How to Find the Mindsets that Work For You (ft. Derek Sivers)

I’ve got a special episode for you today. I sat down in person with my longtime friend and first-ever podcast guest, Derek Sivers. We haven’t recorded live before, and honestly, it shows—in the best way. It’s raw, weird, and filled with the kind of conversations we usually when we’re just hanging out together. We dig into Derek’s new book, Useful, Not True, and the big idea behind it: that our beliefs don’t need to be true to be helpful. That spins off into everything from remixing creative influences (metal + Dixieland jazz, anyone?) to why most podcasts—including mine—have gotten painfully predictable. We talk artistic reinvention, Bob Dylan, Bowie, Miles Davis, why most “thought leaders” are just regurgitating each other’s ideas, and why I'm ending the podcast as you know it—and what’s next! We also dive into the deeper stuff: the emotional power of belief, authenticity vs. performative vulnerability, therapy culture, and why sometimes the most liberating thing you can do is reject what everyone else thinks is necessary—relationships, kids, all of it. This was one of the most honest, meandering, and creatively energizing conversations I’ve had in a while. If you’re into big questions, unconventional ideas, and the occasional musical metaphor, this one’s for you. Derek’s new book- Useful, Not True: https://www.amazon.com/Useful-Not-True-Derek-Sivers-ebook/dp/B0D86K4XF5 CHAPTERS Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction: A Special Live Recording with Derek Sivers 00:01:03 Finding Ideas: Chinese Dictionaries and Creative Remixing 00:03:52 The Miles Davis Principle: Why Success Means It's Time to Stop 00:05:59 The London Scene vs. The Welsh Countryside 00:07:49 Mark's Podcast Pivot: Breaking Out of the Interview Format 00:06:50 The Bookshelf Problem: Conformity in Podcasting 00:16:20 Introducing Useful, Not True: The Core Concept 00:20:09 Why All That Really Matters Are Your Actions 00:32:31 Religion as Actions, Not Beliefs 00:27:53 The Other Side of the River: Perspective Is Everything 00:30:15 Social Norms as Useful, Not True Beliefs 00:36:28 The Emotional Resistance to Questioning Your Beliefs 00:37:49 Against Authenticity: Why Your First Thought Is an Obstacle 00:38:42 Therapy Culture: When Private Concepts Go Public 00:42:37 The Pilot Analogy: Why We Want Some People to Lie 00:45:59 Optimistic Nihilism: The Joy of Nothing Meaning Anything 00:49:16 Everything Is Feelings: Why Emotions Are the Ultimate Metric 00:50:22 Optimizing for Happiness, Not Money 00:56:03 The Jordan Peterson Paradox: Brilliant Openings, Absolute Endings 01:03:37 Derek's Relationship Revelation: I Don't Want a Life Partner 01:07:25 The Biology Question: Should You Want What You're Supposed to Want? 01:08:07 Middle Age and Dating: Why Single Parents Check Out 01:20:26 The Companionship Paradox: Friends vs. Partners 01:21:23 Drew's Influence and the Coldplay Problem 01:23:15 The Closing: Changing Formats and Creative Courage ⇨ 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?

  I am here with the one and only Derek Sivers. In the flesh, a very special treat.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  We've never recorded anything live.

• 0:09Mark Manson?

  No.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Me and you.

• 0:10Mark Manson?

  I mean, you live on the other side of the world, so I only get to see you.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  Actually, you live on the other side of the world.

• 0:15Mark Manson?

  We'll get into that. We'll get into that. So, I mean, we only see each other in person, maybe every five years or so. So this is a very special treat. Good to have you back on the pod. Founder of CD Baby, author of many books. The new book is Useful, Not True. And yeah, I'm excited to get into it with you. So I actually want to start. Every time I see you, it was actually like giving me anxiety because we had brunch before we came into the studio. And we had such good conversations over brunch. And my like, I had this perpetual anxiety of like, no, save it. Put the words back in your mouth. You're like, you're gonna waste it all before we start recording. But every time we hang out, we have like such good conversations.

• 0:58Mark Manson?

  I'm curious, where do you find ideas and inspiration?

• 1:03Speaker 01

  I was sitting in your hotel lobby.

• 1:04Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  And I was looking at this Chinese dictionary and seeing how the characters were formed. And to me, there's like, oh, there's something really interesting in there about how some characters have meaning and some just don't. You shouldn't try to put meaning into these characters. And I like taking little things like that and applying it to life in some other way. Same way is when you're writing music. You don't want to, you don't want to imitate the Beatles too much.

• 1:33Mark Manson?

  Hmm.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Right? Or whatever genre you're in. If you're doing heavy metal, you don't want to be a clone of Iron Maiden or whatever. You want to take some other influence and mix it in. Something that nobody would ever expect. Whether it's like some, you know, Syrian wedding dance.

• 1:49Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Or who knows what, some Dixie Ragtime thing, but now your heavy metal band is going to do this. And people go, whoa, what a unique sound. But you actually know exactly what those two influences were. You know that you totally nicked this Dixieland jazz thing and mixed it with Steve Harris' Iron Maiden basslines.

• 2:11Mark Manson?

  Sure. It's funny because- My brain works in similar way. We're both musicians, which I find interesting in that are both of us kind of work this way. Because in creative fields, you hear about this all the time. Everything's a remix. You know, there's the Picasso quote of, you know, bad artists borrow, great artists steal. You know, you steal something from over here, you steal something from over here, and then the actual creativity is merging them together into something that sounds completely new, or looks completely new. And it's funny, because I feel like in our space, call it the thought leadership, or

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Public wanking?

• 2:50Mark Manson?

  Public wanking is probably more accurate term. You know, authors, nonfiction thinkers, whatever, internet personalities.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Naval gazers.

• 3:00Mark Manson?

  Naval gazers. You don't, you see less remixing. You see a lot of stealing and less remixing. And it's, it's like, I see a lot of nonfiction, I get sent a lot of books, a lot of nonfiction books from my space, and so many of them just feel like clones.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Of the other contemporary ones.

• 3:19Mark Manson?

  Exactly.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:20Mark Manson?

  Which is akin to what you were saying. It's like, starting a metal band and trying to sound exactly like Iron Maiden. And that, that's never gonna work. That doesn't make sense. Unless you want to be a cover band, like, that doesn't make sense. What works is taking, you know, Iron Maiden song structure, and applying it to blues grass, and then, like, throwing in jazz harmony, and then, you know, voila, you have a unique composition.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  All right, so, audience, just before we walked into this studio, what we were talking about was Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, this idea of, once you're successful at something, it means you should stop. Like,

• 4:00Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Miles Davis was the man for bebop trumpet, playing alongside Charlie Parker. So it's like, right, I did that. Now I need to do something new. Even though my fans are gonna be upset, I need to change genres and push myself to do what I don't know how to do. It's almost, it's like the artistic imperative. You must do this. You can't just rest on your laurels. Well,

• 4:25Mark Manson?

  You can.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  You can be AC/DC.

• 4:27Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  And just do the same damn thing for 40 years. And some people really appreciate that.

• 4:31Mark Manson?

  Sure.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  But if you are creatively ambitious, that's not what you want. So Bob Dylan did that a bit. His fans were furious when he went electric. David Bowie made himself like take on a new persona every few years. And these were my early influences. Because I wanted to be a successful musician. So to me, like these formative years of age 13 through 20, I was poring over these interviews with musicians, like just hanging on their every word and just watching how they live their life, going, this is the way. So of course, when I do something and it's successful, it just feels completely normal to me to say like, all right, now it's time to stop doing that.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Not, I need to double down.

• 5:17Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Get the money. I think, no, I need to leave that and get the challenge.

• 5:23Mark Manson?

  Do you feel like you're reinventing yourself as a writer? Because this is your fifth book, right?

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't know. Only my last two books, How to Live and Useful Not True, really felt like I was really writing a book. Those first three were like just a collection of blog posts. Then, you know, How to Live was definitely like a flash of inspiration. It took four years to go from flash to finished thing. And I was like following this single vision that whole time. And this new one was definitely an exploration. But wait, before we get into that, so Led Zeppelin.

• 5:59Mark Manson?

  Let's get back to the serious stuff.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  So Led Zeppelin, one of the band members, said something in an interview that I read as a teenager that I think of all the damn time and I think has completely shaped my life and what I'm doing and where I live and all of it. Because of a line I read in an interview when I was 14. And it was, Robert Plant or Jimmy Page said, the reason that we stood out from the pack.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Is we weren't part of the London scene. We lived in the countryside in Wales. We had no idea what they were doing in London. We were just off like listening to Arabic music and trying new things to mix Arabic scales with the blues. Often the Welsh countryside. And that's why we made something unique and that's why we stood out. And to me, that's so core to how I see the world. That I don't look at podcasts, for example. And when you see the guy, they always have the fucking bookshelf. What's with the fucking, why does everybody, they say, well, we're podcast, I'm gonna do a podcast, so let me get the bookshelf.

• 7:04Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  And I mean, look, we're actually using different microphones today, but you know, usually everybody says the exact same microphone.

• 7:09Mark Manson?

  The same Shure mic.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  The same Shure mic, same bookshelf behind them with everything neatly stacked. And if it's their own book, then they push it facing forward. And there are these norms that I think, no, that is just the worst thing you could do.

• 7:22Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  It's like being in the middle of the London scene and doing the exact same thing as everybody else. I think it's like our, um, our challenge, almost our imperative to force yourself to do something different. You look at what everybody else is doing, okay, well, not that. But then you have to be a little more look inside instead of just deliberately doing the opposite. You think, well, in my perfect world, how would it be? How do I think it should be?

• 7:47Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  It becomes a reflection of yourself.

• 7:49Mark Manson?

  It's funny you bring this up because you were the first guest on this podcast.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:56Mark Manson?

  And now. You're also gonna be the last guest on this podcast.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Yay.

• 7:59Mark Manson?

  Don't freak out, listeners. There's still gonna be a podcast, it's just gonna be very different. I wanna hang on this for a minute. One, because this like directly affects my listeners, but also because I think this is a good example of what you're talking about. I've really enjoyed having the podcast this past year, but I feel, I feel like I'm in the London scene. And I'm doing the same thing all the guys in London are doing. And I feel like I need to get to the Welsh countryside and start fucking with Arabic scales. Because it's, you know, when I look at all the big podcasts in this space, first of all, most of them have been doing it for like 10 years now. And they've just built this machine. But so much of it is, is based off of.

• 8:40Mark Manson?

  Uh, booking guests and then like researching into the minutia and getting like the perfect questions so you can have the perfect Instagram reel of that guest that you can post and it goes viral and all this shit and like, and look, there's a lot of guy, like I'm friends with a lot of guys in this space that like are amazing at it. And, and I look at them and I'm like, A, I probably, it's gonna be really hard to compete with them. And then B, I don't wanna do that. Like, I don't wanna do the same thing everybody else is doing. I fuck, I hate booking guests. And no offense, like, I, I like most of the guests that have come on the show and I've enjoyed talking to most of them, but like, I don't like researching for guests. I, it took me 20 episodes to figure that out. I'm like, I don't actually

• 9:24Mark Manson?

  like this format. And, uh, so we're actually going to relaunch the show into something completely different. There'll be a formal announcement, everybody, don't worry, stay tuned. But, um, it's funny that you brought that up because that's exactly what I've been going through creatively with the show. Uh, and it's, and it's also, it's very, I thought it was very poetic to bring you on as both the last guest and you were the first guest as well, so.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 9:52Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  And, uh, this is maybe rudely blunt of me to say, but I was a little worried when you said, "I'm gonna do a podcast." I was like, "Oh, fuck, Mark."

• 10:04Mark Manson?

  Another one.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  But you're saying, like, to me, like, your writing is so original.

• 10:09Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Your books were so like, like nothing else. There was nothing, until everybody started quoting you. "Ah, I'm gonna put fuck in the title. Ah!" Everything you did was so unique. And when you said you were gonna do a podcast, I went, "Oh, no, no, no. Like, don't do another fucking podcast." But I mean, luckily you did already start to take it somewhere new right away.

• 10:29Mark Manson?

  We tried, yeah.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Um, so it's a huge relief for me.

• 10:33Mark Manson?

  It's been-

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Change.

• 10:34Mark Manson?

  Like any creative process, right? Like, you have to learn the rules before you can break them, right? Like, we, we tried to break some rules early and it, we just fell on our faces. And so, we kinda fell into this rhythm of-

• 10:48Mark Manson?

  Okay, let's just book the same guests. You know, at this point, I'm friends with half the people in this world, so it's you know, most of the time, all it took was a text message, right? And, and even then, I was like, oh, I hate booking guests. Like you said, I have this almost like compulsive need to be contrarian and original or different, like, I'd rather be different and suffer the consequences of failure than to just replicate what everybody else is doing that's working.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Even if it rewards you.

• 11:24Mark Manson?

  Exactly, and especially at this point in my career, so.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Wait, let's pause right there because I think it's considerate for the audience to challenge yourself to be different. It's not that it's, it's not ego driven, and correct me if I'm

• 11:39Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  confused, but for me, it's not ego driven, it's like, they already have this shit.

• 11:43Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  You know, ABC, ABC, ABC, ABC, I'm not gonna jump in and go, ABC, ABC, ABC.

• 11:48Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  For their sake, I want to say the thing that other people aren't saying.

• 11:55Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  I want to do it in a different way that nobody had considered. In every way, even my whole, like, whether it's technology wise, the way I do my site, the way I do my, whatever, I try to just think, well, what's the underrepresented angle in the big chorus? Like, I know I'm not the lead singer in their life. I know I am one little voice in the choir, so it's like, well, what note is not being sung that I can contribute?

• 12:24Mark Manson?

  I like that. It's also just a critique that I have of podcasting in this space too, is that it is getting it's getting mundane, it's getting repetitive, it's the same, this, this, all the shows are doing the same thing with the same guests, same topics. You know, anytime a new book comes out, you know, I'm sure you've done, you're, you either have done, or you're gonna do a bunch of the same shows, which I get, it's part of the, it's part of promoting a book. Yeah, I just, I don't find it interesting, and and so what I find interesting is trying to Reinvent the format or the medium, or just do something disruptive, even if it doesn't, you know, even if I make less money

• 13:09Mark Manson?

  or I lose some audience or whatever. It's like, let's just, let's do something interesting and fun and original and see what happens. Let's break some shit.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  That to me goes back to the musical example. I finally just listened to the legendary David Bowie albums, produced by Brian Eno, called Low and, crap, I forget the other. But he made this, like, after he was already famous for Ziggy Stardust and such, then he went and made three really artsy albums with Brian Eno. It was just such a wonderful, bold, creative step that it's hard to imagine. Well, OK, it's hard to imagine Taylor Swift doing it, but it's actually easy to imagine some other popular musicians these days.

• 13:53Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  But even like Peter Gabriel, back in the 80s and 90s, suddenly he did the soundtrack to the movie The Last Temptation of Christ. And then went out and put out a bunch of like traditional world music albums that like released through his label. And it's just something that most of his fans would not have followed him to do that. But I thought it was so bold of him to do that, almost like a creative reset.

• 14:16Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  It's like, all right, I'm popular, I'm popular. Yeah, now let me do something that none of you will like. Except maybe like 1% of you will get what I'm doing, and that's what I want. Let's reduce my audience again.

• 14:27Mark Manson?

  It's funny because I definitely feel that tension. Like, I have been very aware for a long time now that I can just keep hitting the fuck note on the piano for the next 20 years and just keep collecting the paychecks. There is a legitimate temptation to do that. Like, it is, it's easy, it's comfortable, people know what to expect. Oh, my gosh, you could just have like an LLM just generate Mark Manson book title with list asterisks in the pocket. Seriously, I mean, we could be on fuck book number eight by now, you know, if I wanted to go. It was funny because I remember having a conversation with my publisher pretty early on. And they actually brought that up. They're like, we think this could be a franchise.

• 15:12Mark Manson?

  We think you could do eight or 10 books like this with the same cover and the same style and the same tone. And, you know, you just repeat the same advice. And I remember my exact response was, I will not be chicken soup for the soul for fuck faces.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 15:29Mark Manson?

  You know, you mentioned ACDC. Like, I get, I get why. Like, if you love it and you like, like, you're happy hitting that note again and again, and it pays the bills, and the audience is happy with you hitting that note again and again, you know, why not do it? But I definitely am more, I think I'm born more of like the Miles Davis, or like the Radiohead ilk of just like, if I don't try to reinvent myself, I'm gonna go crazy at some point. But I want to get back, I want to get back to you in this cross-pollination of ideas and modalities. I read the, your new book on the flights down here,

• 16:10Mark Manson?

  and I found consistently, my favorite parts of the book were where you brought in very, I guess, orthogonal references. Like, there's a section on religion. You talk about nation states at some point. By the way, everybody, the, the book is about beliefs and how beliefs can still be useful if, even if they are not necessarily true. And so, there's a lot of very individual examples, right? You know, we tend to, a lot of us have beliefs that are useful, not true, and a lot of us have beliefs that are not useful and not true.

• 16:49Mark Manson?

  To me, the most exciting stuff was like, you know, is a religion a useful, not true belief? Is a nation state a useful, not true? Is culture useful, not true? Or like, social norms? Like, all that stuff. Like, that gets me super excited. That's, that's like when you take a Iron Maiden and you play it with a banjo. Like, that's, that was, that was a lot of, is, is that the stuff that you find the most fun, or?

• 17:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. When you surprise yourself. Isn't that nice? When you're writing, sometimes you sit down to write, and you know what you're gonna say. But sometimes you sit down with more of a question, and you privately explore this subject. You're typing, you're writing, and you're typing, and then suddenly you go, "Oh, whoa!" And you surprise yourself.

• 17:37Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  That's the best feeling when you're writing. Because if, you know, you and I have read a lot of books. If, if I've never heard this idea before, I'm like, oh, wow. I've never heard this idea before. This is badass.

• 17:48Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  I want to put this out there because if I've never heard it, then most people probably haven't heard it. Or what happens sometimes is I can put an idea out and somebody says, you know what you should look into? Like, what you're saying right now kind of sounds like this.

• 18:02Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Which I guess could, you know, like you think you're doing something unique musically. And they say, you should check out Tom Waits. And I go, oh, okay, wow.

• 18:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  So that is still the thrill for me is to surprise myself.

• 18:16Mark Manson?

  Hmm.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  So writing useful, not true. So I surprised myself a lot because I was talking about something I didn't already know about. I went in, you know, with this question for two years. And I just was devouring everything, reading all these books about philosophy and religion. And I read the Bible cover to cover. We talked about in our first episode. And, um, uh, reading the Quran, reading about Islam, reading about Hinduism, reading about just theology in general. Which is just something I'd never looked into because in America, growing up in America, it felt like a don't go there subject.

• 18:54Mark Manson?

  Hmm.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Because if you go there at all, you're just going to have this kind of just Christianity, just join our church, just come to Bible study with me. That was the only, like, any mention of religion felt like it was just going to go there and that's that.

• 19:10Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  It, it could never stay one level zoomed out about why we even have religion and how it's beneficial. And what, uh, what does it do for us? And how does it improve our actions and all that? It's just, no, it's just, here's, here's what my parents taught me and that's that.

• 19:25Mark Manson?

  Yeah. So this, this two-year investigation into this concept of useful but not true beliefs. You know, in the book, you talk about how 99.9% of our views are perspectives, not facts. And how you can put down and pick up perspectives at will in order to enhance yourself or help yourself. I'm curious, after this two-year investigation, what were the biggest perspectival shifts that you've experienced? Like, how is Derek different post-book versus pre-book? Like, what, what did you change your mind on or your perspective on? And, and what was the significance of that?

• 20:07Speaker 01

  I think the big one was realizing that ultimately, all that really matters are the actions we take. That beliefs that you could choose to adopt, do something for your emotional state. Hmm. If you choose to adopt a belief that everything sucks, it gives you this emotional state. If you have the, you take the belief that I'm surrounded by opportunities, you know, it gives you this emotional state. And then depending on your state is going to completely affect your actions. Yeah. Whether you just decide to just fuck it and eat some ice cream on the couch, or if you decide to throw out the ice cream you bought last night,

• 20:50Speaker 01

  stop drinking alcohol, get your shit together, and go take this action because it's just a slight tweak of thinking, a slightly different belief, completely changes your direction with your actions. And none of the beliefs are necessarily true. By the way, so we got, you know, audience, like the first page of the book says, "Look, I need to define this word true." Yeah. Because for the whole book, I don't want to always say necessarily, absolutely, objectively, empirically, observably true. So whenever I say true, what I really mean is absolutely, necessarily, objectively, observably true.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  But the reason to define it like that is because whatever you've defined as true, Hmm. that's closed. You're done. No more questioning that. And I think that was so interesting to realize that, yeah, opening that up again to say that might not necessarily be true. You asked the actions it changed for me, or what it changed in how I see the world. It was, for one, realizing that everything is, I just need to judge it by its actions it creates. Hmm. And then I need to keep challenging myself. Whenever I still catch myself saying things like, "Well, that was stupid." Yeah. Or, "This is better. That's amazing." And I'm like, "Hmm?" Is it?

• 22:18Speaker 01

  Not necessarily. Like, even though I've been focused on this subject for two years, I still catch myself having viewpoints that feel absolutely true.

• 22:28Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  I have to catch myself like.

• 22:29Mark Manson?

  I wonder how much of that is a product of like semantics and language, right? Because it's, one of the things that you point out repeatedly in the book is that there are all sorts of normative things that we will say, like, "she is very polite," or "the weather is bad today." And we, we just, through saying it, there's an implicit assumption that that is factually true, right? But, and we are unaware of all of the normative and subjective assumptions that have to happen underneath that statement. But then sometimes I wonder, it's like, we just don't have the language to like, equip that, right?

• 23:09Mark Manson?

  Like, you just said, there's a version of this book where the word empirically or objectively is inserted before the word "true" 500 times, and...

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Or there might be some language on earth that has different words. Like, apparently, the French have 20 different words for "friend," whereas in English, we just have this word "friend" that gets, you know, suitcase'd into meaning other things.

• 23:35Mark Manson?

  So like, maybe we should just have a different word for "truth." Like, there's a word for "objective empirical verifiable truth," and then there's a word for like, "truth-ish."

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. Works for me.

• 23:49Mark Manson?

  It works for me, yeah, yeah. It's, you know, David Foster Wallace used to call it Capital T true.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 23:55Mark Manson?

  And, and he also said that almost nothing is verifiably Capital T true.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Which, okay, by the way, you know, so, I don't get into political zeitgeist. I don't-

• 24:08Mark Manson?

  Sure.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  -follow news and try to get into the conversation du jour. But, so when I told some people I was writing this book, a lot of people said, "Oh, you're gonna finally, you know, talk about those people that just go lie in the media and deny it?" And I'm like, "No, it's not denialism." Because denialism is where you-

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Take observable facts.

• 24:29Mark Manson?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  That are verifiable and necessary and absolute facts. And you say, no, that didn't happen. That's not true. You know, no, the, we didn't lose the election. No, vaccines don't work. It's like, no. You can look at.

• 24:44Mark Manson?

  Data.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  A microscope and you can see the little vaccines doing their job. This isn't about denying what's true, but it is about drawing that line between. There are some things in life that are absolutely true.

• 24:54Mark Manson?

  Sure.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  And everything else of the mind is just, we can choose another perspective.

• 24:58Mark Manson?

  Well, and I think you talked about this when we talked last year of, you know, the first objection that people bring up is like, well, then I'll just, I'm just going to believe that I'm Superman and that, you know, I'm a billionaire and everybody loves me and, you know, all this stuff. And you pointed out, you said, yes, you can believe those things, but they're not useful because you're diluting yourself. You're like removing yourself from a shared reality. So there's like, there actually, there's a quote. This ties in really well with a quote from the book that I marked down that I want to read really quick. Cause I thought this was pretty insightful. When it comes to why so many perspectives feel true, even though they are not necessarily

• 25:43Mark Manson?

  like capital T true. So you said, people communicate for social and emotional reasons. Socially, they want to bond. Judgments, gossip, ethics and opinions are all great for signaling and connecting. Emotionally, they want validation. They want others to acknowledge and agree that their viewpoint is justified. When you can see someone's point of view, it tells them that you're standing on their side. That's why people rarely share objective, unbiased facts. Actual facts are boring as dirt. Nobody bonds over facts. They have more incentive to share their thoughts, which are never necessarily true. Which I love that because it's, you're right. Like 99.9% of everything we talk about is.

• 26:24Mark Manson?

  Useful not true beliefs and we're just, we're gauging and verifying whether, do you have the same useful not true belief as I do? Oh, great. Now it became more useful because we both have it now and we can share it together. Right? And so I think there's like an interesting game theory situation where if you have a, a not true belief that nobody else has, you know, like I'm, I don't know, I'm the queen of England. It immediately become, it's immediately rendered unuseful because it's not shared. Nobody else sees me as the queen of England. So it's, it's now a belief that's hurting me. I mean, I think this, this explains like social contagion and peer pressure. Right?

• 27:05Mark Manson?

  Because it's like, there's a, there is an incentive to share the useful, not true things that other people around you believe because then you get to benefit from, not just from the social validation, but like you get to benefit from their company, their resources, their friendship, their loyalty, everything.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  I'm on your side. And it was, it was fun imagining that very literally too. When you say that you can see something from another point's, a person's point of view, it tells them you're standing on their side.

• 27:32Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  It's nice to think of that like very literally. Like, yeah, we are standing shoulder to shoulder. I'm seeing that the same way you're seeing that.

• 27:38Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  It's kind of a nice metaphor we have in English like that, that, yeah, I see it your way. I'm standing on your side.

• 27:45Mark Manson?

  And you, well, and you have, you have that, that quip as well about the guy who asks, calls out to the woman on the other side of the river.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. That was a joke. I didn't make that up. I heard that joke somewhere. They're like, uh, yeah, traveler is walking through a strange land and he comes to a river and he calls to the woman on the other side. He goes, excuse me, how do I get to the other side of the river? And she looks back and she goes, you are on the other side of the river.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  And, and I just love that. It's like, um, I'm in New Zealand right now. Sometimes I comment on people's accent and they go, we don't have an accent.

• 28:20Mark Manson?

  You do.

• 28:23Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  It's wonderful to remember.

• 28:25Mark Manson?

  Well.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  You have an accent.

• 28:26Mark Manson?

  Even at the top of the show, I was like, well, you know, you live on the other side of the world. And you're like, no, you live on the other side of the world.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. There was a, um, my favorite TED Talk I did was just this tiny little three minute talk where I talked about how you can see so many things from the other point of view. So one of them is, uh, addresses in Japan. We grew up in a country where the streets have names. And blocks are just the unnamed bits of land in between named streets. In most of Japan, it's the opposite. The blocks have numbers or names and the streets are thought of as just unnamed spaces.

• 29:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  In between. So if you ask somebody, what's the name of this street? They'll go, what?

• 29:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  And same thing if somebody, if a Japanese person came to America and they said, what's the name of this block? You're like, well, this is Oak Street. This is Elm Street. No, no, no. What's that block? What? But then you realize that so many things can be seen from an opposite point of view, including where we are in New Zealand right now.

• 29:27Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  There was a map, I think, actually, I think it was in the Sydney airport. No, maybe it was in the Auckland airport. Where it was the, the upside down.

• 29:35Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  World map where New Zealand and Australia and Argentina are at the top. And down below you have Canada and Russia. And it is equally valid.

• 29:44Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  We live in a sphere.

• 29:45Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  It's a beautiful reminder.

• 29:48Mark Manson?

  It's interesting noting all the way, like, all of these socially organizing, useful, not true beliefs. I mean, it, it does seem like the basis of culture, right? Like even some, things as simple as like, you know, when, when you meet somebody, you shake their hand and you say, nice to meet you. You say, please, thank you. All those things. These are simply useful, not true beliefs that we've adopted to signal certain things to each other. Because it helps organize us as a community and as a society.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:24Mark Manson?

  And I guess just being aware of that is powerful because then you, once you're, you have to be aware of it in order to understand why you would ever opt out, I guess.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 30:34Mark Manson?

  Cause it's, it's.

• 30:37Mark Manson?

  You see, when people are not aware of the game, they either conform blindly, right? And that's not good. Or they rebel blindly. Like, they're upset, they don't understand why, they break a bunch of rules, there's no rhyme or reason to it, it's just chaos. But when you're aware of the game, then you can be selective in choosing, "Okay, this is a social norm that I actually don't think is as useful as other people do. And I think I'm gonna go the other way on this one, and I'm gonna bear the cost of that." "Yeah, I guess I've just never thought of it this way." "It's really interesting." I also find it very interesting that you spent two years writing a book about beliefs, and your big conclusion is that actions matter way more.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Well, the thing, no, it's the, sorry, more succinctly put, the whole point of beliefs is to affect your actions.

• 31:25Mark Manson?

  Right, right, right.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  If your beliefs are not improving your actions, then there's no point for the belief.

• 31:32Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  Like, the person that says that they are a religious believer, but then they act like an asshole and harm everybody around them. It's like, well, then what is the point of your beliefs?

• 31:41Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  If they're not improving your actions. The point of these beautiful beliefs handed down by religions over thousands of years is that they improve our actions for the better. Follow these ten commandments, and you will be a good person. You will be a good neighbor, you will be a good spouse, a good parent. You will be net positive for the world.

• 32:04Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  If you violate these, you will be net harm for the world. But there are some people that say that they're a believer, but then they'll still net harm for the world, so that the beliefs are moot.

• 32:14Mark Manson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Except in that they affect your actions.

• 32:18Mark Manson?

  Yeah. And you talk about at one point, like, actually, like, the basis of religion in a lot of ways is, like, they weren't belief systems historically.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  That came from a book.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Called "The Religious Case Against Belief" by James P. Carse, C-A-R-S-E. He's the one, he's a theology chair, was the theology chair at New York University, and pointed out that religion is the doing, which is, usually goes hand in hand with the beliefs, but doesn't have to be. So he pointed out, first the obvious, that there are beliefs that are not religions, you know, feminism and communism, whatever, are not religions. But, he said, on the other hand, we have Zen Buddhism, which is a religion that has basically no beliefs. Yeah. So he said, first, let's be clear, that these are two separate things. The religions are the actions, the rituals, the things you do.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  And then their beliefs, which, in my mind, are just kind of moot. And he said somewhat of the same thing, that the point of the beliefs is to affect the actions. Hmm. Coming from a theolo- theology, how do you say it? Theological? Theolo- I was trying to get the noun version, theolo- theologian? Theologian? Theologian.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  We're writers here. Exactly.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Anyway, coming from a theologian, I thought that was a powerful point to make, is that the beliefs are basically moot. Hmm. Because they're just in your head, and if they don't affect your actions, then they're completely pointless. Yeah. And it helps remind you, okay, now let's stop talking about religion for a second, but even on like a day-to-day personal level, what beliefs you have about yourself that get you out of bed in the morning? What beliefs you have when you walk into a room of strangers? What beliefs you have when going on a first date? What beliefs you have when sitting down to do a project that you're not excited about, but you're supposed to be doing?

• 34:24Speaker 01

  You choose your beliefs at any one of these, and they're, none of them are necessarily true. You just have to look at, how is this going to affect my actions for the better? Yeah. And it can be a beautiful little brainstorming exercise, or daydreaming exercise, when you catch yourself holding a belief that is steering your actions in an ineffective, disempowering way, you could just stop for a second and go sit on the toilet, or lay down on the couch, and say, Huh, alright, how else could I think about this?

• 34:56Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  And you just play an old brainstorming exercise.

• 35:00Mark Manson?

  It's funny though, because for a lot of people, or a lot of beliefs for a lot of people, like, I do think there are some benign beliefs that I don't have much of an emotional response. So like, for instance, I don't know, thinking about some sort of like numerical business decision of like, am I gonna spend my time doing X, or am I gonna spend my time doing Y? What are, what's, what are the costs? What are the benefits? Open up a spreadsheet, figure it out, right? It's a very unemotional task of like, what, what do I believe is the most useful thing to pursue over the next year or so, right?

• 35:39Mark Manson?

  But then there are some things that get very emotional. And I think those are the things that are like very much tied to our identity. So like, I imagine for a lot of people, and I actually experienced this when I was young too, like, questioning my own religion was emotionally very uncomfortable the first time I did it. And the first time I questioned whether I was the piece of shit in my relationship, that was also extremely uncomfortable. First time I questioned my own political views was very uncomfortable. So I think, I'm curious what you would say to like, the emotional, kind of the instinctual

• 36:22Mark Manson?

  emotional resistance that happens around certain subjects. Like, how do you fight through that?

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Don't get over it, get under it.

• 36:35Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  I like leaning into whatever I notice that I'm prejudiced against. If I notice that I've got a irrational aversion to something, it makes me want to lean into it to try to figure out why. And maybe if I lean into it to find out why, I'll be justified and find out, oh yeah, that's, that is not for me, and here's why.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  But maybe I'll find that it was just some... Leftover bullshit, you know, I'm not a fan of authenticity.

• 37:11Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  Meaning, I think authenticity is overrated or bullshit. Authenticity is what we call our instinctive reaction to something, which is usually just coming from some fucking shit from a movie you saw when you were 11 or something your parents told you in passing, which you maybe even misunderstood. And now that is still sitting in you, that you think, oh, well, this bad, this good. And, uh, but then because it was our first thought, we call it authenticity.

• 37:43Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  When it's not, it just means that's the shit that you haven't spent an extra two minutes to think through.

• 37:49Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  I don't glorify authenticity at all. I think the, uh, one of my other favorite ideas in the Useful Not True is that your first thought is an obstacle. The whole point is to get past it.

• 38:01Mark Manson?

  Interesting.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Don't glorify the instinct. Acknowledge it, say, okay, well, my first thought was this, now what else? How else could I think about this? And maybe you'll come back five minutes later, say, actually, yeah, I'm sticking with the first. I've thought about three or four other ways I could think of this. And the first one, now that I've spent a minute and thought it through, this one still works for me. But don't glorify your impulse and call it authenticity.

• 38:28Mark Manson?

  It's, that's really interesting. I haven't heard that critique before, but I like it. One of the themes that's been coming up on the podcast the past year that I've been thinking a lot about is, for lack of a better term, I've heard it, it's starting to be called therapy culture. And basically, there's a great piece written by a Substacker named Freddie DeBoer, and he, I really liked the way he delineated it. And he basically said that there are a lot of concepts that are extremely useful in a one-on-one confidential therapeutic context. Something like unauthentic reaction to something, right? Like, if you're talking to your therapist about some childhood trauma. Then an authentic emotional reaction is valuable.

• 39:13Mark Manson?

  He said that the problem is, is that a lot of the concepts and practices that are very valuable and in a, in a private, one-on-one therapy situation are now being glorified culturally and people are being socially validated for them. So these sorts of kind of trigger-response emotional reactions are now being like, oh, she's so authentic, like, good for her, you know, or like, oh, you're, you're being so vulnerable right now, when really you're just acting like a child. And, you know, you're, you're throwing a temper tantrum and crying and freaking out about something and people are like, oh, so vulnerable, so strong. And I thought, you know, it's something that, there's been this growing, emerging culture of kind of glorifying authenticity, vulnerability, trauma, a lot of these things.

• 39:57Mark Manson?

  And it's concerned me for a while now, and I've had a number of guests on who have kind of criticized aspects of it, or around it, or pieces of it. But I thought, I thought this piece like really nailed it, that it's, that a lot of these things, the, the context, when the context shifts, the value is completely different. And you actually- Ah, right, you're taking this value out of context. Yeah, and it, and it actually backfires, right? Because what you're starting to see now is, uh, so again, in a private, one-on-one situation, like, let's say you're having a fight with your, your spouse. Vulnerability is really important.

• 40:37Mark Manson?

  You need to be able to, like, share your emotions and explain what you're afraid of, or what you're upset about, right? Like, that's an important thing. But then, now that's being socially rewarded in the town square. And so what you encourage is just a bunch of people to fucking dump their feelings- Right. -constantly and be upset all the time. And that's actually not healthy, because now you're like socially validating people feeling upset. And so it encourages people to feel upset more often, and to get upset over slider and slider things. And they're being vulnerable, so we're supposed to- Good for you. You were supposed to applaud them, right? And, you know, so you can see how that turns into a, a downward spiral of mental health. Yeah.

• 41:21Mark Manson?

  Um, so anyway, I, I just, I thought that was, uh, super insightful and, and I, like, I like your critique of authenticity, because it is- It is important to know what you feel and think. Like, I think maybe a better definition of authenticity is, is having an accurate understanding of your own thoughts and feelings. Right? Because a lot of us mask our own thoughts and feelings.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:46Mark Manson?

  And that's what that gives us, that gives the social experience of inauthenticity. It's like, oh, he's, he's very fake. Like, when, when we meet somebody who feels quote unquote fake, it's because they feel one thing, but they say something else.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:01Mark Manson?

  They think one thing, they say the opposite. Right? So I think, like, the proper form of authenticity is, is simply just being aligned in thoughts, feelings, actions. The bad version of authenticity is just like, well, those are my feelings and fuck you if you don't, if you don't like them, right?

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Which, it is so easy to see the remedy, which is to just think of it flipped around from the other person's point of view. I flew here from Wellington today. If the pilot was in a bad mood today, would I want him to authentically crash the plane? Because he's just not feeling it today, man.

• 42:46Mark Manson?

  Can you imagine, can you imagine if he came on the intercom? He's like, I didn't sleep well and my wife just left me. And, you know, you're like, get me off the plane.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Just want to be real with y'all. You know?

• 42:57Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I want my pilot to lie to me.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, same with the surgeon. You know, you're having important surgery and the doctor's just like, you know what? Sick of this bullshit.

• 43:07Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Mid-surgery, you know, I don't want to finish today. You know, just somebody else sew him up.

• 43:12Mark Manson?

  I'm just being vulnerable.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Just being real here, being authentic. So one of my favorite examples is a great customer service. You do not want authenticity from the, the nice, um...

• 43:33Speaker 01

  What do you call that, concierge at a hotel or whatever?

• 43:35Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  You might have come in and puked on their floor, or whatever, and be, you know, drenched from the rain. You come in and the inside, they might be thinking, "Fuck my life."

• 43:47Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  But out front, they could say, "Oh, sir, you know, please, let me help you in some way, you know? Here's a towel, you know? It's muting your id, the perverse imp inside of you, that of course has your thing. But, you know, you made a great point that it's important to know your feelings, especially in therapy and in personal relationships and all that. But to go spewing them out like a nudist

• 44:18Speaker 01

  is not the right strategy to get what you want

• 44:23Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  in life. You have to think about it from the other's person's point of view. Would you want to walk around your city if other people were being nudists?

• 44:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, you're a fuck. Yeah, look at my shit. Look at it.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  You don't want that. And so why would you go do that to others?

• 44:40Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 44:42Mark Manson?

  Great metaphor. Wonderful metaphor, I think.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  Speaking of my shit.

• 44:46Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  I'll be right back.

• 44:51Mark Manson?

  That is Derek authentic as always.

• 44:57Speaker 02

  A few moments later.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Audience, for the last 15 minutes, I have been practicing the subtle art of not taking a piss.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  All right.

• 45:10Mark Manson?

  So we talked earlier about kind of seeing that there's this game being played, that there's all these useful, not true beliefs that we're buying into and other people are buying into. And in a lot of ways, they're competing beliefs. And a lot of them, we kind of inherit from our parents and our communities, our schools, our country, our culture. I have personally experienced this and I've talked to a number of people who have experienced this as well. It's like, once you kind of have this realization that nothing is necessarily...

• 45:43Mark Manson?

  Capital T true. It's easy to slip into a nihilism. It's like, well, if nothing is true, then nothing's important. And then nothing's worth doing. I'm curious, have you slipped into that hole at all? And if not, why not? And what would, what would be your advice to somebody who does find themselves slipping into that hole?

• 46:05Speaker 01

  I might not have much to add here because I'm just a naturally happy person.

• 46:11Mark Manson?

  You're, you're so cheery. It's upsetting.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  Sorry. You know, it's funny, you, you laugh more than me, though. I've noticed this, both on the podcast, but even audience, like even offline, Mark laughs this much. Just in like our, just random pitter patter conversation, you laugh more than me.

• 46:26Mark Manson?

  And you are always this cheery.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:28Mark Manson?

  No matter what is happening.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. So.

• 46:31Mark Manson?

  I have to laugh the darkness away.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Oh. Okay.

• 46:36Mark Manson?

  It's the only, it's the only way I could survive.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  With the pagi, pagalachi, the clown that goes to the fair. Anyway, um, so I find it so joyous and liberating to say that nothing has any meaning. Because that means that it is all free for you to reinvent and adopt whatever perspective you want on things. And anytime somebody passes their morality shit on you and says, that's bad. This, what you're doing is wrong and that's bad. And this is what you should do. Go, no, that's not true.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  That you just, there are no concrete, absolute moral values. And I think this is proven by the fact that there is always an exception. Anything you could think of, there's either an exception for certain situations or there's another culture on the other side of the earth, operating under a different philosophy that is also thriving and doing just fine.

• 47:41Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Without adopting your approach to life. And I've found that fascinating recently, getting to know.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Cultures in the Middle East. And I've been to China once this year and I'm going back again in nine days. And I think it's really interesting getting to know other thriving cultures that disagree with the one I grew up in. Because then to me, that's just disproving all of these truisms.

• 48:14Mark Manson?

  It's almost like life itself becomes a creative exercise.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:20Mark Manson?

  Like it's a form of artistry. Just living and choosing what you believe is like an artistic expression.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, let's go back to the music thing. If somebody said, okay, yeah, you can do whatever you want with the chords or whatever, but it has to be in four four time. I mean, that's just, you just have to be in four four time. Be like, hmm, really? They're like, okay, well, maybe three, four, but that's it. It's either three, four or four, four. You're like, I don't know, let's try this. Let's challenge that notion.

• 48:44Mark Manson?

  Yeah, my immediate reaction would be to write something in like nine, eight or something off the wall.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  And you can take that approach to so many aspects of life where somebody says, no, it is important, you must be loyal to your blah, blah, blah. You must live your fullest achievement. Even, okay, we were talking about business. There was an angle I didn't interrupt you before. But when you were talking about making money, I was going to say that behavioral economics and psychology address the topic of feelings. That in psychology and in behavioral economics, feelings matter.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Where they can say, for example, in the book, The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz, he pointed out, after many, many studies, that people who are made more aware of all of the options they could have chosen may objectively make a better choice, but they will feel worse about it.

• 49:52Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Whereas if somebody is given only 30 seconds to make a choice and only get shown three options and they're told that their choice is irreversible, well, and the choice is irreversible, they might not make a technically as good decision as somebody who deeply dove into all 97 options, but they will feel better about their choice. And what I really like about psychology and behavioral economics is acknowledging that feelings matter.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  So then we get into business and entrepreneurship and people would say things to me like, "Yeah, but you could have made a lot more money with CD Baby if you would have done such and such." And I'd say, "But I didn't want to." And they're like, "But it would have made more..." Like, just, they're like, "Objectively, it's just the better choice." "You made a stupid choice by choosing to do such and such that you didn't." And I said, "But this choice made me happier and I was optimizing for my own personal happiness." "I was not optimizing for the dollars."

• 50:51Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  And I think we don't bring that into the equation enough. Even with tech, there is some things that I do tech-wise with my server, with my laptop, with my, you know, the technology that surrounds me, that somebody could say, "That's stupid." "Why would you..." I'll give you a real example.

• 51:08Mark Manson?

  Hmm.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  All of my video editing, I do on the command line with something called FFmpeg.

• 51:15Mark Manson?

  Oh, my God.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Which you have to use like dozens of little flags and optimizations.

• 51:19Mark Manson?

  My God, only you, Derek. Only you.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  And the funny thing is, I own Final Cut Pro. I could just click, click, click and make it happen, but I'm like, "But I want to figure it out using FFmpeg." And somebody could objectively say, "You idiot, it's gonna take you an hour to do it this way." "It would take a minute to do it this way." I'm like, "But this makes me happier."

• 51:38Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  "And that matters."

• 51:40Mark Manson?

  It's funny, so one thing that Will Smith used to say all the time is he used to say, "Everything is feelings. All that matters is feelings." And it was funny because when I first started working with him, that kind of irked me. And it, because it just kind of goes against a lot of my assumptions and beliefs. And finally, after I spent enough time with him to kind of be comfortable challenging him on things, I challenged him on it. I was like, "You know, I don't think that's true." And he was like, "Of course it's true." And I was like, "Well..." And I brought up business. I was like, "Well, what about business?" Right? You know, there's, started giving him different business examples. And he was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but why are you in business?"

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:21Mark Manson?

  And I was like, "Well, to make money." He's like, "Yeah, why do you want to make money?" He's like, "'Cause it makes you feel good." He said, "It's all about feelings." I was like, "All right, I think, I think you got me."

• 52:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I'd say the same thing with tech or just the various decisions we make in life about what kind of home you want to have.

• 52:38Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 52:39Speaker 01

  You know, you could have a bigger house.

• 52:40Mark Manson?

  Yeah. There's always, you're always optimizing for something.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:46Mark Manson?

  And A, I think it's very important to be clear about what you're optimizing for. Because I think a lot of times we optimize for things and not, we don't realize it. We just assume the biggest house is going to make us the happiest. We don't think about whether that's true or not. We think, we think making more money is going to make us happier. We don't think if that's true or not. And so I, I do think it is useful to get clear about what,

• 53:11Mark Manson?

  what is your metric? Like, what are you, what's the yardstick you're measuring progress by?

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Even if you don't get clear on that, follow your,

• 53:22Speaker 01

  follow that, that compass inside of you that's drawing you a certain way. Even if you haven't taken the time yet to spell out exactly why. You know, like just when people look over my shoulder when I'm using my computer, it's all just this like black terminal screen that I'm typing into. Like, what are you doing? I'm like, I don't know, I just like this better.

• 53:39Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  And maybe you could lay me down on a shrink's couch or whatever, and try to figure out why I want it this way. Or maybe I should get clear about exactly what my measure is for why I'm choosing this technology, but I just feel myself drawn this way. Even though everybody else says, no, no, no, this is the way. Like clouds, for example, everybody uses cloud technology. You know, like, I just don't want to. And I haven't taken the time to describe why. But I do honor my preference. So maybe it's a little bit about self-confidence and honoring your preference, even if other people are going the other way.

• 54:14Mark Manson?

  Yeah. You know, a quip that I've, I've, I've said before is that money's kind of like oxygen. When you don't have any, it solves everything. And, and then when you have a lot, it solves nothing. And.

• 54:27Mark Manson?

  I think so many people spend a lot of their lives optimizing for money. So it's, and when you're optimizing for money, like by definition, you have to discount your own feelings. You have to suffer, you have to like do things you don't necessarily want to do because you're broke. You gotta pay rent, like all that stuff. And but the whole point of making money is to not have to optimize for money anymore.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:51Mark Manson?

  Like, that is the reward of making money is that you don't have to optimize for money. Like, yeah, I I canceled a big book contract this year and gave a bunch of money back. And it was funny, I was talking to my agent and she was like, are you sure you want to do? She kept checking in, she's like, you're triple sure you want to do this? And I told her, I was like, the whole point of all the work I've done the last 20 years is to be able to hand a big check back to somebody because I don't want to do something I don't want to do. Right? Like, it's, that's the whole point of getting here. If I had, if I'm not, if I'm not able to do that, then all of this was for nothing.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  I love that. Nicholas Nassim Taleb said somewhere in one of his books that the money you refuse tastes sweeter than the money you accept.

• 55:42Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  And I thought that was a nice way to put it, too.

• 55:44Mark Manson?

  That's very true.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  You know, who who astounds me and frustrates me is Jordan Peterson.

• 55:51Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Because in some ways, where it's, at some times, he says things that make me go, whoa, that's brilliant. And then he'll conclude the point with saying, and that's just.

• 56:08Mark Manson?

  The way it is.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  The way it is.

• 56:09Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  Because, you know, Moses did this and that, and therefore this, then, and God says this and that's that. And he kind of, he ends things faster than I would have. He opens up things I never thought to open up, but then he closes them too early.

• 56:26Mark Manson?

  That's an interesting way to describe him because I have a similar. Kind of love hate with his books and his material like I have I've found them so enriching over the years and I've met him a couple of times and I've had he's been lovely in person and have had good conversations with him but yeah there's a frustration there like there's something a little bit paradoxical about him where he he expands your world because he's so well read and he is like such a deep understanding of psychology and philosophy and literature and religion and he'll draw all these connections that you've never considered before and you're just like whoa like Dostoevsky and the Bible and and Jung and and lobsters and like you're just

• 57:09Speaker 01

  Communism.

• 57:09Mark Manson?

  Yeah, you're just like whoa, this is incredible and then yeah and and then it ends in this like very pithy absolute that if you don't agree with or you don't follow this like you're evil and you're

• 57:23Speaker 01

  De Range, you need to get your shit straight.

• 57:25Mark Manson?

  You're part of the problem and bucko and and and then he loses me and I'm like I was with you like the young and the lobsters and the Dostoevsky I was like I was fucking right there with you dude and and it's some of the the moral absolutism that comes with it frustrates me at times.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  But yet I'll bet you can also understand it because you know you grew up religious and you understand the benefits of let's all agree on the values here it's like let's all align it's like Iceland is a very peaceful place because it's very homogenous.

• 58:02Mark Manson?

  Yes, yes.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  So if we all can just align and agree on this canon this this value system then the world is a great harmonious place.

• 58:12Mark Manson?

  I am definitely contrarian especially living in LA I am definitely contrarian in that I I unabashedly see him as a net positive be simply because I think there is there are a lot of people who grew up in environments that I grew up in like they grew up in very religious conservative environments and they never had an intellectual to look up to like somebody really smart like that was actually my first thought when I stumbled across Jordan like readers started emailing me about him I think probably around like 2015 2016 and the first time I started watching his videos probably around then and that

• 58:57Mark Manson?

  was the first thing that struck me is I said

• 59:01Mark Manson?

  This is the first time I've encountered a very religious, very conservative person who is incredibly intellectually brilliant. And as a millennial who grew up in the 2000s, you know, with George W. Bush and all the evangelical shit, like, I never encountered that before. It was like, all the intellectuals were on the left. And all the intellectuals were atheists. And, uh, and so I can totally see why, if you're a young person growing up in that part of the world, with that culture and that background and that religion, he is like, a fucking lifeline for you. And, uh, so I appreciate that about him.

• 59:42Mark Manson?

  But yeah, he, uh, he sometimes loses me with some of the, the religious absolutes and the moral absolutes, for sure.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  But yet I don't always disagree. I can see where he's coming from.

• 59:53Mark Manson?

  Totally.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  Even when he's like, absolute, and that's, I mean, one of, um, one of the ones that bothered me the most, is when he said, so and so and so, and all these important things, and all these interesting things he was saying, and something, but, but, you know, but if a woman doesn't want to have children, I mean, she's just lost the whole point of humanity. I mean, why do you even exist, except to have children? That's what women are for. Women are here to have children. That's that. If you disagree with that, you're, you've lost touch with your entire biological program. And I'm like, ah, not necessarily true.

• 1:00:25Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is a...

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  Might be useful for you to believe that.

• 1:00:29Mark Manson?

  Might be useful for you, bucko. I love that he says that. Bucko.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  He actually does?

• 1:00:35Mark Manson?

  He did, does.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. I thought you made that up. I thought it was a great ad lib.

• 1:00:39Mark Manson?

  No, no, no, no. He, he'll get on these, like, it's always when he's on, like, one of these, like, angry kind of moralistic tirades, and he'll always finish it with, like, "Well, that's good for you, bucko." And it's just, I love it. It sounds like, you know, it reminds me of, like, my uncles in Texas.

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  Aww.

• 1:00:54Mark Manson?

  It's, uh...

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  Hey, before we close off this subject... I didn't interject earlier about nihilism. There is a beautiful book called, I believe it's called Nothing and Everything, by a pseudonym author, because by Vow N. Tyne. I don't know, the author wanted to stay anonymous. It's near the top of my book list, if you go to my website, like sive dot R S slash book. I sort the books with my highest recommendations at the top. So Nothing and Everything is a joyous book about nihilism. It's about the joy of nihilism, about a world where everything is permitted. Nothing has inherent meaning. You are free to assign meaning where you want it to be and not where you don't.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  It is such a beautiful book. It was one of those ones that I had to stop underlining because it was just every sentence, yes, yes, yes. So I highly recommend it.

• 1:01:52Mark Manson?

  Well, it's funny because the nihilism thing, I've definitely struggled with that on and off over the years. And actually, part of my second book, Everything is Fucked, was like inspired by my struggle with that.

• 1:02:04Mark Manson?

  And the conclusion I landed on is that, you know, if there's no reason to do anything, there's also no reason to not do anything. There's no reason to not love who you want to love, or make whatever you want to make, or pursue the goals that you want to pursue. Like, it is a liberation if you choose to look at it that way. And meaning, and I think ultimately, this is what like the existentialists were getting at, is that ultimately, meaning is constructed. It's not found, it's not inherent. Meaning is constructed through action and through action that feels useful.

• 1:02:41Mark Manson?

  That is ultimately like what imbues our life with a sense of meaning and drives satisfaction. So that, like, that's where I landed. And it was funny because when I was touring for that book, a number of readers came up to me and they said, they were like, you know, there's a name for this. And I said, no. And they said, it's called optimistic nihilism. They said, it's like a very obscure kind of, I think there's a community on Reddit or something. But they're like, it's a very obscure kind of small sub niche of a sub niche. But yeah, it's a thing, optimistic nihilism of, it's if nothing means anything, then you're free to be whoever you want and create the life that you want.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  Count me in as member number four.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  To that group.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  I have listened to a lot of your episodes. Not all of them, but I know that you talk about relationship things way more than I do. Mm hmm. You think about them more than I do. And I am being way vulnerable right now to decide to talk about this. Wait, everybody applaud Derek's vulnerability. To talk about this on the podcast, before we even talked about it privately, privately, as soon as I started to mention this privately, you were just like, eh eh eh. Save it. Save it. Save it, yeah. Because a lot of people feel the same way you do, which is, um, I don't want a relationship.

• 1:04:09Speaker 01

  And that took a while to admit. Yeah. Because it's just this thing that we all must do.

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  I felt like from the age of 14 until two years ago, but like a lot of my life's energy, maybe most of my life's energy, most of my daily energy was spent either finding or minding a relationship. All those years, if I wasn't in one, I was looking for one. If I was in one, I was spending so much of my life energy, like managing it and trying to compromise and trying to make somebody else happy. And spent so many years of my life doing that. And I've got an unfair advantage in that I have a son already. Yeah. He's 12 years old and he and I have the best damn relationship. It's amazing.

• 1:05:03Speaker 01

  And this biological reason to have a relationship, it's like, even if we were to say, well, okay, if nothing else, I mean, if you want to have kids, well, then you're gonna have to.

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  I've already got that. Yeah. And I can't think of any reason why I, not you, not anybody else, should have a relationship. And I'll add the one other. Unfair advantage is that I've got a little fame. So I can go to a place like London or any major city and show up and email the 400 people I know in that place. And or cherry pick 10 interesting people of the 400 I know in this place and say, let's meet, not with romantic intentions, but just, I can't imagine that I would be that lonely in the future. Because that would be the other thing.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  Before I had any fame at all, I did very deliberately get into a bad relationship because I thought, if I don't, I'll be lonely. That was when I like, after I sold my company and I knew that I was leaving America forever. I was like, I need to get a girlfriend now because if I don't, I'm going to be out there as a digital nomad and I'm going to be lonely. So I just went and like, grabbed the first willing girl like you. You're hot. Let's do this. And it was a bad mistake because it was coming from the bad place. I was only getting into that relationship because I was worried that I would be lonely.

• 1:06:38Mark Manson?

  Which is why a lot of people get into relationships.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  Right. And even somebody just two days ago, I was talking about this with one other person. This is kind of a new thing to me that I'm processing like literally this week, even if you would have just called me privately this week and said, what's on your mind? I said this thing. I'm confused by my not wanting a relationship in the same way that like if I was not eating food. And like two weeks had passed and I had no desire to eat any food. I think, I'm supposed to be eating food, right? Should I make myself eat food? I'm like, I'm supposed to be wanting a life partner, right? Should I be making myself get a life partner even though I don't want one? I'm not sure how to think about this. What do you think, Mark?

• 1:07:25Mark Manson?

  Well, it's interesting. I think on an episode with Drew, maybe three or four months ago, we were, he dug up a stat that found that for the first time since they've started measuring it, a majority of single people are not looking for a relationship. They're not dating. They're not actively dating. So they're not necessarily saying, I won't date anybody, but they're not, they're not looking, they're not trying, they're not meeting people, they're, they're just like being single. And anecdotally, I have noticed quite a, it's usually middle-aged women, but I've noticed a lot of single parents kind of land in the same boat.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  Ah, because you have a really fulfilling relationship with your kid.

• 1:08:13Mark Manson?

  Yep. And it's, it's, and like you said, that biological imperative is already taken care of. And you, you probably get to this place, get to this place where like, you feel happy and stable and you're confident in yourself and dating is hard, it's awkward, it's weird. There's a lot of like, you know, awkward conversations. And I don't know, like, I think the older you get, the less patience you have for just dealing with people or social situations that you don't really want to be around. So I have, I have run into it quite a bit. And I actually think that the data showing that most single people are not actively dating, my guess is that it's just because the population is aging

• 1:08:57Mark Manson?

  and, and older people just date less often. Like, they're not as, I think, most 20-year-old single people are probably actively dating. I would guess 90% plus are trying to get a date or have been on a date the last year. I imagine, once you get up into 40s, 50s, 60s, that drops off quite a bit.

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  I should have mentioned earlier, I was in a relationship for two years.

• 1:09:25Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 1:09:25Speaker 01

  I broke up with her two years ago. She was a wonderful woman in every other way, but I could just tell that like, our ultimate life goals were just...

• 1:09:33Mark Manson?

  Way far apart.

• 1:09:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was like this, sorry, if you're watching the camera, it's like, it's like, we had this kind of intersection of like, two lines heading in opposite directions that did intersect for a little while.

• 1:09:42Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  And it was good, but I could just tell, like,

• 1:09:45Mark Manson?

  They kept going.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  Stick it out. This is, we're just gonna get farther and farther apart. So I did the difficult and painful thing of breaking up.

• 1:09:53Speaker 01

  The relationship. And it's been the happiest two years of my life. Oh, my God, it's like, but the last two years, oh, my God, I've been like so happy like this. All this, maybe this is how I started this story, like this life energy that I used to put into finding or minding is all free to be put into more into things now. I'm doing my work instead of like taking care of a miserable person, you know? And I'm like making things instead of being out trying to find somebody. It's like I've it's been the best two years of my life. I'm like, this is obviously something's working here. I feel great. But again, like the somebody who if any of you have ever fasted for like 10 days, one thing I've found in, I did it once, I fasted for 10 days.

• 1:10:38Speaker 01

  And I told somebody I did that and he goes, oh, he said, I fasted for two weeks. He said, are you still at the point like you wonder why you ever used to eat? I went, yes, because that's what it feels like when after you get past the two or three day hump. It like the first two or three days are hard. After the third day, it's easy to just, you wonder why you ever used to eat. And so you have to kind of like make yourself eat when you don't want to. So I've wondered if my there relationship was.

• 1:11:03Mark Manson?

  It'll be interesting once, once, once your kid grows up and goes off on his own. I'll be interesting to see if this shifts at all.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:11:12Mark Manson?

  I also just understand like where you're like. Middle age makes sense to me like I understand why young people are obsessed with dating because you've got your whole life in front of you and you want to find your person. And it's like a huge part of forging your identity and figuring out your, your status. And like all these, all these things go and you're also just really fucking horny. So like, there's all this stuff going on when you're young that makes sense. And I also understand why older people, like elderly people would want to date mostly just for companionship. It can be very, life is simple and it can be very lonely if you don't have somebody. So that makes sense to me, too.

• 1:11:52Mark Manson?

  Middle aged people, especially middle aged people who are single parents, it totally makes sense to me that they just check out because you're still in the prime of your life. You've got all sorts of projects going on. You've got all these trips you want to take. You've got, you know, you want to write another book. You want to go over here. You want to move to this country. Like, all this stuff's going on and you're still caretaking the child, which requires a lot of your emotional energy. And, and you're also probably, if that's going well, you're probably getting a lot of your emotional needs met from your relationship with your child. You're feeling very fulfilled and a lot of intimacy and companionship. And, you know, you're having a good time with somebody you love. And so I can see how that itch just isn't there.

• 1:12:35Mark Manson?

  And you don't, you know, your needs are being met through other means.

• 1:12:43Mark Manson?

  So yeah, none of this, none of this totally surprises me.

• 1:12:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:12:46Mark Manson?

  I, my take on this, and this is true of both children and partners.

• 1:12:53Mark Manson?

  I think both are overrated in terms of happiness.

• 1:12:58Mark Manson?

  And, and a lot of people get really upset when I say this about romantic partners. But like, you can be a perfectly happy person being single. A romantic relationship is one method and probably a very useful method to get, getting a lot of your, your needs met emotionally. But it's not, not the only method. And I think similarly with children, children are a very immediate way to fulfill a sense of purpose and meaning and, you know, have a long-term goal and vision and also get a lot of your emotional needs met. But again, they're not the only way. So it's like a lack of a child or a lack of a romantic partner.

• 1:13:39Mark Manson?

  It doesn't mean you're, you can't still satiate those emotional needs and desires. It just means you have to find them somewhere else and that can be more difficult or complicated depending on.

• 1:13:51Speaker 01

  Or it could be a good thing. It's like the.

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  Someone who always wanted kids and couldn't get kids. And because of that, they're out volunteering at the children's hospital. And they have all this energy to give to many kids.

• 1:14:06Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  Because they don't have one kid.

• 1:14:09Mark Manson?

  Absolutely.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  I think that's almost how I'm feeling about my life the last two years. It's like, because I'm not putting my energy into making one person happy, I get to put my energy out.

• 1:14:19Mark Manson?

  I, I, so, you know, my wife and I are at a point now where it's the, it's clear we're not gonna have kids. And I felt the exact same thing the last year or two. Like, I really had this, it really sunk in for me maybe like a year and a half ago, where I realized, I'm like, I'm going to have so much, like such a surplus of time and energy.

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:43Mark Manson?

  In freedom, that for the next 18 years, that most of my peers are not gonna have.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:14:50Mark Manson?

  So let's fucking use this well. Like, let's really take advantage of it. You, like, give back, build something amazing, do something amazing. So that, that's actually been very motivating for me. I've actually found a lot of, it's like reignited a lot of my ambition.

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:15:09Mark Manson?

  Just having that realization. But in, in staying faithful to your book, Useful Not True, here we are jamming about how great it can be to not have a relationship, not have kids.

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  Bucko.

• 1:15:23Mark Manson?

  Bucko, let's, let's, let's flip. Let's take, let's take the Jordan Peterson perspective. Because I do think there is a legitimate argument here, which is that the more free and autonomous we become in modern society, the easier it is to opt out of starting a family. And the more people that opt out of starting families, whether it's through marriage, kids, whatever, the fertility rate drops, you, you get a more fragmented, atomized community. You know, there's, there's a lot of second, third order effects that are negative of this, of this liberation that you and I are beaming about at the moment.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:11Mark Manson?

  And so I hold both of those things as true simultaneously. Like it's.

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  Doesn't it feel like, can you imagine if there was some statistical reason why a certain percentage of us should be in jail? And somebody would tell you, no, Mark, you really should sit in jail for a number of years because it's for the greater good. And you'd be like, I get your argument, but I just don't want to be sitting in jail. You know, it's like, and somebody's saying like, well, Mark, you know, the biological da-da-da, you're like, I get your argument, but I just don't want kids.

• 1:16:43Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:44Speaker 01

  And I was thinking about how some people say that they knew from an early age that they were gay. And I think, you know, when I, my whole life, looking back, I've never wanted a life partner. All of my visions for my ideal life were always just like me in the world. It was never me partnered with one person. I always just kind of wanted to be me out in the world.

• 1:17:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  And some people feel very differently. Most of my friends I know, their life vision for their ultimate life, their ideal life is to be partnered with one person.

• 1:17:23Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  And I imagine, you know, me and my spouse, and we have this, we have, that's my dream life, that's what I want. Great, then they should keep pursuing that. But I think I'm admitting that my dream life never included that.

• 1:17:37Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:38Speaker 01

  It's weird feeling reluctant to honor that. I still somehow feel it's wrong, but maybe in the same way that if you're in Silicon Valley and you're in Y Combinator and everybody says, well, you need a co-founder.

• 1:17:49Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:49Speaker 01

  You can't be a solo founder, you know, statistically we found out that that does not work. We'll, we'll fund you if you have a co-founder. But I just don't want a co-founder. You need a co-founder.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  Why am I such a bad person for not wanting a co-founder? I feel a bit like that.

• 1:18:03Mark Manson?

  Really?

• 1:18:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:04Mark Manson?

  Where do you think that comes from? It's funny that, I think this is the first time since I've known you for 12 years. I think it's the first time I've seen you express, uh, like anxiety around social judgment or second guess yourself based on like social norms.

• 1:18:21Speaker 01

  Because it seems so.

• 1:18:25Speaker 01

  Right there next to biology, you know, that's what I said. It's like, okay, I already got a kid. But it feels like the next closest thing to like, well, that's just true. It's like, you gotta have a life partner.

• 1:18:40Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:40Speaker 01

  That's just what you do. Everybody's looking for it. It's like, I mean, we hear it in every bit of fiction, every bit of, you know, Hollywood and novels and whatever. It's just like, that's what you do. It's almost like the, the little picture of the sperm and the egg. Well, that's what they're here for. They're just looking. That's what we're, you know, the soulmates and all of that. I think, but yeah, don't feel it.

• 1:18:59Mark Manson?

  Yeah. It's interesting. I think statistically, if you look at it, women check out.

• 1:19:07Mark Manson?

  Like what you're feeling, you see, actually see much more among women. Like they just kind of check out of dating. They're like, I'm good. Don't need anybody. Men tend to kind of compulsively remarry or like always feel need. But it's funny because you never hear, like there's no, there's way less judgment towards men. Like, nobody looks at a single 60 year old man and it's like, well, what's wrong with him? You know, whereas like a, a single woman will definitely get that comment.

• 1:19:38Speaker 01

  See, I don't think of it from the outside at all. That's why when you say this is the first time I've heard you, you know.

• 1:19:43Mark Manson?

  So it's not socially driven at all?

• 1:19:44Speaker 01

  No, it's not. It's only.

• 1:19:46Mark Manson?

  My, my, my understanding of Derek Sivers remains intact.

• 1:19:51Speaker 01

  Oh, no, it's only coming from, it's like, everything I've ever read about happiness,

• 1:19:59Speaker 01

  health, you know, they say that's like the greatest killer of the elderly is loneliness or whatever.

• 1:20:03Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:04Speaker 01

  I'm coming from that place. I'm thinking like, shouldn't I be concerned? That's why I made the comparison with food. Like,

• 1:20:10Mark Manson?

  Sure.

• 1:20:10Speaker 01

  Shouldn't I be concerned about my lack of desire for this thing?

• 1:20:14Mark Manson?

  But there's plenty of ways to get companionship and,

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20:16Mark Manson?

  and, and solve loneliness without having a romantic partner.

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  Get famous.

• 1:20:20Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, again, again, it's, it's, and again, every time I post this, I get backlash, but it's true. I mean, if you look at the research, if you look at the data, it's like, people with romantic partners are statistically not any happier than people without them. It's just true. It's just, it's a fact. Whereas if you look at people with no friends versus people with a lot of friends, people with a lot of friends are much happier than people with no friends.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  Speaking of,

• 1:20:46Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:47Speaker 01

  Drew, Drew, Drew.

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  You are the reason I am here, Drew. Because I live in Wellington.

• 1:20:56Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:56Speaker 01

  Which is a, only a one hour flight away. But when Coldplay heard that Mark Manson was gonna be in town.

• 1:21:03Mark Manson?

  Oh, they had to fuck my shit up completely.

• 1:21:06Speaker 01

  They came in and booked all of their stuff right this week when Mark was here. Cause they just wanted to be in the same city as him. So there were no flights at all yesterday. And the only flight I could get up, get was like a 6am flight that I had to get up at 3:30 this morning. And it was a thousand dollar flight.

• 1:21:23Mark Manson?

  Oh my god.

• 1:21:24Speaker 01

  For a silly little one hour, just to come see Mark. And when he said like, hey, I'm gonna be in Auckland and this is my only free day. I thought, oh, cool. And then I looked at the flights and went, ah. And, and then I was listening to Drew's, mentioning on just a few episodes ago, where he talked about like flying for a friend's anniversary, was it?

• 1:21:44Mark Manson?

  Anniversary dinner, yeah.

• 1:21:45Speaker 01

  And, and he was giving his arguments why I went, yeah, alright, Mark. So I was like, I'm gonna spend a thousand bucks and wake up at 4am to come up to see you today. So that was because of Drew.

• 1:21:57Mark Manson?

  I appreciate it. We all appreciate it. And yeah, fuck Coldplay. I can't tell you, I can't tell you, so this is, this is like, I'm doing my speaking tour, Auckland's my last stop. And I can't tell you how many New Zealanders have emailed me and they're like, well, I wanna come, but Coldplay's playing the same night. And I'm just like, god damn it.

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's not even like it's the Rolling Stones, Coldplay. Who cares about Coldplay? But apparently Auckland. In fact, I'm babysitting two rats all week because their owners are friends of mine in New Zealand. They've, they're having me babysit their rats this week.

• 1:22:31Mark Manson?

  To go see Coldplay?

• 1:22:32Speaker 01

  Because they're, they flew up to Auckland for the whole week to see Coldplay three times. We're a little starved for entertainment here in this little Pacific island.

• 1:22:39Mark Manson?

  We need to talk. New Zealand, we, we need to have a heart to heart here. We need to get vulnerable here. You need, you need bigger, you need better, better, better heroes, better stars.

• 1:22:54Mark Manson?

  Anything else you would like to cover in our last few minutes here?

• 1:23:01Mark Manson?

  In the last-

• 1:23:02Speaker 01

  I'm really glad that you are ceasing this podcast format, even though it has been a proven success for you. It is objectively successful for you.

• 1:23:14Mark Manson?

  Yes, it is.

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  It has been a hit.

• 1:23:17Speaker 01

  And I'll say, I think we probably said it in the first episode, but the first one was really funny where it was like on a Wednesday, you texted me saying, "I'm gonna be starting this new podcast. Do you think in a couple of weeks you might wanna come on it?" And I said, "Well, in two days, I'm leaving for Israel. So let's do it. Tomorrow's my only free day."

• 1:23:35Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:36Speaker 01

  And by text, he went, "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Fuck it. Let's do it. See you tomorrow." And so we jumped in and did the very first one with one day's notice. I think you even said, "My producer's gonna shit a brick." But fuck it, let's do this.

• 1:23:53Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:53Speaker 01

  And then, yeah, then walking in today, you told me that you were going to not cease the podcast, but cease this format-

• 1:24:02Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  -to do something that I think is way more creative, way more you, way more innovative. And all that stuff we said earlier about like, it's just less done in the world. And I think it's going to be more helpful to your audience because of that. I think it's gonna be more interesting, more educational, more helpful, more useful. And I'm really proud and glad that you had the balls to cease something that was successful.

• 1:24:29Mark Manson?

  Thank you. I appreciate that. And I figured you would- Of all the people I know in my life, I figured you would understand immediately.

• 1:24:38Speaker 01

  It's the music comparison, you know? Like, that really hit me hard, this idea of Bob Dylan was such a huge success as the troubadour with the acoustic guitar, man. And that's what everybody loved about him. And then he went and headlined at the Newport Folk Festival, full of other folkies, and that's where he chose to go electric. And I love that it was like, there's a recording of somebody out in the audience yelling, "Judas! How dare you betray us!" Now you're, you know, you're- And that's what you have to do artistically-

• 1:25:08Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  -to keep yourself pushing forward, or maybe even just as a smart person. To keep yourself interested and challenge yourself. So yeah, audience, I hope you take this role model. Take it as yet another, you know, David Bowie, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan and Mark Manson did it. You can do it.

• 1:25:30Mark Manson?

  Oh, my God. That's a lot to live up to.

• 1:25:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're trying to make a closing. We're trying to come to an ending here. You know, that's what we're doing.

• 1:25:36Mark Manson?

  You're killing it. You're killing it. No, you're selling it much better than I would. So I appreciate that. Derek, it's been a pleasure as always. Perfect bookends to this, this period of my creative life. And to the audience, there will be a more formal announcement, probably in the next week or two, about what we're doing. I'm extremely excited. It's gonna be very different and I think you guys are actually gonna like it a lot better as well. In the meantime, where can people find you?

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  Go to my website. By the way, this Useful Not True book we've been talking about.

• 1:26:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:11Speaker 01

  I, it's not on Amazon and I won't put it on Amazon for a year.

• 1:26:15Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 1:26:15Speaker 01

  This is my little way of thinking about what would make me happy. I set up my own little store where I get to sell things for the price that I think is fair, not what Amazon tells me to sell them for. So Useful Not True is only at sivers.com. But the main thing that I always want to tell the audience is that the reason I do these podcasts is not to sell another fucking $10 book. Who cares? But I really love the people that I meet that find me because of a show like this. And unlike most people, unlike seemingly almost everybody, I really enjoy my email inbox. So I still have an open email inbox and I spend about 60 to 90 minutes a day answering emails from strangers and I really like it.

• 1:26:58Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:59Speaker 01

  Maybe because I'm here on this little Pacific island. It's like kinda cool to hear from people from Estonia and Kenya that heard your show and emailed me. So yeah, anybody listening to this, go to my website, s i v e dot r s and send me an email.

• 1:27:15Mark Manson?

  Cool.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  Introduce yourself, say hello, ask me anything.

• 1:27:17Mark Manson?

  Amazing. Thank you, Derek.

• 1:27:21Mark Manson?

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