Motivation Daily by Motiversity - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*CK! (Watch This to Get Ahead of 99% of People) | Mark Manson

Episode Date: April 26, 2023

Mark Manson created a generation-defining self help book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*CK that is a refreshing look at how to embrace our fears, faults, and find the courage to lead a contented, grounded life.Special thanks to:Tom BilyeuLewis Howes: https://www.youtube.com/@UCKsP3v2JeT2hWI_HzkxWiMASpeaker:Mark MansonMusic:Epidemic Sound Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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The link is in the description. Things are going to suck sometimes, no matter what. You're never going to avoid that. One thing that I'm particularly good at is I'm very good at, like, changing my mind about things. I don't get too attached to aspects of my identity. I don't feel committed to like, oh, this is how people see me, so I need to behave that way. I think I've been good throughout my life of like being willing to look at myself and be like, whoa, maybe I'm not an author.

Maybe I just like had a good book. I'm very proud of that. And it's obviously a very important part of my life. But I don't necessarily see that as who I am. What do you see as who you are or do you avoid that kind of statement? I avoid that statement. Interesting. So that you don't get trapped?

Yes. I'm an author right now. And if that one day it stops being useful being an author, I will stop being an author. I think if I have a talent, personally, I think it's just the ability to kind of like swap labels within my identity. And I think being able to observe myself, do that is what allowed me to write well about these topics. How do we make it easier for people to implement behavioral change, whether it's through apps, whether it's through video courses, whatever? That's kind of like become the problem I'm like zeroing in on at this stage of my career. What's more valuable to the world?

Is writing a book that affects a million people a little bit or 10,000 very profoundly? Who's to say which one of those two things is better or more important, more valuable? So it's about finding a vision that can kind of bring both of those things together. It's about being realistic about who you are, where you are, and then also making a solid decision about what is better in the world, what is a worthwhile pursuit. You know, I do think there are ways to manipulate our level of desire or a level of motivation, I guess kind of the emotional aspect of like feeling fired up about something.

I think most people, it's not hard for them to get fired up about something for a few days. It's once you get to like week two that most people tap out. I think people underestimate how influenced we are by our surroundings and our environment. We all know we're capable of doing so much more than we actually do. But the only way you can really tap into that is to just over-commit. Like, just over-commit yourself, and you just find a way to do it. We've developed a culture, which this is one of those things that in many ways it's great, but there's some negative side effects that I don't think have completely sunk in.

But, like, we've developed a culture where it is mainstream and widely okay to think about your own mental health first, to think about your own priorities, think about your own happiness, and figure out what kind of life you want to make. And obviously that's a great thing in a vacuum. But to your point, there's kind of a hidden cost to that,

which is once you're given the freedom and the opportunity to think very deeply about who you're going to be and how are you going to be and how are you going to find meaning in the world, suddenly nothing is given to you. Suddenly you have to kind of conjure it out of thin air. The way I described this in subtle art was like, you know, a hundred years ago, life was objectively worse. Like it sucked.

Like you're probably a subsistence farmer somewhere. You're probably in a war or a famine or depression. Jesus. But when you're living, but a hundred years ago, it was always very, very clear what your purpose was, what the goal was, what the meaning in your life was. It was to survive, you know, don't get shot, don't get killed, and grow enough food to feed yourself and your family. And so everybody woke up every day knowing exactly what they were going to do that day, knowing exactly what had to be done or else the consequence was potentially death.

And so I think a lot of these existential questions that we wrestle with in the 21st century of like, who am I? Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing? These are luxuries. These are very, very first-world problems. And in many ways, we've traded physical struggle for psychological struggle. That is the hidden cost of our comforts and freedom that we've earned for ourselves over the past five, six generations. There's a strong argument that affecting 10,000 people very deeply is arguably more valuable contribution to the world. And so I started thinking of things in that way. And it just, it took me a long time to kind of detach myself from that.

Because it's, I think when you're starting out as a writer, and this is probably true with podcast and everything, it's like, you get a, you love seeing the numbers go up. You know, it's like every year, the number is higher than the year before. And it feels good. It motivates you. You feel inspired. like hell yeah I'm growing I'm getting better and at some point though like once that number gets high enough you got to let go of it you just you've got to let go of it because

it's not sustainable once it's that high you know and it's it's you're going to run out of oxygen and and so it was a difficult process to kind of get back to like okay I need to write a book step one write a book I love you know because when I started so this next book everything is fucked I started it out I was like all right you know I got to I got to keep the train going you know and so I like started trying to write stuff that you know I thought subtle art readers were gonna really love and and yeah it just it felt very empty it started to feel like like a job forced yeah which I didn't become an author to have a job I became an author so you know I can do

what I love and I just kept scrapping it I'm like no no no this is this isn't going well and eventually I just get back to like okay I need to write for myself first. Then once I have a book that I'm proud of that I think is great, then I can look at it and say like, okay, like how can we, you know, maybe change this or market this so that it'll sell a lot of copies. You know, that's step two. But step one, it always has to be, in a creative process, it always has to be about yourself first. There is a certain level of depth of meaning when you have shared a decade with somebody and you've been through the best times and the worst times with that person. You've had joy with that person.

You've had pain and fear with that person. And you're still with them and they've watched you grow through that. And you've watched them grow through that. Like that is so rare and special. And it is, you can't replicate that in any other way. And once that clicked for me, that like, wait a second. second, this thing that I've been spending all these years focusing so much on was oversold to me, was like overhyped, dating a bunch of people and hooking up with a bunch of hot girls

and getting all that validation from that. And this thing that most people complain about, which is marriage, is totally undersold to me, like the joy and the meaning and the impact of like, you know, seeing my wife accomplish something in her business that she's been working three years towards and watching her stress through it and giving her support and giving her advice, like watching her succeed in that moment, like, it's so much more impactful and meaningful than, like, the best one-night stand I ever had. Like, it's not even on the same, you know, you're, like, you're not even in the same territory. When you compare those two things, that revelation was like so profound for me.

And I'm a little bitter that, like, that message isn't, like, I started wondering. I'm like, where was this message when I was 20? Right? Because when I was 20, the message was, no, dude, you need the bang as many girls as possible and never settle down. Because that's like what a high status alpha male does or whatever the thing was back then. And that was fun for a couple of years, but it doesn't serve you well long term. I have intentionally kind of been an advocate for classical monogamy and marriage because I think it is, in this day and age, it is underrated. I'm a big proponent of just vulnerability in general. That applies across the spectrum.

So our private relationships, our public relationships, professional relationships, everything. And the thing that makes vulnerability so important and so powerful is that it creates a transparency and a trust between everybody involved. You know, when you're willing to expose your weaknesses or at least be honest about them, It helps people know that you're dependable.