Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - #47: Mark Manson & The Blue Dot Effect: How Creating Adversity is Human Nature

Episode Date: March 24, 2020

What if you could control your reality by simply re-evaluating yourself through the experiences you have? Mark Manson suggests that this type of perspective shift is actually what we experience when believe we are healing something in our lives. You have control of your narrative and can even design your past experiences and therefore your current identity. About the Guest: Mark Manson is the #1 NYTimes bestselling author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope. He writes about big ideas and gives life advice that doesn’t suck. His work has been described as a new genre of self help—it’s based on solid science, pragmatic applications, and a bit of old fashioned “go f*ck yourself” wisdom. Some people say he’s an idiot. Other people say he saved their lives. Read and decide for yourself. More From Mark Manson: Website: www.markmanson.net Get his new on Audible Love Is Not Enough Finding Mark Manson: Instagram: @markmanson Twitter: @iammarkmanson Rejuvenate: To receive your discount to try Rejuvenate go to www.rejuvenatemuscle.com  Use CODE: CONFIDENCE for 15% off. Review this podcast on Apple Podcast using this LINK and when you DM me the screen shot, I buy you my $299 video course as a thank you!  My book Confidence Creator is available now! get it right HERE If you are looking for more tips you can download my free E-book at my website and thank you! https://heathermonahan.com *If you'd like to ask a question and be featured during the wrap up segment of Creating Confidence, contact Heather Monahan directly through her website and don’t forget to subscribe to the mailing list so you don’t skip a beat to all things Confidence Creating! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals. We'll overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so grateful you're joining me today in the middle of so much chaos, uncertainty, and insanity as we are going through COVID-19, the coronavirus. And just to see how drastically things have changed from a week ago, a week ago where people were still going out and about today, the implementation of social distancing

has occurred. We haven't left the house here in Miami in four days. I think that's pretty much the case around most of the U.S. at this point, that schools are operating remotely. Children do not go to school anymore. They go to school from home. My son is actually doing his somewhat normal day remotely through Zoom with his teachers, with his peers, which has been working out really well, shockingly. And I have to tell you in a very strange way, I know this is going to come across strange, and it's not that I am happy coronavirus is here. I am not.

Believe me, I am not. And I am heartbroken for so many out there that don't have washing machines in their homes, that don't have cleaners, that don't have ways to protect themselves, that don't have so much that are homeless. I can't imagine how many people are suffering. I'm so grateful to see all the good that so many are doing, giving back so many celebrities, donating money, athletes paying the income that employees in the arenas would have been making that they can't make because the MBA has been shut down.

Everything has been shut down. So there are so many great stories out there. But for me, I had spent, you know, I've been working since I was, I don't know, nine or ten years old. And my entire adult life, I travel. I travel for work. I travel either every week or every other week. And I'm constantly on the go.

I'm so busy. And being forced to shut down the past week and stay home with my son has really been amazing. And I truly understand now why women want to be stay at home moms. I never really thought about it much. It wasn't ever in the cards for me because I had to work. But now I get it. It's really relaxing. It's, you know, you have to turn it over at this point.

I know I can't leave. I know I can't jump on a plane. I know I can't make a meeting and I can't do a face-to-face interview. and I can't try to pitch a deal face to face. I can work remotely from home. I can use Zoom and I can reach out on social media, which I'm doing, and I can strategize for my business and work on plans. I can interview people remotely.

Thank goodness. And the funny thing is I couldn't stand doing that. Previously, I believe in face-to-face over everything. But right now I'm really grateful for Zoom and for Skype and for my interview today over Zoom, which is just so bizarre. but, you know, I'm really leaning into this. Wow, I'm cooking every meal, three meals a day for my son. We're eating every meal together. We're working out once a day together. I never got into this at-home workout thing. And wow, it's great. I got a Peloton. I love it. I'm high-fiving people in the app. You know, so there's this point of connection through the workout and community, which is so cool. No, this is not an ad. It's just things are so different. but in a very strange way, my life moves so fast and I get so laser focused on work and creating Repenew and making my entrepreneurial business profitable that I don't really slow down much.

And so this has forced a massive slowdown and we are confined physically in the walls that we're living in, not mentally at all, thankfully. And it's just been a really interesting experience. So I'm trying to look at it for the good that it is. So I decided, okay, if I'm going to be here for a month or two months or three months, we don't know yet. They haven't told us what the timeline will be and probably, you know, not even the CDC knows. So I decided, okay, what small changes can I make to benefit from this?

So I come out of this a better person. I challenge you to do the same thing, you know, whether it be cutting back on coffee, cutting back on television consumption, because the media is really tough to watch right now. There are so many stories and perspectives. and I decided to start reading at night, which is something I never do. So I never read at nighttime. I usually read on planes. So this is kind of a cool thing.

And it's making some small changes that will help me be a better version of me, a better person, a better mother, and spending a lot more time with my son, which I'm so grateful for. You never realize how much you like someone versus when you're stuck on a desert island with them. Right. So this is that time. You know, whoever you're stuck with, you're getting. getting to assess your relationship and see, you know, what is what. And I'm really grateful that we get along very, very well. And he's such a good kid. So we're really feeling a lot of gratitude.

And a lot of hope. When this all went down, I just woke up one day and thought, I am built for this. You know, I have overcome so much adversity in my life that I know we will get through this. There is zero fear in me. I just want to let you know that. Doesn't mean that I am above any this or that I can't get sick or that I'm not worried for the recession, for those hurting, for those suffering. I feel all of that, but I feel 100% confident in saying we will get through this. And our lives can and will change for the better as a result. And I'm seeing it happen in real time.

And I guess I'm grateful for this moment in time. And I'm really trying to focus everything around gratitude right now and appreciate what I do have and appreciate where I am and appreciate these small moments. because this is beyond a unique time. Okay, so I'm hoping and wishing that you are well, that you are safe, that you're taking care of yourself, taking precautions, staying in, and know that you're not alone because I'm right here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you today, too.

It's just, it's so exciting to be able to sit here and talk to you. So, okay, so much to discuss. So where do I begin? All right. So today I'm so excited for you to meet our guest. I mean, this is, okay. You know I always give you the background. So I reached out probably a couple months ago to Mark Manson on social media on DMs. And I'll tell you, he got back to me pretty, like within a week. He got back pretty quickly to me. He was traveling. He was in L.A. I had just been in L.A. And you know, I believe in face-to-face meeting. So I told him I really wanted to do the interview in person, which he agreed to. And he lives in York. And he said, listen, I'm in L.A. I'm traveling. I'm going to be in the West Coast for a while. Now no one can leave their home, you know, fast forward a month or two later. He said, so let's look out to March. When I'm back in New York,

it'll be easier for you coming from Miami. Great. So he set a date for today for me to be there in New York with him. Obviously, that did not pan out because who knew any of this was coming, but he was kind enough to do a Zoom interview with me today. But if you don't know who Mark Manson is, you live under a rock. No, he's a self-help author and blogger. He's the number one New York Times bestselling author, and that doesn't give you any color of the subtle art of not giving an F. That book has sold so many millions, millions, millions of copies and been on the top of the New York Times bestseller list for years. And it's funny. I saw Rachel Hollis posted something about her husband making a Times list, and I took a snapshot of it because guess what? Mark's on it too. Mark's on

the top New York Times bestseller list every week and has been for years. That's insane. I mean, he's at the top of the author game. I don't know who else has sold as many books as this man. It's insane. And he's only 35 years old. He's also The New York Times bestselling author of Everything is F's a book about hope, which is what I really wanted to talk to him about today. He's very sarcastic millennial.

Such a cool guy, regular guy. He's the OG blogger and online entrepreneur. His website is amazing, markmanson.net. You've got to check him out. He definitely brings a different perspective where I like to pride myself on being super hopeful and really, positive. He is not that way. You know, he's kind of taken a contrary look at society. And I really appreciate the interview today that we get into the dynamic of how he sees things differently now

because of the coronavirus, what he sees coming. Is he hopeful, you know, this whole juxtapose around how he typically sees things because he believes that people continually try to look for negativity. But now in the face of all this adversity, how things are changing. as a result, which is, it's pretty cool. I'm really, I couldn't be more excited to have him as a guest today and to get his message out to you. His books are amazing. And yes, I've read them. And I'm a huge fan of his work. And it's so weird. I have to tell you sometimes to be interviewing someone who's a decade younger than me has achieved so much more, quote unquote, success than I have in the book world. But it's really inspiring to hear that he didn't always know he was going to be

author, much less one of the best-selling authors in the world. So it's kind of promising to me, to you to think about, you don't have to have it all figured out. This guy didn't, and in fact, he puts it right out there. He's happy to share it, and I can't wait for you to listen to it. In a couple of quick exercises, I want to share it, he didn't share in the interview, but I really liked, I want you to try. He says, write down a list of your goals, and I know you have time to do this right now in quarantine, so you better do it, write down a list of your goals. And then And next to it, you want to ask, why do I want this goal? So that's something I've never done, which I'm going to do.

But write that list and then ask yourself why you want it. And that's going to start you down a different path to really dig a little bit deeper into you, the meaning, your values, and kind of reevaluate things, which right now is such a great time to do that. As we have more free time, you know, why not figure out ways to get to know ourselves better, improve ourselves, which ultimately will improve our lives after all this is over. and even during this time. Another idea that he has is write down a list of what you're grateful for. I do that every day, as you know, but don't stop there.

Ask yourself, why are you grateful for these things? So, you know, it's about going to that next layer, getting to know yourself better, digging deeper and peeling back the onion. So, all right, we're going to hang tight so that you can meet Mark. I can't wait to hear you think. I hope that you enjoy getting to hear from him as much as I enjoyed getting to interview him. So hang tight. We'll be right back. Welcome back. I'm so excited to be here today with Mark Manson.

I'm freaking out at the irony of this as we're sitting in the midst of the coronavirus quarantine and complete pandemic. And I get the opportunity to sit with the most hopeful man that I know. Mark, thanks for being here. It's good to be here. Thanks for having me. All right. So so exciting. I happen to be a huge fan of your work, your writing, and as I had mentioned, you know, I've really, I've studied so many of your interviews. And the first thing I said to you when we sat down today is you're so incredibly different from me, which I love and welcome, which I know you do too, because I've heard you talk about reading books with

topics that you're not interested in or you disagree with trying to expand your knowledge and perspective and that's in some ways where I'm coming at today. I love your sarcasm. I love that whole millennial spirit. I happen to be a Jen Xer who is the utmost super positive, hyper positive, hopeful person. And it's funny because, not funny, but in theory, when this whole COVID-19 happened, I just thought I woke up and I said, I was born for this. I mean, I've lived through so much freaking adversity in my life, it's nauseating. And the minute that this hit, I just immediately went into leadership mode. Okay, here's what we need to do. We need to focus on taking action to get ready for this. We need to get hopeful. We need to think about other adversities. We've overcome

in our life. We need to take action steps and communically clearly and all these ways that I think. And I'm so interested, especially reading your most recent book, Everything is Eft. And again, I will not be saying the word because I have a 12 year old in the next room as I mentioned. to you and that would make me a total hypocrite if I started dropping F-bombs in front of him. But I'm so interested to hear from you as this book is about hope and your take on where we are as a world right now in the middle of this pandemic. Well, it's interesting because I wrote that book a year ago. And the reason I wrote that book is because I felt like everybody felt like the world was

about the end, but you looked out your window and everything was great. And my argument in the book is that when life becomes too easy, when everything becomes very simple, straightforward, and the economy is great and things are going really well, people start inventing conflict or exaggerating conflict because it's from conflict that we get meaning in our lives. And it's kind of ironic because as soon as this coronavirus thing started, suddenly all of these things that we had been freaking out about as a culture for the last four or five years, immediately went away. And political parties started agreeing with each other.

Generations started getting along with each other. You know, people started listening to each other and being compassionate and being helpful and donating their time and their money to each other. And so it's, you know, I guess kind of the whole argument of that book is that sometimes we look back to like, say, our grand prix. parents generation, like the World War II generation or the Cold War generation. We look back with nostalgia. And I think a lot of that nostalgia is that it's just that we had a common enemy, is we had like a common cause to fight for. And when we don't have a common cause to fight for,

we started admitting our own causes and fighting each other. And that's just human nature. So choose the coronavirus for bringing us all together. Well, it is an interesting angle, but everything you said is completely spot on, right? Because we have seen so much. give back and so much positivity. And for the first time, in this political landscape that we're living knee-deep in, yeah, for the first time, we're not hearing so much about Republicans or Democrats, which is such a freaking breath of fresh air. It's so nice, yeah. It is so nice for the moment and time. All right. So getting to your book, there was a chapter where you talk about the blue dot effect. I found that so relevant to right now, almost the inverse. I was thinking the inverse of

right now where, and obviously you please explain this, you wrote it, but I was drawn to that idea of how we diminish whatever adversity we're facing. As things become easier, we just change the bar for where, you know, what upsets us. And I was just thinking about given our climate today, that blue dot effect is really sort of happening in a reverse effect. And I wonder how that will change all of us from today, you know, six months from now forward. How, how will that blue dot effect affect us today? So to just describe the blue dot effect really quickly for listeners, there was a bunch of interesting research that happened a few years ago where basically the short version is that they found that the more and more you remove adversity from people,

the more they started imagining adversity in its place. So for instance, they would give people job descriptions. And the job descriptions would be, you know, some would be very unethical, some would be totally normal and ethical, and people would very accurately choose which ones were unethical and which ones were ethical. But then what they found is that as they started removing all the unethical job proposals, and they only showed people ethical job proposals, people didn't change their mind about how many unethical job proposals there were. It's just their standard of what was ethical and what was not shifted. So basically our perceptions shift so that we're always upset about something, which is just,

you know, a wonderful facet of human nature. And so a lot of the second half of the book talks about that, like how that affects our daily lives, our culture, our politics, everything. And it's interesting because when something like this comes along, you know, it's so obviously such a big thing to be worried about and upset about, that we all kind of get on the same page with it. It's like, okay, global pandemic, millions of people could die. We all agree that's a horrible thing. But at some point, this thing is going to go away. And as it goes away, we're going to, instead of simply being grateful and satisfied with our health and the fact that we get to go

outside again and see our friends again, that will quickly dissipate. Humans were very good at taking things for granted. And so, you know, very quickly we're going to start perceiving other quote unquote crises in the world that will feel just as scary and important, but will actually not be as scary as important. So the reason I write about the blue dot effect is just because I want people to be aware that our minds are constantly doing this. Our minds are constantly moving that line in the sand to make us perceive something to be wrong, whether there actually is or not. And I think if you can kind of get a handle of like, oh, that's what my mind tends to do.

That's kind of like the default setting for my mind to do that. It helps you adapt yourself better. So there's two topics that you got into in that, around that point, around advertising and innovation that I thought were pretty interesting. I'd love for you to share. So one of the things that I talk about is I think there's a very subtle and not often talked about a psychological effect that comes with advertising. Anybody who studied sales or marketing to any degree knows that generally the best way to sell something is to make people feel insecure about something else. So it's like if I want to sell, I don't know, workout clothes, one of the most effective ways to do it is to make people, whether it's,

through a commercial or an ad in a magazine or whatever, is to make people feel insecure or self-conscious about how they look. And then once you have them in that place where they feel insecure, then you're like, boom, here's my workout clothes. It's going to make you look great. You're going to feel great. Hence the supermodels. Exactly.

And so, and you see this in all sorts of different forms. You know, you see it in the supermodels. You see it like, you know, the beer commercials with all the girls and bikinis running around. You see in like truck commercials with like some dude like hauling boulders up the side of a mountain. You know, so it's like every commercial is kind of challenging some part of your security or you're feeling whole as a person. And, you know, the average person is exposed to, I think it's 3,000 advertisements per day. And so if you think about it, it's like we're constantly being bombarded with these messages of inadequacy. And they are.

I make is that it's a lot of this, and again, I'm going back to pre-coronavirus world, you know, a lot of the sense on the internet that like everything is wrong all the time, I think could be proportional to the amount of these messages that we're kind of consuming. It's when you're sitting on Facebook all day and it's just like one thing after another after after another every 10 seconds kind of making you feel inadequate over and over again. that's got to add up at some point. And again, I think there's a lot of research out there that's coming out that is starting to show that there's a certain amount of anxiety that's associated with,

say, internet use or screen time use. Some say social media use. So I think, again, it's another way to be aware of our own weaknesses and flaws. So that makes me think about your concept that, or, and again, I hate to put words into your mouth, but asking you this, you know, that we, this sense of self that we have is not real. It's really around the narrative that we're telling ourselves based upon our personal experiences and how we relive them in our mind.

Can you do a better job of explaining that than I am trying to be Mark Hansa? Sure. You know, there's a really cool intersection that happens between Buddhism and psychology, and that is, you know, it's this idea of no self. It's this idea that, you know, Buddhism has always preached that, like, there's not really a you. It's kind of just this made-up imaginary thing that you created in your head, like almost like a storybook character, except you're basing your life decisions on that storybook character that you've created. And Freud came along and said the same thing.

He found the same thing through his work, is that he noticed that when the same patient would come to him over the course of years, their story of who they were would change. You know, they'd come in, year one, they'd come in and say, oh, this is the type of person I am, this is the childhood I had. And then by year three, it was completely different. But they didn't realize it was different. They didn't realize they had changed their own story. And so for me, this kind of brings up this idea that a lot of what we experience is personal change or personal growth.

It's simply learning to rewrite those stories of ourselves. You know, a simple example would be like, like I grew up with a lot of social anxiety. And so I think I had a lot of these narratives in my head of just like, oh, people, people won't like me. You know, I shouldn't, I'm not, I don't really have the right to just talk to anybody at any time because I'm not a very likable person. And it took a lot of digging and therapy and work, but it's like at some point I dug up that narrative that had been sitting inside myself for since I was a kid probably. And then once you dig it up, you can start poking holes at it. you can start seeing how it doesn't make sense and oh wait that's totally wrong. You know, another example of this that I've seen recently, my whole family gets together at

Thanksgiving. And for whatever reason, this past Thanksgiving, my dad and his uncle and his brother my uncles were kind of reminiscing about their childhood. And my dad would start saying like, well, you know, I was high school was horrible and these people were awful and like this. And my uncle was like, wait, no, I don't remember that at all. And they had completely contradictory stories. They built these completely different narratives for themselves. And you can almost see the therapy happening and watching

them resolve that together. Like putting the pieces together and saying like, well, no, actually, no, you weren't picked on because of this. Like, this is what happened. And no, you're not, you weren't a bad kid. Like, you were actually a very nice kid. But it's just this is what happened.

Like, mom was this way for this reason. And so it's, I think, a lot of what we experience as healing is simply experiences that force us to re-evaluate those narratives of ourselves. When you want more, start your business with Northwest Registered Agent and get access to thousands of free guides, tools, and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business. All in one place. Build your complete business identity with Northwest today. Northwest Registered Agents has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs

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Go to quince.com slash confidence for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash confidence. to get free shipping and 365 day returns, quince.com slash confidence. How did you peel things back so that you were able to get that core for yourself to understand, not only will people like me want to hear from me, but they'll actually buy millions upon millions of my books. Well, ironically, I think one of the reason I became a writer is because that felt safe to me.

You know, it felt much safer for me to write a bunch of blog posts and put it online than it did for me to, like, you know, walk into a room full of people and start telling them what my ideas. But you do that now, though. So I like to see that evolution. Right. Sure, but it's, but it's now I've seen how wrong I was, right? You know, so it's, I've always told people like blogging was, writing in general is always

just kind of been a form of therapy for me. Not only does it allow me to process a lot of mind. own failings and insecurities, but I do it in a very public way. And so I get that public response. And I hear from hundreds or thousands of people saying, like, wow, that's amazing. I really like that. And so that kind of gives me the confidence. But yeah, if you go back, you know, back into my early 20s when I started, it was, I was way more confident online than I was in person. So take us back to Mark Manson, you know, prior to you being exposed to Buddhism and psychology and personal development. How did you grow up? Where did this all start? How did that how did you come to be?

So I grew up in Round Rock, Texas, she's outside of Austin, Texas. Austin is known as being very liberal. And it's like a big tech city now. But you know, back in the 80s and 90s, it was, it was different. It was Texas. And the area that I lived was very conservative. So I grew up in like a pretty, I guess you'd say like kind of Bible Belt southern U.S. upbringing, you know, church every Sunday Bible study every Wednesday, went to a Christian school. And I just, from a very young age, felt out of place. I think it probably started when I was like nine or ten years old. It's just the culture, you know, there are a lot of great things about the culture down there,

the culture in Texas. And I still, I enjoy, like, my family is still down there. So I still enjoy going down there and visiting. but I was just a very, I was an intellectual kid, but I was also a little bit rebellious. Like I was always, I was one of those kids that like didn't understand why there needed to be rules for anything. I'm like, well, like, why can't I? Like, just let me do it and completely screw up and, you know, this is, you know, don't tell, there, there was no like, because I said so for me. Like, it just, that never made sense to me, which was unfortunate because, you know,

conservative Texan upbringing is everything is because I said so. You know, it's like everything is just you do it because the person in charge said so. So I got in trouble a lot. And because I got in trouble a lot, I got kicked out of school and I got arrested and I just kept rebelling more and more and more. And so I started kind of going down this bad path. And then I ended up, I was sent to a small private school. It was only about 40 kids in my.

class and kind of managed to fit in a little bit there. It was an open-minded place. I was like staunchly atheist and I was like really into Marilyn Manson and nine-inch nails and all this stuff. And everywhere else I had been my whole childhood, like I was ridiculed for that or punished for that. And this school was finally the place where, you know, the teachers and principal and everything, they're like, okay, you can be who you are. You know, you just have to be open to others and respectful of others. And so it was the first place that I was, I remember, you know, Marilyn Manson was like very big into philosophy. And so I decided I was going to be in the philosophy. And, uh, and I remember I brought like a Nietzsche book to school. And I thought

it was like super cool. And, uh, my history teacher who was like this old school dude from Arkansas started questioning me on it, like started asking me about the book. And like, I had no idea. I couldn't read any of that. I didn't understand anything. And, uh, you know, I, I, I was like trying to like pretend and play it cool. And it turned out like my history teacher. It was like really in the Nietzsche. And he like started telling me about it, teaching me about it. And so it was like I kind of started to find my way through there.

And I think I just always had a very deep interest in psychology and philosophy. And and I, I somewhere around there I got very interested in religion. You know, I decided I'm like, okay, well, the church I grew up in, I don't believe in that. But like, let's start it square one. Let's start it like I don't know anything. So why don't I learn a little bit about every religion and just see if anything resonates? And so I eventually became very drawn to Buddhism and spent probably about five years like very into Buddhism, like doing a lot of meditation and some retreats and a lot of reading and things like that.

That's the brief story of Mark. That's unique. So that sounds very different to me. So then you're going through this whole process of trying. to figure out who you are and find yourself is essentially what it sounds like. And then you end up in this music world where you're passionate about music. I think, you know, music was kind of like a safe outlet for me growing up. By the way, I see the guitar in the background.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've, you know, I had a talent for it. And what's interesting, too, is like I obviously, I think I had a talent for writing. but because I didn't write about the things, I guess teachers expected me to write about, I didn't get good grade. So I never knew I was a good writer. I love that. Yeah, I honestly, I didn't know I was a good writer until I was like 27.

Wait, how old are you now, just for context? 35. So somewhat recently. Yeah, I didn't really want to be a writer or best-selling author or anything like that until I was almost 30. It just didn't occur to me. It was like I was blogging for about three or four years when people started saying things, when the traffic grew to such an extent and the emails I was getting were like so

praising that I realized like, wow, maybe I'm actually really good at this and I had no idea. But yeah, going back to music, I think, you know, music was kind of like my first love in terms of just like artistic outlet. You know, music for me was just a really safe outlet. You know, when I wrote papers in school, it was usually about really screwed up weird stuff. And so I get back grades and people thought I was a weirdo. But when I picked up a guitar, I could, like, play Jimmy Hendrix and ACDC and Nirvana.

And suddenly all the kids thought I was cool. And suddenly, like, my parents were, like, really proud of me. And so I think that kind of became, it became my identity as a teenager. I was, like, the music guy. I was the rock band guy. It was like my safe space. And so then I decided I was going to go to music school and try to pursue it professionally. And man, it's if you ever want to find out if you really, if you're really passionate about

something on like the most, the deepest, most fundamental level, going to a competitive school for it will like really lead that out for you. Because it's, I remember going into the, I went into a jazz program and I remember the first week, the professor told us, he said, we have a 7% graduation rate. And he said, it's more competitive than engineering school. It's more competitive than law school. It was crazy because, you know, the music industry, it's so small. Like, it's so few people produce all the music. So it makes sense why it's so competitive. But I remember the funny thing, I was in music school for a year. And I remember by the second semester, what I realized was like, you could just look at

all the other students and you could tell like that guy's going to make it that guy's going to make it she's going to make it the rest of us are screwed and the funny thing was is like all the people were going to make it didn't really need music school like they were that good they were just there for the credential and so that's when I decided I'm like you know what I should probably go do something else because I don't I could see the writing on the law like all right if I if I see this through you know I'm going to be teaching guitar lessons in a mall somewhere for the rest of my life Well, you, I really like that story when you sat down with that guy that was in your class, that was just the best of the best, he was number one.

And when you sat down with him at lunch, to ask him what he thought about practicing, that you sort of had this epiphany actually in that moment that this wasn't for you. Yeah, yeah. So there was a guy in my program. He was probably like the top guitar player in our program. And I remember I was just so frustrated and really burnt out. and I went down, I was in the dorm cafeteria, and I saw there was a place next to him, so I sat next to him, and I'm like, all right, maybe he can help me.

Like, he's crushing it. So maybe he has, like, some tip or something. And I sit down with him, and I start talking to him like, man, like, I'm really, I'm having a hard time. And he's like, oh, yeah? I'm like, yeah, I'm practicing, like, all day and really sick from music. And I started asking him questions. I'm like, what's your practice routine like? You know, how early do you get up in the morning?

Like, what is your, what's your, like, how do you decide which tunes you're going to work on for the day? And he just kind of gives me these blasé answers. Like I can tell he doesn't really think about this stuff. And I'm like, man, that's so frustrating. It's got to be like some secret, right? Like, he's got to know something that I don't. And eventually I just, I realize, you know, like, all right, this isn't for me, clearly. So I kind of, I hung it up and I moved on.

And then I remember, you know, once my blog started blowing up around, 2012, 2013, I started getting invited to like a lot of kind of internet business, internet marketing conferences to do speaking. And so I'd go to these conferences and I remember people would start, they'd come up to me in the hallway or outside the conference room and they'd be like, hey, can I ask you a few questions? I was like, yeah, sure. Like, what's your writing routine like? How do you decide what you're going to write for the day? They're like asking me the exact same questions I asked this guy at music school. And I noticed that like, sure enough, I don't think about any of that stuff. Like, it's not really an issue. And that's how I kind of realize

that, like, it's, if you're in the right spot, you know, the tactical stuff will kind of take care of itself if you're in the right spot. Like, if you're really, if you genuinely love what you're doing and if you, the way I described it is like if you enjoy the suffering of something, you enjoy the problems that come with something. The tactical stuff takes care of, it takes care of itself. Like you don't really, I enjoy writing enough that I don't have to like sit down and obsess about outlines or like schedules or whatever. It's like, dude, just get up and write. It's not hard. It's an open up a word document, throw some stuff down. And I think sometimes when we, when something feels very difficult, we assume that it's complicated when in fact

it's often it's just very simple, but it's difficult, you know. So to me, that's super interesting and great takeaway is that juxtapose between you in music, trying to squeeze knowledge out of someone. How can I make this work? It's not working. I'm doing six hours a day. I'm not getting it to work versus someone asking you that same question when you were in the right place doing the right thing. And it just came more natural.

I couldn't agree with you more. And I'd love to hear that because so many people, myself included, have been at different places in our life where we're questioning. am I in the right place? Is this the right job? Is this the right career? Am I just quitting or giving up too soon? A lot of people struggle with that. Yeah. And for me, it's, I feel like you really, you've really found your niche if you, like, if I just retired tomorrow, this is like retirement just sounds ridiculous to me. Because if I retired tomorrow, what I would do for fun is I would wake up and just write stuff and put it online. It's like it started as a hobby if I retired tomorrow and never made another. dollar, like it would go back to being a hobby. And so in that sense, it never makes sense.

Like, it's never really a question of, like, should I stop or how can I optimize this? Like, it's just something I enjoy doing anyway. And I feel like, you know, looking back at my music school experiences, I wasn't in music for music. I was in music for the social validation, I guess the social safety. It got me a lot of praise and approval from others. It was a fun and exciting identity that was different. You know, I wasn't actually in it for the music itself.

And because of that, I got burnt out. I got sick of it. And I felt stuck. Because it's when you go to music school, all that stuff's taken away from you. Like you, all the social validation, all the approval, all the people clapping saying good job. All that's taken away from you. And so if you don't love it for a deeper reason than that, you're screwed.

And I think the same is true. Anytime you make up business out of something, you really, remove a lot of the sexiness that comes with it. And so if you don't really, really, really love it or find something in it that you love, you kind of setting yourself up to flame out at some point. At the heart of what you're saying I'm hearing is stop caring what other people think about what you're doing and do what you want to do. Yeah.

So I think that's a very general way to put it. But also it becomes very, it's very difficult to understand because we often lie to ourselves about why we're doing things. We tell ourselves, oh, no, I just like love this thing, but really we're doing it because it wins approval from mothers. And so I think there's a process of really questioning like why you're in something, like why you're doing something that is very long and difficult and painful a lot of times. But yeah, I mean, ultimately the result should be you're doing something simply for the sake

of the love of doing it. Like if you're alone on a desert island, if you're quarantined during the pandemic. You would be doing it anyway. You know, it's so interesting, the content of your book and what we're living in right now with the quarantine. And I've been thinking about this. I'm divorced. I live with my son, as I mentioned. But I know a lot of people, a lot of friends who are unhappily married, who are now finding themselves in a home quarantined with people that I don't think they necessarily choose.

and it takes me back to the work that you're doing in the book and that, you know, the light that you're shining in the book is around, what lies are we telling ourselves and work are we not doing? And now is so the time while we are physically quarantined somewhere, our minds are not quarantined, to really dive into this book and dive into this work right now if you are ever going to do it. It's easy to avoid those things. You know, if you're always busy with work and if you've got happy hours to go

to and things like that. Like, it's very easy to distract yourself from the fact that, you know, your marriage is failing or you resent your parents or whatever it is. That close proximity makes it impossible to avoid. I think that's why people always say that, you know, travel is always like, traveling with somebody is always the best litmus test for, like, how good the relationship is. It's because you can't get away from it. You're, like, stuck with them.

Yeah, but, I mean, but, okay, that, that's like that Bachelor TV show phenomenon. But at the same time, if you're going, to beautiful places in the Caribbean and you're staying at wonderful places where people wait on you hand and foot, you could pretty much get along with most people in that climate, right? So to me, I don't buy into that. I've been in relationships where when things get tough, let's go on a great vacation and suddenly, oh my gosh, this is amazing because you're kind of buying into that fantasy, but that's not the real day to day.

You know, maybe what you should do is you should, if you want to stress test a relationship, like go travel like the middle of Africa or something and stay in the bush and see what happens. See how it goes there. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I know that a lot of what you do, you don't like to prescribe. Here's the steps that you take and here's the solution for everybody. And I couldn't agree with you more because everyone's coming at problems from with different backgrounds, different challenges. But you're big into asking people questions to ask themselves. What are given our current situation, knowing people are at home and have this operative. and time right now to really dig into thinking about their life, thinking about their unhappiness, thinking about how they move forward. What are some of those questions that you want people to ask themselves? There's, I think, in my book, subtle art, I talk about something I, I used to call it

on my website, I used to call it the why game. You know, like two-year-olds, we'll just follow you around. They'll be like, why, why, and it drives you crazy. I think you can actually use something like that effectively with yourself. So it's like if you take any emotion you're feeling, so if you're feeling stressed or if you're feeling scared, you know, and you ask yourself why, and then you ask whatever that answer is,

you ask why, you go like maybe three or four layers down. You can start discovering some uncomfortable truths, some interesting things. You know, so it's like, I think the example I use in my books, like my brother's terrible, like texting me back.

And it just drives me crazy. And, And I actually get really angry at him and start like a whole fight and it's just, it's ridiculous. And so, you know, I get like asked like, so why am I angry that he's not texting me back? Well, it feels disrespectful. Why does it feel disrespectful? Well, he's my brother. You should pretty care about me and text me back when I text them.

It's like, why should he text you back when you text them? You know, why should brothers have to text each other? And it's like, oh, crap, I don't know. that's totally an assumption I was making, you know? Who says that responding immediately to a text is a sign of respect or disrespect? You know, I don't know what's going on in his life. And so you get about three layers deep and suddenly you come across these assumptions that could easily not be the case, easily not be true.

So that's a fun one to do. Another question that I often ask people to ask themselves is to simply ask themselves to whatever is going on in their life or whatever. problem is going on in their life. Ask like, what if it was their responsibility? What if this was like it was all on them, all on their shoulders? Like, if this was your responsibility, what would you do? Because I make the argument in my books that we actually are all responsible for our experiences, but we distract ourselves from that fact. We blame others. We blame the world. We say this isn't fair, blah, blah, blah. I didn't create coronavirus. It's like, what am I supposed to do about it? It's

like, well, you're still responsible for your actions. You're still responsible for, you know, if you go outside and get other people sick, you're still responsible for your family and making sure there's food in the house and things like that. So a lot of times we get so caught up in our stories about how we're the victim in the world is like this big, scary, awful place. We block out what we're responsible for. Ultimately, it's by focusing on what we're responsible for that, ironically, that empowers us, gives us greater control in our lives. That's around your concept of freedom, which I love because it's completely opposite.

I loved hearing how you were traveling all these countries and learning all these languages and meeting all these people and seemingly have all this freedom. Yet when you committed and sort of close the circle in some regards, you were more free. Yeah, it's one of the things I talk about and everything is F is that I think as a culture, we kind of, we have this incorrect idea of like freedom is just more. stuff. It's like more options, more experiences. And I think that's, that's a very shallow or short-sighted vision of what freedom is. Because, you know, just because you can choose from 20 boxes of cereal doesn't mean you're more free. Or just because you can take a trip to like 18 different places,

doesn't mean you're more free. In some ways, it actually is a greater limitation. You have to give up more for each decision you make. You know, a lot has been written about how millennials are terrible at commitment. They're terrible at choosing careers, choosing partners, choosing places to live. And I think a lot of it is just that we grew up with such an abundance of options. It doesn't make sense to choose one thing when there's like 25 other things you could have at any given moment. What I argue is that that is its own form of oppression. It's like an oppression of too much choice. I argue that true freedom is actually not in how much stuff you could have, but it's in what you choose to give up.

True freedom is being able to say, I could go to eight different countries, but I'm going to stay home because this is more important to me. Or it's true freedom is I could date 50 people or whatever this year, but I'm choosing to be with this one person because building a relationship with them is important to me and it matters. So it's kind of reorienting freedom away, this idea of freedom away from just abundant and more towards choice and commitment. I think nothing is going to be more relevant

that what you just described right there, given our current circumstance, and that overabundance of options isn't an option right now, right? So it's sort of, it's really timely and it's a good time for people to think about that because it doesn't have to just be now, you know, it can be whenever we want. You know, right now, you know,

so we're recording this, what, it's March 19th? So like the quarantine thing's pretty new. right now. It's been less than a week for most of us. And so everybody's still kind of freaking out about it. But like I really wouldn't be surprised if, you know, month, two months, three months, however long this goes on, if we kind of, if we get to the end of this, and I bet you there will be a lot of people who are surprised at the mental and emotional benefits that come from it, of, you know, three months of like not leaving the house, of not dating, of not going out for social meetups and happy hours and not feeling fomo, right? I feel like a lot of people are going to

kind of have some realizations around that during this period. At least I hope so. Absolutely. Well, hopefully if people are taking this time to do the work and if they're listening to the show, they are, they're definitely interested in improving themselves. So that's really exciting to me. I know I'm excited. I started thinking, what bad habits can I break while, you know, I just, I zone into this window right now. Okay, what things, you know, I'm going to drink one cup. less of coffee. I'm obviously not going out. So alcohol's out the window. Okay, I'm going to keep working out. I'm going to read at night instead of watch TV because I don't want to watch the news anymore, like making some small changes and then see how it pans out over 30 or 60 days. I think it's pretty

exciting. Yeah, my wife and I have been talking over like a year of, you know, one day we're just going to buy a ton of food and cook at home for like a month just to get healthier. And we just always put it off and put it off and put it off and then finally this happened. We're like, well, I guess it's time to finally, because it's time to start cooking it home. We'll see how that goes. I'm in the same boat. Okay, so one of the things that you talk a lot about and everything is effed is about values. And I'm interested to hear from you on, let's say we're in this window of time and you start questioning your values. You know, I've been putting so much value on the outer world and what other.

people think of me, how I look, how I dress, how much money I make. Say you're in this decision-making process, re-evaluation process, how do you start to look at how can I reshape or change my values? You know, this situation we're in is great for this because I think what people will start to notice is that there are certain things that they really miss, and then there's certain things that they don't. I think a lot of us will be surprised at the things that we don't miss. Situations like that that are like the perfect opportunity to say, okay, there's this thing that was a huge part of my life, now it's gone, and I actually don't miss it. Therefore, there's no reason to bring it back. That right there is an opportunity to change that value. It's like,

I used to think that I had to go out drinking every weekend. And now I see that that was really unhealthy and I don't miss it. In fact, I'm like happier without it. I think the thing that makes it difficult, the whole value thing, difficult for people is that, you know, values have to be lived. Like, you can't, you can't just sit in a chair and, like, think about what you want to be important to yourself. Like, you have to actually go live it. You, you tell people, family is important, but if you're at work until 9 p.m. every day, then clearly it's not. So, it's, this is an opportunity to actually see how you want to live, what things you want to include in your life. And then by doing that,

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That's tachiatry.com slash confidence to get matched in minutes. It's profound stuff, and you get into some of the different, nuances around values in your book around sometimes it has to be an outwardly occurrence or something big that shifts in your life to impact you to make these shifts. Because, you know, we're humans. We get complacent. You know, we get into patterns. And sometimes you need a wrecking ball to knock you out of that pattern. And I think this is why, you know, my first book's in subtle art, I talked about how generally the most important experiences of our lives tend to be very negative experiences.

experiences. And I think that's why it's they knocked us out of our patterns, you know, a horrible breakup, a divorce, a family member dying. It's like those are the moments that we realize like, oh my God, there's all these things that are not important, but I'm still spending my life doing it. I shouldn't do them anymore. And so in that sense, I feel like this is another opportunity for that. So you're at home all day for weeks or months. Start asking yourself, like, what do you want when we all get out of here? what do you want to go back to? What is worth going back to? And what do you actually want to use this as an opportunity to leave behind? What an interesting time. So I'm so excited that we're recording this right now. One example that you gave in the book I really liked was the driving analogy with a thinking brain and the feeling brain. And it was really eye-opening to me because I had no idea.

I had never thought about life this way. So I was hoping you could share it. In Chapter 2 of Everything is F, I talk about how we have two brains and they're really bad at talking to each other. So the two brains are the thinking brain and the feeling brain. And most people's assumption is that we're all a thinking brain. The thinking brain's in charge. So the thinking brain is the one who sits around and creates spreadsheets and schedules and looks at its calendar and all this stuff.

And the feeling brain is like a really, really annoying child that you have to like drag around with you by its collar and like tell it to like stop. By it. Yeah, yeah. Just like cut it out. Shut up. This is adult time. And I think a lot of us assume that the process of growing up or maturing is teaching that inner child to just shut the hell up and let the adult speak.

It turns out that actually the feeling brain is in charge. And the thinking brain is kind of there just to justify whatever the feeling brain feels. And so the way it described it is like the thinking brain, if you imagine your, you're, consciousness is a car. We assume that the thinking brain is driving, and the feeling brain is this annoying child in the passenger seat. But really, it's the feeling brain is driving, and the thinking brain has controlled the map.

And so generally, the feeling brain is going to go wherever it wants to go. The thinking brain's job is to draw the map, or at least come up with reasonable looking plans that will make sure that we don't drive ourselves off a cliff. In this sense, it's, I explain that like everything that we experience is like a problem of self-discipline, of willpower, of procrastination, of failure, self-doubt, all these things. The problem is, these are emotional problems. And that's what makes them so difficult. Like, that's why people try to lose weight for 10 years and they still can't.

That's why people promise themselves that they're going to start going to a gym or they're going to start waking up earlier or they're going to write a book that they've always wanted to write. They never do it because it never feels right. It never feels good. It's the feeling brain that drives the car. And so what you actually have to do is you have to kind of train your thinking brain to speak to your feeling brain, to show your feeling brain maps that it's going to get really excited about and want to drive to. And there are different techniques to do that. There are different ways to do that.

I kind of talk about that in the book. Can you give us a technique? So one is to you can do it with pleasure. you could do it with pain. So one example is if there's something that you really need to do or really want to do and it's painful, it's not exciting. One way you can motivate yourself to do it is to make the consequences of not doing it more painful than the consequences of doing it. So I'll just, to give you a quick example, when I was writing my first book, it was taking way too long. I was kind of caught in this like perfectionist cycle, this perfectionist loop.

I was just like writing endlessly. And I'm like, okay, if I don't like, just force myself to stop and finish this thing. This is going to go on forever. I'm going to get lost in one of those 10-year bubbles that writers disappear to. And I think it was like October or something. And I was just so terrified of the idea of like finishing. I remember I went to a really close friend of mine. I wrote a check for $3,000.

It's a friend I trusted. I wrote a check for $3,000, which was, a lot of money for me at the time. And I said, if I don't show you a completed draft by New Year's Eve, cash this check. And like that was terrified. That was absolutely terrifying. And sure enough, I finished Christmas Eve. You know, and you could do that all sorts of different ways. You can, you know, a simple way to do it is like get a workout buddy. You know, it's way easier. So like, it's easy for me to blow off going to the gym. not only does that not feel bad,

it actually feels kind of good to blow off going to the gym. But if my friend is there at the gym expecting me to be there, the idea of letting them down feels awful. And so that forces me to go to the gym, not because I want to work out, but simply because I don't want to embarrass myself

or let down my friend. So you can create these kind of situations for yourself that like put, like it leverages your emotions in your favor rather than against you. And it's hard to do, but it's something you can start training yourself to do. It's so true. So in this current bizarre climate, I bought the Peloton because I can't not work out, unlike you. I love live to go to the gym. And it's so funny because Peloton has an online community and a lot of my friends are on it.

So now they're messaging me, what time are you riding today? And it's already, oh, shoot, I've got, you know, I'm scheduling it because I know they're riding that class. and you can give virtual high-fives on the computer during your ride and have this next level accountability even though we can't leave our homes. It's kind of crazy, but you're right. You can create this level of accountability in any situation. It's just a choice. Yeah, totally. So, Mark, I know that I just found out today you have a new audiobook that's coming out. Yeah, I've got an audible original coming out. It's called Love is Not Enough. It's me sitting down with five people with relationship problems and talking them. It's everything from there's a woman who is in a relationship with a married man.

It doesn't know how to get out. There's a guy who's been through two divorces and is on the cusp of screwing up his third relationship. There's all sorts of like different interesting issues going on. And the audio book tracks me talking to these people over the course of six months, kind of giving them advice, breaking down. the principles of what's going on and mistakes they're making and things like that. And then at the end of the six months, we kind of see what happens.

So it's a lot of fun. It's a great, great way to enjoy your time at home. When will it be out? It comes up March 26th. And just so everyone knows, your background really was you were originally blogging a lot about dating, relationships. Your first book was about this. And I just watched yesterday, which I loved on YouTube,

you have this really cool YouTube video, which is about boundaries that I highly suggest people check out. It's so eye-opening and really well done. I loved it. So I'm really looking forward to the new audiobook. Awesome. Yeah, check it out. All right, so tell me, how does everyone find you

and how can everyone find everything is effed? So markmanson.net is the website. There's hundreds of articles there. And then everything is F, the book about Hope, it should be, I mean, it should be, everywhere right now. It's every bookstore, Amazon, Audible, everywhere. I mean, come on. New York Times bestseller, people. You got to pick it up. Thank you so much, Mark. Even though you have nothing to do because we're all stuck at home,

I still appreciate your time. Emancy. Thanks. Good to be here. Hang tight. We'll be right back. Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed hearing from Mark as much as I did such a talented, smart, sarcastic, funny, cool guy. Really enjoyed having him on the show. Love to hear what you think. So please hit me up in social media. Head up my site.

Leave a review. You know, I so appreciate your support. Would love to hear your feedback. Would love to hear what you think. And if you have a moment to do it, please leave a review, share and subscribe means the world to me. While you're laying around the house, well, you shouldn't be laying around the house.

We need to exercise and or go outside with social distancing at least once a day. please do that will help your mental state immensely, make your mental state your number one priority during this time. And then let's keep that habit going afterwards. That's a goal that I'm putting out there for myself too. But while we're in this time where a lot of people are, you know, confined to small areas. I'm in a small condo with my son. It's so great to have rejuvenate on my side. Rejuvenate is clinically proven to help increase muscle recovery, aids in rebuilding lost muscle, and assist in the prevention of muscle atrophy in patients after an injury or surgery. The essential amino acids, they're the building blocks of protein, and they are vital to restoring and repairing lean muscle.

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confidence at checkout. Go to rejuvenate muscle.com and get 15% off your entire order. You are worth it. Okay, so now on to our questions that I want to share with you. I got a lot this week. So I know you guys are home and I'm so excited to hear from you. If you ever have questions, go to my website, Heather Monaghan.com.

Or you can DM me on any social media platform or you can leave them in your reviews. Put the questions in your reviews. Happy to answer any and all of them. Okay, here's the first one. Hey, Heather, I hope you're well. I struggle to sell myself and my business. How can I overcome this and be more positive and who. who I am and what I have to offer.

So typically my experience when people don't want to quote unquote sell themselves and their business, it goes back to a more fundamental insecurity, right? They feel bad trying to promote themselves because maybe they don't feel promotable. If you don't feel great about you, you don't want to shine your light and showcase yourself. So I would say my first step or action step to someone in this situation is, why do you not feel that way? Right. You need to dig deep like Mark says, like ask yourself,

question. Why is it you don't feel comfortable doing that? Because you don't feel a value. And if that's the case, that's not true. Right. So we need to work on your confidence and start writing down. What are some of the things that you feel proud of? What things have you done that, you know, you shot out to do that you were able to accomplish? Start celebrating your wins. Start evaluating the people you're spending your time with. Maybe you need to fire some people in your life and start pulling in more positive, supportive people to help stretch you to grow. Start taking steps today. If you haven't read my book yet, Confidence Creator, now is a great time. It'll give you a roadmap on how to build your confidence because the only reason I can imagine someone doesn't want to highlight themselves,

highlight their products and services, because they're not really feeling good about themselves. So that's my advice there. Okay, next. Hey, Heather, I've got a question. Just want to see what you think. I finally got a great job offer. Yay. My start date is April 1st with the coronavirus and the quarantine's coming. If the government calls for national quarantine, what do you think I should I was thinking I would have to put the position on hold until we are back to normal. What do you think? No, no and no. So I go back to this.

Do you think companies are wondering and concerned about this? No. If they've made an offer to you and extended an offer, take it. And then if there's a quarantine put on place, you are not expected to go to work, right? But that shouldn't get in the way of you accepting the job. We can't predict what's going to happen. So you to try to put that ownership on you makes no sense. you're being hired for a job.

They want you. You want to be there? Except the position. Let the cards play out. We don't know what tomorrow will be. A week ago, we didn't know we'd be in a situation. Who knows what's going to happen a week from now? Don't try to predict the future.

Instead, you want the job. You were offered the job. They want you. Take the job and let's see how the rest plays out. Okay. Oh, I got this great message from someone who reached out to me a few months ago and asked me, hey, how did you get a TED Talk? Hey, how did you write a book?

Blah, blah, blah. and I sent him back, you know, the editor I use, the self-publishing company I used, and how I took out a Google alert on TEDx talks and applied. And he sent me a note back that said, Just wanted to say thank you for your guidance and content. I took your advice and I've agreed to publish my book with Scribe. Scribe media, they're great to work with. I'm talking with local TEDx promoters and I've hired a speaking coach to fine-tune my talk.

I've started to share content and I'm really enjoying the impact that it can have. So I wanted to make sure that you know your work is making a difference. please let me know the next time you're out in Cali. So here's a thing. We can share wisdom and expertise with people. It's up to them if they want to act on it. And same for each one of us. We can garner intel and expertise from Mark Manson,

but it's up to us if we want to do the work and implement it in our life, right? So, you know, there's so many instances where we might share these amazing bits of wisdom with people that they can go ahead and implement and act on their life to improve it. A lot of people are going to choose not to. to do that. I really hope that I'm not that person. I pride myself on taking action and I hope that you do the same. It makes all the difference. And I promise you, 99% time it turns out fantastic. Okay, this is a really good one. I got this on LinkedIn. Okay, here we go. Having been a VP at a hospital during SARS, I'm supporting my peers from the sidelines this time around. It's really hard

not to be in action. I was wondering, do you miss those days back in corporate America? perhaps on a future podcast you can discuss your thoughts not being in corporate action leading your team through crisis in the past i would be helping my team my patients and families through these challenges now my big crisis is we're running out of coloring books no need to respond etc etc just interested to know how you feel being on the sidelines so this is interesting to me i don't feel like i'm on the sidelines and i want to explain what i mean by that when i was in corporate america i was in the mix i was leading a team i love my team i built that team over a 14-year period. There were so many people there I loved, and I took responsibility for,

and yes, I loved leading them. However, leadership does not begin or end with a title or with a certain company. If you are a leader, you lead wherever you are. So to me, I'm still the exact same leader I was there. I'm just leading now, in my opinion, at a larger scale. And what I mean by that is when I was back in corporate America, I was constantly being shut down about my social media. I couldn't post what I wanted. I couldn't post too much. They didn't want me to post at all and they wanted me to shut my website down completely. I was being harassed about having a voice on social media. I wasn't confined physically, but I was essentially confined and restricted mentally and through the potential to reach others. They only wanted me to lead within the confines of that company.

And now I'm out of that company and I'm able to share my message, my expertise, my vision, positivity anywhere and everywhere I go. And that feels incredibly freeing. I still get DMs all of the time for my past employees, many of which have left that company, and I hear from them all the time. So our relationship didn't end because I got fired. My relationship with community in the world grew because I am now free. The muzzles off. I can say what I want, when I want. And I will tell you, having had this experience, I will any day of the week, choose. to be confined and restricted physically to my home and not to leave these four walls versus being confined and restricted at a company that wants to control what I say,

control my mental thoughts and control my voice. So in a weird way, I celebrate that, yes, we might be restricted not to leave our homes right now, but our voices can be bigger than ever. I hope yours is. I hope you are taking care of yourself and keeping your spirits up. I know that I am working every day to do the same. So until next week, and let me tell you, I'm working on some really big guests for you, and I think you're going to love it.

Would love to hear from you. Please leave a review if you can. And make sure when you share this on social, tag me, and I will repost, reshare, and spread the love. So keep creating confidence until next week.