SOLVED with Mark Manson - 6 Important Truths No One Likes to Hear

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

The most important truths in life are the ones we don’t like to hear. In fact, I managed to make an entire career out of sharing these types of truths because the stuff we don’t like hearing is often what we need to hear the most. In this episode I have a lot of fun going through—one-by-one—six nuggets of wisdom, designed to make us all less awful humans. So saddle up bitches, I’m here to break hearts today. Get your nutritional goodness with AG1 using my link: ⁠https://drinkag1.com/idgaf⁠ And get a whopping 50% off with Factor Meals using my link: ⁠https://factormeals.com/idgaf50⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, before we get into it, if you listen to the show, you probably consume a lot of personal growth content. The books, the podcasts, YouTube videos, all of it. And you've probably noticed the gap between knowing what to do and then actually going out and doing it. You've got the insights, but what you don't have is something that connects them to your actual life. That's why I built purpose. It's a personal development AI that learns you, your patterns, your blind spots, all the stuff that you keep circling back to over and over again. Instead of handing you another framework, it gives you specific personalized direction. So check it out. You can try it for free for seven days. Go to purpose.app. That is purpose.com. As long time readers will know, one of my

operating principles in life is that the most important truths that we need to hear are often the truths that we don't enjoy hearing. You could even kind of say that I've made an entire career out of telling people what they need to hear, even though they didn't quite like hearing it. So for today, Drew and I have scoured through my entire archive, and we've kind of pulled out a greatest hits of important truths that we all need to hear and be reminded of frequently, but we never really like hearing it. And so we're going to go one by one. We're going to break down what that truth is, why it's important. We're going to tell some stories about how it relates to our own lives and give you all, dear listeners, some pointers of how you can implement these truths in your

life. So what's the first one, Drew? Hit me. Yes, the first one. When it comes to health, wealth, and love, if you think you have a then you have a problem. I truly believe the most important things in life are self-evident. So if you have a loving relationship, you shouldn't have to ask if you have a loving relationship. In fact, if you have to ask if you have a loving relationship, then you probably don't have a loving relationship, right? If you are happy in your job, then you probably don't have to ask if you're happy in your job. In fact, if you have to ask if you're happy in your job, then you're probably not. I find that this shows up in all sorts of interesting places and intends to be true about the most

important things that we worry about in our lives. It was funny. After I quit alcohol last year, I made a YouTube video about it, and it got a lot of attention. And some people reached out to me. There's a metal band I'm a huge fan of called Lamb of God. And their lead singer, this guy named Randy Blythe, is recovered alcoholic. He's been very outspoken about it, wrote a book. He reached out to me, and we started talking.

And it was funny, I had a really nice exchange with him. And he was asking me a lot of questions about my drinking and things that have changed and my thoughts. And I told him, I said, you know, I don't know if I was technically an alcoholic, but looking back, you know, my drinking really interfered with a lot of things that were going on in my life for many years. And he replied and he was like, look, man, I'm not in the business of telling people what to call themselves or what's an alcoholic, what's not an alcoholic?

what's not an alcoholic. But let me just put it this way. Anybody who's not an alcoholic ever sits down and wonders if they're an alcoholic. Like if you're asking, brother, you've got a fucking problem. And I was like, ah, shit. I never thought of it that way. But it's true. Like, if you have to ask if you have an addiction problem, then you probably have some degree

of an addiction problem. Because if you didn't, you wouldn't be asking. If you're asking if you have trust issues, then you probably have trust issues. Because if you didn't have trust issues, you wouldn't have to ask in the first place. It's almost like another way of describing the backwards law a little bit. Like if you try to become confident, you're going to become less confident. It's like a variation of the same concept. I think there is some nuance here because sometimes happy people will ask themselves if they're happy, but it's not, it's motivated by like it's an exercise. You know, they're doing like their gratitude journal or something. And they're like, how happy am I today? Oh, I'm an eight out of ten. You know, like, I think just because you ask doesn't necessarily, I think it's, the key is if you feel you have to ask, that's the key. If you feel compelled to ask, if you find the question repeatedly coming into your head. And then there's another interesting nuance with the denial or the avoidance piece. A lot of people will feel these questions, but they will bury them.

They'll push them away. they'll justify them. They'll like pretend that they're not there. They'll make excuses for them. You know, I was, I was really having a bad day yesterday. I didn't really want to question my relationship with my best friend or whatever. And I think we have to really practice a lot of self-awareness around that. Like, are you justifying this because it's uncomfortable to think about? If it's not uncomfortable, then you should have no problem thinking about it. Like, you should just fully be able to like sit with that question and be like, yeah, no, that doesn't feel like I have to ask it. You mentioned the gratitude thing. We just had Sonia Lubomerski on

recently. And she said something in there that really caught me because I felt this way for a long time and just never admitted it. But she said she thought, you know, practicing gratitude was very hokey and kind of trite to her. And I've always, I've felt that way too. I've tried to, in the past, I feel like, I'm going to wake up and write the three things down that I'm grateful for and this and that. And it always seemed off to me. To me, it wasn't needed. I was already grateful, actually. Maybe if you aren't a very grateful person, maybe you do need to ask that. But it's self-evident to me. I feel enough gratitude in my life where I don't have to ask that. Absolutely. And I think what gets lost with a lot of journal stuff, and I was very conscious of

this when I did my journal, the subtle art journal, journaling is by definition writing, reading and writing, it's an intellectual exercise. So if you are supposed to write down three things you're grateful for, unless you like take a moment as you write them down and think about them and feel the gratitude as you're writing, you're probably not getting a whole lot from it. And as you said, it's like if you legitimately are grateful, then you shouldn't have to write things down to be grateful, right? Like I could see it as like stuff like gratitude journals. It's probably good for helping people who are not grateful build up the gratitude muscle for themselves. If you're a person like it seemed like Sonia was, who is just naturally very grateful, then yeah, you're not really going to get anything from it. It turns into a purely intellectual exercise. I think you see that happen with a lot of kind of self-help practices. That it's, you get a little bit of this of the backwards law thing of like, well, if I really was at peace with myself, then why do I have to like go to yoga class three times a week and remind myself I'm at peace with myself? Can I just be at peace with myself? Like there's a little bit of a, the more you try the further way you get from it,

which makes this stuff tricky. And it's, I think it people have to be very, very, you know, conscious and aware of like how they're approaching this stuff because in a lot of ways, practices like yoga or journaling or meditation, they themselves can become their own form of avoidance. So there's a bunch of uncomfortable questions in your life that you're avoiding. And so you go journal about other stuff about how grateful you are for all the things in your life. So you don't have to ask questions about the shit that like is really bugging you. And this is why, you know, the basis of my entire approach and philosophy is the lean

into what is bugging you. Lean into what's uncomfortable. Yeah, it's great. Go feel, go to yoga, feel great. Fine. Happy. You know, that's wonderful. That's not what's going to trigger change and improvement on a significant level. Like what triggers change in improvement is leaning into those uncomfortable questions and realizations that are natural reactions to bury and avoid and not deal with. Yeah, for sure. As somebody who practices yoga, I can totally verify for this too. You do. You see so many people in there who are just like, I emanate like peace and all of this. I was like, you are totally avoiding. You are covering something up. I can see right through this woo-woo bullshit. Can I just say there's nothing wrong with taking something like yoga and

building a whole life around it if you really, really love it. But just be aware of that's what you're doing. Like if your default state is not doing yoga, then when you go do yoga, it's going to help you access parts of your mind or experiences that you don't normally access. If you're doing yoga all day, every day, then the dysfunction in your life is going to integrate itself with the yoga. So doing yoga is no longer going to help you. And that's true of most things. I think it's, that's one of the things that's so tricky about psychology is that there is nothing. There's not a single intervention that has a high hit rate over a long period of time. Because human adaptability, is such that whatever intervention that we bring into our life today that helps with today's issues,

tomorrow's issues integrate themselves with that solution. We just had Lori Gottlieb on and talking about therapy. And she talked about how if somebody goes to a therapist year after year for like decades and it's just always gushing about how much they love their therapist, she said, that's a red flag because that means that there's stuff that's not being addressed. And I think the reason for that is that you go to a therapist. The therapist helps you sort through this. stage of issues, but then a new stage of issues come that by definition, those issues are below the surface of awareness of you and your therapist, otherwise they wouldn't get there. So you continue the therapy for year after year after year, never noticing or addressing those underlying

issues. And so this is why A, to the previous point, try everything and just stick with what works. But then even once you've stuck with what works, keep trying other things, because eventually it's going to stop working. Your life's going to change. You're going to change. You're going to change, people around you are going to change. And problems in life are a constant. And they will always mold themselves to whatever your lifestyle habits are. So if you've got everything nailed today, tomorrow's problems are going to squeeze their way into the cracks that you haven't noticed. And you're going to have to find some new process, new practice tomorrow that's going to unearth them. That's a good one. I like that. Your problems adapt to your solutions, basically. So you're saying,

I really like that. You should write a book or something more. That's awesome. I'll work on it. I've been talking to some people about this lately, and I'm working on this idea. I think L.A. as a whole kind of sucks, but it's awesome once you find your places and your people. You've got to find your little crack in the concrete jungle out there. I don't know. What do you think of that?

So a lot of people out here have told me that. Oh, really? Okay. So we live on the west side. We live pretty close to the beach. One of our complaints, and again, overall, we love it out here. Yeah. But one of our complaints, and listen up California people, some tough love incoming.

California people are the most homogenous group think people. I've lived in a lot of places in the United States. I have never seen so many people who all believe the exact same thing, go to the exact same places, talk about the exact same stuff, but think that they're all completely unique and individual. I sorry sorry California people but it's true it's true everybody here it's the same shit over and over and it's been really frustrating because coming from the East Coast New York obviously has its problems but New York is so diverse New York is actually diverse California is not diverse right

New York is actually diverse like New York you meet people of all different walks of life different industries different nationalities, ethnicities backgrounds political beliefs expertise, life experiences, you meet people, you'll meet somebody who grew up in Soviet Russia and is now like a libertarian finance guy. And then you'll be having dinner with him. And then the person next to him is like a Japanese acupuncturist who was a refugee because her husband is Guatemalan and like all this shit. Like it's just incredible life stories. In California, there is ethnic diversity, yes, but everybody has the same ideas. They work in the same industries.

They talk about the same stuff. They have the exact same hobbies. It's been frustrating. And that's not, there are a lot of great people out here. It's not a knock on them. But it's like, we've definitely gone to some parties

and events and stuff. And we're like, really again? Like this again. Fucking again. Like, and what's also a little bit maddening too is that everybody in California, thinks that they're like so open-minded and individualistic and unique. And it's like, no, you guys, you're all, it's the same.

It's the same thing over and over. We'll leave it at that so we don't, I mean, you've pissed off so many people over the years, Mark. You don't want to piss off the people in your neighborhood, I think. Yeah, now I'm going to piss off my neighbors. I will save you. I will save you because we're going to go on the next one. Yes, please. Amazon Presents, Jeff versus Taco

truck salsa. Whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habiniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. Chinos. How? Did you blam out? No. The devil wears Prada too. He's the movie of event 20 years in the making. Honestly, can't with the secrets anymore, so I think we just, we should tell her. Will you two please spit it out already? This Friday, be the first to experience it only in theaters.

In light of the recent scandal, I'm here to restore your credibility. Oh, because we're a team now. That's a nice story. The Devil Wears Prada 2 in Theaters Friday. So sexy and exciting results come from doing all the boring things well. Yeah, I hate this one. I hate hearing this one as a very impatient person and somebody who historically always wanted the shiny, sexy thing now and wanted the hack or the trick to get it tomorrow.

It took me a long time to learn this one. You know, I think of this one as like the karate kid principle. I don't know if you remember the karate kid. He goes to Mr. Miyagi. Mr. Miyagi's like this big karate master who's trained all the best fighters in the world. And Mr. Miyagi makes him start painting fences. and washing his car. And it just seems like this old Japanese man

getting free slave labor out of a poor teenage kid. But I love that lesson so much because it really does show up in so many areas of life. You know, the most obvious for me is writing. Whenever I talk to people who are either writers or aspiring writers, I can kind of immediately tell how good they are

by how important they think their cool ideas are. If you talk to a really experienced author, authors don't give a shit about ideas. Authors understand that most sexy ideas that sound really cool in conversation don't make a good book. What really experienced authors understand is that the majority of what makes a good book is very boring and tedious. It's the constant revisions of paragraphs. It is going back through a chapter for an eighth time to make sure that it has clarity or that an example lines up with another example later in the book. It's in a very thankless, repetitive, onerous job of picking apart each and every word in a sentence

and asking yourself, does this word help this sentence? Does it need to be here? And I've never met an ambitious 18-year-old who lays in their bed at night dreaming like, one day I'm going to pick apart my sentences and ask which adjective needs to be here. No, kids who dream of being authors, they dream about, you know, Harry Potter and being on the New York Times list and, you know, doing big readings at bookstores. Like, it's easy to fantasize about the glitzy and exciting stuff, but you don't see the obnoxious tedium that gets you there. There's a quote that's gone viral recently that I think sums this up well. And I'm probably butchering this, but it's basically like you receive applause for all the work you put in when no one's looking. Oh, I love that. Yeah.

I came across this really kind of weird, quirky example recently. of a mid-20th century pianist named Glenn Gould, he was Canadian, and he just has this beautiful, like, effortless style. You can hear it when you just listen to him, but if you watch and play too, it's just, it's amazing. But his practice routine was, he used this technique, this like old technique that his teacher taught him called finger tapping. And just in a nutshell, it's basically, when you practice,

you only practice one hand at a time. And you take your off hand, and you come over and you tap each finger, each note. So you're playing really, really, really. slow. If you watch these videos, it looks so fucking boring. Most people I think would just, they would gouge their eyes out with rusty spoons first rather than practice like this. But that sexy result you're talking about is he gets that from this tedious, tedious practice. Dude, you're giving me PTSD sweats of music school. Oh, right. Yeah.

This is a huge reason why I quit music school because. Really? You couldn't handle the TD in, huh? I wanted to be jamming out in clubs rocking in front of audiences. And really what being a professional musician is, is sitting in a quiet practice room by yourself, running scales over and over for hours at a time and doing it at different speeds and you don't increase the speed until you do it perfectly at the previous speed. And really good musicianship, it's really shocking how much of what you spend your time doing

is not musical at all. It's very technical and physical. It's like honing in your dexterity and your muscle memory and all sorts of things, like whether it's scales or harmonies, core progressions, it's really maddening and repetitive. And what I realized in music school is that it actually takes a really certain type of personality to excel at that sort of thing. And it's funny because the type of personality that excels at that is not the same. same personality that you visualize when you think of like a professional musician on stage, you know, at an arena or like wailing away on the Grammys or a Super Bowl halftime or whatever. It takes a really obsessive personality and like a perfectionism as well to all those things.

I think that was ultimately what held me back or put a ceiling on my musical development. It's just I didn't really care if I got the scale right. Well, in great, in music, there's a there's a place for that as well. Like if you play sloppy and, you know, there are certain genres of music that embrace that. But when you're trying to do it on a professional level, you know, become a studio musician or something, it's, it doesn't really work. I personally had to suffer through this in exercise. You know, I think I approached exercise with the same mentality that a lot of people do,

which is, it's January 1st. Let me Google a workout routine that's going to make me hot. Okay, this workout routine, that's going to make me hot. Okay, this workout routine has all these insane workouts. I need to go like do climb trees and do handstands and run 100 sprints a week and only eat celery and peanut butter. And of course, I give up after two weeks of trying. What took me a long time to learn and help from a couple reasonable coaches is that

it's actually just better to do basic things every day than go kill yourself doing sprints on the beach or like lifting an insane amounts of weight three times a week. Like the consistency of just like showing up, doing a short run, lifting a little bit of weight, going for a walk, it adds up over a long period of time in a way that all like the extreme sexy ways of getting in shape don't. And so that was hard to come the terms with. There's no secret workout plan. There's no diet meal that's being handed down upon the heavens that is like, this will finally

get you to your six-pack elysium. It's like, dude, just show up and fucking lift some weights every day and just don't miss a day. It's really that simple. There you get. You just destroyed the entire exercise influencer industry right there. Seriously. We're here to break hearts true. That's what we're here to do.

So this one leads right into the next one too, which is consistency matters more than intensity. Yes, which is deeply related to the sexy thing. The intensity of something is usually what's sexy. It's like, oh my God, that dude just, you know, work eight. hour straight nonstop, where really it's consistency over a long period of time that matters. So these two tie together in an interesting way because I think there's a natural human fallacy to think that significant change must require an extreme amount of effort. Like when we think of the person we want to be tomorrow or in a month or whatever, the vision

in our head seems so different. And the change from who we are today to that vision in our head seems so massive and monumental, that we mistakenly just assume that we have to put an insane amount of effort in over the next two to three weeks to get to that place. Whereas what's actually more true is that you put in small amounts of effort over an extended period of time over months or even years to get to a place where that new vision of yourself not only doesn't feel like it requires an insane amount of effort, but it almost happens as a byproduct. And this is something that my friend James Clear has basically built an entire career off of, this idea that don't try to be

100% different in a month, be 1% better every single day for 100 days. And then you'll just kind of naturally get where you want to be going. And I think this mindset is, again, important and applicable in almost every avenue in life. The same fallacy shows, up in relationships all the time. People think that a good relationship means having these amazing romantic escapes and dates and vacations and doing these grand gestures that are going to blow the other person away. And the truth is that actually a good relationship is just consistently doing the small things over a long period of time. The small gestures of respect and kindness, you know, cleaning up the dishes after dinner when your partner just cooked, complimenting them on their outfit,

asking if they're feeling okay, if they seem a bit down. Like, it's just these like really almost hygienic practices and behaviors within relationships that add up over a long period of time to create this a huge amount of intimacy and trust and respect for one another. Yeah, this was a big realization for me too in relationships. As somebody who tends to be fairly avoidant in relationships, you know, and kind of tends to keep people at arm's length. One of the problems I always had was, oh, my God, these people, they need that intensity, right, to keep their security in the relationship. And honestly,

what it is, it's just those small things. That was a big thing for me, realizing that it's just consistent small things, reassuring word, here or there, a touch on the arm every now and then even two. But it's the consistency that matters, way more than the intensity itself. That was big for me anyway as an avoidant person. Acknowledging their existence, noticing they're in the room. These are big steps, true. I'm proud of you. The big steps like that, yeah.

The little things like that, sure. You've come so far. You're so far. But it even really is. Like, if you're pretty insecure in your relationships, I think it would be surprised at how little reassurance you need as long as you get it on a consistent basis. Kids, I think, too. Kids need more than their parents.

buying them big, expensive things or, you know, sending them to college or all these things, just show up for them consistently in lots of small ways. I think that means way more to them than these big gestures. One of the best pieces of parenting advice I've come across comes from Kevin Kelly's new book. He said, give your kids half the money you think you should and spend twice as much time with them as you think you should, which I feel like that's very, very wise. You know, it's funny because we tend to be drawn to the intensity side of the equation because it is big and sexy and romantic and exciting. You know, hearing stories of CEOs who slept at the office for six months straight to turn a company around. Or, you know, the guy who got on the plane and flew 3,000 miles to propose to his girlfriend.

Like, those stories are striking emotionally. and they're exciting to hear and listen to. And they're very memetic. So they get repeated easily and replicated easily. But that doesn't mean that they're actually efficient in the real world and that they're actually going to be applicable for most of us. And it's easy to get distracted by those things. And I think, again, in relationships, you mentioned, you know, somebody who might be a

little bit insecure and how really they just need like a small amount of assurance consistently. What happens, though, is when they don't get it consistently, they don't think to themselves, like, oh, I just need a small amount of reassurance. What they think to themselves is like, this person doesn't love me anymore. I better do something fucking drastic to fix things before they all completely fall apart. And so you get these dramatic overreactions. It's the same with like the exercise thing, right?

Like you fuck up the consistency. You gain five or 10 pounds. And you're like, oh my God, I need to throw everything out the window and start over. I need to go hire a nutritionist. I need to join a new gym. I need to do keto, I need to fucking start pole dancing classes, whatever it is. When actually it's like, no, you just need to get back to the consistency that you messed up. And I think that it's a hard thing for us to accept and swallow because the solution to our

emotional problems, we tend to perceive to be proportional to the emotional problem. So it's like if we're very upset about something, we tend to assume that the thing that's going to Fix that for us must also be very, very big when actually that's not always the case. Sometimes we get very upset over little things because we're human and we're stupid. And so I think it's important to be realistic and remind ourselves of that. I mean, there is a time and a place for intensity still, right? You have to be conscious of where it's highest leverage. So these stories of like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs who like swoop in and sleep at the office for six months and turn a company around.

The reason that worked is because they were in a high leverage moment. So if you're just a couch potato that's trying to lose 20 pounds, that's not a high leverage moment. Like killing yourself in the gym for six hours a day, it's not going to get you significantly better results than just showing up for 40, 45 minutes for many, many, many days in a row. There's certain moments in life that there is an outsized return to high intensity efforts. So, for example, to go back to music, if you're just trying to become a really good musician, consistency over a long period of time is going to win.

I actually remember my guitar instructor in music school told me. He said that you need to hit 30 minutes a day to break even. That was his guideline. We talked to Derek Sivers recently, and that episode's coming out next week. But he told the story about how when he lived in New York City, his roommate was working at a recording studio, and this famous Japanese artist at the recording studio needed a guitar player for his next tour. And so his roommate came home and told Derek,

And Derek literally had 48 hours to learn this guy's entire back catalog. And so he stayed up all night, two nights in a row, studying it, learning it, figuring out how to perform it. That's a high leverage moment. So that's where you put the intensity in. Yeah. That said, I think before you run up to that intense moment, the consistency is the preparation to it.

There's a period of consistency you have to go through in order for that leverage point to actually materialize. Absolutely. Like if you're not able to do an hour a day every day. day for months. Like when it comes time to do a 12-hour day, you're not going to be able to. This is actually something I learned recently with running. When I started marathon training, all the advice that I read was like run fucking slow. 90% of your running should just be slow as hell. And it blew my mind. Like it actually, it works. Like I'm faster than I've ever been in my life right now, but I'm not

training fast. I'm training consistently. Yes. The next one. People will tend to feel about you the way you feel about yourself. So there's an inherent part to our psychology where we're always evaluating our status relative to other people, right? And one of the ways we evaluate that is by seeing how someone else treats themselves. So one of those ways that that manifests is through the way we set and enforce our own boundaries, right? Someone who feels better about themselves is going to set boundaries and enforce them. So when someone treats them like shit, they're going to set up a boundaries say, I'm not going to tolerate that and either limit exposure or make the other person change the way they interact with them. I think, though, too, there's kind of a chicken and an egg

thing there, though, right? Like, if you feel good about yourself, do you then set good boundaries, or do you set good boundaries and then feel good about yourself? I think it works in both directions. In order to enforce boundaries, you have to respect yourself. And so through the act of enforcing that boundary, you build that self-respect. And because you build that self-respect, it makes it easier in the future to set those boundaries. The boundary thing is absolutely true. Boundaries are almost like the manifestation of our self-worth. People who have a high self-worth are just going to naturally feel a need to enforce boundaries with people around them because they need to protect. They understand that their time and energy and values are worth protecting, whereas people with

low self-worth are going to have basically no boundaries and really struggle to set any because they don't see there anything being worth protecting. Like if somebody comes along and tries to kind of enforce their ideas or worldview, a person with low self-worth is going to be like, well, okay, that sounds fine. Like, as long as I'm not alone anymore, sure, I'll go along with whatever you want. Again, it's another self-reinforcing thing where it's the fact that they don't have self-respect, they don't enforce boundaries, makes the person who comes along not respect them. And, And it just, the cycle continues. I also find this super interesting in that it also relates to how we value certain things

in our lives. But it's funny because it's, if you don't value your own time, then you will naturally not really value the time of others. It's not a mean thing. It's just like, if you don't really see any importance of utilizing your time super well, then you're not really going to think about other people utilizing their time super well. as somebody who is very conscious of the value of their own time. Again, I find myself having to erect a lot of strong boundaries,

create rules around myself to protect that time. Sometimes I feel like I value these people's time more than they do themselves. Okay, so you're talking about there's like a, like you said, it's a cycle. You have both a vicious cycle and a virtuous cycle here. If you don't value your own time and don't set your own boundaries and feel good about yourself, you get in this vicious cycle versus the virtuous cycle of feeling good about yourself and setting the boundaries. How do you go from one to the other, I guess? How do you go from if you are caught in that vicious cycle to the virtuous cycle? Usually the entry point is the enforcement of some initial

boundaries. The problem is that sometimes people are so embedded, they're so far down that spiral, they're so embedded in so many toxic relationships that keep reinforcing that lack of self-worth, that keep rejecting their boundaries, that keep making it difficult for them to create an force boundaries. I find that when it's really bad, a lot of times people need to like exit situations and kind of start a new and a new place or around new people or in a new job or something like that. It's almost if they're so embedded in an environment and in relationships that are just like creating this downward pressure on their self-worth that's inescapable, I think oftentimes the first step is just new scenery and new people. And then once you're in that new scenery and

people, then it's like, okay, let's do it right this time. Don't make the same mistakes you made last time. Don't tolerate the same behaviors that you tolerated last time. But also start small. Like don't expect yourself to be a completely different person overnight. Goes right back to the consistency over intensity, right? You start small. Absolutely. Be consistent with a small boundary, maybe, and then work your way up. Yes. Boundaries is another one that, yeah, you want to start small and it's a skill set, right? Like, it's a skill set to recognize when you're being disrespected, it's a skill set to call it out and communicate it, and it's a skill set to actually stand by whatever boundary you end up setting.

So all three of those things need to be practiced like anything else. It's something else here now, something new. From exclusively on Paramount Plus, it's the series Stephen King calls Scarious Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. sci-fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now we're running out of time and we still don't know the rules don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch saving those children is how we all go home

from binge all episodes exclusively on paramount plus all right next one day you will look back on your problems today with nostalgia and fondness learn to appreciate them now I don't want to appreciate them Drew fuck my problems that Well, let's talk about that, Mark. Let's talk about that. So one of my favorite quotes ever comes from Freud, and he says that one day in hindsight,

your biggest struggles will strike you as beautiful. And I hate to say it, but he's right. I do think there needs to be a certain amount of removal from it. And I do think that probably the more painful the struggles, the longer, the more removed from it you have to become. But I think ultimately what generates a sense of meaning in our lives is this experience or perception of overcoming obstacles or overcoming struggles. So when we're in the struggle, we hate the struggle, we complain about the struggle, we blame

the struggle. But eventually, once we overcome it, it imbues our life with a sense of meaning and progress. And once a certain amount of time passes, we look back at that sense of meaning and progress and we get very nostalgic for it and we admire it and we're happy for it. And this is why, I think I said in subtle art, I said, if you listed out the most impactful events in your life, chances are most of them were negative, because it tends to be the negative events that force us to reevaluate everything and fundamentally change ourselves. You know, when it comes to positive events that can do that, I really think it's probably

limited to like a childbirth in like a marriage. Other than that, pretty much everything's going to be negative. It's going to be you lost something, you got fired, somebody died, like you got sick, something catastrophic happened, forced you to reevaluate everything, really dig deep and change yourself, overcome that hurdle, create a new identity, create a new self, feel proud about that new identity, which then causes you to look back at the hardship and the struggle fondly or nostalgically. I remember, you know, my editor who published subtle art, first thing he said in our meeting when he read the book proposals, he said, I'm a cancer survivor and it's the best

thing that ever happened to me. And that's why I want to publish this book. And as soon as he said that, I was like, he gets it. Like, we don't even have to have the meeting. I'm going with him. And because that's, that is the point, essentially. But I think the key to this one here is learning to appreciate them now. Why, how do you do that? I think that's the hardest part. Looking back on nostalgia and everything like that, that's a different beast altogether. It is really, really, hard to do that in the moment. I do think that this is, you know, the classic advice of stay positive, stay on the sunny side, all that shit. I think this is realistically what that is supposed to be telling you is that like, look, are you struggling? Yes. Okay, that means you're growing. And because

you're growing, that's a good thing. And there's a very subtle hidden piece of appreciation there that you can have for that. And I think you can train yourself to feel that more often. and to be more aware of it. I think I've gotten very good at doing that with work. I just, over the years, I have trained myself to just go really fucking hard and almost kind of relish it. Even when I'm underslept and insanely stressed and feeling uncertain and insecure, there's kind of this feeling of like, this is going to make me so much better once I'm on the other side of it. And I don't know, there's like a, there's like a feeling of aliveness that comes with that in a certain way. That, you know, coming back to, you mentioned earlier about how

locusts of control can be contextual. I think this is probably something that's contextual as well, because like when it comes to work stuff, I think I'm really good at this. Like, I'm very good at grinding on work and like pushing myself super hard. When it comes to relationships, I'm definitely not this at all. Like as soon as there's a relationship problem, I'm like, why me? Make it go away. Make it stop. Well, this is a good point, though. Okay, so one thing that's helped me in like kind of those low moments is realizing that this is, yeah, this is when the best connections in your relationships are formed and forged.

So I think you can find a little bit of in the moment respite from all the suffering saying, okay, I'm in a low point. Let me reach out to people and see who responds. And those are going to be the people and the relationships that you're going to look back on, not even necessarily look back on, but in the moment, are going to be super important to you. All right, Drew. So the next time I fight with my wife, I'm going to call you and I'm going to tell you to explain to her that she should be appreciative.

That is not what I'm saying at all. Whatever dumbass thing I just did that pissed her off. Yeah, I'm going to sign with her. You can explain to her why she should be appreciative. No. I will side with her every time, I'm sure. No. It is, though.

I mean, there's been definitely great. I like this idea. This is great. No, no, no. What I'm saying. I'm like, look, look, baby. Drew said, you should appreciate this right now. I know I wrecked your car and didn't come home last night, but you should really be appreciating this.

This is going to bring us so much closer together, isn't it? That is not what I'm saying at all. I've had a couple of a few different occasions where I've been, you know, pretty low points in my life and ended up having to crash on people's couches even too. And a couple of my friends in particular, I've done this a couple of times with them. And when I was going through that, I was just like, oh my God, I am so grateful for these people right now. And that helped me a lot through that.

So I think recognizing that those times are where relationships are forged, that helped me a little bit anyway. Yeah, I mean, this kind of comes back to the romanticism bit a little bit, right? Because there's a romantic side of us that, you know, we look back and like, man, I suffered so hard and I came out on top. Like, that feels very meaningful and powerful. When I started my first business, I lived on a friend's couch for about six months. And it's funny because I would never go back and do that again. But if a genie in a lamp said, like, you could go back and do it again for a day, like go relive it for a day, I think I probably would. Like there definitely is a little bit in nostalgia there of like just how fucking broke I was

and how desperate and how hard I pushed myself. So I get it. It is interesting. I think what we're really driving at is that there's like a bitter sweetness to most of life's problems. I imagine that if you get extreme enough on the negative end, probably like the worst possible things that can happen to you. there's probably not a bittersweetness or a nostalgia, but anything short of that,

anything short of just absolutely catastrophic and completely traumatizing, you can probably find a bittersweet appreciation. And if you're a better man than we are, you can do it in the moment. You had that, you opened this with the Freud quote. And I think the friend of the show, Derek Sivers, once again, he has a really good line in his book, How to Live. which is nostalgia is memories minus the pain. And I just, I love that quote. Yes. And that's another way to put it to.

It's a great line. It really is. The next one, the only thing all of your problems have in common is you. This is a classic. Speak for yourself, Drew. All my problems have in common. What is me? Maybe.

Is it me? Is Drew Bernie. Yeah. Understanding this on a deep level is actually what's, the root of wisdom is. It's all the problems in your life. The only thing they have in common is yourself. You know, our mind is always spinning up narratives about our experiences to create meaning and explanations. And the default narrative that we all spin up for ourselves is we're the hero and the victim. And we're either going to save the world or the world's completely fucking us.

And that's just kind of like our animalistic brain's default state. And we have to really, really educate ourselves and gain perspective and gain experience to learn our way out of those narratives. And it's a very unpleasant thing. It doesn't come naturally and it doesn't come easily and it's not fun when you think about it. You know, I had this realization recently when I was talking to my wife. You know, we were talking about this is now the third city we've lived in together. there are certain problems that we've had socially throughout like over the last 10 years, I guess. And when we lived in Brazil, it was like, it was very easy to kind of make up reasons why it was Brazil's fault. And then when we lived in New York, there were other reasons why it was New York's

fault. And now we're here. And similar problems keep happening. My wife and I, we've always lived a very transitory life. And so we both travel all. the time, lots of vacations, lots of business trips. And so for us, we've like kind of consistently had trouble finding an establishing community everywhere we've been. And last year was like the year that we weren't going to travel and we were going to stay home and we're going to put a lot of effort into making friendships and building community. And it kind of worked, kind of, not really though. Like we're not satisfied with it. And then we started getting into discussions of like, well, you know, L.A. sucks because of this and L.A. sucks because of that. And, you know,

about halfway into the discussion, I'm like, is it really L.A. that sucks? Because everywhere we've gone, there's been a reason that this isn't working. You know, maybe it's us. Maybe we should take a hard look at our own behaviors and assumptions and standards and how that's affecting things. So that's an ongoing, an ongoing discovery on our part. What about you, Drew? What problems are your fault? Well, everything is my fault. See, I have sometimes the opposite of the problem. We've talked about this a little bit. I sometimes have the opposite of this problem where I feel like I sometimes take on too much of the quote unquote blame. But I think that what you mentioned at the beginning of this was that there's a deeper understanding. Once you get this out a deeper level, it's not about the blame part. It's about the responsibility part. There's a concept in psychology, too, the locus of control, right? Do you have an internal locus of control where you think I have agency? And again, it's not this is, this is all on me. It's I have agency in this situation. Or do you have an external locus of control where you think, you know, it's L.A., it's New York, it's Brazil,

that sort of thing. Or, you know, it's whatever politician, pick your poison, you know, the country I live in, all of these sorts of things. I tend to have an internal locus of control when it makes me look good. And I have an external one when it, when it also makes me look good. So basically, whatever makes me look good, I choose to believe. That's, sure, sure. That is my fundamental operating principle in life. It's just sheer vanity. Well, I mean, that is a thing in psychology, too. What they've noticed is that we have these different loci, loci of control, depending on the area of our life. And we probably are pretty selective and choosy and kind of cherry pick how we do that.

I have not seen it express this way, but I imagine that narcissism is what I just jokingly described is probably actually a very good definition of narcissism. Because a narcissist believes that anything good that happens, it's their fault. And then anything bad that happens, it's somebody else's fault. That's kind of like a straight up definition. What you're describing in subtle art, I call it the responsibility fault fallacy, which is that people tend to associate responsibility and fault. And fault could also, you could replace fault with blame, you could replace it with guilt, you could replace it with shame.

But those things aren't not necessarily connected. Like, just because you are responsible for your situation doesn't mean that you're at fault for it or to blame for it. Or just because somebody else is to blame for your situation doesn't mean it's not your responsibility or it doesn't mean it's their responsibility. I think that it's a very common fallacy that people get stuck with. They think like, you know, well, my ex-husband screwed me over and ruined my life and broke up my family. So he should be responsible for fixing my life. And it's like, well, should he? Is he? Like, you might be waiting around for a long time for that fixing the

come. So it's a bitter pill to swallow sometimes. And I think the example I use in the book is that even if you get hit by a car and put in the hospital, it's not your fault, but you're responsible for recovering in the hospital. I don't think any sane person would disagree with that. It just gets very hard. People have an emotional resistance when they apply that to their relationships. Like, that person lied to me and took advantage of me. They're responsible for my unhappiness. Well, maybe it's their fault you're unhappy, but it's not their responsibility for your happiness. It's two different things. All right.

So those are the important truths that we all need to hear, but we don't like hearing. When it comes to health, wealth, and love, if you think you have a problem, then you have a problem. Sexy and exciting results come from doing all the boring things well. Consistency matters more than intensity. People respect you only as much as you respect yourself. One day, you will look back on your problems today with nostalgia and fondness. learn to appreciate them now. And the only thing all of your problems have in common is you. I think that's it for us today, Drew. Everybody, please like and subscribe. Drew and I will be back

with another episode next week. We will. Thank you, everybody. See you soon.