Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1050: Mark Manson- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

Episode Date: June 10, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin talk with New York Times bestselling author or The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and Everything is F*cked. The receding threshold of pain and discomfort. (3:34) You say you value something, but your actions tell a different story. (6:42) Why he wrote a ‘pessimistic’ self help book. (9:35) The paradox of choice. (14:21) The importance of ‘god value’. (19:15) Why are we becoming less religious? (24:55) The better things get, the more ridiculous the things we get upset about. (29:05) How do we inject struggle into our lives to find meaning? (31:17) Defining what your values are. (34:30) The coddling of the American mind. (42:07) The value hierarchy. (45:24) The importance of hearing both sides. (50:06) Where did he derive his wisdom? (51:27) The unexpected reactions from his books. (57:47) How our perception of ourselves lags behind reality. (1:02:04) The story of how he connected with Will Smith. (1:09:28) What is his top value? (1:20:56) The differences between a good and a bad podcast. (1:24:44) His current biggest struggle. (1:27:30) The evolution of fatherhood. (1:28:50) What does someone buy who doesn’t give a shit about money? (1:32:47) The coolest thing about being a famous author. (1:33:58) Featured Guest/People Mentioned Mark Manson (@markmansonnet)  Instagram Mark Manson (@IAmMarkManson)  Twitter Website Aubrey Marcus (@aubreymarcus)  Instagram Jonathan Haidt (@JonHaidt)  Twitter Will Smith (@willsmith)  Instagram Jim Kwik (@jimkwik)  Instagram Jordan Peterson (@jordan.b.peterson)  Instagram Related Links/Products Mentioned June Promotion: MAPS Strong ½ off!! **Code “STRONG50” at checkout** Mark Manson - Amazon.com Stop Trying to Change Yourself—Change Your Actions | Mark Manson What To Give a F*ck About with Mark Manson - AMP #147 “Who the Fuck Am I?”: The Ultimate Guide to Personal Values The Coddling of the American Mind : How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure - Book by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt The Flip Side Happiness Is Not Enough | Mark Manson Open: An Autobiography – Book by Andre Agassi

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. I'm really excited for this one. I really say that. I'm really excited to share this with our audience because I read Mark Manson's subtle art of not giving a fuck about two years ago. And I'm really not that much into self-help books, although his twist on self-help, I thought was awesome.

A pessimistic view. Right. It was amazing. I would say it's a realistic. I know, but that's how he coined it. Yeah. Right. No, it's extremely clever. It know, but that's how he coined it. Yeah, yeah. Right, no, it's extremely clever. It's one of the fastest selling

or best selling books of the year. I believe it's approached eight million copies sold. I know it was like it's seven something, over seven million when we first talked to Mark and I know it was still climbing. So it's on its way. If it reaches 10 million books, he's in a group of like less than a few hundred authors of all time

I mean, which is just unbelievable. So it's had a huge impact on a lot of people. I've I've heard about his book and was referred to his book by several people that I have very very high respect for and they all say the same things. It was phenomenal. His new book, Everything is Fucked, looks just as amazing. And here's the thing about, Mark, I don't know much about him as a person. Then he comes into the studio and he's a really fucking cool dude.

Yeah, he got to riff on Justin's guitar. Oh yeah, that was awesome. He's got a dark sense of humor like we do. Love's metal. Oh, he totally hit it off.'s got a dark sense of humor like we do. Loves metal. Oh, we totally hit it off. And we had a great, and what I was really proud about in this interview, which you're about to hear, is it's not like the classic interviews that you've heard

of him. We talk a lot about a lot of different type of stuff. So if you're really into the sky and into his books, you're going to hear a different side of him that you may not have heard on other podcasts. His website is markmanson.net. His Instagram is markmansonnet. His Twitter is I am markmanson.

Of course his books are the subtle art of not giving a fuck and everything is fucked. Highly highly suggest both of those books as they're phenomenal. And before we get into the episode, I want to remind everybody, Maps Strong is 50% off. Now, I remember Maps Strong was our strong man inspired muscle building fat burning program.

It's strong man inspired, meaning it is full of lifts that you're probably not doing now. It's different. it's fun. There's a stamina component with our work sessions. It's a posterior chain heavy program. So you're gonna get a very strong back, strong glutes when you do this workout. I was actually surprised that my arms got a little bit bigger.

There isn't tons of direct bicep work, but it was all the heavy pulling and snatch grip pulls that got my biceps to respond. So this program's fun. It's awesome. It's half off. If you go to maps strong.com MAPS S T R O N G dot com and use the code strong 50 S T R O N G0, no space for the discounts. Make sure you check that out. And that's it. Here we are talking to one of our favorite guests, Mark Manson. I think we're as sensitive as we are today because people

were finding power on being a victim. Yeah. I think they're finding power on being a victim. Yeah, you offended me. I'm powerful. And I've noticed this, because I've been writing some pretty vulgar shit for like 10 years now, and it's like just the last two years, the complaints.

I mean, I've always gotten complaints, but don't make fun of these people or that, but it's like just the last year or two. It's getting unbearable. It's every single thing I write, every joke. There's like people coming. Dude, I wrote a joke. I wrote an email to my list.

And I made a joke about strippers. And it's like just like a very generic stripper joke. And I got so many complaints. And I got, there was one woman and she was like she was like you need to think about the fact that some of us have have have husbands that cheated on us with strippers you should be more sensitive I'm like what I think we're reaching the point where like you literally can't write anything yeah yeah it's just because somebody somewhere is been fragmented all the time It's just been traumatized by anything.

I don't know who said this, but I heard it somewhere. I thought it was brilliant that the back and the medieval times or times of Kings and Queens, you knew that shit was about to hit the fan when the gesture, the court gesture, would get executed by the king. Interesting. When the gesture no longer could make jokes,

then you knew you were dealing with a tyrant. And it's interesting, right? Kind of a sign of the times where comedians are now being told they can't be funny the way that they've been funny before. Everybody gets offended by anything. Do you think that's a reflection on something else? Yeah, I mean, it's... So a lot of the new book is about this.

A lot of it is about our, I describe it as our, our receding threshold for I guess pain or discomfort. I think people are becoming less emotionally resilient. And that is, that plays out across society in a lot of different ways. Part of it is just that, you know, we're constantly like distracted and, you know, we can't be bored for more than two seconds. But part of it too is that like anything that makes us uncomfortable, anything that offends us a little bit, it's like, oh, well, I can't handle that. And so it's creating a culture of distrust and a culture of, well, as you said, there's a certain degree of it

that celebrates victimhood. It becomes a status symbol of like, I'm more victimized than you, therefore my voice deserves to be heard more than yours. And that's not to say that victims shouldn't be heard, it's just that like, look, we've all been victimized to varying degrees and we've all been through shit. And it's when you start rewarding certain amounts of victimhood that you start creating a very toxic environment. Mark, do you think that it may be something

you said in one of your short podcasts, which was I actually listened to it this morning. It was brilliant. You said that you can tell what somebody truly values, not by their words, but by their actions. Their actions. Their actions will tell you, and oftentimes, and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm really paraphrasing, phenomenal. We'll put this in the show notes, I think everybody should listen to it. You said that oftentimes we say we want certain things or that we value certain things,

because that's what we wanna be, but our actions actually show us that we're someone else. Do you think that this celebration of victimhood or constantly trying to be offended or finding a reason to be offended is a way for people to show? It's to signal their virtue. Oh, I'm offended by that too.

Like, of course that bothers me. When in reality, they probably aren't. I think it's inevitable. Anytime you start being rewarded with attention and validation, and especially today, I mean, everything's driven by attention. Everything's kind of set up to incentivize attention. And just the nature of human psychology is that really fucked up shit grabs our attention more than anything else.

That's why. And so if that's what spreads, the easiest and spreads the furthest and gets you the most attention in there for it gets you the most emotional support or validation, I don't even think it's conscious in a lot of us. Like we start naturally leaning into that, essentially.

And I just, I wanna make clear too, because this topic gets politicized a lot, and it's funny because it gets politicized. People tend to project, you know, whoever the other side is, and it's been interesting, so I'm in the middle of my speaking to her right now. I'm doing red states and blue states,

and when I start talking about this on stage, and I talk to people after the show, it's in the blue states, they're like, yeah, those damn Trump supporters, they're just, they get so upset at the smallest thing. And then I'm in the red states and I was like, does God damn liberals? Like they can't just, can't they just man up and,

and you know, deal with it? And I'm like, guys, this is, you don't even, I get to see it, it's everywhere, everywhere. And so I tried to writing this book, I wanted to very much write it a politically in a way that both sides could kind of hopefully see what's going on. Going to the root.

Yeah, because it's just everybody's blaming the other side right now. And as long as we're blaming the other side, we're not dealing with our own shit. Now your first book, one of the best selling books of, I mean, of, of, of, of ever, I think, but definitely of the last 10 years, I know it's, it's know it's gonna, at some point, hit 10 million copies if I'm not mistaken. It's getting there. It's a self-help book, but I think it's more than that. Well, with a twist.

Yeah, and I think you gotta explain the motivation behind that book first and why you wrote it the way you did in comparison to the average. You gotta typical self-help book. Sure, sure. So it's, I'd been blogging for a long time, and I had a personal development blog. And I've read self-help stuff and personal development

stuff since I was a teenager. And I reached a point in my late 20s where I became very disillusioned with all of it. And it wasn't so much, it's not that it's wrong. It's just that I felt like a lot of these ideas of, believe you can do anything and if you just believe it, it will come true. And basically all this shit that is kind of designed

to make you feel good, kind of kiss your ass a little bit. And be like, hey, reader, you're great too. I believe in you. It's like, hey, reader, you're great too. I believe in you. It's like, no, humans are shit. When you really study psychology, you quickly understand that we are fucked up creatures. We have lots of problems. We have lots of biases, prejudices, and we're very limited. And so I felt like there really needed to be a pessimistic self-help book.

A self-help book that didn't start out with the idea of like, you're great, you could do anything. It started out with the idea of like, you're shit, I'm shit, we're all shit. Let's try to be less shitty. And people loved it. It took off. So it's less fantastical that way. Absolutely. And I think that's what,

the most common reader reaction is like, oh, it's so real. And I think that's what kind of gets through to them is that you're not living in this fantasy world of, you know, just a, I don't know, all this like, airy, fairy crap that you hear all the time. You put, you help people, I guess, put the responsibility on themselves.

I don't know how, if there's a better way to put it, but it's a, the message is a little counter to what we've heard for maybe the past couple of decades, which is it's not your fault, don't worry about it. You're more like, hey, you've got a lot of control. It's your responsibility. Do you think the timing is what made it part of what made it so popular? Because a lot of what you talk about is old wisdom. Yeah, none of this shit's new. Oh, it's old wisdom. If you study the world's religions and philosophers, you in a modern way convey what they've been saying, but you

convey it in a way that connects with people today, but you're conveying that message. You think it was just the timing, like people hadn't heard this message, said that way for long enough to know what you brought it out and they're like, oh shit. Yeah. I definitely think a lot of it's time. Like look, anytime you sell 10 million books, it wasn't all you. Like, there's a lot of luck involved and a lot of that good fortune was timing. I think one thing that I've been talking about at my talks is that I think 2016 and a lot of ways,

it's the year that I think the honeymoon period of the internet was over. I don't know about you guys, but if you think back like 10 years ago, when I was starting my first online business, everybody was so optimistic about social media, about, hey, we're all going to be artists, we're going to be creatives, everybody's going to be a freelancer, it's going to be great. And then, like 2015, 2016, we just started realizing all of the social costs that come along with being this connected with everything.

And I think it's, we haven't really recovered from that. It's such a downer and so upsetting to realize that we can't go back. You can't put Facebook back in the box. It's out. And so I think, as you said, I just kind of repackaged a lot of these old ideas and I'm very new. Relatable. very new, relatable, you know, very new and relatable package. And I think that I caught like the perfect moment,

the book came out at the perfect moment where people were like very disillusioned and upset and pessimistic, but they still wanted to get better. So. What are some of those social costs that you recognize right away? Well, attention for sure. I mean, it's just there's oh man, there's so many so people's attention span is is eroding It's we're having we're less of our

Social interactions are happening face-to-face and there's just a lot of evidence that shows that You can't replicate the, I guess emotional satisfaction or the intimacy that comes with a face-to-face conversation or hanging out. I mean, you guys have been doing podcast. I mean, there's a reason I'm here physically. It's just you doing on Skype and it's like, not the same.

It's not the same at all. There's a paradox of choice thing going on, which is, paradox of choice is this interesting thing in psychology, which is, if somebody gives you an option or like two boxes of cereal in the morning, you pick your favorite one and you'll be satisfied, you'll be like, okay, I got the best box.

If somebody offers you 20 boxes, A, it's going to require a lot more effort to make that decision and B, what they find is that people are actually less satisfied with their decisions. Because they think about all the other ones that they didn't do. That they gave up. That's how I feel every time I try and choose a movie on Netflix. Oh man. I was pressured. I remember being a kid when I collected video cassettes back then, right? And I had 10 of them. Yeah. And I rotated through the 10 fucking a hundred times.

Yeah. And like to your point was so excited to pick the one and I enjoyed it. Even if it was the 80th time I watched it. Yeah. And now when I get on Netflix, it's like there's such a, there's so many choices. So vast. And then you watch it, like fuck, I just wasted two hours Yeah, it's it's like that all the 500 channels and there's nothing on

Yeah, you just sit there and scroll through them Yeah, I've been reading statistics that are showing that In certain age groups suicide rates are Hitting levels we haven't seen in a long time. Opiate addiction has been climbing at the end. Yeah, climbing and yet we're living in objectively speaking, materially speaking, the best times ever. Yes, we're more fed.

We have more shelter, more people have whatever they want. There's less violence, less crime. Yeah. We're more educated. shelter, more people have whatever they want. There's less violence, less crime, or more educated. And yeah, depression, anxiety, suicide, drug overdoses, these are all things that are on the rise now. Do you think it's because? Yeah, why? Why do you think that? Yeah, like, so, I mean, the whole book is kind of about why, but the short answer is that I think there are two chief reasons.

One is the better things get, the more you have the lose. So like if you're just a subsistence farmer, like in the middle of India or something or in Kenya, like, you don't have much to lose. Like you just get up and you fucking farm. Like there's no complexity to it. It's you know exactly what the hope for in your life, you know exactly what your dreams are. You just want to like grow some food and eat.

When you're sitting in an air conditioned room in the Bay area, getting food delivered to you by like hitting buttons on your phone, having 500 shows on Netflix, it's really hard to know what to hope for in your life. Like it's actually that whole question of, what do I want for myself? What is my purpose here as a person? It gets very complicated. So that's one, is that there's a lot to lose.

And then the second one is just that when you're bombarded with a lot of different contradictory information, having that solid vision for yourself or your life is harder to do that. You know, I just know from me, myself, like, you know, I wanted to lose weight this year. And of course, like an idiot, I Googled, how do you lose weight? And all these awful articles come up. And you just, within five minutes, you realize they all start contradicting each other.

And there's this expert guy over here, he's got the one secret that, you know, if you just stop eating this food, and then, you know, you go to another website and they say the complete opposite thing. And within an hour, I'm like, you know what, fuck it, I'll just be fat. So much easier. It's just so much easier to be fat. But I feel like that is happening with everything, you know, with our careers, with our jobs.

And again, it's the paradox of choice thing. with our careers, with our jobs. And again, it's the paradox of choice thing. It's like, when you know you could have a career doing 20 different things, you're gonna spend the rest of your life wondering what if. So you did an interview with somebody that Aubrey Marcus, and I actually think it was one of the worst interviews that I heard you on, not because you were bad, but because he constantly took over the conversation.

He asked you a great question. And then he would go on a rant talking about his opinion on that. And there was an area that I really wanted to hear you get into with him. That it, because I know him. And I kind of, we refer to them as pleasure chasers over there.

And you talked about God value. And the importance of that. And that's one of the things that my values, I don't think align with theirs as far as like how what they chase after in life. And you were starting to go that direction. I felt like you kind of took it away. You didn't get to get deeper into it.

Could you explain God value and what that means and why you think that's important? Sure. So, man, how far do I want to back up to explain this? All right, I'm gonna give like the cliff notes version. This is chapters two through four. So we have two brains, right? Thinking brain and feeling brain.

Thinking brain creates its own type of meaning. It creates a factual type of meaning. Thinking brain understands that this thing is black, this microphone amplifies my voice, it understands relationships between experiences. Feeling brain creates value-based meaning. It decides that, hey, podcasts are good. I like these guys.

I'm tired, I don't want to fly tomorrow. That like the feeling brain is always kind of prioritizing and putting an order. How much we desire certain things and how how important good or bad we find certain experiences. Now, the interesting thing about value based meaning is that you can't prove it or disprove it. It's just a subjective experience. I can prove this microphone stand is black. I cannot prove that podcasts are good. Like it's just an opinion.

What's interesting is that when you take all of our values in life, something has to be at the top. Something has to, we all have to pick something that we believe is more important than anything else in life. And for people who are religious, that tends to be God. But even if you're not religious, something else will become your God. It's something else becomes your God. So people, for people who, like, money is the most important thing in their life, they

end up viewing everything else they experience in terms of money. So if their relationships fail, they're like, oh, well, if I made more money, maybe I'd be loved. If they don't like somebody, they're like, oh, well, they're losers, they don't have enough money. Whatever you put in that top slot of your value hierarchy will determine the way you see everything else. And the important thing about God values is that they're, again, even if you're not religious, they're bought into on faith. You cannot prove that money determines

is the most important thing in existence. It's something that you just started believing at some point based on your own experiences. And so I don't recall specifically the conversation with the Marcus, but it's funny, I love talking to him, but it's clear that he and I have very different values. And I definitely think he puts, I guess, positive experience or pleasurable experiences is much higher on his value hierarchy than it is on mind. I tend to think that the way to develop yourself, the way to grow as a person is actually leaning into pain and discomfort.

And that is true. Just as it's true, you true, we walk through your gym, just as it's true with your physical body, it's true with your mental and emotional body. Like you become emotionally stronger, the more conflict and awkwardness and uncomfortable things that you deal with. And so I think when pleasure's great, pleasure's fun,

and it has its place in life, but I think when you start using it as kind of the rubric to measure your experiences as a human, it can lead you into some unhealthy cul-de-sacs. Isn't also with the God value, the real value being that it is ultimately unachievable, something greater than, you know, yourself. Yes. Yes. And I think anybody who kind of uses themself as a God value, I think you would classify them as a narcissist. But yeah, the interesting thing is that we need something in our life that we value more than our ourselves. Like that's what essentially gives life its sense of meaning and purpose.

You know, a super common example is like your kids. If you, most people, most loving parents value their child's life more than their own. And it's that putting their child above themselves in their feeling brain that allows them to feel a sense of purpose and hope in their life to wake up every morning and be like, I'm here for a good reason, I'm doing a good thing. People who put themselves above everything or put something like really superficial like money or having a nice car or whatever

Eventually that feels very empty because it's It's very replaceable. I guess These a lot of what you're saying is echoed by the world's major religions and you know most followed philosophies of detachment from, in other words, if you're not worshiping a God, then you're worshiping something. And a lot of the ancient religions talk about detaching from those things, whether it's

fasting, so that you abstain from food or your abstinence. Or detaching from the desire for power or money. I mean, these things, these lessons have been taught to us for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. Why do you think they fall out of favor with us? Why do you think we forget them and then have to be reminded? Well, one thing that's happening lately, and I, I make this argument a little bit in the second part of the book is that we're becoming less religious.

I think it's the technology is, has become so good in as advanced so quickly and is given us so much individual potential to direct our own life, that we've, I think we don't really buy into those lessons anymore. It's all that stuff like fasting, giving 10% of your money, giving things away, sacrificing for other people like that

was baked into all these religions as a way to keep people emotionally healthy, keep people growing. It's, you know, keep people going to that emotional gym in their minds. I think today we've built so much of our cultures driven by technology and consumerism that is constantly telling us you can be anything you want, you can do anything you want, you deserve anything you want. That's where it gets want, you deserve anything you want. That's where it gets really dangerous. Is when you start being told, like, ah, you deserve to have a great car and a hot chick

and party in 24 or 7. It's like, fuck her, you don't, what, you don't deserve anything. What have you done lately? What's your gift to you? Yeah, it's like, since when do we deserve happiness? Like this is the funny thing is, God, who was I doing? I did an interview with a pretty prominent,

prominent podcaster. I'm not gonna say their name. And they kind of threw this classic self-help trope at me. And it's like, well, you know, everybody deserves happiness. I'm like, says who, man. Like, there's some, wow, you know, everybody deserves happiness. I'm like, says who, man, like, there's some shitty people on this planet.

So, you know, it's like happiness is great, but it can't be the point. It can't be like you have to earn it through some sort of sacrifice. Again, putting something greater than yourself. But that's what makes it valuable, in my opinion. Absolutely. We use the example of, we're trainers, right?

So we talk about fitness all the time. And I've used this example before in the podcast. Like if I had a magic wand and I could all of a sudden make everybody look super fit and ripped, they would not derive nearly the benefit that they would have gotten, had they figured out how to have a good relationship and ripped, they would not derive nearly the benefit that they would have gotten, had they figured out how to have a good relationship

with food and be active for themselves. And all those things. So I think sometimes we confuse pleasure and feeling good with it being an actually a good thing. Yeah. It might not be. I mean, you could do a bunch of cocaine and feel great, sure.

It was probably not good for you. Yeah. And if you look at so much of what's commercially viable, it's, you know, people getting like, ab and plants and, you know, liposuction and all this stuff. And it's like not to knock that, but I think we're developing a culture of like, we just buy the result. We're not without engaging in the process. We don't value the process. Exactly. And it's like a rich kid, it's like a trust fund kid, he's just like given a Ferrari every year.

Like he doesn't, and he just keeps wrecking them. You know, it's like, because he doesn't fucking appreciate it. He didn't do anything for it. And so, yeah, it ends up becoming like a very empty and meaningless existence. Do you think we need struggle? Humans need. Absolutely.

Absolutely. It's again, it's, and it's fun, because I think this is why fitness people get my work so much. It's so easy black and white. Fitness is so black and white, so I love it. Well, and I think the analogies between your body and your mind line up in almost every way. Like it's, if you don't exercise, your muscles become fragile, they break down,

they can even atrophy, like you can start, your body can start decomposing. It's the same thing with your brain, same thing, like all the evidence shows it, like if you are not consistently like challenging yourself mentally intellectually emotionally you get weaker you get more fragile you get more Sensitive and then you get offended when like I sends you an email with a stripper joke Are you a fan of the matrix the movie the matrix? Yeah, yeah, yeah, do you remember when?

Was a Morpheus got caught by the agents and they're like, he's being held hostage and then they say to him, you know, the agent Smith or whatever's like, we, the first matrix we created was perfect. It was a paradise. But you got your mind couldn't handle it and we lost millions of crops and we had to make it, you know, we had to make the matrix like your version

of the world in the 90s or whatever. I thought that was so absolutely. It's so cool. Yeah, there's an old school philosopher. Actually, the guy who invented sociology was a guy named Emil Durkheim. He wrote an essay in like the 1800s saying, if you imagine he did like a thought experiment, he said, imagine a society with no crime, no dishonesty, no violence. Would people be happy? And he said, no, people would still get just as upset

as they got before, except instead of getting upset about somebody like stealing their wallet, they would get upset at like, oh, he didn't look at me the right way. Or he didn't walk fast enough. So it's like, there's a set rate of being upset. And it's the better things get, the more ridiculous the things we get upset about. Do you, how do we, and by the way, the evidence, I mean, I'm listening to you and I agree with

everything you say, but the evidence also agrees with everything you say I mean you look at modern societies and up to a certain point people get more shit and they don't get happier no matter What and oftentimes it gets much worse and you can look at the studies on lottery winners Those are my favorite. Yeah, you know people who win the lottery and just end up where they were before in a few years Yeah, they go broke broke and depressed just like they were before, didn't solve the root of their issues. But how do we, because life used to come with struggle built in more so I think than it does today, or at least different.

How do we inject struggle into our lives so that we can find that meaning? We see that does shit sandwich, right? Yeah, right. What shit sandwich do you want to eat? I think this is becoming something that it's almost like mental hygiene you know or like mental fitness. I think it given how powerful and distracting all the technology is, I think we need to start consciously developing regiments for ourselves in terms of like information diets,

like being very conscious of what we are consuming, how much time we're spending online, who we're following on Twitter and Facebook and whatnot. I think, you know, there's one side of it is just simply like very consciously limiting what you're exposed to so that you're not getting sucked into stupid struggles that don't actually affect anything. Then I think the flip side of that is to go out and find meaningful challenges for yourself.

One of the things that I've started talking about is I think that we might actually be thinking too globally as a society now. I think the internet, again, the amazing thing the internet did is it made us so aware of what's happening globally. But I think it's also moved our interests away from local struggles and concerns. Not only, instead of sitting on Twitter and screaming at people about some political issue, if you took that same energy and went down to the local school and bought some poor

kid school supplies, maybe volunteer it as a substitute teacher or something, not only are you going to make more impact, but that is going to add more purpose and meaning to your life than anything, any sort of globally related issue that you find. It's like, and I'm not saying don't get involved with global issues, but I guess my point is like the only way that for any of us to make a dent and a global issues you have to like Dedicate your life to it And so I just think we need to like move our focus back to more of a local level If we if we move that even more local do you think if people focused on just making themselves better?

That that would be the best approach. I think that's a that's part of it I That that would be the best approach. I think that's a, that's part of it. I think making yourself bad, I mean, depends how you define making yourself better. Oh, that's a good one though. That's the way we need to get into that. Yeah, because it's, yeah, actually, this does raise an interesting issue because there is, and this kind of comes back

to a lot of my criticism of self-development. It's a lot of my time when I was really into the self-help shit in my early 20s, I sure running into people who were so focused on self-improvement that they themselves became their God value without them realizing it. So it was like everything in their life was about like, oh well, you know, it's good my girlfriend left me because I'm gonna like get so many lessons out of it. And it's like, dude, you're fucking heartbroken. Like, you know, it's just like, like let yourself hurt. But, and so I think I would argue that

to really work on yourself, you need to be giving back to people in your life. There's no way you can't build yourself up as an island completely. So. And that, you talk a little bit about this, about kind of defining what your values are. So like, that same podcast I listened to,

you talked about this story that you thought about writing, but you didn't, because you knew you'd get backlash, was about Hitler, and how Hitler, if he just became a better Hitler, would have been a bad thing. Right, you know, because his values were all fucked up. Yep. So maybe talk about that for a second,

like how do we determine that for ourselves? How do we decide? And why do we need to decide what are good values before we go and make ourselves better? Yeah. So I dreamed of writing this article for a long time. It was actually, it was going to be a spoof on like a self-help podcast.

It was going to be like, today, our guest is one of the most successful world leaders in history. Arguably. Yeah. He took a crumbling economy and within 20 years made the creative, the world's most powerful military, you know, it's like this big, epic introduction. Right. And it was going to be Hitler and it was going to be the whole podcast. It's going to be like, so tell us about your morning routine.

Like, do you put butter in your coffee? And it was going to be satirical and I thought, you know, I would have laughed my ass off. I would have laughed on it. But I just, I knew, I knew just the... You would have been crucified. Oh my God. The emails I would have gotten. And so, but I think it would have made... It makes your point. It makes such an important point, which is that, again, if those values are misaligned or if they're not set straight, the more disciplined you become, the better goals you set, the harder you work, it's actually going to destroy you and destroy others more. It's like all this other stuff becomes a bad thing if you're like pointed in the wrong direction.

And so to me, it's values is not only the first question, but it's like pretty much the question because the other issue too is that once you get the, like your value sort it out, once you feel like something is so important in your life, it's not hard to get motivated to do it. It's so important to you that you're excited to wake up and start running after it. I think we, not only could we make self-development

such a better tool by focusing on these value-based questions, but it would also remove a lot of the other questions from the equation. Well, you also discussed, too, the importance of, it's one thing to have these values or to have these goals, but then how many people take it the next step and ask yourself, why? Right.

Yeah, why do I have this? Yeah. And I think that's so important when you're talking about self-development or growth is, you know, and that's something that I felt that I got from your book that you just not a lot of self-help books give you is that it's one thing to go after, set these goals, go get it, motivate you to do it every day. It's another thing to really start to ask you these questions because what I have found personally in my life, the deeper I go, the more I realize how much of my own values

and goals sometimes are driven by my own deep rooted insecurities. Yeah, and past traumas, and, you know, it's, I've got a good friend who, and it's funny because he's very self-aware, I've had some very very deep conversations with him, but the dude is just hung up on money. Like, it's just, it's his God value, it's his obsession. It's what he's going after all day, everyday,

and he's very successful at it. But it doesn't fulfill him. He's a neurotic mess, and he's very aware of all this stuff. But he came from a, he was poor growing up, money was always the problem in his house. It was what his parents used as a weapon against him, against each other.

It was always the excuse for why something was wrong. And so of course that's why it's up there. You just defined me. I mean, it took me 30 years of my life though to unpack that. Yeah, it's start unwinding. Yeah, it takes a long time. Well, you know, what happened or what happened to me was that I got to this point as a kid

because you just literally defined who my childhood and what it was like. And so I was chasing this number in my head. Yeah. And the crazy part is when you achieve that number and you reach it. And then if you have the awareness to stop and like reflect and when I was being completely honest with myself,

it wasn't the happiest time in my life. In fact, it was one of the worst times in my life. I was unhealthy. My relationships weren't healthy. My family, my friends, and it was like, what the fuck? But that's hard though. I think it's many people end up chasing whatever that is because and so I feel blessed and lucky that I got to get to that point It's such a young age to start to learn that and unpack that but how many people do you think just go their whole life and Chasing this thing that's empty. Well, it's hard to because our values Warp our beliefs and they even warp our how we perceive reality.

Like, I remember talking to a woman once who she was in her mid-30s. She was very successful. And she said she really wanted to have a family, but she was worried that she was running out of time. And so I asked her, I'm like, well, what's holding you back? And she said, well, I'm making about 600 to 700,000 a year,

but I don't think it's really fair to my kids to raise them on anything less than a million. And I was like, fair to you. Well, it's like, wait a second, time out. And she said, she was dead serious, she absolutely believed this. She said that you really, to give a child a comfortable life with options for everything that they deserve, you really need to be making at least a million dollars. And I was like, wow, like there's a lot of digging

that you need to do there. Like because it's, I was like, you realize right that 99% of the planet grows up without it. It's all right. And I think most of us churned out okay. And so yeah, it starts warping your perception of what reality is and how the world even functions. Well, that kind of speaks to some of your points

you make too along the lines of pain and growth. Explain that a little bit on how important that is ultimately to our evolution and becoming a better version of ourself. You mean the kids with a lot of money? Well, just yeah, that how important the pain is, because then the struggle for us to be there. Yeah, there's, um, there's a wonderful book that just came out, uh, about a year ago. It's called the Coddling of the American Mind. And a lot

of it is about, I guess what you would call helicopter parenting. Um, through and by a psychologist, I really admire named Jonathan Height. Um. And he, it basically just talks about how parents who are very well-intentioned, their idea of good parenting is like, oh, well, don't let Junior fall and hurt themselves and don't let Junior, like, if those kids are being mean, I'm gonna go find Junior different friends who are nicer to him.

And what pretty much all the research and data shows is that you need kids to fall and hurt themselves, you need them to be socially rejected by others, you need for them to have conflicts, to feel insecure, to feel inadequate, to fail at something. Because that's a, not only is that how they develop emotional maturity and resilience, but it's also how they discover who they are. Back to your point of like, if something's just given to you, you don't appreciate it.

Imagine if you, like I found, in my childhood, I found out very quick that I sucked at sports and While that wasn't fun to find out it was great because it allowed me to go pursue a bunch of other stuff Which I was good at and I did enjoy Whereas if you you imagine like a world where it's like I'm not allowed to feel like I suck at sports I'm gonna spend my whole life thinking I'm like, a fucking amazing basketball player, like airballing left and right.

You know? And it doesn't disservice to me. You know, it doesn't allow me to know who I am and what I can add to the world. Plus, at some point, life is gonna hit you in the face. Oh, it's gonna knock you in. I mean, and the only way to prepare for that is to get hit in the face as you're growing up a little bit.

It led to you probably doing music, and then music led to you probably writing, right? Absolutely, right? Absolutely, that's great. I don't know if you ever watched a Twilight Zone growing up. A little bit. Great writing. There's this one episode where this bank robbers

run it from the cops and they have a shoot out and then he kind of gets shot, and then he wakes up and there's this guy with this white suit on, and he's like, hey, I'm here to take care of you and give you whatever you want And so make a long story short the guy gets this opulent hotel all these women all the he goes and gambles every time He rolls a dice. He gets a seven every single time and they fast forward a few weeks and the guy just hasn't shaved And he's just miserable and it calls the guy over and he goes this sucks every time I roll the dice I win anything I want I get like get like, this isn't great at all.

And the guy goes, oh, we could structure some in that stuff in here. And he's like, it wouldn't be the same because I know you would be doing it. And he goes, I didn't think heaven would be like this. And the guy laughs and he goes, well, it makes you think this is heaven. Yeah.

That's awesome. Absolutely brilliant message. You know, talking about values and how it warps the way you view things, which is so, so true, why is it so hard to change our value, our top value? Why, if somebody like your friend who's so self-aware and knows that he's worshiping money and it's probably bringing him a lot of grief,

what is the thing that prevents people from being like, I'm gonna switch to a different value? Yeah, because it's... Well, two reasons. One is that, again, the lens by which you see you interpret all of your experiences is kind of like, comes through your... You're like looking down through your value hierarchy. So it's whatever is your God value,

like that's the lens in which you interpret everything else underneath it, every experience underneath it. And so, literally shattering your, what you think of things. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, it's, you know, I've had conversations with my friend, we're like literally,

he believes that if he went broke, I would stop hanging out with him. And I'm like, dude, I've known you for like 20 years, like what the fuck? You know, I was like, that's almost, that's like, borderline offensive. Yeah, exactly. But it's like, I know him well enough that I know that he, that's just how his brain works. And so it's when every experience is being interpreted in a way to reinforce that God value, it's hard

to even get to a point where you can properly analyze it and question it. I think the only way you can change a value is to have that value fail you in a massive way. This is where these rock bottom moments come in, where it just breaks your world, but because your world's broken, you can put it back together in a better way. Like in Sutelart, one of the main stories that I bring up a few times is, is like the first, my first serious girlfriend, the girl I was like, madly in love with, thought I was going to be with her forever. Cheats on me and leaves me for another guy. And it completely ripped apart. Everything I knew about relationships, everything I knew about women, everything I knew about myself. And it was such a horrifying and awful experience. But what it made me realize is, hey, the relationship actually was kind of shitty

and I was just delusional. And B, it made me really evaluate like what, what were the things I was valuing the wrong things in the relationship. I was caring about, I was giving Fox about, you know, stuff that wasn't as important as other things that I should have been giving a fuck about. And so I needed to be knocked on my ass to have that opportunity to like reshuffle the value pyramid. Do you think, because you make a really strong case that we need to have the right values

so that we can strive to accomplish the right things, and that makes us ultimately feel fulfilled? Do you think, as a society, it makes sense for us to have certain values in common. Or do you think that there's that a moral relativism is okay where, you know, we, you and I will value different things and do or do you think it's important that we have kind of this framework and we all decide this is right, this is wrong. I think so regardless of whether I think it's a good thing or not, I think it's, humans are just wired in such a way we look for group identities. We look to be a part of a group identity. We're a social species. We need a certain amount of social validation.

And the primary way we achieve that is by creating certain groups or cultures that we are a part of, that define us and kind of creates like an us versus them identification. I think that's natural and inevitable. I think where it becomes dangerous is when those us and them definitions are Either very superficial or they're done in an extreme and hateful ways so it's So I guess the answer is yes We do need some sort of group identity that we feel like we're a part of

It's just the manner in which some of us go about that group identity that should hits the fan I've heard you talk to in which some of us go about that group identity that shit hits the fan. I've heard you talk to about recognizing your own biases and to be able to start kind of really reading and educating yourself in other directions. And how important do you think that is? Absolutely, it's so important, especially today. There are a couple different websites that I saw.

I've seen ones called the flip side, and I think there's another one I can't remember. But it's like there are some services now. What they're doing is that they're summarizing arguments on both sides of the political spectrum. And the idea is that you get exposed to both views without all the bullshit and the, you know, headlines and clickbait that comes along with whichever side you're typically on. You know, I try to make a point to read books and articles that contradict something that I believe, because that's where you're gonna learn something. So important, you know?

And it's, again, it's hard. You gotta make a conscious effort. You kind of have to even like plan it into your day. But, and it's, again, the more where the technology is focused on just making comfortable, convenient experiences, the less likely we are to start doing that. you share so much wisdom And it's obviously resonating with a lot of people. Where did you derive?

Where have you derived this wisdom from but where have you pulled from to come up with the ways that you're able to communicate things so effectively? I mean Well, I've I fucked up a lot. I love it. I fucked up a lot. It's funny, like, one of the most common questions I get is like, they're like, are you uncomfortable giving advice? And I'm like, yes, I'm absolutely uncomfortable giving advice.

Like have you seen my life? I mean, that's part of it. I was always a nerdy and bookish kid. I started when I was in high school. I started reading philosophy and psychology and science books and all this stuff. And so it was always just very much understanding the human mind and how do we grow and develop and become

happier. These were always topics that I pursued as a hobby since I was very young. And then it was in my earlier mid-20s when I was starting some internet businesses that I had a chance to start writing it for others. And originally it was just for fun. It was just like, I think it was like 24 and single. So most of the shit that I wrote, it was like, well got hammered, talked to a girl, didn't go very well, you know, but here's what I learned. And I got to go from there. And it just

started snowballing. And as the audience grew, the more, I guess, responsible I felt to like really understand a lot of the research and the data about a lot of these different topics. And so then I go off and read a bunch of books and then write more and then the audience would grow. And it's, that's just essentially what's been happening for 12 years now. Well, and did you derive any of it from any spiritual practices? I was really into Buddhism in college and like a few years after. I still love the philosophy of Buddhism. I'm like a, I'm bad at practicing meditation.

It's one of those, I have like an on and again off again relationship with meditation and it's I wish I did it consistently, but it's so hard to keep it as a habit. Well, you could argue that your writing is partly meditation, too, though, right? It's very therapeutic, absolutely. But yeah, I'm a big fan of some Eastern philosophy, but I grew up, I actually grew up super Christian. I always joke that, so my parents maybe go to church twice a week and then I went to a private Christian school.

So I had to go to chapel five times a week. So I was going to church seven times a week till I was like 16 or 18. So even though I'm atheist, I always joke that I can like outbible the fuck out of anybody. You know, just like don't try to outbible me. So that's interesting to me that you grew up Christian. You have you you you studied a little bit of a buddhism and then you actually claim to be atheist. Yeah, you explain that to me.

I'd love to hear more about that. I went atheist and when I was 12, I could just never really get behind it. Like there was just too many inconsistencies for me. I remember being like 10 years old and asking my dad, like, hey dad, if Jesus loves us no matter what, why do we have to get up at 7 a.m. and come to the church on Sunday?

And you just gotta be like, shut up. And I'd be like, well, hey dad, if God forgives us no matter what, why don't we just lie and cheat and steal? It's just, the question's never stopped. And then around the time I was 12, I discovered Marilyn Manson and Nine-Inch Nails, and pornography. And I think the combination of those three led me down a heathen path.

That's hilarious. That's a recipe. Are you able to look back at some of those things and look at just the wisdom aspect of it? Yeah, absolutely. And you know it's funny about this last book. I found a lot of Jesus coming out in it. And I don't mean, I don't talk about Christianity,

really at all in the new book, but I talk about unconditional love, I talk about respect and dignity for each human being, being kind of like the fundamental principle of all morality. And it was funny, like over and over again, I talk about forgiveness, over and over again, I found, I'm like, wow, this is like,

the shit Jesus used to say. You know, it's so I've kind of come back around, I think probably like in my 30s of, you know, even though I'm not, I'm not a religious person, I appreciate what it does for people and the value that it's had throughout human history. I'm definitely not one of those atheists

that's like, you know, religion ruins everything. People ruin everything. And if it wasn't religion, it'd be something else. It's funny, people don't realize this, but atheists think and study God more than most religious people do. Absolutely. Absolutely. Dude, I took classes on Islam in school.

I had a Jewish, my girlfriend in college was Jewish, and so I used to go to synagogue with her. I went to Israel with her, and that was fucking cool. So yeah, I mean, it's just religion's fascinating, super fascinating. It's almost like a lot of the stuff that you talk about in your books, it's like it was said in a different way before, and now the way you're communicating it is more, I guess, in modern ways and connecting now to people today. But the wisdom, as I've said several times in this podcast, you hear it echoed, which

tells you that there's some truth there. Oftentimes, you know, you've got, if you got several people looking for the same answer, they might use different paths, but they'll come up with, you know, one plus one equals two. Yeah, exactly. You know, exactly. I mean, in human nature's human nature.

So if a principal worked 2000 years ago in India, the Middle East, and Europe, like it's probably universal. What have been some of the reactions that you've gotten from your books that were unexpected? Have you had anybody come? I'm sure you get lots of feedback and emails and messages.

One of the things that was pretty unexpected and really cool about Suttler Art was everybody seemed to read their own experience into it. So for instance, you know, politically people on the right read the book and thought I was conservative and liberals read it and thought I was super liberal. Religious people, Christians thought I was Christian. I've had Muslims email me and they're like, you've read the Quran, right?

Now I'm like, actually no. And they're like, you know, it's like, I'll do this book, it's, this is just, this is everything Muhammad was saying. And so it's really, that's been incredible. And I guess the only kind of negative side of that was that like, or the only example of people that that happened with that surprised me in a negative way was a lot of these like

woo-woo touchy-feely, you know, spirit crystal self-help type people, which I explicitly wrote like half the book to shit on those people. I get emails from those people and they're like, wow, you've manifested a true gift of humanity. You're energy, you're polarity must be so I'm like, oh God, how are you agreeing with this? Why shit on those people? What is it about them? That's so, because I think they, so the spirit crystal stuff, I kind of tease, but I really think, again, the central goal of the book

was to write a pessimistic self-help book. I think, again, our culture, so much of our culture revolves around pleasure in the sense that we deserve pleasure, or we deserve some form of success or happiness. And I think that is corrosive. I think it's damaging us on very subtle ways that are starting to show the last few decades. And so it's when I get emails from those people who are just like, we're like, yeah, your're energy frequency must be so high because we're gonna all merge in consciousness

and all this, and I'm like, guys, you're not helping. I'm like, this is not part of a plan. It's funny, Mark, there's been several studies done on people who have children, parents, and they'll compare parents to couples that don't have kids. And so the last come things like, do you find happy? Do you find, are you joyful, pleasurable, stress,

and almost all metrics, the couples without kids do better. They seem to be happier, they got more energy, they're less stressed, except for one question, which is always about meaning and purpose. The parents, not as happy, way more stressed out, shits more difficult, far more meaning in their life, which I think really points to a lot of what you're talking about.

I think I wrote in an article a few years ago, because I know this study you're talking about, and I wrote about, I was like, if you ever needed one study that shows you why happiness research is fucking pointless, is this one? Because I remember seeing, I remember when that study came out, like journalist wrote articles, they're like, if you want to be happy, don't have kids.

And I'm like, no, shut the fuck up. You're missing the point. Cause it's like that right there. Like if, cause ask, not any parent, I'm sure there's some parents that don't want their kids, but like ask like any, any functional family, any parent of a functional family, would you go back, would you give up your job? Not a single one, is gonna say yes. Not at all. Not a single one. How do you inject challenge and struggle into your life now? You sold millions of copies,

obviously making shit tons of money, I'm sure you have. Well, to that point, actually, and I wanted to ask you this, and I think that lines perfect with your question Salas I I can't imagine what it's like to be You know lifelong goal probably as a writer is to you know be a New York Times best seller and sell millions of copies And I'm sure that there was a major high sure and then there was something afterwards that I think most people don't expect.

And it's where it's Sal's heading with this question. So I'd like to hear the personal story of what that was like for you and how you dealt with it. It messed with me, man. Like success, success, it really messes with you. And it's funny because one thing I've written for a long time is that our perception of ourself lacks behind reality. You probably see this all the time with fitness clients. Somebody loses 40 pounds, but for another year they still think they're fat. That's just true with anything. Anytime you get this massive rapid change in your life, your still kind of stuck back where it used to be.

And so when this, when subtle art blew up, there was a good six months that I literally had no clue what to do with myself. I could get up and spend the whole week promoting my book and or I could get up and spend the whole week playing Zelda and the exact same result would happen. And I mean, which would be a lot of money, but it, which is great, but, you know, after like months and months of that of just being like, well, why I get up, why do anything?

Like why write, why, why I answer my anything? Why write? Why answer my phone? I'm done. What are you doing? Yeah, it's like, and so I really struggled with, and then on top of that, you have the fact that with a book this successful, there's so much pressure of like, how are you going to follow this up? A lot of like the fact that I'm like still, still a pretty young author mess with me,

you know, I was 32 when this came out, so I'm like, like fuck, I'm 32 and I peaked. Like, I've probably got another 20, 30 years of books in me and none of them are statistically speaking, it's very likely that none of them are gonna sell as well or do well, or get as much attention. So that's really depressing. It's not that it's all about money or attention, but you like to feel that incremental improvement

in your results. I think that's just human nature. You like every year to be a little bit better in the last one. Every book to be a little bit better in the last, like every book to be a little bit better in the last one. And so I felt kind of robbed of that. So yeah, I languished around for like six or eight months and didn't know what to do. And I struggled to find that vision

of what I wanted my future to be. And that's actually where this, the whole hope concept kind of started. Because I became a little bit depressed. And that's the weirdest thing is being depressed because you got rich is like nobody wants to hear it. Nobody's like, you can't share it with no way. I got millions of money to make a job. I go get drinks with a friend and they be like, how you doing? I'm like, man, I'm really struggling, man. I go get drinks with a friend and they be like, how you doing? I'm like, man, I'm actually, I'm really struggling, man.

I haven't worked like two weeks. I didn't shower yesterday or today. And they just look at me like, fuck you, man. Go fuck yourself. And it was funny because actually the people that I found who understood a little bit where I've got a number of friends in New York who are part of the tech world.

And I've got one friend in particular who's like, he's successfully exited a few startups. And he was the first guy that I talked to. And he was like, oh yeah, of course. He's like, yeah, most depressed I ever was in my life was when I exited my first startup, Cash 40 Mill. He's like, I didn't know what to do for a year. And I was like, yeah, most depressed I ever was in my life was when I exited my first startup cash 40 mil He's like, I didn't know what to do for a year. I was like, oh shit. He's like, yeah, this is Nobody talks about it, but this is like this is common with with people who

Experience a massive amount of success very quickly This isn't their term for it in psychology. I can't remember what it was. It was an actual I don't know, but Will Smith called it altitudes sickness. Mm-hmm. And he said he's seen it a lot so That's a cool term for it. It's a really cool term. Yeah, and he said that and he said what happens to is that a lot of people take themselves Down the mountain instead instead of staying and adjusting Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's athletes will experience it. If you read about, especially Olympic athletes who trained their whole lives and then they

get one opportunity to win a medal and then they win the gold and then it's over. Because like we just talked about with values, that was their God. Yup. And now what? Yup. It's like a radical reinvention of yourself you have to. Yeah.

And it's one of the lines in the book, which was actually, it's about halfway through the book. But it's one of the first things I wrote was, it was I said the only way to truly destroy a dream is for it to come true. And people never tell you that or you never think about that. It's like when you dream about having something for 20 years and that, that dream gets you up in the morning, it gets you inspired, motivated, excited, you know, it, it, is the basis of a lot of your friendships.

And also, you get it. And now you don't know, like all that stuff is it's not there anymore. You don't know why to get up anymore. I have to reinvent yourself. You have to reinvent yourself. The same way when you experience a great loss, you have to reinvent yourself. Like the same way you lose, losing a value from being handed your ass, it's like, sometimes you have to change your value because you fucking hit it. This reminds me of the saying,

you can't have your cake any to you. It's like you can't have what you got from the striving and the hope to get to the goal and have hit the goal at the same time. You can't have those both. It's one or the other. You either get the goal and now I'm done You can't have those both. It's one or the other. Yeah. Either get the goal and now I'm done,

but I don't get all the other, the strive, the hope, the pushing towards it, and you can't have that if you get it. Yeah. So what do we do to prevent this from happening? Or is it something you prevent? And it's- How can you be proactive right after it happened?

Yeah, I mean, I don't wanna say that you don't want it to happen because it's It happens for a very good reason, but I Think it's being aware that that this is coming is important to understand Because it's again pain in life is inevitable having our every value is gonna fail us at some point. And I think just understanding and accepting that and knowing how to kind of go through the the breakup process of like letting that dream go and letting it not define you anymore is is an important thing to to accept and just be willing to go through.

Now you brought up Will Smith. Yeah, man. I would really like to get into how you got the opportunity to meet up with him and potentially work with him. You gotta share how they fucked with you too. That whole story is good. You had to drop that whole story. Um, I still, I don't know if that was intentional.

So Will's people reached out to me about a year ago, a year and a half ago, saying that he wanted to write a book and that he had been talking to some authors and thinking about concepts. That had to feel rad when that happened, but. Oh yeah, it was so funny too, because my agent, so I'll preface this by saying that actually celebrity books in the publishing world, celebrity books have a terrible reputation.

Oh, really? Yeah, they're almost always money losers. It's usually they're like nightmare projects to get involved in. They always do it inauthentic. Yeah, because most celebrities, they want a book is like either trophy for their shelf or like a PR piece. And I think a lot of people who haven't written a book have no idea how much work goes into it.

So, you know, it's a multi-year process and you have to be willing to sit down with this author or this person that you don't really know and spend dozens of hours opening up about everything that happened in your life. And so that's not a comfortable or fun thing to do. So you have to really, you have to really want it. And I think when celebrities really do want it and they're willing to do that work,

they turn out amazing. Like I think Agassiziz book is like fucking phenomenal. But a lot of times you just end up with kind of this like puff piece that isn't very good. Nobody really wants to read. And the publisher just spent like $3 million on it. And so they just lost a ton of money. So it was funny.

My agent called me and she didn't even tell me that he was interested, like she was very smart about it. She said, how do you feel about celebrity books, just generally speaking. And we kind of talked about everything I just told you guys, and I told her, I said, look, like, yeah, how honest were you? you guys, and I told her I said, look, like, yeah, how honest were you? Yeah, no, I told her, because she didn't tell me it was him. Oh, okay.

She was just being very vague, and she was like, have you ever thought about a celebrity book? Like, what if an opportunity came, like, they're shit. Yeah. Yeah. And so I told her, I said,

I said, I think two things would have to be true for me to be interested. One is that they would have to want it for the right reason. They would really want to dive into their life and find some deep personal message that they feel the world needs to hear. Then the second would be that they need to be a fucking a-lister because I'm not gonna like... I don't want to fuck around. I don't, yeah, it's like I'm dude, I'm like on top of the mountain right now.

So I don't know how long I'm gonna be here, so I don't want to mess around with, you know, like one of the desperate housewives or something. It's so... Screenshot. Yeah. It's like show a man. Like show a man. Yeah, show a man. To your old time.

Yeah. So she's like, okay, okay. And so she like hangs up and then, you know, a few days later she calls me and she's like, so there is a celebrity interested, it's Will Smith. And it's funny because she told me she's like, I'm not sure if this is a good idea. Like, I don't know. And she didn't really know much about him. And it's funny because he's got a montage,

an interview montage that went viral like 10 years ago. I don't know if any of you guys saw it, but it's like some random dude took like a bunch of interview clips of Will Smith and put them together into like an eight minute video. And it's just awesome. Like it's just, it's really fucking inspiring. He's fucking awesome.

He is. Like he's just, I think it just starts off, he's just like, I love living. I love being alive. And then it just goes on and on. And I remember seeing that when I was back when I was like broke and starting my business and I'm like, damn, this guy's pretty cool. Like I was very impressed by it.

And so I told her about that. And I was like, I bet you there's something there. And I told her I said, look, and if there's not, like I, whatever. Like I got to hang out with Will Smith for a weekend. So, you know, it could be worse. Yeah, exactly. So let's go try it out.

And it was funny because there's just so many gatekeepers. You know, his manager, like I did a phone interview with this team and then I did an in-person interview with his manager and then they would start scheduling for us to meet and then cancel the last minute and then reschedule. And it just gets super surreal because they're like, they'd be like, hey are you up to meeting Will on Thursday? And I'd be like, yeah, sure, where? Like thinking it's in Brooklyn or something.

And they're like, oh, he's going to be in Dubai. And I'm like, wait, what? I'm like, no, I've got plans. Like, I have a life, you know? And so this went on for like six months. And then finally I met him. And it was great. Like he, it was quickly clear.

Like he was in it for the right reason. He just turned 50. He pretty much like, he's kind of on the other side of like a midlife crisis. Again, so a major, his God value failed. And he went through that whole crisis and came out on the other end, a much stronger and more integrated person.

And I thought the beautiful, so I spent, that first trip, I spent four days with them. And I thought the most beautiful thing was, and I told them this, I said the beautiful thing about this, is that all of your experiences are so universal. Like it's like divorces, you know, rough childhood, being bullied, like, um, all this stuff that I'm like, wow, like everybody goes through this, but he's fucking will Smith. So like, you want to know, like, how did he come out of that? Um, and so, yeah,

I, we hit it off and, um, it was great. And then it was funny. The last day he asked me just out of the blue. He's like, so do you have any book ideas? And I was like, oh, yeah, of course I got ideas. And he's like, cool, yeah, can you show me? I'm like, I gotta go to my hotel room. I'll be back in like two hours. I'm running my hotel room. So I'm like, okay.

And I came back and showed them, essentially what I told them, as I said, like, look, when I came here, my question, obviously you're a famous dude, very, like, people are gonna, you could write shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, for 400 pages and people would buy this book. Mind blowing.

Yeah, right. And so I told them, I said, you know, you're famous dude, you're very smart, you're very accomplished. But I said like, what I came here looking for is like, what can you share with the world that nobody else can share? Because that's what makes a book great,

is when you have a message that nobody else is saying. And I told them, I said, just spending these few days around you, your emotional intelligence is off the fucking charts. Like it's, there are situations in his life that would have racked 99.9% of people, especially his childhood. And he just, not like he, he'd be like, oh, racked 99.9% of people, especially his childhood. And he just, like he would be like, oh, well, yeah, I just decided that I'd have to become famous and buy my mom a house, so dad would stop beating her up.

And I'm like, what? Like, wow. Like who thinks that? And he's like, I don't know, it just seemed natural to me. And I'm like, what, like who thinks that? And he's like, I don't know, it just seemed natural to me. And I'm like, what the fuck? And so, you know, it's, I told him I was like, that you have this emotional intelligence to you that is like, absolutely astounding. I've never seen anything like it in another person. And I said, I think that should be the basis of the book. Now, I haven't met him, although I've met several people now who have met him. And they almost

all say the same thing about his energy and aura when he's around. Dude, he's so, he's the most charismatic person I have ever met. And there's no close second. Like, he's, it's not even, you know, he's in the major leagues and the rest of us are in the minor leagues. Like it is just, and it's infectious. Like it's just, you just feel good being around him. And he's just, he's genuinely like that. Like he's not, it's not an act.

Like it's, all my friends are like, hey dude, what's Will Smith like? And I always tell them, like if you've seen any episode of Fresh Prince of Bel Air, he did not act a single minute on that show. Like they literally wrote the entire show around. They're like, hey, well, like just, you know, just do will stuff. And then they like just hang out. Then they took the rest of the cast. Like, okay, so this is how it seems to go. You know, you're doing the Carlton. Yeah, he's great, man. It's been a real, a real blessing to, I think it was Jim Quick who was sharing a story with me at one time.

I think it was him who shared this story, but he's talking about how, you know, they were waiting for something and all this shit was behind. It just everybody's like in the green room and like all frustrated and pissed off and like, you know, Will was like playing and making jokes and just, you know, everybody else is all bitter about it and he and here he is the probably the most super famous person out of everybody whose time is as valuable or more valuable than anybody's there

and he just has this attitude like no big deal and just having fun with it. Yeah, and I bet you he's smart. Like I've been around him enough to know too, that he's smart enough. He'll recognize when people in the room start getting uncomfortable or like angry or frustrated or whatever.

And he'll intentionally like, he'll start engaging with those people in such a way that gets them laughing and smiling. Cause he's like, dude, it's gonna, you know, it's gonna be late, you know, delays happen. If it's late, it's late, but we might, you know, there's no reason to torture ourselves for the next 30 minutes.

And he understands too that any room he's in, he's the person everybody else is looking to for how to feel. So he understands that. And so it's like, if he walks into a room and everybody's anxious, he'll immediately disarm that anxiety. Sick. Yeah, like it's just, it's really incredible. Like he could, he could run for president and probably win if he wanted.

I hope he doesn't. But yeah, he's like fucking like, it's just, yeah, he's such a wonderful person person and I think that would keep that. That would ruin everything, but he has that gene. Unbelievable self-awareness. Mark, what's your top value? It's a really good question. I would say, well, so this is that tricky thing, right?

It's like, I can say what my top value is, but my behavior will probably demonstrate differently, but for me, the last few years, it's very much just honesty. Just trying to be very, very honest, not just with others, but with myself and my own failings and my own insecurities. One of the things that I'm proud of is my wife often tells people, she says, she's like, Mark is so honest that sometimes I wish he wouldn't be. She's like, sometimes I wish he'd lie to me a little bit.

And I'm like, My girl says that to me all the time. Yeah, it's like, and I'm proud of that. Yeah, that's, I've saved her or dude. Yeah, yeah. And she is too though, and I'm sure you get the same response as it. It stings at first a little bit when they go,

I wouldn't have it any other way. Yeah, and it's funny, there's a section in the subtle art about how I tell, like, if my wife comes out in an outfit, and she's like, how do I look? And I think she looks terrible. I'll be like, I think you look terrible. And it was so funny, because I got so many emails

for people, a lot of women. But some men, too, who are like, you can't say that. That's off, like, dude, you just got married. Like, if you want this marriage to last, then I was like, you don't get it. Like, if I don't say that, then when she does look absolutely gorgeous.

Doesn't mean it's not gonna mean anything. It's funny you say that because I have this thing with saying, I love you. And I remember this was like a thing that we had to work through in our relationship when we first got together because she was kind of taught to just express it, share it, show it, say it all the time. And I'm very reserved when it comes with that. And I just don't say it all the time. And the reason why is I said, I feel like a lot of people devalue it. You know, they're on the phone, they're talking, you know, yeah, pick up, go, okay, honey,

I love you. Hang on. I'm like, it doesn't mean that much, but because I don't say it all the time to you, when I do say it to you, it means a lot. And I said so much to the point that I want you to always be able to challenge me and say, well, what are you thinking about then? Yeah. And I should be able to say something back to you.

So we have this with our relationship today where because I don't say it that often, but when I do, it is because there's something that has happened to me in the day, or I've seen something, or I thought about her, and it makes me feel compelled to text that over to her or call her and say that to her. And she always follows up with, what are you thinking about? And so I can give that to her. But I think up with what are you thinking about and so I can give that to her. But I think that's really important though, don't you? Yeah, and I think so much of a successful relationship is working with the other person's flaws rather than just trying to

fix them or like bury them. And it's, you can, and you, you can only do that by being honest. You can only, like, it's, I have certain things with, with my wife too, where it's like, so I'm bad at expressing anger, for instance. Like I just bottle shit up. And she's really good at noticing when I'm doing that and being like, no, you're pissed off. Like tell me why. And I'm like, no, no, I'm fine. And she's like, no, tell me,, like tell me why. And I'm like, no, no, I'm fine. And she's like, no, tell me why you're pissed.

I'm like, no, no, really I'm fine. She's like, well, this fucking guy didn't call back. It is this piece of shit. And you know, and without her doing that, you know, it just makes me a better person. Right. Mark, what are your biggest struggles right now? Oh gosh. All these damn podcasts you gotta do. He's fucking podcast.

Let's do a question. Same question. Yeah, how many bad ones have you, how many interviews you want to fuck those at waste of time? Oh, they're, they're, they're definitely a few Funny man it's so it's been interesting doing the podcast Because I didn't really do podcasts for like two and a half years So I did a ton for subtle art and then I just stopped all interviews because when you're selling eight million books Who the fuck wants to do it? Yeah, exactly and then And then for this book I'm like ramping it up, and I'm doing a bunch of getting it. What I've noticed is that, I guess the difference

between Good and Pad, bad podcast is much wider. Its podcast scenes come really, really far. And it's like when they're good, they're amazing now, and when they're bad, they're still awful. Whereas three, four years ago, it was very rare that you were like, wow, that was an amazing interview. It was all mixed together,

but now it's just, it's so within two minutes, I'm like, this is a fucking terrible interview. It's like how long do I, okay. Yeah, certainly. Yeah. Yeah. What are the most annoying things that make you feel that way with podcast interviews? I think I hate it when interviewers come in with predefined questions.

So the thing that drives me crazy the most is when people come in and they're like, they essentially just want the bullet point for every chapter in the book. And they're like, so tell us about the thinking, brain, and feeling, brain. And I'm like, okay. Read the fucking book. I know.

Like, wait, there's supposed to be a conversation. And like, I'll try to make jokes and they won't laugh. And, you know, I'm like, all right. It just feels like I'm, feels like I'm just like talking to a machine or something. I like the more conversational vibe like you guys do here. Like I think everybody likes it. Like that's what a listener wants.

It feels real. Yeah, and it feels like they're in the room with you. If it was just about info, like you just, I don't know, you send them a bullet point summary. Yeah. Yeah. Plus, I mean, you know, from a business standpoint, it sells more books when people get to know you.

Am I totally? Totally. It's, I mean, the information's, I mean, like we keep saying, it's like the info's been there forever. It's the package, it's the personality, it's the style, you know. So back to your struggle.

Oh my struggles, yeah. Yeah. Almost like I'm dodgy right there. Yeah, that's the most. I will say that like I'm pretty good. This has been a really good year. I'm super busy, but it's like a really good busy. So I'd say my biggest struggle right now

is just not being home enough, but I'm not, like I wish I was home with my wife and my friends more often. We're trying to have a kid, and it's, the funny thing about trying out, like you spend your whole life trying not to get a girlfriend. And then as soon as you start breaking all the rules. Yeah, then as soon as you start trying it, you're like, wait, it still isn't happening yet.

Like, what the hell's thing? It's so luck. But it's frustrating because we're trying to have a kid, but I'm like, I'm just never home. I'm home like, you know, five, six days a month. So like that's, that's, that's been hard, but I also understand that this is just a temporary period that this is going on. I would say that's the biggest struggle right now. Career is good. Family relationships are good. The writing feels good, the business feels good again. Two years ago, I'd have a much longer answer for you. Yeah.

Yeah. Are you looking forward to fatherhood? I am. I am, and it's funny. I didn't know if I'd ever get here. Really? Yeah, I never had much interest in kids. I feel you, dude.

Yeah. I got one coming in August 7th. And I was. Oh, wow. Yeah, I never had much interest in kids. I feel you, dude. Yeah. I got one coming August 7th. And I was, oh wow. Yeah, I was the guy who said like, I mean, if you actually are a long time listener of the podcast, you'll hear the evolution of it. We've been going now for four and a half years. You're beginning to, me four years of talking into it. Yeah. Yeah. The first couple of years, you hear me going like, oh, no kids. I'll probably never have kids. Yeah. Yeah, to now I'm incredibly excited. But see for me, there's things that I selfishly wanted to do and be and I feel like those were major values for me and I've accomplished that.

I'm at where I want to be. And so I'm at a place in my life where I want to be a lot more selfless. Yeah. And I want to give more than I take. Yeah, absolutely. Right, that's kind of where I'm at in my life, so that's completely changed.

I'd imagine you're... Yeah, for me, it was the exact same thing. And I feel like that's a new thing too. I think that's a new thing with our generation is that we're the first generation. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no I want to do my bucket list before the kids, not after. I don't want to wait till I'm 60 to check off all the things I want to do with my life. But yeah, it's the same thing.

It went from not wanting them to, well, if it happens, it happens. And then there was just one day, soon after I got married, that I was watching a little kid run around, and I'm like, and being a dad would be awesome. And then it's been all over. There's gonna be such an amazing book around that topic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just listening to your philosophy and talking about helicopter parents and all that kind of, oh man, I can't wait. Most challenging, yeah, most rewarding thing over done, yeah, entire life. And it continues to be the most challenging thing. Yeah, all the good intentions,

but then you see how it plays out. And, you know, I'm like, it's gonna get easier. I'm struggling that. Nope, even if you keep getting harder, never easier. Even though she's not pregnant yet, do you, are you already thinking like that? I mean, have you started that process of thinking like the values I want to instill in my kid,

the things I won't do, I will do, are you thinking like that yet? Not a whole lot. It's funny because a bunch of my friends have just recently had their first kids. And it's been funny because it's the main theme that I keep hearing from all my friends is that you can plan as much as you want,

but as soon as it comes out, you just, you don't know what the fuck you're doing. It's, I have two. I still don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I have no idea. I think that's like grandparents was funny when I had my son. My son was the first grandchild for my parents and I remember my mom, you know, she'd watch him and then she'd be like I'd be like

God you're so happy, you know, and she's like oh, I love my grandkids More than I love my own kids have they excuse me And she's very mom she goes well, she goes it's different. It's like I've been through it already Yeah, now I can live in the moment like when I had my own kids. I was stressed out like what I yeah She's in now I can like sit and revel in it and just enjoy it and then of course hand them off to you and Which it goes real. Which it goes real. It's all the benefits with none of the costs.

So, you know, something you talk about helicopter parents, there was a quote that I heard and it might have been from Jordan Peterson, I think is one that said it and I thought it was so brilliant and he said never do for your kids. Yeah, that's Jordan. What they can do for themselves. Yeah. And I thought wow, so brilliant. And he said, never do for your kids. Yeah, that's Jordan. What they can do for themselves. Yeah. And I thought, wow, that is absolutely, and it's funny now,

because now my kids do all kinds of shit. Yeah, that is so easy to say. It's so easy to say. It's actually more work at first to make your kids do shit than you do it yourself. Yeah. But I'm seeing it just, I'm seeing the benefits of it just like crazy.'s crazy. So Mark, what what does a guy who does not value money that high and gets a

fuck ton of it? What does he go buy? Uh, I bought an Nintendo switch. That was stupid. That was uh, yeah. And I got the one with And I got the one with the red and the blue controller. Because you know, I was like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm paying extra 20 bucks to get the limited edition. Don't break the bank. You asshole. It's funny.

So we did just buy a house. And we live in New York. So it was pretty fucking expensive. But my wife and I have taught like I think really the only two things we bought a house which we plan to live in forever. So it's kind of like just a one time thing. But the really the only thing that we kind of agreed that it's like okay we're gonna splurge on this is we decided business class from now on. Like that's the one thing we're like, that's, all right, this is our like, be a rich baller experience.

It's like, just always buy business class tickets. Yeah, that's so awesome. That's so awesome. It would any favorite hobbies that you're into besides writing? I mean, music, that's right, that's right. You were a guitarist, right? You were a musician. Yeah, yeah, I spent, I. That's right, that's right. You were a guitarist, right?

You were a musician. Yeah, yeah, I spent, I wanted to be a musician till I was about like 25, went to music school. So I go to a lot of shows, play video games, obviously. And then travel, like I travel a lot for work, but I've traveled so much in my life, and it just, it never gets old. It evolves.

I try to take the wife on a couple trips each year. It's funny, you're on tour. You're just not on tour for music. Yeah, no, it's the irony of it. You want to know one of the coolest things about, you know, I guess being a famous author, whatever. When you tweet it, other famous people, they actually tweet back to you. And so I'm a huge heavy metal fan.

Yeah. So are we? Yeah. Oh yeah. So I started just tweeting at all these metal bands that I love. And I'm like, hey dude, like your music's really inspiring. I wrote this book, like you want a free book. And like a bunch of them wrote I'm like, hey dude, your music's really inspiring. I wrote this book, like, do you want a free book?

And like a bunch of them wrote back, they're like, yeah. And so one of my, one of my, one of my, yeah, it worked. And then one of my, so one of my favorite bands is this, this nerdy metal band called Puriffry. And, and they're like, half the guys in are like huge fans of the book. That's right.

And so when they came through New York, I like went to their show, hung out backstage, like when I got beers with them and everything. And it was funny because we were talking, so rad. We were talking about, like they were telling me about touring. They're like, yeah, touring kind of sucks.

Like you just, it's like hotel room, venue, airport, hotel room, venue, airport, like over and over and over again. Right. And I was like, wow, that's similar. It's exactly like a book tour. Like you don't. My wife used to kind of gripe that, you know, I'd go do

like a publicity tour in Australia or the UK or something. And she'd be like, well, where are you gonna bring me? I'm like, you don't understand. You don't want to go. You really don't want to go. Like there's nothing fun about it. Yeah. Nothing.

What about what do you get back? Because this happens to us when we go and we're on the road. And we come back is, my girl wants to hear all about it. Nothing. What about when you get back? Are you, because this happens to us when we go and we're on the road, and we come back, is my girl wants to hear all about it. And I'm just, I don't even want to talk about it. Yeah. There's not much to say. Yeah, that's it. It's really like I just, I talk to,

I talk to my wife on the way down here to see you guys. And I was like, yeah, Phoenix Talk was, was pretty good. Flight was okay. Slept like 11 hours last night. All right, talk to you later. We're like, you think that's the end of cover statement? Like nothing else to add. That's hilarious.

Well, after we're done here, we gotta hear you rip on. Yeah, just this guitar. All right, yeah, it's been a while, but yeah, I'm happy. Yeah, I'll shred a little. Awesome, man. No, this has been great, man. It's been fun., but yeah, I'm happy. I'll shred a little awesome man. No, this has been this has been great man

It's been fun. Yeah, yeah, you're you know Sometimes we meet people we think we're gonna like and we end up thinking hating them. Yeah Hey, if you never get invited back, you know, it's up Fuck those guys. This is sign book number three and you call me But this is not one of those times. Yeah, you're even better than we thought you'd be. So, thanks. Yeah, thanks for coming down. We really appreciate what you're doing, man. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

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