SOLVED with Mark Manson - Bonus Q&A: Facing Regrets, Hustle Culture, Living with ADHD, and More

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

It’s bonus episode time! Today, I’m doing a Q&A with questions you’ve all submitted. We dive into how I’ve changed my mind, bad habits, regrets, dead dreams, advice to young people, meditation, and a whole lot more. Submit your questions for future podcasts in the comments or email them to [e-mail]. Sign up for my newsletter, Your Next Breakthrough. It will help you be a less awful person: https://markmanson.net/breakthrough 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. That is purpose. What's up, everybody? Mark Manson here. And I'm here in New York City in a podcast studio that I rented. As some of you remember, a couple months ago, I did a Q&A episode.

I asked you guys all a bunch of questions. I got like 1,200 questions sent in. And I think on that episode, I maybe answered 50. So for this bonus episode, I'm going to be attacking a bunch of those other questions, a bunch of the questions that I didn't get to, but we're still really interesting and good and hopefully I have decent answers to. So without further ado, let's jump into it. Hey, Mark, love your work. Is there anything that you've changed your mind about lately? And if yes, why? I love this question. I feel like more public intellectuals, public figures should be asked this question more frequently. And this is something that I try to keep tabs on myself. and be honest with the audience about. Things that I've changed my mind about recently, I would say the biggest thing is this idea.

It's come up in a number of podcast episodes called the Prevalence Inflation Hypothesis. It's basically this idea that the more you talk about mental health issues, people can kind of quietly talk themselves into having mental health issues. I think this is something that for me feels intuitively, correct. And I think it explains a little bit of the paradox and the mental health data that's been going on over the last 10 years or so. We are more aware of mental health issues than ever before. It is less stigmatized than ever before. Just talk about mental health issues than ever before. Yet,

mental health data is just fucking terrible at the moment. And it keeps getting worse. And so that apparent paradox, I think, would partially be explained by the fact that there's probably a threshold where you're talking about mental health to such an extent and making it so socially acceptable that it actually becomes socially validating to have mental health issues in which you are now giving people social incentives to identify with mental health issues and self-diagnose with mental health issues when maybe under normal circumstances they wouldn't be there. So I find that incredibly compelling. As mentioned, we've had a few podcast episodes about it.

I made a YouTube video about it. I don't know where I land on it. I think it's still way too early to say, but it's something that I have been thinking about a lot. And as somebody who has created content in the space for 15 years now, it has forced me to rethink maybe how I talk about certain topics or some of the advice that I might give. Next question. Hi, Mark, I have a question. When trying to quit an addiction, things often go smoothly for five or six days, but then some restlessness feeling kicks end. Should we fight those feelings or just go back to our old habits?

Also, if I back off my old addiction habit when I face problems, my confidence also goes down. Please also give me some clarity on this. I'm guessing you've dealt with this while fighting alcohol addiction. Congratulations on all your success. Love from India. I actually wrote an article about quitting cigarettes that talked about this. Look, like any bad habit, whether it's an addiction or not, any bad habit, you're going to go through a few different phases. And I think the first five or six days, maybe the first week, there's probably going to be a lot of adrenaline, excitement, motivation.

You know, you finally like summoned up the courage to kick this habit, to kick this addiction, like, let's fucking do this. And that adrenaline will carry you through, you know, let's say three, four, five days. Once you get to like day five, the pain and suffering of trying to change that habit starts to kick in. And the fact is, is that you haven't quit the habit long enough to experience the benefits of quitting it yet. So there's kind of this like dark valley that you have to go through from like, say, day five to 20 or 25 where you just have to suffer. You have to suffer through it and you have to just grit your teeth and understand that this is part of the process. And I think just simply being aware that this is part of the process is fundamental to being able to get through. it, that this is temporary, that you were expecting it, you've prepared for it, and there's going to be

greater happiness and glory on the other side. I've generally found that it, you know, it takes a few weeks to a month, month and a half to start feeling the benefits of breaking any sort of bad habit or addiction. And I think it's really important to very consciously look for those benefits when you're going through this period. I wrote about this in the article about quitting cigarettes is that I found it very useful to like write down in journal everything in my life that was getting better and all the things that I used to do that were worse just to like consciously remind myself and reinforce all of the beneficial experiences and behaviors that I was having and reinforce all the costs and shitty things that were going on previously.

So be prepared for that period, that shitty period of five to 20. 25 days or so. And really, really zero in consciously on, you know, what the benefits are, look for them very, like sometimes they're very subtle. They're not necessarily completely related to what you were expecting. You know, with alcohol, I noticed that I just started sleeping way, way better a few weeks in. And I was like, huh, that's really, uh, it was unexpected. Is it overwhelming having this many followers or subscribers? You know, Stalin once said that The death of an individual is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic.

It's above a certain number. It just becomes so abstract that you kind of lose track. Like, I don't, anything over like a thousand people, it just turns into this amorphous blob in your brain and you can't really conceptualize it anymore. What are some of your biggest regrets in life? Would one of them have been not going on your health improvement journey sooner? Smiley face.

Yes, the health thing is honestly, I think that's the, in my adult life, that's probably the biggest thing I think I've fucked up, is that I was a glutton for, particularly in my 20s, I was a little bit of a glutton for self-destruction. You know, I came from a generation that that sort of behavior was kind of cool. Like, it was exciting. It was thrilling. In hindsight, it just seems kind of dumb. I think some of that is age, but also I think some of that is just the cultural moment and

the time period that we live in. in hindsight, I really underestimated the benefits of my getting your physical health in order for way too long. I feel kind of dumb, you know, being in this industry for over 15 years and really not getting my head around like the basic physical stuff until like year 13. It just seems like a pretty stupid oversight on my part. But honestly, like when I look back at my life, like I don't really like the regret question, it's hard because business or professional related regrets, it's hard to have them because those failures and mistakes are part of what get you to where you are, right? Personal life regrets, it's a little bit more

complicated. I mean, there's still a little bit of the same factor of it helps make me who I am. Honestly, the only things I really regret are some of the ways I treated people when I was younger. Like, there are not many things in my life that if I could go back and change, I would. But I don't know. When I was in my 20s, I was drunk a lot and was kind of a dick to some people who didn't deserve it. So shout out to the people I was addicted to who didn't deserve it. I'm sorry. Hey, Mark, with all the recent press on belief and expectation effects, your recent book summary video has at least three.

Would you consider adding a concept of positive and optimistic beliefs to one of your cheat codes for life? Also, do you feel like some of the benefits or belief effects are lost in the framing within subtle art? By this, I mean that perhaps focusing on the negative rather than the positive can still lead to detrimental effects. Perhaps some added nuance would be required for each individual to more intentionally decide on the particulars of their beliefs on a more case-by-case basis, circling back on one of the core principles of subtle art that we always are responsible for our experiences. God damn, that is a word salad, my friend. Okay, let me try to like edit this down in my brain into like a single sentence. Basically, from what I'm hearing here, I've had a number of a bunch of content recently that

has talked about the psychological benefits of having positive expectations or optimistic expectations for things that you're doing or things that you're doing in the future. And he is saying that, you know, so much of my past work or my books in particular are focused on considering the negative side of things that if there's not a contradiction there, that maybe positive thinking really does have its uses. and I should stop being so hard on it and stop being such a miserable prick. So, okay, here's the thing, right? I think being optimistic is good and healthy and we should all be optimist.

Like we should all assume the best of our motivations and intentions and the things that we're trying to do. My point and subtle art is that when thinking about a pursuit or goal, we tend to only think about the benefits and all the things that are going to go well. We don't think about the setbacks, the costs, the sacrifices, or the failures, right? So I could easily sit here and be like, I want to get my channel to 10 million subscribers. And I could have a very positive and optimistic outlook of like believing I'm going to get there, imagining myself there, like, you know, envisioning, doing affirmations, all that shit. And sure, that's helpful to a certain extent.

The catch is, is that I need to be realistic about what that process looks like. Like it's not enough for me to just sit here and kind of blindly be like, I want to have. have 10 million subscribers. I want to have 10 million subscribers. What I have to do is I have to think about how hard it's going to be, the mistakes that I'm going to make, the errors that can be expected, the sacrifices. Like, what am I going to give up if I grow my audience to that extent, right? Like, I'm going to give up some privacy. I'm going to, there's going to be more pressure for anything that I make. I'm going to have to be way more conscientious of the different demographics of groups that are going to watch the content and who I might be upsetting or who I might be

appealing to. I'm going to have to expand my team. That means I'm going to have to hire more people. It means I'm going to have to spend more money. So like it's great to be positive, but you also want to think of the costs, the sacrifices, the downsides, not because it's like that's, it's lame to be positive. It's just like you have to be realistic. Like be optimistic, awesome, but also be realistic. Hey, Mark, congratulations on all of your success. What is your opinion on the effects of parental, emotional immaturity on us? I think they can be absolutely massive.

Look, it's not just because of childhood trauma or whatever. It's because the fundamental way that people, humans in general, the way that we learn, is that we model people who are better at things than we are. And when you're a child, most of what you model comes from the, parents or the adult caretakers around you. And so if you have parents who are at the emotional maturity of a seven-year-old, then you are not going to have anything the model past the age of seven that's going to benefit you. It's basically, they're going to set the ceiling for you until you actually get out on your own and start actively working on it yourself. So I think

sometimes the trauma narrative gets exaggerated a little bit when it comes to parenting. I think people tend just simply underrate that if you grow up with a parent who has really bad communication skills,

you're probably going to end up with bad communication skills because most things that you learn when you're young, you learn from your parents. What's one thing about relationship advice that you have changed your mind on in recent times?

Much thanks. I don't know if I've change my mind about a single thing. I will say two things come to mind with this question. Number one, marriage is underrated and like needs a new publicist. Like, I don't know. It just, you know, the people who are advocating marriage and long-term stable relationships, they tend to be like very religious people or traditional old-fashioned people.

I just think the psychological health, the benefits, the stability, the, the, the, the, clear advantages that it gives you in life are just underreported and underdiscust. And I've talked about why marriage is great plenty of times on this podcast and on the YouTube channel. So that shouldn't surprise anybody. But yeah, I get on my soapbox for marriage, especially because I felt like I didn't see the value in it for a very, very long time, basically until I got married. So the second thing that comes to mind is I really do think just dating culture in general is getting worse, and I think a lot of it is being driven by apps. Apps in social media in general.

And I think the primary reason is that they filter for the wrong things. So technology is very good at filtering for surface level, superficial traits, characteristics, and qualities that actually don't matter a whole lot in terms of relationship quality. And I think if you pay too much attention to them, that they can be a distraction from the things that actually contribute to relationship quality. I think the other issue that they cause is that they generate a paradox of choice in people, right? So it creates an illusion that you have way more opportunities than maybe you actually do or that you, there are way, way, way more people that could potentially be good partners for you than there actually are. So things are very messy right now. Oh, last thing too. I think there's, for whatever reason, I don't know why this is.

But I do think people are approaching dating much more with a me first attitude. And I think, well, I think maybe this came from like a good intention, which is, you know, most people who struggle in their relationships, it's because they, they never put themselves first. They are like constantly giving themselves over to whoever it's. in front of them. And so most dating advice really pushes this me first mentality. You know, if you're approaching dating solely in terms of what you get out of it and not what you can give, you're going to have a bad time. Hey, Mark, would you change anything about your books at all? So it's been a few years since I've read them, but I get asked this a lot about subtle art in

particular, especially as the years go on. I don't think I would change any of the ideas. You know, the movie came out in 22, two years ago. I remember having a little bit of anxiety of like, oh man, what if this thing comes out and I like don't stand by one of the ideas anymore? I can't think of anything in that book that I don't still stand by. What I do look back on it and maybe regret or would change, I just think a lot of the concepts in there could have been written better or explained better. There's just a number of sections in that book that I'm like, you know, if I wrote that today, I think I would have done a better job. I also, like, I wasn't as good of a researcher back then.

So some of the studies that I referenced or mentioned, I know now are not great studies. So that's another little nitpick. As far as everything is fucked, I honestly, I wish I had an extra few months to work on that. To be honest, I think it was a little bit hairy and bloated. I think it could have been polished a little bit more. But I think I stand by everything in it. I don't know. I do think maybe the initial thesis in Chapter 1 was maybe a little bit overstated.

But who knows? From the bottom of your heart, do you still want to be a rock star? And if no, how do you manage to let go of a dream once it makes your life worth living? From the bottom of my heart, I don't want to be a rock star. So here's the thing. Your old dreams will die when you're happy. I know that sounds really trite, but it's true. I've lost all interest in any sort of music for probably five or ten years now.

And I honestly think it's just because I'm very happy with where I am in life. And whatever the itch that music was scratching, I found other things in my life that scratch it sufficiently. So whatever needs it was fulfilling, they aren't unfulfilled anymore. Fake it till you make it. Yay or nay. Eh. Eh. Which Mark Manson ego state is your favorite?

All of them. Every Mark Manson state is fucking phenomenal. Consider the strong philosophical and psychological arguments against the existence of free will. How do you suggest applying practical how-to advice to life when everything might already be predestined? Well, if everything's predestined, what's wrong with the illusion that you're following how to life advice. I don't know. Like the free will thing I just, I really struggle to give a shit about because even if it is true

that we don't have free will, which there's a very good chance it is true, who cares? Like, we all experience life as though we have free will. And a huge amount of our psychological well-being and happiness is dependent on the perception that we have free will and agency. So yeah, what's the big deal? I don't get it. What do you think about David Gaggins? Do you agree, disagree, or both with the points in his book?

For the record, I fucking love David Gaggans. And David, if you ever want to come on the show, I would be honored. I treat David as like a spirit animal. So I don't totally get his frameworks. Like, I don't, he's got this whole thing about taking souls and carrying the boats. I'm like, whatever, man. I just fucking love this dude. I love his energy.

I love his, like, his intensity. I just love how indestructible he seems. I'm just happy he exists. So I didn't engage super intellectually with his frameworks and ideas. I just think he's awesome. Stay hard, motherfucker. Question, once you've obtained a certain level of financial freedom, how do you best go about measuring or quantifying success? This is the million dollar question. No pun intended. It's funny. This is the obnoxious question. If you meet anybody who's just had a really successful startup exit or windfall lottery winner, I don't know, Bitcoin investor. This is like the existential question that people who really hit the financial lottery always struggle with, which is like, I hit my number. I don't have to work anymore. Now what? why do anything? What's the point? You know, you can only go to so many parties and beaches before it gets old. You can only buy so much shit before it gets old. You actually, this is a pretty common thing. If you hang out with wealthy people, like, everybody kind of goes through this moment of like, what success? How do I measure success? You can continue to measure it by money if you want. You know, if you got 10 million, you want to go for 100 million. But that's kind of a shitty way to live your life. Money is a useful metric when you don't have any. It's a really bad metric when you have a bunch of it. So there's a very difficult

process of like choosing how you're going to measure your life once you've achieved financial freedom. And I think it's a very personal process. I don't think anybody can answer that for you. For some people, it's philanthropic. For some people, it's building something interesting, creating something. For some people, it's family, helping people, you know, whatever it is. You I have to figure it out for yourself. I'm in my last year of school, and I don't know if I should go to college or find a way to make money at home. Me neither, dude. I have a question. Why the hair? Look, man, when you're in your 40s and you've got hair like this, you got to flaunt it. You can't sit on it anymore. You can't hide it. No hats. You just got to let it. You got to let it loose.

And it's funny because I get a lot of comments on YouTube. And it's funny, like, a lot of guys shitting on my hair telling me to get a haircut. And it's, when I look at them, it's always like young guys. It's like 18, 20 year old guys. And, yeah, man, look, give it 20 years. You know, when you start, you get the, the hair line starts receding. You start, you wake up one morning, you look in the mirror, you see your dad. It's coming for you. It's coming for you. It's okay. It's a premature hair envy. I'm willing to accept it. I'm willing to roll with it. It's the first year since my youngest brother's passing. We lost him due to depression and addiction. What are ways to handle the grief of losing a loved one like that? Specifically for someone who is not religious. Thank you. First of all, really sorry about your brother, man. The first and most important thing is really stay close and connected with the other family and love.

ones of the person. I think it's there's a real support network that has to emerge, you know, with your parents, with any other siblings you might have cousins, spouses, brothers, friends, whatever. Because those are the people that are feeling what you're feeling. And those are the people who are who also need the process and, and you can help each other process by being together. Second thing I would say is honor the memories and emotions when they arise. So when you think about your brother and you think about who he is or who he was, um, try to think about like what he would wish for you or what the best version of him would

wish for you and would wish for your memory of him and then try to act on those best impulses. Uh, on a more practical level, I would say try to find something to do every day, something physical, something that keeps you moving, you know, try to get outside, try to, try to, just get your mind focused on something productive, building something. And then, yeah, I would say, too, like, you know, be wary of numbing or distracting yourself.

I know it's easy to say, it's like that's much easier said than done, but it's in moments like these that there's a strong impulse to just bury the emotions in something and, you know, try not to indulge that as much as possible. Oh, my God. Are you serious?

What do you think about the universe? Come on, man. Who created it? And why the hell do we need to go through all the pain and happiness that we do in life? Why does it exist? Are you seriously asking me this? Oh, man, I am a shithead author. I'm not a prophet.

All right, look, it's really simple, actually. So the miracle of existence is perpetuated. through an infinite process of replication and variation. Right? So in the beginning of time, there was a bunch of stuff. And that stuff happened to collide and slowly self-organized based on the fundamentals of physics. And some of that self-organization ended up in what we now know as molecules.

And over the course of billions and billions of years, these molecules, something very special happened, which is that a certain molecule developed the ability to replicate itself. Now, this self-replication is the genesis of life. And that replication introduced something else to the universe, which was scarcity, right? Because if you need other material to replicate, then there is a finite amount of material. And so now there is competition through self-replicating molecules for all the resources around them to see who can replicate the most. Now, through all these replications and the mutations that inevitably came from them, these

replicators developed different traits, different characteristics. Some of them developed outer shells to help them protect themselves. Others developed ways to attack other replicator molecules. And slowly over the course of billions of years, this arms race of mutation and variation emerged into a panoply of hundreds of millions of organisms that coexisted and competed for a finite amount of resources within a limited system. Now, One of the feedback systems within these replicators was something that is now known as the limbic system in mammals. And this limbic system caused mammals to experience a combination of physical and mental associations with sensation that roughly equated to happiness and suffering once language is later invented. Now, these ideas of happiness and suffering are merely part of an infinite energetic interchange happening across the universe since the initiation of time.

and it's a mere extension and continuation of the endless dance of being. A dance that has been since existence was even before existence. Now, every petty nuisance, every achievement or disappointment is simply your replicator-driven feedback mechanism lightly nudging you

towards actions and behaviors that will keep this cosmic dance of complexity and infinite expression going in higher and more complex forms, forms that our limbic systems interpret as boundless love. So dance in the light, you are the child of stars, your pains are nature's art, your joys are the universe's music. Get the fuck over yourself, dude.

How important do you think it is for a man to go through multiple sexual experiences before settling down? This is what drives me crazy about these men's communities. And this stuff went on when I was young too, like when I was in the pickup stuff. Like guys, like they'll have an insecurity, like a sexual or romantic insecurity, which will cause them to be fixated on something. And then they just assume that every other male on the planet is fixated on the same thing. Like, dude, there are guys who go through their lives never thinking about sex. There are guys who obsess over sex. There are people who obsess over romance.

There are people who obsess over. monogamy. You can obsess over whatever you want. There's no like the only constant thread in human sexuality

is a diversity of human sexuality. Like there is nothing that everybody wants all the time. And so when I get questions like this,

I'm like, I don't know, dude. How many do you want? How many is enough? For some guys, that's one, for some guys that's a thousand. Like, there are pros and cons to both. So pick your poison. How do you know if you were ready for a serious relationship and marriage?

All right, this is a little more practical. The simple answer is when the idea of dating and screwing around more feels more draining to you than invigorating. So dating can be fun. It can also be a bag of ass. And if it is consistently feeling like a bag of ass, then you're probably looking for something a little bit more stable and long term. Now, I do think there's a little bit more choice in this

than people realize. Like I think a lot of people, I run into both men and women, who think that there's going to be some magical moment where they're like, okay, now I'm ready. And the truth is, it's kind of like having kids. Like, you're never ready to have kids. You kind of just have them and figure it out as you go.

The same is true with commitment. and relationships. You're never ready for commitment. You just commit and then figure it out afterwards. So if you're sick of dating, if you're looking for something a little bit more meaningful and stable in your life, and you meet somebody who's great and you really enjoy being around them, just go for it and then figure it out afterwards. How do I play the long-term game in life? Well, here's one way to do it. So pretend there's a version of you 10 years in the future. And pretend And this person, this 10-year future version of you, is like your best friend. It's like imagine, imagine he's sitting next to you and try to think about what he looks like, how he dresses, what his job is.

Imagine he's a real person. Now, as you go through your life, think about how your actions affect him and always try to do what's in his best interest because he's your best friend. And you really, really like him. Try that. What life advice would you give to teenagers? The big one is more face-to-face socialization. I'm not convinced that screens are that bad. I think the harms of screens and social media are in aggregate,

maybe a little bit overblown. But I do think it's face-to-face socializing is hugely important. And I think it's, let me put it this way. I think what often gets blamed on social media is actually just the lack of face-to-face interaction. I think when you look at countries where people are still engaging face-to-face in their communities quite often, you don't see the mental health issues around social media. It's only when you look at countries where people are not socializing face-to-face that you start to see this strong correlation between social media and mental health issues. How do you deal with adversity and develop emotional resilience? And how do you deal with the constant setbacks and just feel like giving up?

Like, I want to try something new and it keeps failing and I don't know what to do. I want to do it. And that's why I keep persisting, even though it's supposed to be hard. It still feels demotivating because I've not seen positive results. Well, first of all, you kind of answer your own question. Well, there's two questions here. So the first one is, how do you deal with adversity and develop emotional resilience? And then you go on to describe how you're working on something that you're seeing no positive results and it sucks and you want to give up, but you keep doing it.

So you just answer your first question is it's not a secret. Resilience like many things comes from practice. Your second question, though, is like how do you know when to, to, like, I think this question around persistence is actually a very, very interesting question. Like, it's very easy. It would be very easy for me to get on here and just be like, never give up, bro. look, follow your dreams. But the truth is, is that it's actually knowing when to give up is a really important life skill.

And I think sometimes it's, it is very difficult to know when. For me and my own experience, like, look, everything is supposed to be hard. The things that you're going to be great at and are going to work out, they're going to be hard. And the things that you're going to fail at and aren't going to work out, they're also going to be hard. So the question is, how do you tell the difference between successful hard? and failure hard. How do you tell the difference between hard that it's worth still going and hard

that you should probably give up? The best heuristic that I've found is that I have found that the things in my life that have been difficult, but it's been worth continuing, there has been some sense of acceleration. And that what I mean by that is that it's hard. The failure sucks. I get demotivated. I want to give up, but the more time I put into it, slowly but surely, the easier it gets. The more progress I see, the more time I put into it. When I look at all the things in my life that were extremely hard and I gave up or I probably should have given up, it's the things that were hard and I keep trying and I keep pushing and it's not getting easier.

Or there's not a clear sense of progress. It's always going to be hard. That's a given. but what is the trajectory of the difficulty? Is are you getting better? Are you seeing yourself improve? Are you seeing more progress? Is that progress accelerating?

Or does it just feel like you're bashing your head against the wall? If it feels like you're bashing your head against the wall, then after a certain amount of time, you should probably stop. How do you feel good about being happy when you know it causes jealousy or hurt to someone else. Look, man, if your happiness makes somebody else upset, you should probably not spend time around that person. Point blank. You should surround yourself with people who are happy for your happiness. How do I perform brilliantly every single day? You can't, dude. You'll always, like, you can't. You're always going to have bad days. You just do your best with what you've got

for any given day. Hey, Mark, your articles and podcasts, have helped me through a divorce, but how do you move on from a 24-year relationship without constantly revisiting the past and wondering if it was better than a future with no clear direction? All right, quick public service announcement. If you're in a relationship for 24 years, you're not going to get over that shit anytime soon, anytime soon. Like, it's going to be multiple years, many, many years before you, like, get over it, right? And if you've only been single for a couple weeks, uh, you shouldn't be experienced.

expecting to be over this. I mean, look, it's a really scary thing coming out of any relationship for that period of time. It's a very, very scary thing coming out of it. You should be uncertain about the future. You should be worried about it. And yes, you are going to mentally revisit the past over and over again. So I would not resist any of these thoughts or feelings. I would actually dig into them, preferably with the help of a therapist, and just really take your time. Like it's 24 years is a lot. That's a huge percentage of your life, no matter how old you are. And it's going to take a lot to process that. So be patient. That's my advice. Why do you take sponsorships from BetterHelp? Are you aware of the issues around them and how problematic they are?

Okay, I'm glad this was asked because yes, I'm aware of the issues around them. And I disagree that they're problematic. I've seen the expose YouTube videos I've Googled and looked up the FTC fines around them. Guys, this is a meme. This is a YouTube, like you got duped. Some clever 20-year-old YouTubers like did like cool expose videos. They have no idea what they're talking about. Look, it's really simple. First of all, the service has thousands and thousands of therapists. So of course, some are going to be bad. That's to be expected. The same way there's bad Uber drivers. There's bad door dash delivery guys. There's bad plumbers. Like, whatever, any profession, you're going to have some bad ones.

That's not their fault. The FTC fine for sharing data. So I actually went and read the FTC fine itself. Two things stood out. One was it was because they were using email addresses to retarget Facebook ads. Sharing data sounds really, really bad. But as somebody who's used Facebook retargeting in my own business, this is like the lightest form of data sharing that is,

even possible. And this is reflected in the actual fine itself. The actual fine itself was for something like $10 million. And this is like a $2 billion company. And generally FTC fines are proportional to the stakes of the infraction. So that tells you right there that this was like a very minor thing. On top of all that, BetterHelp's instituted all sorts of changes into their service to account for this. So everybody in everybody in the company is now trained how to protect users data, how to make sure it's not shared. So this is a nothing burger. And I find it amusing that so many people on YouTube are like getting all morally righteous about it, like posting comments and upvoting comments are like, oh, oh, better helps terrible. Like, do you realize that 40% of Americans don't have

access to a therapist? 40%. They don't live. anywhere near a therapist. They literally cannot physically go to a therapist. So, like, let's weigh some things here. Like, giving 40% of the country access to mental health care or getting upset over some Facebook retargeting ads. Like, grow up, guys. Get your shit together.

Stop believing everything you see in stupid YouTube videos, especially from, like, a 20-year-old who's not a lawyer. Do your own research. Have you ever tried meditation? Why or why not? I've meditated for hundreds, maybe thousands of hours. I was actually very, very into Buddhism and Eastern spirituality. In my late teens and early 20s, I practiced Zen or Zazen for many years, especially when I lived in Boston. It was a huge part of my life. Very impactful, influential. I'm a big fan of meditation. I think it's a great tool for people. I've written about it many, many times. I've talked about it on the podcast many, many times. So big ups on meditation. I think everybody should at least try it.

I think the vast majority of people will find it useful and helpful. And if you don't, then that's fine too. Have you ever practiced Christianity? I was born and raised in a religious family. So I grew up in the church. I grew up in the Bible Belt. I grew up in Texas, man. So yeah, I'm up with Jesus.

I know how it is. What's the best advice you ever got about starting your own business or about money in general? Best advice I ever got was from my dad. I remember when I started, like way back when I first started a much larger competitor of mine basically stole an idea and made a bunch of money with it because he had better distribution and a larger audience and more access to people within the industry. and I got really, really upset. I actually thought about quitting.

And I remember talking to my dad, and he told me, he said, you know, there are two ways to get rich in this world. One is to try to collect as many golden eggs as you possibly can. The other is to learn how to be the goose that lays the golden egg. And he said, if you learn how to be the goose that lays the golden egg, you'll never worry too much if people come and steal one. and that really landed pretty hard for me. And I stuck with it. And to this day, my shit has stolen all the fucking time. And it doesn't matter because I am the goose.

I am the goose. What do you think about hustle culture? I know a few people are grinding day and night. And I know a few who are basically doing nothing in life. How do you address this? And please don't just say that it's a paradox. Well, okay, so it's a paradox, you see? It's the hustle paradox.

Let's get like some sound effects like a big title screen. The hustle paradox. No, it's not a paradox. So I feel like hustling or grinding like it's a skill. It's a useful skill. It's not a way of life because it's not sustainable in the long run. But it is an important skill. And it's something that I think most people,

you don't really learn your capacity for it until you do it a few times. So I think it's an incredibly useful thing for people, to do just to find your own personal capacity for work, like see what your own limits are. And then once you know what those limits are, you can consciously know when to flip the switch on and off. You know, when I was in college, I would stay up all night studying for an exam or finish a paper or something. And like, I thought that was working hard, right? I thought that was grinding. But it's when I started my first business, it was 14 to 16 hour days every day, seven days a week for multiple months in a row.

And it just hit a level that I didn't even know existed. And obviously, it was super unhealthy. I got burnt out all those things. But like once that, once I did it once, I always knew it was there. And so there have probably been four or five other times. throughout my career where I'm like, oh, it's one of those moments. And I can flip the switch and I can just go for it. And it's like, okay, these next three months, I need to go hard. And it's just, it's important to know that that you have that capacity and you know you can tap into it

when necessary. Hey, Mark, my question is, when did you realize that you were truly happy and satisfied? And what are the things that affected that the most? You know, ironically, it's probably the times that I'm not thinking about how happy I am, that I'm the happiest. So yeah, I don't really think about that a whole lot. What would you advise to a 24-year-old who doesn't like to be with people? Good for you, man. People suck. It's okay to be a bit of a loner. It's okay to be an introvert. There are actually a lot of advantages to it. I do think it is important to develop the social skills and the social capacity to be able to be around people when, necessary. Like there are going to be times in your life where you want to do things with other

people or where you need to be around other people to accomplish a goal or something that you want. So as long as you are capable of being around people when necessary, then yeah, dude, fucking do your thing. In your last interview, you spoke about how you got on ADHD medication, but a teacher pulled you aside and convinced you that it was best to learn to manage and live with it without medication. What advice you? What advice? for living with ADHD, would you broadly give people in a similar situation? And what advice would you give your younger self that works uniquely for you? This is a great question.

So the most effective things for me personally, there are three things that come to mind. The first one is just caffeine. Caffeine, to me, it's like a large amount of caffeine accomplishes a maybe 20 to 30% of what an ADHD medication will accomplish. without any of the side effects. So to me, hands down, I've, I've experimented with going caffeine-free, but I mean, life was not worth living. So I'm a big caffeine fiend. That's the first one. And I don't mean I'm a caffeine fiend and like, oh my God, I love coffee. It's, no, it's like, my brain works better with caffeine. I focus better. I'm more organized. I'm more thoughtful.

I remember things better. So caffeine's a big one. Second one is, meditation. You know, earlier somebody asked me about meditation, one of the biggest benefits of meditation is that it really helped manage the ADHD symptoms. I was able to focus more. I had a longer attention span. I was more patient. So yeah, I found meditation really useful. So the third thing is kind of weird. And it took me a long time to figure out. But it's funny because I've talked to other people with ADHD who have the same thing. And that is do two things simultaneously. And that's like It sounds weird. But if something's like a really intense creative or problem-solving activity, like programming

or writing or whatever, it, yeah, just focus on that one thing. But it's the lighter act, the activities that require less of a mental load, like sitting in a lecture in college or sitting in a meeting, like a Zoom meeting with six different people, or answering emails. I actually find it's I'm much better at staying on track if I am switching between two low mental load things back and forth. So this is going to sound insane, but I used to sleep through all my college lectures until I started bringing Sudoku's and crosswords. As soon as I brought Sudoku's and crosswords, I'd stay awake for the whole thing. I'd take notes through the whole thing. It was no problem. I would just

jump back and forth. As soon as my brain got bored of the lecture, I'd jump over to the crossword, and then as soon as I got stuck on the crossword, I'd jump back to the lecture. If you don't have ADHD, that's going to sound ridiculous. But it worked for me. I've since found that I apply the same thing in my business. If I have two low, cognitive load things, like let's say I need to catch up on emails and I need to offer notes on social media posts, both of those within like three minutes, my brain's going to get bored and I'm going to start to wander and I'm going to start watching YouTube videos or something. But I've noticed if I pair those two things together, so I do answer emails until my brain gets bored and then I jump over to the social media content

and do that until it gets bored. Then I jump back to emails. What it does is it keeps the novelty high at all times. And that really is at least my form of ADHD. Like that is really what I crave constantly. It's just novelty. It's just like things need to feel new all the time. Oh, last thing, loud music. Loud music's great, man. That's another ADHD thing. It's just like fucking blasting some house music or heavy metal. All right. Hey, Mark, what do you have to say about the people who call you the edge lord? I say, my name is Marcus Maximus Mansonis. Edgelord to the armies of the north. douchebag of the Felix legions loyal soy boy to the true emperor

Marcus Aurelius Bro to a murdered son Simp to a murdered wife And I will have my vengeance In this podcast Or in the next