26Mark Manson?

  Type of, type of advice.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  And it's kind of, it's a little bit of a weird paradox that we're talking about. A lot of people don't like being told what to do. And then they seek out advice being like, just tell me what to do.

• 3:33Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  So that's a weird kind of place that people wind up in. And also, um, yeah. Then there's just this huge blob of advice and people just don't even know where to start.

• 3:46Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  So that's the fuck of the week this week is, uh,

• 3:48Mark Manson?

  Actionable advice?

• 3:49Speaker 01

  Actionable advice. How much should we give a fuck about actionable advice in our lives? You are not one to get, dole out a lot of like, super specific.

• 3:58Mark Manson?

  No.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  You know, do this morning routine. You should, especially don't like morning routines.

• 4:02Mark Manson?

  Fuck that.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Do this, don't do that. You, you're not like that at all. Why, what is that all about?

• 4:07Mark Manson?

  I, a few reasons. One is, is our audience is so broad and diverse.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:14Mark Manson?

  They come from all over the world. They're all ages, both, both, every gender.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 4:19Mark Manson?

  And I, I've always just felt really strange. I mean, there's so much conventional life advice that I tried and didn't work for me. That I'm very aware of the fact of how individual each person is and how you really can't. Make a good suggestion to somebody without like really getting to know them and understanding their situation and their personality and their childhood and all this other stuff. So that's the the main reason, truthfully. But I also do think there's like a deeper philosophical reason, which is, I personally find that a lot of people who struggle a lot in their lives emotionally and socially and otherwise, the fundamental issue is that they don't know how to take responsibility for themselves.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:59Mark Manson?

  They have spent their entire lives waiting for other people to tell them what to do, waiting for other people to tell them that they did a good job, or a bad job, or they're a good person, or a bad person. And when they come to personal development, they bring that same attitude of like, well, I I'm gonna buy this guy's book and pay him a bunch of money and he'll tell me what to do. And it's like, well, that's the mindset that got you here in the first place. So you have to let go of that mindset to get out of this place. So I I just honestly feel that like, if I ever gave very rigid, directed, actionable advice of like, go out and do these three things and your life will change forever, even if it works, which is doubtful.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:41Mark Manson?

  In a lot of cases, it kind of robs the people of the the agency and the the identification of of the success. Because then if it works, it's like, oh, Mark Manson did it for me. Or like, I listened to Mark Manson and he fixed my life. They don't get to feel, I fixed my life, which is what they should feel.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Right, right. It's very patronizing, a lot of times, when you're telling somebody, this is what you should do. I think the the larger point you're making, though, is that everybody's at a different place in their life. What works for me won't work for them. And we've seen that you you have this idea of like, people going from good or bad to okay and okay to great. We've talked about that before, too. Those are two different completely types of problems.

• 6:23Mark Manson?

  Absolutely.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Like, some things aren't, somebody who is like in a pretty good spot, just trying to get a little bit better, they're gonna be like, that's fucking stupid. Why would I do that? Hopefully, they do say that. That's great that they say that.

• 6:32Mark Manson?

  So just a review for the audience really quick. The the two categories of people who look for life advice. There's the good, the great people, which is like, people who have their life together and they feel pretty good about things. But It could be better and they could get better. You know, maybe their relationships could be a little bit better. Or maybe they're they could be doing better at their job or or be more productive or whatever. That that's a huge percentage of the market and the audience. But then there's this other segment, which I think of as the bad, the OK. And so these are the people that are depressed. They're severely anxious. Their life is falling apart. They're grieving. They've gone through some sort of trauma and they're frankly, they're kind of a mess. And they're just they just want to feel OK again. They just want things to be fine.

• 7:17Mark Manson?

  And what you find is that a lot of advice will be good for one of those groups and not the other. Right? So I could easily tell somebody, you know, you should be more honest with the people in your life. And that will improve your relationships. And like, maybe a person who's looking to go from good to great, that's a really useful piece of advice. But if you have somebody who has just dealt with a bunch of trauma and abuse and is surrounded by like, just really, really horrible people and needs to get away from those people, that actually might be terrible advice. Right. And you potentially put that person in danger by giving them that advice. Right?

• 7:59Mark Manson?

  So I just try to be aware of like, all the potential counterfactuals of ways that this could be taken wrong. And and not just in like, the good, the great, or OK to good spectrum, or bad to OK spectrum. But like, also the just cross culturally, right? Like, there's there's like dating advice, right? Like, I get I get emails from people from like Pakistan and India and Syria. And they're like, well, you said this in this article. Should I go out and try that? And I'm like, I don't fucking know. Right. I've never dated in Pakistan before, so you know, take it with a grain of salt. So I just, I'm very wary of it.

• 8:40Mark Manson?

  And I, to your point as well, I do find it a little bit patronizing and I. I think there's probably too much specific advice in this industry. I look at other people in the industry, I think they overdo it and I think they're a little bit overconfident in a lot of things they prescribe for people.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  It is a bit egotistical, yeah.

• 9:00Mark Manson?

  Yeah, and so I try to counterbalance that.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah. I heard the saying one time a few years back, and I thought it was great, is that all a device is autobiographical.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  So whenever you do hear advice from somebody else, obviously they're telling it to you through the lens of their own experience, obviously.

• 9:21Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  But that's not always super obvious in the moment. They think they understand the situation where they might not. You and other people, I think in this space that I've really come to kind of respect, in this realm anyway, have this kind of first draft is for me approach.

• 9:37Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  Like the advice you come up with is like, this is, and you're very open about it. This is for me. This is first for me.

• 9:43Mark Manson?

  This is how I fucked up.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  This is how I fucked up.

• 9:45Mark Manson?

  And this is what worked.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  See if it works for you.

• 9:47Mark Manson?

  Which if you think about it, right, like let's say you've got a problem in your life and you sit down with like your siblings or an old friend and you're like, I got this thing going on in my life. Or imagine it's the other way around. They sit down with you and they're like, Drew, I got this thing going on in my life.

• 10:05Mark Manson?

  And they're looking for advice. How do you go about giving that advice to like, say, your brother or your high school buddy or a cousin or something? You don't sit there and you're like, well, I've got a four-step method and it solves, it solves your marital problems every single time. You never say that to people. What you say to people is like, well, I remember with my last relationship, I had a similar, like, I kind of felt similarly and this went wrong and that went wrong. And I tried this and that was really helpful, so maybe you should try that, but it might not work for you. Like, that's how most people in the real world give advice to each other and. So I don't understand why that doesn't apply commercially and professionally in this industry.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  I've got an idea why it's or why they've tried to do it that way anyway. And it's because they're trying to market. And so they're trying, like, they're trying to get everybody into their little silos.

• 10:57Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  You know, it strips us of our individuality at some point, right?

• 11:02Mark Manson?

  It's not a sexy, it's not a sexy ad campaign to say like, uh, my four step method that may or may not work some of the time. Depending on what culture, background and gender you are.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, right. That doesn't fit on a book cover.

• 11:15Mark Manson?

  Yeah, that's not, that, that ad's not going to perform very well. Yeah, yeah. Do you think we should be doing more actionable advice?

• 11:21Speaker 01

  No, I don't.

• 11:22Mark Manson?

  Should we finish every podcast with a?

• 11:24Speaker 01

  I, I have always, no, no. I mean, maybe we finish the podcast with a recap. Sure. Like, this is what we went over. But if, if we're going to sit here and say, okay, go out, try this, this and this. Now, there's, there's sometimes that's, that's fine. And like in the newsletter you put out, you're like, go out and try this.

• 11:38Mark Manson?

  Sure.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  And see what happens. You're not saying this is gonna, you know?

• 11:42Mark Manson?

  It's, this isn't going to solve all your problems. It's like, hey, we just talked about this thing. Here's the thing to try this week.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but no, I don't, I, one of the things I've always, that, one of the things that drew me to you initially was these are the principles under which I'm operating. Not the, this is the.

• 11:58Mark Manson?

  The truth.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Hyper.

• 11:59Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Specific tactic, because every time I've gone down that rabbit hole, especially like in the productivity realm.

• 12:04Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  It's like, try this, you need to do it this way. And it just doesn't work for me.

• 12:08Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  We've talked before, like, you like to do this, which I think you're crazy. I like time boxing. It works for me, great. And, but what happened was I had to try a lot of different things on my own. So maybe, maybe there is some value out there to, yeah, there's some people who do it this way and they have very actionable advice. Sure.

• 12:24Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Another, another way I've heard this put though before is like, if, you know, you sign up for, say you sign up for a business course of some kind. And we're going to, you're going to, they're going to lead you through how to start this business and you're going to be a bajillionaire at some point. If they have a, a method and a recipe for this, it cannot be that original. It just cannot be.

• 12:48Mark Manson?

  Well, by definition, if there's a method or a recipe, then it's not unique or differentiated.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 12:54Mark Manson?

  If it's not unique or differentiated, then it's not going to be a sustainable business.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Same goes with any kind of advice, I think. It's like, well, if this, this is, this worked for. This segment of the population, or whatever it is.

• 13:05Mark Manson?

  Which I I've also found that so like generally the only actionable advice I will ever give. It's stuff that is so there's like the the scientific evidence is just so overwhelming.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:17Mark Manson?

  That it it's right, and it ends up striking people as like banal and obvious, right? So it's like, get eight hours of sleep. Like, you want to know what actually works, people? Get eight hours of sleep every night. Go outside occasionally. Don't eat shit. And, you know, surround yourself with people who treat you well. Like, that that's actually kind of, that's like the.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  You're like ninety some percent of the way there.

• 13:41Mark Manson?

  Ninety percent of it. But that's not sexy. It's not exciting. It's not. People, people are always looking for the secret or the hack or the the shortcut. They don't really exist. Like, it's psychological well being and personal growth and stuff. It's it's generally boring things done very consistently. And that's not an exciting marketing.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:04Mark Manson?

  Headline, right? A lot of people, what they do is they find like very fancy ways to package stuff. I should mention that I think a lot of kind of fancy actionable advice, quote unquote, works for people. Mainly just because of a placebo effect, right? So I think I've talked before on the podcast that like, my personal opinion is that most self help seminars. The.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 14:27Mark Manson?

  The perception of the the perception that people get that the seminar quote unquote worked is actually just the fact that they spent five days having very vulnerable conversations with the other attendees.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Five days and five thousand dollars.

• 14:41Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah, that's.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:44Mark Manson?

  That too. But seriously, I mean, if you take somebody who is socially isolated, somewhat depressed, feeling very lost in life, maybe isn't completely aware of their emotions, and you just put them in a room with some strangers who are in a similar position and give them a a context, an excuse.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:01Mark Manson?

  To talk about their problems for five days.

• 15:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah, of course, they're going to walk out of that room feeling much better and feeling like they had some sort of profound breakthrough or whatever. That's just human nature. When you sit down with people who are in a similar situation as you and you share yourself and you're vulnerable with them is very therapeutic. But the packaging and the context that gets people into that situation is, you know, it's all about the guru and the method and here's our like special five star upgraded premium seminar for VIPs only and blah, blah, blah. And it kind of tricks people into thinking that, oh, yeah, the guru and his five star VIP method fixed me. You know, I got, I was, I was saved. I was solved by whatever. And

• 15:48Mark Manson?

  it's like, no, actually, you just needed to sit in a room and talk about your problems with five sympathetic people for five days or whatever.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, which there's value to that.

• 15:57Mark Manson?

  There's a ton of value to that. It's just, it's funny because it's almost, you know, my opinion on seminars like that is, is, is actually swung around. It's almost like a horseshoe theory. Like, I used to hate them so much because I'm like, this is, it's such bullshit. None of it's true. And now I'm like, ah, it's all bullshit. None of it's true. But it gets people to do the thing they need to do.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  Ah, okay.

• 16:16Mark Manson?

  It's almost, you know, it's like a, it's like a Trojan horse.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, maybe, maybe there is, maybe.

• 16:23Mark Manson?

  Maybe there's value to it.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Maybe there's some value to some of that advice too. I mean, there is, obviously.

• 16:27Mark Manson?

  Hey, Tony Robbins wouldn't still be doing what he's doing if there wasn't.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  But just the, I mean, if you sat down and just the sheer amount of, you know, the advice industry, which, you know, we're a part of, I get it. If you just tried everything, though, there, there can't be, somebody can't be sitting and listening to some of these podcasts that drone on and on for hours and hours about with very, very specific actionable advice and trying all of that. What is like, is that just a, is there entertainment value in it? I know that's part of it, I'm sure.

• 16:54Mark Manson?

  There's definitely, there's definitely a entertainment value.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  It probably makes you feel like you're getting, doing something even too.

• 17:01Mark Manson?

  Personal development, I have, I have found that personal development is a hobby for a lot of people.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:08Mark Manson?

  And, and I think a lot of them don't realize it's their hobby.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  I feel attacked now.

• 17:16Mark Manson?

  Which is fine. There's nothing wrong with it. It's like, it's actually very good.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  There's there's worse things to do.

• 17:20Mark Manson?

  Yeah, there are much, much worse things to, to have as a hobby, but I, I do think for a lot of people, it's a hobby. Like they, to them, it is fun and exciting to discover like new productivity tools or hacks or figure out a new meditation and, and get that sensation of discovering something new, trying it, feeling slightly different, you know, telling themselves that they just had an epiphany and, and moving on to the next thing. Like, that's a very fun.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  That is fun.

• 17:47Mark Manson?

  Exciting experience. And it's harmless. There's nothing wrong with that. But like some hobbies, I do think it can become a little bit compulsive or, or even an addiction. Like I have absolutely run into people who are, there's, there's almost like this desperation for the next thing, the next, the next method, the next seminar, the next, you know, whatever profound experience. And that, that becomes a, yeah, that, that becomes treacherous.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You see this a lot in like the, the productivity space especially. There's, I remember I was trying to like come up with some sort of personal productivity system of mine and found, came across someone and they were like, they were three or four, I don't know, 10 iterations in. And they're like, this is my most advanced system yet. And it dawned on me, I was like, I don't want an advanced. I want something simple that I need to just.

• 18:40Mark Manson?

  I don't want to think about this. Yeah.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it can get.

• 18:42Mark Manson?

  But there's some people, there are some people who are in, like, I've got a friend out here in LA and he, he loves optimization, like loves it. It is.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:51Mark Manson?

  Clearly.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:53Mark Manson?

  It's, it is his hobby. Like he, he got so excited once, he like figured out a way to program the light switches in his house to, uh, like, basically, uh, like he could, he could like gesture to his phone and it would like turn them on and off depending on what room. He was so excited about it. And he was like explaining this to me and he's like, yeah, I don't have to walk across the room and turn the light switch off. And, you know, I don't have to like open an app and wait for it to. I'm like, that's great, dude. Like, you just spent a week working like-

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, what did you do with those extra 10 seconds every day?

• 19:28Mark Manson?

  You just saved yourself five seconds a day. But it's clear, like, it just, it makes them happy. Like, it makes them really, really happy. And that's, that's cool. There's nothing, there's nothing wrong with that. I, I, I think it's, it's, it's fine to recognize that it, it can be kind of a glorified hobby. And then it's also fine to recognize that there's nothing wrong with that. I, I think where I worry about people is when they, they kind of drink the Kool-Aid, so to speak.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:52Mark Manson?

  They get religious about it.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:53Mark Manson?

  They're like, well, well, you know, I shouldn't have to walk across the room and turn my light switch off. That's fucked up. We need to fix this. I'm like, alright.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  And it can definitely get there very, very quickly.

• 20:01Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:02Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Cool. Alright. We'll be right back.

• 20:12Mark Manson?

  Alright, we're back. Brilliant or bullshit this week, Drew?

• 20:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:16Mark Manson?

  I'm excited about this one.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  You are. You, you came to me with this one very excited. Mark, we're talking brilliant or bullshit. There's this idea of going to therapy versus engaging in therapy culture.

• 20:31Mark Manson?

  Yes. So this was a piece, uh, there's a, a writer, a great writer on Substack named Freddie DeBoer. I'm probably pronouncing that wrong. He had a piece called Selfishness and Therapy Culture. We'll link it in the description and the notes. I love this because as longtime regular listeners of the pod know, this is a, this is a topic that has come up periodically over the past year.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:53Mark Manson?

  Has therapy gone too far? There is a lot of new research coming out saying that particularly among young people, therapeutic interventions are starting to backfire a little bit. We're definitely seeing a lot of issues around schools and just kind of an over-medicalizing, over, like, diagnosing of any small issue that goes on with a young person. Abigail Schreer came on the podcast. She wrote a book called Bad Therapy, which very aggressively made the argument that therapy is backfiring and causing more problems than it's solving. She was a bit controversial.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that triggered some people.

• 21:32Mark Manson?

  Yeah. You know, it's, it's funny because when she was on, I, I really do wish I pushed back a little bit more when she was here because- My sense then and my sense since then was that like she's on the something.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:47Mark Manson?

  There's clearly something here, but I don't know what it is. And it does seem, it did seem a little bit like she was throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Cause it's like we, at this point, we do have a hundred plus years of empirical data showing that therapy is good for people, like therapy is helpful.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:05Mark Manson?

  Then I found this piece by Freddie de Gour, and to me, he like explained it perfectly with a very simple dichotomy. He essentially, what he says is, he says, there's therapy, which is the classic.

• 22:18Mark Manson?

  You go sit down in a small room with a therapist in private and it's all confidential and you get to share your issues and talk through them and et cetera, et cetera. And that is, that is a very beneficial thing. But then there's therapy culture, which is when the language in the ethos of therapy starts to pervade social spaces, particularly schools, work organizations, politics. And that can actually be extremely toxic and backfire quite a bit. And as soon as I saw him explain that, I'm like, that makes sense. Because when it's just you in private, one-on-one with a therapist, it's great. Be vulnerable, you know? Consider yourself a victim.

• 23:03Mark Manson?

  Think about your shortcomings. Really push yourself like lean into your fragility and think about your emotions and express your fears and all these things. That's great because it is in a, it's a cordoned off environment. It's a safe space. It's, it's designed for that. When you put that in public, you start creating all sorts of twisted social incentives. Like when you start socially rewarding people for identifying themselves as victims or feeling victimized, when you build into educational systems or workplace systems, the protection of people's feelings, preventative measures of anybody being offended at any

• 23:46Mark Manson?

  time, this stuff backfires horribly. Like it, it just, it creates an even more toxic environment and seems to diminish people's mental health even further. And so I think the key distinction here is. Individuals in private versus social groups in public. And the same concepts, the same therapeutic concepts, the same, the exact same principles that make therapy so effective in private are the same principles that make it toxic in public.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:16Mark Manson?

  And anyway, I love this. I thought it was brilliant. I put it on the docket because I was like, this, this just solved so many, so many questions for me.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:25Mark Manson?

  I'm curious what you think.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  But yeah, I think what you're saying, therapy doesn't scale well, right?

• 24:30Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  That's a good way to put it.

• 24:32Mark Manson?

  That is a perfect way to condense it into a single sentence.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  And the, the, I mean, the thing is, you and I are old enough to remember when, nobody talked about going to therapy.

• 24:40Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:41Mark Manson?

  It was, when we were kids, it was weird and especially where we grew up.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. That's right. Yeah. That, that should be acknowledged too. And now I think it's better, the, the goal was to de-stigmatize that, right? And which I think was a very noble and good goal and should still be a goal.

• 24:56Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  And there has been a lot of, I think we've made great strides along those lines.

• 25:01Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  The problem is, is that like, and when every conversation starts with, well, my therapist says, that's when the therapy culture starts creeping in. And now, one point that Abigail Schreier did make that I thought was pretty, it was insightful, is when you're starting to insert a therapist into your,

• 25:20Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Into, between you and somebody else, or between you and society, or between you and any other group or person, that's kind of when it becomes a little bit more of a problem. If we keep it small scale, like I said, it doesn't scale well.

• 25:32Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  And so, yeah, the whole thing around de-stigmatize, de-stigmatization is important. But what we're finding is that there's a lot of unintended consequences about that too.

• 25:44Mark Manson?

  A hundred percent.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  When we try to scale it.

• 25:45Mark Manson?

  And to your point of like what Abigail brought up, like I, I do think what she points to, which is accurate, is that Within therapy culture, there's a tendency to overestimate the powers of therapists. Like to kind of almost assume they're superhuman of like, well, this kid's having trouble at school, let's bring his therapist to school and have his therapist sit in with all the parent teacher conferences and check in with him after class. Well, it's like a therapist is just a person. Right. There's like, there's no, there's nothing magical about a clinical psychology degree that like makes you able to like snap your fingers and, and resolve people's problems. Most of the value, and we've talked about this before, but if you look at the meta-analyses

• 26:29Mark Manson?

  around therapy, the 80 20 of therapy is just the fact that you're in a quiet, safe space, talking to a person who is listening sympathetically to. Right. And it's, there's nothing, there's no magical method. This actually ties in very well with the self-help thing. There's no magical method. There's no magical advice that they're going to give. There's no like actionable steps that they're gonna like, they're people. They're people who are trained to listen, sympathize and offer, you know, a useful word of advice or two. And, and that's it. Like they're very, they're limited. And I think within therapy culture, they get a little bit, I don't want to say deified, but they're, they're almost like, they're looked at as authority figures. Right. Of like, you know, well, Timmy's having trouble at school, you know, let's get his

• 27:14Mark Manson?

  therapist involved and let's listen to what the therapist thinks should happen. And well, the therapist says he shouldn't be talking to his parents anymore. Like now, now you're getting fucked up, right? Right. And I have seen personally in my life, like I've had people in my life who perhaps put, gave their therapist way too much credit and power and their therapist steered them in some pretty fucked up directions and they went that way, right? And it's like, it comes back to the actionable advice thing. I think any good therapist understands their own limitations and isn't going to stick their neck out very often with actionable advice. The other thing I loved about the, the Freddie DeBord piece, and this part, it might be bullshit, but it was fun for me to think about.

• 28:00Mark Manson?

  He made the suggestion that therapy culture, for many people, therapy culture is filling the void that the lack of religiosity.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, he was gonna ask me about that.

• 28:11Mark Manson?

  Yeah, and he, he went so far as to make the argument that, that therapy culture presents a fully formed morality that replaces kind of the classic Western Christian morality and essentially exalts one's feelings and feeling protected and safe at all times over every other consideration, no matter what. And he points out that the, the logical conclusion of this is that you basically turn everybody into like little narcissists who think that the world should rearrange itself to please them all the time. And he's probably overstating the case, but as somebody who really loves to think about

• 28:51Mark Manson?

  just the craving for meaning and purpose and some coherent worldview for people to latch on to, I found it very fascinating to think about.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  He could be overstating it, sure. There's this fantastic book. It's one of, it's, it's this book that just blew my fucking mind when I read it. It's called Soul, Self and Society. It's by Edward, it's either Edward Rubin or Edwin Rubin, I'm forgetting.

• 29:14Mark Manson?

  I remember you, you recommended that to me like three times.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Years ago.

• 29:17Mark Manson?

  And I bought it and I never read it.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  You never read it. Okay. So, so he talks about-

• 29:21Mark Manson?

  On my shelf somewhere.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  In, in Western civilization, there's been three big moralities that have occurred throughout Western civilization. The first one was a morality of honor, a culture of honor, basically. This is when you have kind of smaller scale societies and you're kind of, that's-

• 29:36Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Honor is kind of what regulates behavior between groups. Then came Christianity and religion and philosophy in general, actually. And we had this moral code and it was the, the moral code of salvation. What do you call it? So your life was basically set up around getting salvation, getting into heaven, that sort of thing. Over the last 150 to 200 years, it's now become the morality of self fulfillment. And I think this is the latest kind of iteration of this morality of self fulfillment.

• 30:11Mark Manson?

  Interesting.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  And self, you can call it self actualization, self fulfillment. Basically, the, the, the underlying tenet of this morality, though, is that everyone deserves to live to their fullest potential, or at least have the opportunity to live to their fullest potential.

• 30:27Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  And I think therapy culture is kind of like an, almost an aberration of that.

• 30:32Mark Manson?

  Sure.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Taking it so far as to put up everybody's, everybody's feelings are valid. Everybody's, your experience is valid, no matter what, always will be, never, there's no exceptions to that whatsoever, and nobody can tell you different. And everybody who tries to is an abuser of some kind, and they're trying to rob you of power. And, you know, throughout history, there has been, you know, people have tried to rob people of their, their self fulfillment, sure.

• 30:57Mark Manson?

  Of course.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  But this is like the latest kind of iteration of it, and every moral code has contradictions and problems and everything like that, but.

• 31:06Mark Manson?

  Well, it's, yeah, it's one of the, I actually.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  It's a fantastic book, you should read it.

• 31:11Mark Manson?

  I wrote about this in Everything is Fucked, how, you know, no matter what you put as the most important thing, kind of philosophically, you'll pay the price for it.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:22Mark Manson?

  Like, everything has a dark side to it, everything has a cost, everything, everything has just like a flaw, or, or as you said, a contradiction to it. This is a bit of a harebrained theory. There's probably a book around.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  That's what we come for.

• 31:34Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I know. This is what the podcast has become, Mark's Harebrained Theories. There's probably a book about this somewhere, but it's just something that I've observed, you know, and I think the board talks about this a little bit, like the, the baby boomer generation had this, really brought this ethos of, of if it feels good.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:51Mark Manson?

  Do it, right? What feels good is right. And. Previous to that, if you look at kind of the silent generation and the early 20th century and the 19th century, you kind of had this Victorian period of self-denial, of, you know, don't show your emotions, you know, sit up straight, shut up, don't talk, don't complain, you know, just get your job done. You go back a couple more generations before that, like late 18th century, and you read about like the courts before the French Revolution and all the intrigues that were going on in Europe during that time. It's like people were all fucking each other, like smoking, like doing, drinking all the time. Like the amount of alcohol consumption that was going on was just like

• 32:34Mark Manson?

  absolutely preposterous. So part of me has wondered that maybe if you imagine there's a scale, and on one side of the scale is self-denial, and on the other side of the scale is self-indulgence, or you could call it self fulfillment, perhaps our ethic as a society kind of ping-pongs back and forth across generations. So each generation becomes a little bit more self-indulgent until it starts causing real social problems.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Such a problem, yeah.

• 33:01Mark Manson?

  And then there's a backlash, and the ethos starts to become more about self-denial and self-discipline and more rigid. And then that starts to cause problems, and then it starts pinging back in the in the self-indulgent direction again. And I kind of feel like if you look at all the generations going back to the boomers, like every generation since the 60s is celebrating more self-indulgence than the previous one. And I feel like that's just starting to change.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  We've flipped the ship.

• 33:32Mark Manson?

  Just in the last five years, it's starting to go the other way, where people are starting to realize, especially with all the technology and social media and everything, people are really starting to realize and appreciate the power of self-denial.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Self-restraint.

• 33:46Mark Manson?

  Restraint, discipline, being conscious of what you're doing, not indulging in things. You know, we're seeing drug use is dropping, drinking is dropping.

• 33:57Mark Manson?

  Even things like teen pregnancy and sex out of wedlock, those things are dropping. Divorce rate is dropping and kind of this old school conservative ethos of like, you know, take care of yourself, go to bed on time, be productive, don't complain. Like, all these things are coming back with the younger generations now. And so part of me just wonders like, okay, maybe we hit the breaking point somewhere around like 2010, 2015, we kind of like hit the breaking point of like, okay, everything's way too self indulgent. Like, we need to start pushing back on this and maybe the future generations will become more rigid again.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  The way I've heard it put before about like the Victorian era, the Victorian era, they, they would talk about death all the time, but never talked about sex. And now we're talking about sex all the time and never about death.

• 34:45Mark Manson?

  That's really interesting. That's super interesting. Yeah.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I don't know. I, I think there might be something to that. And I'm sure there is kind of a scale that we ping pong back and forth between self indulgence and self discipline. But I don't know. It's, it's really interesting to think about.

• 35:01Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I, I can't help, you know, when we, we had Sadia Khan on a while back and the, I think the way I introduced her was I was like, she basically gives dating advice that your grandmother would give.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:12Mark Manson?

  And somehow that feels revolutionary. And I've started to notice that in more places. Like a lot of the productivity advice is just stuff that grandma would have told you, right? Like a lot of the health advice is stuff like eat whole foods, don't buy stuff in packages, don't drink too much. Like that's shit your grandmother could have told you, right? Yeah. Part of me just wonders if we're just, if we're doing a little flashback. Stick with us. We'll be back.

• 35:46Mark Manson?

  All right, we're back. What questions were we asked this week, Drew?

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, we're riding the advice train still too. This one comes from YouTube. When have you fallen short of taking your own advice?

• 35:57Mark Manson?

  Oh my God, all the time. Can I tell you guys, like, real talk now? Writing a bestselling self-help book. That's yeah.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  Worst thing that ever happened to you, huh?

• 36:08Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, God. It's never been the same. No, uh, uh, one of the the downsides, there are not many, but one of one of the few downsides is that anytime you fuck up, one of the things you wrote about, somebody in your life is gonna let you down. Like, all the time. I cannot tell you how many times I've been talking to somebody like my wife or a friend or a family member, and they'll just kind of look at me and they're like, "Maybe you shouldn't give so many fucks about this." And I'm like, "Damn it."

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Why do you do that?

• 36:40Mark Manson?

  Yeah. So, yeah, no, it's, to come back to to the point from earlier, like, I write this stuff because it's what I need.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:50Mark Manson?

  It's it's it's a side benefit that the audience finds value in it, too. But ultimately, it's like, it's written because I needed it. I have a tendency to get involved in too many things, and I constantly need to be reminded, "What do you actually give a fuck about? What are you gonna focus on? What are you gonna commit to?" I I have shiny object syndrome, right? So i- it's so much of the basis of everything I write about, everything I care about, everything I preach. It starts because I'm I'm usually fucking it up myself. And I definitely have not mastered it. And I probably won't ever master it.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. So but so what are some of the common ones, though, that you consistently find yourself falling short on? I'm sure there's a few of those, yeah?

• 37:39Mark Manson?

  I tend to be unfocused. I tend to get too excited with new things. And so I struggle with like focusing and going all in on one thing. That that is something that recurs pretty regularly. I definitely, you know, there's a whole section in the book about metrics and how you measure success and be careful how you measure success because they can come back and bite you in the ass. And they're like, no matter how you choose to measure it, it will come back and bite you in the ass.

• 38:07Mark Manson?

  Ironically, that bit me in the ass after the book's success because kind of unwittingly, I, I think I attached a lot of my definition of success to how that book did. And so afterwards, it left me feeling kind of lost and aimless and not knowing what to do with myself. So I went through a kind of a weird period for a year or two, like not,

• 38:31Mark Manson?

  yeah, just feeling lost essentially. As I've mentioned before, I struggle a lot with commitment. Or early in my life, I struggled a ton with commitment. Recently, I've gotten much better about it. Struggled with health stuff. Like, like a lot of the stuff I've been writing and talking about the past couple of years about how boring is what works and you know, it's, it's about doing things consistently and it's, it's about simplicity and, and how, how easily is something going to be to, to, to do, even when you don't feel like doing it. Like a lot of that just comes from my own health journey of, of my own inability to change my behavior and stick with things and, and how I had to learn how to like

• 39:12Mark Manson?

  distill things down and simplify them and make them like, and get comfortable with how boring and mundane they were. So, yeah, it never ends. It never ends. It's, uh, yeah. I, I don't even know if there's anything I feel like I've like nailed completely.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Definitely a hundred percent. Yeah.

• 39:28Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  One of, one of them for me, um, that I was thinking of, and this comes up all the time for me, is like the materialism equals happiness, like consumption and happiness. Maybe part of that's I'm sure living in America, you know, where it's all around us. But I, so many times where I will plan out some big purchase or even small purchases or something like that. And I realized later, I'm like, oh, I'm thinking this is going to make me happy somehow.

• 39:53Mark Manson?

  I'm doing it again.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  Still disappointed when it doesn't, you know, that's a big one for me. I find that, um, it's pretty pervasive in my life.

• 39:59Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  And I used to be such a staunch minimalist too. Part of it is when you go like, you go buy a house or you settle into an apartment or whatever for a longer period of time. And you start liking those kind of comforts around you.

• 40:11Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it's, yeah, no, the, the home thing is, is legit. I mean, luxury is funny. It, it's actually really funny. So there was a New York magazine did a profile on me and the journalist, uh, was actually a really interesting guy and he and I kind of hit it off and we've kept in touch a little bit and, uh, He, I forgot how it came up, but one time I asked him, I said, like, what's, what's like the favorite piece you've ever done? And he said that he got to do a piece once where basically he got to try a bunch of rich people's stuff, like luxury stuff.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:45Mark Manson?

  And then he had, the, the article was writing whether it was worth the money or not. So he got to go drive like a, you know, a million dollar McLaren car or whatever. And then he like slept on like a hundred thousand dollar bed and ate at like all the three star Michelin restaurants in New York, like did all this crazy luxurious shit. And then, and then actually wrote about the experiences like kind of an average guy and saying, was this really a thousand times better than the normal thing? Or is it just kind of like, you know, an ego jerk off thing?

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:16Mark Manson?

  And I always thought that was really fascinating. And I remember I asked him, I was like, what was worth it? And he was like, I love cars, so the car was pretty insane. And then he said, the bed, he was like, yeah, the bed, the bed is like sleeping on a cloud. But yeah, everything else he was kind of like, what's the point?

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, don't, don't get me wrong, there's ways to spend your money that, that can definitely, and they're out even on material things that can definitely improve your life and make you.

• 41:40Mark Manson?

  So some things, yes, some things are worth money, but I, to your point of like, this is gonna change things.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:46Mark Manson?

  Yeah, they don't.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:48Mark Manson?

  They don't. In some cases, they just cause more problems.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:53Mark Manson?

  On that note, what's the wisdom of the week? What is our non-academic wisdom of the week?

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Non-academic wisdom of the week, yes. This comes fittingly, it comes from an 18th century English poet and philosopher named Samuel Taylor Coleridge. And he said, advice is like snow. The softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.

• 42:13Mark Manson?

  Ooh, very poetic.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:17Mark Manson?

  Very nice.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Be soft handed with the advice.

• 42:18Mark Manson?

  Yeah, very soft. Well, that's it for our show this week, a very soft show, like snow. I'm feeling like so.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Hope it sinks into your mind, yes.

• 42:28Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I'm feeling so like wafty and, and light, lith. Is that a word, lith?

• 42:35Speaker 01

  Lith?

• 42:35Mark Manson?

  I don't know, is that a word?

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Lith?

• 42:37Mark Manson?

  I feel like.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  L I T H?

• 42:39Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Lith?

• 42:40Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Isn't that a word? Fuck if I know, the list? We're gonna check the dictionary and get back to you next week.

• 42:50Mark Manson?

  I'm a writer, by the way. Be sure to like and subscribe and we will see you next week.

• 42:58Mark Manson?

  The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck podcast is produced by Drew Burning. It's edited by Andrew Nishimura, Jessica Choys, our videographer and sound engineer. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.