19 Raw Lessons You Might Need To Learn Again - Mark Manson (4K)

1. 0:00 – 11:29

   How To Set Better Boundaries

   1. MMMark Manson0:00

      (laughs)

   2. CWChris Williamson0:03

      What you laughing at, Mark?

   3. MMMark Manson0:06

      Your, your business idea, it was just incredible. I'm-

   4. CWChris Williamson0:08

      Oh, thank you.

   5. MMMark Manson0:09

      Yeah, I'm still thinking about it.

   6. CWChris Williamson0:10

      It's, I'm unable to speak about my million, billion-dollar idea yet.

   7. MMMark Manson0:14

      (laughs) Yeah, it's w- is that because you don't want anybody to steal it, or because yo- you would never be allowed to speak again?

   8. CWChris Williamson0:20

      Uh, it's a combination of both.

   9. MMMark Manson0:21

      Okay.

   10. CWChris Williamson0:22

       But look, uh-

   11. MMMark Manson0:24

       The world will wait.

   12. CWChris Williamson0:25

       The world is gonna have to wait.

   13. MMMark Manson0:26

       Yeah, and then it-

   14. CWChris Williamson0:26

       But when it happens, it's gonna know about it. And Andrew Huberman is as well.

   15. MMMark Manson0:29

       Yes. For sure.

   16. CWChris Williamson0:31

       All right. Controversial opinion.

   17. MMMark Manson0:34

       Okay.

   18. CWChris Williamson0:35

       People would need less therapy if they tolerated fewer assholes.

   19. MMMark Manson0:38

       (laughs) Yeah, I think... What, so I hear, I hear problems from a lot of people. I get a lot of emails. Um, and I have for a long, for almost 20 years now. And, uh, it's amazing to me how often people will, will email me or message me about some issue that's going on in their life, and really, it just comes down to, like, somebody in your life is a dick. And yet instead of just being like, "You know what? I'm not gonna hang out with a dick anymore," and gonna try to change their dickishness. I'm gonna try to, to manipulate it or control it or convince them or h- have them see the light and understand their own dickitude. And it's, it's just, like, such a losing battle, and of course they always, you know, the, the, the email that comes in is, like eight pages long and it has a full biography of every, every party involved. And I'm just like, "Well, what?" Maybe just, like, don't call them back. Like, is it that hard? Um, so I, I, I just... And, and, and when you, when... This doesn't even get into the therapy culture thing, you know, like w- especially when you get on Instagram and you start seeing all these posts about, you know, like, uh, um, you know, "If they don't, if they don't appreciate you at your worst, then they don't deserve you at your best," and all... You know, it's like, life's hard. People don't get along. Like, some people are, are disagreeable and some people are going through shit, and they'll say mean things to you, and... Like, at a certain point, you just, there's a skill set of deciding what is acceptable and what's not acceptable in your life.

   20. CWChris Williamson2:12

       Mm.

   21. MMMark Manson2:12

       And you can either develop that skill set or you can just continue to be subjected to the whims and the asshole-nish of, of the people around you.

   22. CWChris Williamson2:22

       What do you think are the contributing skills of that skill set?

   23. MMMark Manson2:27

       So I think, I think one reason people get stuck in this is, like, uh, one is just a scarcity mindset around relationships, right? So you often hear scarcity mindset around, like, business and money and all this stuff, and all that stuff is true, but, like, a lot of people have a scarcity mindset around relationships. They think like, "Oh, if I stop hanging out with half my friends, then I'm just never gonna have friends again," where it's like, no, there's an abundance of people in the world, and the way life works is that when somebody exits your life, generally, somebody new will show up in due time to, to kinda fill that role. Um, so I think that's one. I think two is just, like, the courage to speak up or the s- the courage to stand up for yourself. Uh, a lot of people don't feel, um... I don't know what the word is, like that they have permission to, like, express what they feel or express that they feel that they've, they've been disrespected. Um, and I, I also think that a lot of people develop some sort of, like, uh, codependent emotional attachment to, to people around them, right? They, they've, they've, their self-esteem is lodged in the minds and mentalities of others, and so-

   24. CWChris Williamson3:36

       If you're not okay, I'm not okay.

   25. MMMark Manson3:38

       Exactly. And so the idea of, like, excising you from my life is, is literally like psychological suicide.

   26. CWChris Williamson3:45

       I'm killing myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

   27. MMMark Manson3:46

       Exactly. So it's just not even an option that occurs to them. Um, so yeah. It's like, it's such a simple thing, yet so many people struggle so deeply with it, which, I mean, I sometimes joke with my team that, like, my whole job is just, uh, uh, telling people obvious things, uh, in a way that, like, doesn't feel so difficult, because, like most life problems are actually extremely simple and basic, you know?

   28. CWChris Williamson4:12

       Mm-hmm.

   29. MMMark Manson4:12

       It's like, uh, "H- how do you, how do you break up with somebody?" It's like, "Well, you just say, like, 'I, I don't wanna be with you anymore,'" but, like, that is so emotionally hard-

   30. CWChris Williamson4:22

       Hmm.
2. 11:29 – 18:13

   Why It’s Important To Focus On Yourself First

   1. CWChris Williamson11:29

      okay, but we do things, uh, to people that we don't know. Um, we often put ourselves ahead of them.

   2. MMMark Manson11:35

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson11:35

      However, it seems like with the people who should have our best interests at heart-

   4. MMMark Manson11:41

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson11:41

      ... and people with whom we have given the most of ourselves, invested our time, our energy, um, it's very difficult to put ourselves first.

   6. MMMark Manson11:52

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson11:52

      Uh, we often subjugate our needs in place of somebody else. I'm not going to upset them-

   8. MMMark Manson11:58

      Right.

   9. CWChris Williamson11:59

      ... because, uh, if, if I upset them, that something.

   10. MMMark Manson12:02

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson12:02

       Th- the- the- what they- the fucking sentence, the syntax stops there.

   12. MMMark Manson12:06

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson12:06

       Just falls off a cliff. If I upset them, then catastrophe, disaster-

   14. MMMark Manson12:10

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CWChris Williamson12:10

       ... something bad will occur.

   16. MMMark Manson12:11

       Yeah. I mean, it- it's a little bit paradoxical.And there, there's a cliché, and it's a cliché for a reason 'cause it's true, which is, um, you know, it's the old put on your own oxygen mask first before you try to help somebody else. And I mean, relationships fundamentally function that way, where it's like you have to have a healthy relationship with yourself and your own self-worth before you're able to really kinda contribute and give-

   17. CWChris Williamson12:36

       Mm-hmm.

   18. MMMark Manson12:36

       ... in a healthy way to anybody else. And the true is, uh, the same is true vice versa. So like, if you grow up in an environment with two parents who are emotionally dysfunctional, right? They're, they're gonna be deriving their self-worth and validation from you or from somebody else. And so, they're not gonna give you, like, the nurturing and support and everything that you need to grow up and be healthy yourself and learn how to put your own mask on yourself. So, it becomes kind of this, this chain reaction that goes down through generations. And, um, and it's weird because it's like if you're talking to somebody who's, like, never had an oxygen mask on in their life, and you try to explain to them, like, what an oxy- like, why they need an oxygen mask. Like, they don't understand what you're talking about.

   19. CWChris Williamson13:15

       What do you mean? I look after myself.

   20. MMMark Manson13:16

       Yeah, exactly.

   21. CWChris Williamson13:16

       What does that mean?

   22. MMMark Manson13:17

       Yeah. It's like, it- it- you're almost, like, speaking a different language. But... And it, and it is paradoxical when you tell people to, like, put yourself first, because that sounds completely antithetical to, like, what a healthy-

   23. CWChris Williamson13:29

       Good.

   24. MMMark Manson13:29

       ... loving relationship looks like from the outside. But like, from the outside, a healthy relationship is like two people who are voluntarily giving themselves to each other, like, consistently and perpetually. But on the inside, what a healthy relationship feels like is, like, you are satisfied with yourself. And because you're satisfied with yourself, your cup is overflowing, and so you're happy to, like, just hand off-

   25. CWChris Williamson13:54

       I literally used this analogy with, uh, two girls, one Bible the other day, which was, you don't serve people from your cup. You serve them from the saucer that overflows around your cup.

   26. MMMark Manson14:03

       Ah, nice. Yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson14:04

       Um, and it's true.

   28. MMMark Manson14:05

       Yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson14:05

       Like, it... I mean, look, that's not necessarily, uh, uh, true all the time. You can have a half-full cup and be like, "Yo, let's take it down to a quarter, please have some."

   30. MMMark Manson14:16

       Yeah.
3. 18:13 – 30:05

   The Real Lessons Of Personal Growth

   1. CWChris Williamson18:13

      checkout. Personal growth is the process of learning to lie to ourselves less.

   2. MMMark Manson18:17

      Mm-hmm.... yeah, I think, you know, the- these- these simple truths that because they are so simple, we... but painful, we find ways to avoid them and deny them and pretend that they're not there. And... like, if you just take the self-worth piece, right? Like, it's... it's hard to accept that you're just not standing up for yourself, that you don't feel like you deserve respect or trust or time or attention. That's a very painful thing to sit with. So, you make up all sorts of stories and narratives and bullshit. You know, it's like, "Oh, well, women are all like this, and it's the fucking phones, and well, the political thing, and, you know, schools these days." Like, it's whatever- whatever your- your like little pet thing is, you just start stacking these narratives on top of each other just to hide that like simple fact that like... like, yeah, you don't feel like you deserve it. And, um... and so I- I... what I tend to find both with myself and with a lot of the people I talk to is- is that, you know... especially, you know, coming from self-help, which is the world that I'm, I guess, technically a part of, um, everything's marketed as, you know, here's the secret. Oh, if you just come to this seminar and learn these three things, then you're gonna like fix all your bullshit. And I just find it... it's never about learning something. It's about like unlearning things.

   3. CWChris Williamson19:57

      Mm.

   4. MMMark Manson19:57

      It's about like unwinding the bullshit you've told yourself.

   5. CWChris Williamson20:02

      There's a idea I spoke about with Naval which was, uh, cultivated selfishness.

   6. MMMark Manson20:08

      Mm.

   7. CWChris Williamson20:08

      Or, uh, like holistic and, um, self-prioritization.

   8. MMMark Manson20:13

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson20:13

      But there's also another one of cultivated stupidity-

   10. MMMark Manson20:15

       (laughs)

   11. CWChris Williamson20:16

       ... which is many of the problems are you going... It- it's the story of the alchemist, right?

   12. MMMark Manson20:23

       Yep.

   13. CWChris Williamson20:23

       You- you go around the houses to come back to the place that you were at the very start.

   14. MMMark Manson20:28

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson20:28

       And to realize, huh, the issue was that I had assholes in my life-

   16. MMMark Manson20:33

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWChris Williamson20:33

       ... and I just needed to stop talking to them. The issue was that I just didn't love my partner that much anymore-

   18. MMMark Manson20:37

       Yep.

   19. CWChris Williamson20:37

       ... and I needed to break up with them. The issue was that I wasn't that fired up at my job. And so many of these are to do with quitting-

   20. MMMark Manson20:44

       Yeah.

   21. CWChris Williamson20:44

       ... right? They're to do with letting go.

   22. MMMark Manson20:45

       Yep.

   23. CWChris Williamson20:45

       Very few of them has a bit to- to do with change. I- in- in taking on something new, typically, or letting go of something else. I- I don't like the town or country that I live in, and I need to just have the bravery to make the change-

   24. MMMark Manson20:58

       Mm-hmm.

   25. CWChris Williamson20:58

       ... and go somewhere else. Um, and you have lied to yourself and tried to justify and obfuscate as a way to escape from the difficult decision, and you've started to layer all of these different compensatory mechanisms on top and stories that you've told yourself. And now you have to dig down through them all-

   26. MMMark Manson21:20

       Yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson21:20

       ... and go, okay, was it this thing? Was it- was it- was it the self-worth? It was therapy, I must go to therapy.

   28. MMMark Manson21:24

       (laughs)

   29. CWChris Williamson21:25

       I must find out why I have this attachment style. And it's like, no, you just don't fucking love your partner that much anymore.

   30. MMMark Manson21:31

       Yeah.
4. 30:05 – 40:07

   You Can Choose To Not Be Afraid Anymore

   1. CWChris Williamson30:05

      Uh, all right. Confidence and fear both require believing in something that hasn't happened yet.

   2. MMMark Manson30:10

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson30:10

      At a certain point, you have to consider that you're choosing to be afraid.

   4. MMMark Manson30:16

      This ties into the layers of stories, right? Like, I mean, uh, th- a lot... This kinda comes from... I take a lot of... A lot of my influence comes from Buddhism, and-... just the core precept of Buddhism, other than life is suffering, is just, like, e- not knowing. Like, you don't know anything. And, uh, being, like, developing a certain level of comfort in that and being, still being able to function despite it. Um... And again, I think this, this comes back to, to the narrative thing. Like, our, our brain is, is, we're, our brain is a prediction machine, and as, its predictions come in forms of stories about what's gonna happen. Is it gonna be a good thing? Is it gonna be a bad thing?

   5. CWChris Williamson31:04

      Mm-hmm.

   6. MMMark Manson31:04

      Is it gonna go well? And it's gonna do it whether you, like, you can't stop it. That's just what the brain does. But you don't necessarily have to believe it. You can watch those stories come and go. You can train your brain to watch those stories come and go, right, and without necessarily identifying or attaching to them. And I just think, A, most people aren't aware of that, and then B, even if they are aware of it, they, like, th- it's easy to lose track of what stories or narratives you're buying into, or the fact that you can even, like, kinda choose to find more helpful stories-

   7. CWChris Williamson31:43

      Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

   8. MMMark Manson31:43

      ... to buy into, if you want. Um... So yeah. It's, it's, it's just another one of those, like... George O- Orwell's got this great quote of, like, seeing what, what's in front of one's nose takes a constant effort. Like, it's often much easier to see what's here than what's here.

   9. CWChris Williamson32:00

      (laughs)

   10. MMMark Manson32:00

       And, uh, I love that metaphor, just because it's all of this stuff that I write, that i- i- it's like, that's what it is. It's right here, but because it's here, like, I don't see it.

   11. CWChris Williamson32:10

       You can't see it.

   12. MMMark Manson32:11

       I'm focusing on you, right?

   13. CWChris Williamson32:12

       Mm...

   14. MMMark Manson32:13

       And, um... It's, uh... it's constant.

   15. CWChris Williamson32:19

       I wonder whether the, "At some point, you have to admit that you're choosing to be afraid," I wonder whether... part of that is that we're so identified with our thoughts that it- it's th- the... It's more real to us than reality-

   16. MMMark Manson32:34

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWChris Williamson32:34

       ... because reality's final touch point before we actually understand it is our thoughts.

   18. MMMark Manson32:40

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson32:40

       Right? We, we filter it through our brains before we then start to tell ourselves the story of whatever that is, and then the story's molested by the filter as well.

   20. MMMark Manson32:48

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CWChris Williamson32:48

       Um, so yeah. Confidence and fear both require believing in something that hasn't happened yet. Okay, so we have, um, a- an upward aiming trajectory and a downward aiming trajectory. You could say sort of abundance mindset, scarcity mindset-

   22. MMMark Manson33:00

       Sure.

   23. CWChris Williamson33:00

       ... o- optimist, pessimist, whatever. Um... And if you assume that you can choose to be confident, so, "I, I can choose to believe that this is going to go well," so okay, are you also choosing to believe that it's going to go badly in that case?

   24. MMMark Manson33:14

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson33:15

       Uh, it's like a, it's, you know, the fundamental attribution error?

   26. MMMark Manson33:18

       Mm-hmm.

   27. CWChris Williamson33:19

       Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a confidence equivalent-

   28. MMMark Manson33:21

       Yeah, yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson33:21

       ... of the fundamental attribution error.

   30. MMMark Manson33:23

       Yeah.
5. 40:07 – 51:01

   Stop Pretending To Be Someone You’re Not

   1. MMMark Manson40:07

   2. CWChris Williamson40:07

      "Eventually you'll realize that it's better to be disliked for who you are than liked for who you are not. Then everything will change."

   3. MMMark Manson40:13

      Mm-hmm. Yeah, I... (laughs) The... Being liked for who you're not is not being liked, right? Even if you get people to like the performance that you're putting on, you never get the s- you never get the satisfaction of being liked. You'll... Because it's not you, it's the performance. And it actually backfires because it just reinforces that you have to perform more.

   4. CWChris Williamson40:46

      You're not good enough.

   5. MMMark Manson40:47

      Yeah.

   6. CWChris Williamson40:47

      You're not acceptable.

   7. MMMark Manson40:48

      Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson40:50

      I think this was the fundamental ... Ah, there was many-

   9. MMMark Manson40:54

      Mm-hmm.

   10. CWChris Williamson40:54

       ... but I think that this is one of the fundamental issues with the pick-up artist movement-

   11. MMMark Manson40:57

       Mm-hmm.

   12. CWChris Williamson40:57

       ... the way that it came about. Uh, that what it taught men who were struggling with women was that, "Hey, you can be really effective with women."

   13. MMMark Manson41:05

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CWChris Williamson41:05

       "You just need to not be yourself. You just need to be..." (laughs)

   15. MMMark Manson41:09

       I s- dude, I saw this firsthand so many times.

   16. CWChris Williamson41:11

       Yeah, I remember.

   17. MMMark Manson41:11

       Like, I- I saw-

   18. CWChris Williamson41:12

       People don't know that you wrote Models, dude. The best, still the best-

   19. MMMark Manson41:15

       Thank you.

   20. CWChris Williamson41:15

       ... at dating advice books for men. Everyone should go and get it on Audible, and go back in 2000 f- 14 that came out?

   21. MMMark Manson41:21

       '13.

   22. CWChris Williamson41:22

       '13. Fuck, 12 years-

   23. MMMark Manson41:24

       Yeah.

   24. CWChris Williamson41:24

       ... dude.

   25. MMMark Manson41:24

       Yeah.

   26. CWChris Williamson41:24

       That's insa- that's ... If you're a guy who wants to improve, I would say, um, uh, Mate: Be The Guy Women Want, uh-

   27. MMMark Manson41:32

       Mm-hmm.

   28. CWChris Williamson41:32

       ... Geoffrey Miller and Tucker Max.

   29. MMMark Manson41:33

       Yep.

   30. CWChris Williamson41:33

       And Models by you. The two th- they were the two fucking, the two-car garage of-
6. 51:01 – 58:46

   Your True Love Will Only Improve Your Life, Not Worsen It

   1. CWChris Williamson51:01

      Sorry to break it to you, but it's impossible for someone who destroys your mental health to be the love of your life. Obsessing over someone isn't love. It's fear disguised as affection. Unhealthy love often feels exciting, dramatic and profound, but hurts us in the long run. Healthy love often feels dull, peaceful and repetitive, but it heals us in the long run.

   2. MMMark Manson51:22

      Yeah, I think fundamentally, people mistake intensity of emotion for positivity of emotion. Um... They ride the roller coaster of a dramatic and toxic relationship, and they... The highs are so high and the lows are so low and they, they just think that, "Well, this is part of it, right?" 'Cause it's, they're experiencing both extremes. It's like by far the most emotional experience they've ever had around anything in their life. And so, they, they assume, "Oh, okay, well, this must be what it is," but it's not that. It's actually you... there shouldn't be this, like, insane oscillation between the highs and lows.

   3. CWChris Williamson52:03

      Hmm.

   4. MMMark Manson52:04

      Um, there, of course, are highs and lows with every relationship, like that's natural, but-

   5. CWChris Williamson52:11

      Not daily.

   6. MMMark Manson52:11

      ... it's what you want, what you wanna optimize is like, you know, the average baseline, right, that you return to. Um, so yeah, I just, uh, I see that all the time. People, people, people mistake the intensity of the emotion for... or the intensity of the relationship for being a positive relationship.

   7. CWChris Williamson52:34

      Mm-hmm.

   8. MMMark Manson52:34

      And, uh, I think part of this happens because just like the way our psychology is, is, is that the more intense the emotion, the stronger the story and narrative and, and meaning that we, like, place on that experience. When, if you think about it, like there are all sorts of emotionally intense experiences you can have that actually don't mean anything at all, right? Like, I can jump out of a plane. That's gonna be a very emotionally intense experience. It doesn't necessarily mean anything.

   9. CWChris Williamson53:01

      Mm-hmm.

   10. MMMark Manson53:03

       I can date a woman who drives me absolutely fucking insane and then that, have the best makeup sex of my life. And just like the airplane, convince myself that it means something, but it actually doesn't really mean anything. Like what... It took me way too long to figure out that, like, what actually means something is the quality of time spent together in the dull moments. Like, what's the, what's the, the delta between your baseline and your happiness? Like, what is your level of happiness during the dull moments when like nothing's happening, when you're just sitting around eating breakfast, you know, reading emails? Are you happy in that moment? Like, that's what you should be measuring.

   11. CWChris Williamson53:50

       Because that's what life's made up of.

   12. MMMark Manson53:51

       That's the vast majority of life.

   13. CWChris Williamson53:53

       Yeah. Life is made up of breakfast at the kitchen counter-

   14. MMMark Manson53:55

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson53:56

       ... yeah.

   16. MMMark Manson53:56

       Checking emails.

   17. CWChris Williamson53:57

       Um, it's interesting to think about, okay, there's emotionally intense situations that don't mean anything.

   18. MMMark Manson54:07

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson54:07

       And I imagine that there's also emotionally mundane situations that mean a lot.

   20. MMMark Manson54:11

       That mean everything.

   21. CWChris Williamson54:12

       Yeah. So, the level of peace in your mind as your head hits the pillow at night-

   22. MMMark Manson54:16

       Mm-hmm.

   23. CWChris Williamson54:16

       ... never gonna probably appear in a gratitude... It's b- not even gonna appear in a gratitude journal, because it's just such... It's, uh, uh, so obvious. Again, it's there.

   24. MMMark Manson54:24

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson54:24

       It's like, "I slept okay."

   26. MMMark Manson54:25

       Yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson54:25

       You know, because I, I wasn't worrying about something. It's like, huh, well, fucking there's a lot of people on the planet that wish that they could have that.

   28. MMMark Manson54:33

       Yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson54:33

       There we are. The, so peace, optimizing for peace. You know, not sexy. What about, uh, obsessing over someone isn't love? It's fear disguised as affection.

   30. MMMark Manson54:41

       (laughs) Yeah, because obsession is, is, is driven by a fear of loss. You know, you're- when you're obsessing over somebody or, uh, ruminating over somebody, you're not, you're not actually loving that person. You're trying to prevent loss of that person, and those are two very different things. Um, love is very... Loving is, it's unconditional. It's done... Like, I don't do things for my wife to, like, prevent her from leaving me. That's not the intention. You know, it's like, I don't buy her flowers 'cause I'm like, "Well, I better do this otherwise she might leave me." Like that's, that's not love. Love is you do something for her, expecting nothing in return, just for the simple reason that you want them to be happy. And again, I think it's another, it's another area that people, like, mistake. Because they feel s- uh, such an intensity and... Because they feel such an intensity of the emotion, and that emotion is directed towards a person and keeping that person as close to them as possible, they assume, "Well this is, this must be what love is, right?" This is, I'm clearly, I'm in love with this person because all day and night all I think about is, like, how do I keep them as close to me as possible?
7. 58:46 – 1:13:24

   Start Something, Even If You Have No Idea What You’re Doing

   1. MMMark Manson58:46

   2. CWChris Williamson58:46

      I don't care how smart or beautiful they are, how many companies they started or degrees they have. They're insecure and they have no fucking clue what they're doing either. If you're feeling like you have no idea what you're doing is the price of entry to achieving your dream.

   3. MMMark Manson58:59

      (laughs) I feel, I feel like this just, like, undermines your entire podcast. (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson59:06

      I have never claimed to have any idea about what it is that I'm doing. My guests may have done.

   5. MMMark Manson59:11

      Yes. Um-

   6. CWChris Williamson59:12

      You included.

   7. MMMark Manson59:16

      No, no. But yeah. I mean, I, I think it's, it's a, a... So my, my, a fr- a good friend of mine had a really funny story around this. Uh, so really good friend of mine back in New York, startup guy, super smart. Um, startup founder, had an exit, did really well. Went to work for a VC, did really well at the VC, and then eventually got brought in by, uh, like one, say one of the 20 or 30 biggest companies in the world to advise and help mana- Like, they're doing, like, an internal incubator, um, and basically they wanted him to come in and kind of, like, advise their, their projects or whatever. So, you know, and this guy's like 30, right? So he's, like, climbed the mountain, climbed the next mountain, and now he's, like, being brought into, like, one of the biggest companies in the world, literally household name, and he's supposed to be in charge of, like, all these, like, special projects and new innovations and stuff. And I remember he came back, I, like, had dinner with him when he got back to town and I was like, "Dude, how was it?" (laughs) And he just looked at me and he's like, he's like, "I just had this realization, like, it's fucking idiots all the way down." Like n- I f- I always thought one day I'm gonna walk in a room and there's... It's like, okay, these are the people that know what's going on. These are the people who, like, have the plan and have figured it out and these are the lords of the universe and they're, like, secretly, like, pulling the puppet strings behind the scenes and, uh, and the rest of us are just trying to keep up. And he was like, "Yeah, nobody knows what the fuck they're doing." Like it's, he's like-... it's a disaster. It's a complete and utter disaster. (laughs) And he's like, "I don't know what I'm gonna do, but they're paying me a ton of, a ton of money." So, um, I always loved that story, and I love that phrase, "It's idiots all the way down." Um, and I, I include us in that. Like, I, I, I think it's, it's we're all just like chipping away at our own idiocy-

   8. CWChris Williamson1:01:13

      Yeah.

   9. MMMark Manson1:01:13

      ... slowly but surely.

   10. CWChris Williamson1:01:14

       And publicly. But that, I do think that there is a, there's a fair trade to be made, and certainly one that I've made, even more perhaps than you as somebody who's actually written legitimate books. Um, you can trade expertise for relatability.

   11. MMMark Manson1:01:28

       Mm-hmm.

   12. CWChris Williamson1:01:29

       Uh, and I think if you say, "Hey, I don't know what's going on, and in my not knowing of what's going on, you can feel better in your not knowing of what's going on."

   13. MMMark Manson1:01:38

       Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:01:39

       You know, that is probably one of the most common threads across 900 and fucking 50 episodes or whatever we've done of this show, which is, "I'm unsure about this thing, but I'm gonna try and find out from someone who might know a tiny little bit more than me-"

   15. MMMark Manson1:01:54

       Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson1:01:54

       "... and we're gonna work it out together of, hmm." Six months later, I finally arrive at a realization that's something approximating, like, accuracy-

   17. MMMark Manson1:02:03

       Yeah.

   18. CWChris Williamson1:02:03

       "Huh, well, that's cool. Well, we'll hold onto that one thing, and we'll get another one and get another one." George Mack, one of my fav- uh, favorite friends and favorite writers, he's got this essay, Adults Don't Exist: "Steve Jobs delayed nine months of medical treatment of pancreatic cancer to try a carrot juice diet and acupuncture."

   19. MMMark Manson1:02:21

       (laughs)

   20. CWChris Williamson1:02:22

       "Mozart overspent his income, lived miserably in mountains of debt, and regularly wrote letters to friends begging for money. Friedrich Nietzsche lost his virginity in a brothel and caught syphilis. He only saw his work sell 300 copies in his lifetime. Martin Luther King had extramarital affairs with over 40 different women, including spending his nast, nas, last night alive with two women and physically attacking another. Isaac Newton spent 30 years of his life writing one million words on the pseudoscience of alchemisy (sic) , alchemy, hidden for years by his heirs because they were too embarrassed to publish it... Don't put any adult on a pedestal. Kill your gurus. Or, a more useful belief, the adults aren't going to save you. They don't even exist."

   21. MMMark Manson1:03:01

       (laughs) I love that.

   22. CWChris Williamson1:03:02

       Yeah.

   23. MMMark Manson1:03:02

       That's awesome.

   24. CWChris Williamson1:03:02

       He realized when, uh, his friends that he went to university with who were the most degen, uh, uh, uh, larry, th- they couldn't hold, th- they couldn't get up on time, they weren't handing their assignments in, went to go and be teachers. Uh, holy fuck.

   25. MMMark Manson1:03:20

       (laughs)

   26. CWChris Williamson1:03:20

       That means, oh, that means that my teachers-

   27. MMMark Manson1:03:23

       My teachers were-

   28. CWChris Williamson1:03:24

       ... were that-

   29. MMMark Manson1:03:25

       Yeah.

   30. CWChris Williamson1:03:26

       ... idiot from sc- oh, okay.
8. 1:13:24 – 1:27:33

   The Most Important Productivity System

   1. CWChris Williamson1:13:25

   2. MMMark Manson1:13:25

      So, this, this is a drum that I bang on endlessly, uh, to the productivity crowd and, and I, I feel like it just gets ignored, but I think emotion is the most important productivity system. Um, there's a lot of, and I think the reason it gets discounted is because there is a lot of cheesy, clichéd advice around, like, "Oh, if you do what you love, you never work a day of your life," you know, like bullshit like that. Uh, i- it's, passion is practical. Like, when you deeply care about something you're doing, you're gonna work on it longer, you're gonna think harder about the problems, you're gonna take feedback better, you're gonna be more resilient, you're gonna be willing to stay up at night, get up early on a Saturday or whatever. Like, emotion is, it is actually the highest leverage system within yourself towards whatever your productivity goals are. And I just feel like so much productivity advice is disembodied. It's like, you know, the, the hustle culture bullshit of just, like, grind-

   3. CWChris Williamson1:14:35

      Ignore how you feel.

   4. MMMark Manson1:14:35

      ... just grind, grind, grind, and then yeah, it's like, oh, you know, stop being a bitch, like, you know, sleep when you're dead, date when you're dead, like whatever. Go make a billion dollars. It, it's, what is it for? Like, if it's not for something, like, if you're not doing all this work for some greater cause, then, then what the, what the fuck are you doing it? Like, you might as well just hang out at the beach and play video games, like, 'cause, 'cause why not? You know?

   5. CWChris Williamson1:15:04

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   6. MMMark Manson1:15:05

      Like, there, there's a cert-, there's a nihilism in all, in the productivity space right now that, like, it really bothers me. And, um, it, 'cause A, I, I don't think it's healthy, but B, I also think it's, like, just bad advice. Like, the best advice is find something you really fucking love and care about-

   7. CWChris Williamson1:15:25

      Mm.

   8. MMMark Manson1:15:26

      ... and give yourself to it. Um, Bukowski's got this great line, he says, "Find what you love and let it kill you." And I just f- there's, like, so much beauty in that because when you find a craft or a trade or, or a skill that, like, you deeply, deeply care about, or a mission that you deeply, deeply care about, you are willing, you become willing to trade yourself for that mission. And, and you are liter- like, when you trade your time, you are literally trading your life for something, so what are you gonna trade it for? And what is the point of trade, of making that trade? Some, get a billion dollars? You know, get, get 100 million followers? Like, w- whoopie, whoopie fucking doo. Like, what does that mean, you know? So, I continue to bang that drum, uh-

   9. CWChris Williamson1:16:23

      Hopelessly.

   10. MMMark Manson1:16:24

       Hopelessly, yes. (laughs) But I don't, I don't get a, I don't get invited to the, to, uh, you know, the same, uh, uh, th- biohacking conferences that, uh, uh, m- my contemporaries do, so.

   11. CWChris Williamson1:16:36

       Uh, Joe Hudson's got this wonderful line, he says, "Enjoyment is efficiency."

   12. MMMark Manson1:16:40

       Yes.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:16:41

       Uh, that he looks at however much enjoyment I get out of doing a thing is just a direct correlate with how efficient I was at doing it. That the more that I enjoy something, the more efficient I'm gonna be.

   14. MMMark Manson1:16:51

       Dude, people, i- and it's double-sided as well, right? Like, the better you get at something, the more you fall in love with it. And the more you love something, the more patience you're gonna have to get good at it. And so it's just, like, to me, it's, like, the most obvious entry point, but I think a lot of people develop kind of, like, fucked up relationships with productivity and work. Um, and I say this as, like, a bonafide workaholic.

Episode duration: 2:11:37