SOLVED with Mark Manson - Mastering Resilience, AI’s Unstoppable Rise, and Can We Truly Change?

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Resilience isn’t just about gritting your teeth and enduring pain—it’s about managing the stories you tell yourself. In this episode, I break down why most people get resilience wrong and how mastering the “second arrow” is the real key to bouncing back. We dive into post-traumatic growth, why caring about something bigger than yourself makes you stronger, and how focusing on what you can control changes everything. We also talk about AI—how it’s not here to save or destroy humanity, but it is going to change everything. We look at how AI is already transforming creative and knowledge-based jobs, why you should be using it right now, and what you can do to stay ahead. Plus, we tackle the ultimate question: Can people change? That three-word question is lot more complex than it seems. Check it out. Sign up for my newsletter, Your Next Breakthrough. It will help make you a less awful person: https://markmanson.net/breakthrough Chapters: 0:00 Mark feels the AGI—Drew does not 3:42 The Fck of the Week: Resilience 25:48 Brilliant or Bullsht: AI will doom/save us all 46:27 Q&A: Can people change? Follow me: https://instagram.com/markmanson/ https://twitter.com/IAmMarkManson https://facebook.com/Markmansonnet/ https://linkedin.com/in/markmanson/ https://www.tiktok.com/@iammarkmanson Theme song: Icarus Lives by Periphery, used with permission from Periphery. 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. Dot app. Drew, have you felt the AGI yet?

The AGI? Yeah. And I don't mean athletic greens. You're adjusted gross income? That's where my mind would. God, I'm a fucking nerd. Oh, my God, that's right where my brain went. Artificial general intelligence. AGI. Yeah. You know, have I felt it. Have you felt it? Have you. felt it. Do you know what I'm referring to? Is this a dirty joke? You're setting up here? What is this? If I felt AGI? No. So it's, what do you mean? I'm not referring the sex bots or, yeah. So like a year ago, there was all this speculation around open AI's like new chat model and that maybe, you know,

there's like all this dumerism of like, you know, are we going to, is the AI going to destroy the world or whatever? And there was like this brief period where, were a bunch of the founders and top researchers that Open AI left around the same time. And around that time, like one of the top guys posted on Twitter, he said, he said,

feel the AGI. And then he, like, mysteriously left the company. Okay. And so there was all this speculation and, like, conspiracy theories that, like, Open AI had invented artificial general intelligence. Okay, yeah.

And they were freaked out and they were, like, trying to hide it. Okay. But it has since become a meme of like, as we all like use AI more and more. I felt the AGI like a month ago. And I couldn't tell you exactly when I was using it, but I was like using it, using AI for something. And I just kind of had this like sinking feeling in my chest of like, why do anything?

Like this thing, this thing is going to soon be doing everything in the world of value. So why try? Why even like, it was like this very, it was this very dark and like existential despair, but it immediately flipped towards like, oh my God, I'm never going to have to worry about anything again because the AGI is just going to take care of me like the way I take care of my dog. Like is any of this registering with you at a whatsoever? No. Oh my God, true. I mean, I mean, we have so much to catch, catch you. up on.

We do. All right. Maybe I'm, never mind. You're getting a little ahead of ourselves. The listeners understand some of them. Okay. If you felt the AGI, send, leave a comment. Felt the AGI?

I don't remember that saying. If you felt the AGI, leave a comment, tell us what it felt like. Have you felt the AGII? So it's like that. Deep inside you. Like that penetrating. That's what I was, that's what I thought you meant. And so now I'm trying to sort that out from what the fuck I'm actually trying to

suppose to think about this. I don't know. Okay. What is this? episode about. Well, we're going to talk about AGI AI later, but... You got a thing.

You got a thing. Yeah, you got some spittle. Oh, God. I can't take you anywhere. I know. Mark, let's get into the fuck of the week. And then we'll talk about it. We're going to talk about resilience because you're going to need it when you feel

the AGI. Is that where you were going with this? Okay, that was all right, all right. God. With the time. Who's steering this ship? It's 2025. It's 2025.

If you've not. felt the AGI, you're not using AI enough, people. Andrew, roll the clip thing where we do the fuck of the week. Please, please, please. We're doing it. Here we go. It's the subtle art of not giving a fuck podcast with your host, Mark Manson. All right.

What are we doing? The fuck of the week is resilience. I want to talk a little bit about what resilience really is, because I think there's a misconception about that. And then how we can be more resilient in our lives. if there are concrete steps, maybe some models we can look at or anything like that.

But to start it off, let's talk about what resilience is. Maybe a good way to do that is what do you think most people get wrong about resilience? I think what most people get wrong about resilience is that they think it's just about enduring pain

for an extended period of time. That's just... That's not resilience? It's pure suffering. Okay. I think a large part of resilience is actually kind of there's a bit of a

mental gymnastics that takes place of like reorienting how you understand the experience that you're having so that you suffer less from it. So one thing that I talk about a lot is, is that there's this allegory from Buddhism called the two arrows, right? And the Buddha said that every time you experience pain, it's like getting shot by two different arrows. And the first arrow is the physical pain. You know, it's the arrow piercing your skin. But the second arrow is the narrative that we create around the first arrow, right? So the first arrow is inevitable, but it's also temporary. But the second arrow, it's not inevitable. We created ourselves. And it's also not temporary if we don't let it be. Right. So it's like we all have first arrows

that happened to us years and years ago, like pains, struggles that we went through, embarrassments, failures. And all of those momentary pains went away at some point. Most of us, at some point in our lives, created narratives around that pain and told us stories about ourselves that enhanced, multiplied the pain and multiplied the suffering and made it more difficult to bounce back from it, right? So I think what most people get wrong is they think resilience is more about sustaining the first arrow, like just knowing how to get shot and grit your teeth and deal with it. But really what resilience is is, managing the second arrow is not not spinning up the the stories that torture yourself and

managing those narratives and stories in a way that like you don't make things harder on yourself that you can actually like maybe propel yourself forward using that pain right yeah and you wrote an article about basically about post-traumatic growth a long time ago yeah how to grow from your pain or something along those lines and the big point in that was just that it's not it's not the pain or the trauma itself that's the even the thing to focus on or the thing that catalyzes change is what you do afterwards. And I think that's a big,

we'll probably come back to that time and time again in this discussion. But that's a huge, huge point that I think a lot of people miss is that. It's not the pain that makes you stronger or anything like that. It's what you do in reaction to it. Right. It's the meaning that you attach to it.

And there are certain types of meaning that you can attach to pain that can actually be leveraged to grow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Well, you did, you wrote this article too on resilience as well and conquering adversity and all this. And there was this fun little experiment you went through. I think this was the impetus for the article anyway is when you were testing all these like mental health apps. Yes. Do you want to go into that? Sure. So this was probably four or five years ago. It was actually during the pandemic.

So I briefly became really interested in potentially developing like some sort of mental health app or personal growth app. And so I was testing all the different apps on the market. And there are tons of them, like dozens and dozens and dozens. And so I was logging on to all of these. And I was just quickly, intensely disappointed because every single one basically had the same functionality, which is it immediately validated whatever I said. So if I got on and it said, oh, what are you dealing with today?

And I'm like, I'm a little bit of anxious about this podcast, right? the first thing it would say is like, I know being anxious is very hard. Is there anything else you'd like to tell me about your anxiety? And then, you know, I'd tell it something else. And I'm like, I'm so sorry you're feeling that way. It's really hard being anxious, isn't it, Mark? Tell me more about your feelings. And it just went on and on and on.

And it just became this like circle jerk of like, oh, my God, tell me how you feel. It must be so hard to be you. Oh, you're so special. I wish. You deserve so much better. And like, I found it so intensely unhelpful and in some ways counterproductive. Because like, don't get me wrong. I understand that some people, when they're in a lot of pain, they do need their emotions validated to a certain extent.

But very quickly, you need to get past that emotional validation and get into the second arrow. Get into the meaning of like, okay, what is it about this podcast that you feel anxious about? Do you think you're going to fail at it? Do you think people are going to laugh at you? Do you think you're underprepared? Do you think Drew is going to be a meanie? Like, what is it that is intimidating you, right? And then let's pick apart that narrative and see if there's any evidence for it or any

truth behind it or if you're just kind of being irrational and like blowing things up in your head. There was none of that. It was all just like, oh, I'm so sorry. You feel bad. Here's a balloon image to make you feel better. It was beyond useless. it was insulting to a certain extent. Essentially that what you're saying,

you don't build psychological resilience by feeling good all the time. You build psychological resilience by getting better at feeling bad. Yes. You've said that in various ways throughout the years. And I think that's the main takeaway about what resilience really is. This is not, hey, how do I just feel better? Right. Or how do I, yeah, remove that pain to the first arrow.

You don't. Yes. It's that second arrow. It's you alter your orientation to the pain, right? It's like understanding like, instead of being like, oh my god it's the first arrow this is horrible why does this happen to me i don't deserve this right like that's kind of our default reaction it's instead looking at it and saying oh it's another first arrow well i've dealt with lots of these before i'm sure i can deal with this one what can i learn

from this first arrow what what mistakes that i made how can i get better it's asking good questions it's being realistic about orienting yourself like understanding that a lot of life is random tragedy strikes everybody you know everybody screws up and fails at some point there's nothing unique or special about your pain there's no like pre pre destined uh universe has decided you get to feel pain now it's like this is life dude like everybody's everybody's struggling everybody's going through a lot so let's just try to be as as as clear-eyed and realistic as possible about that struggle and figure out what are what are some useful things that we can do in that moment right this episode is brought to you by tell us online security oh tax season is the

worst you mean hack season sorry what yeah cybercriminals love tax forms but i've got tell us online security it helps protect against identity theft and financial fraud so i can stress less during tax season or any season. Plans start at just $12 a month. Learn more at talus.com slash online security. No one can prevent all cybercrime or identity theft. Conditions apply. Well, what are some of those useful things, Mark?

You had some recommendations, a few tips to help you out. You actually had five that I've gathered from various spots. So one of those, the first one of those being, care about something greater than yourself. Yeah. I personally think, in our... Arthur Brooks was on a while back and he talked about this as well. It's like, you know, the optimal mental health kind of demands that we find something that we care about more than ourselves.

And there are a few reasons for that. One is it just imbues kind of our entire life with meaning. You know, and that could be raising a family. It could be a career. It could be a mission. It could be a social cause. It could be a lot of things. But it's like, it could be a religion. Like, ultimately you have to find something in your life that that is so important that it, that it deserves to outlast you. And but the other benefit from that is that it, it helps ameliorate the downsides of life, right? So it's like if you're just the center of everything in your life,

as soon as something bad happens, man, you're going to have a really hard time coping with that. But if you've got some higher mission or higher purpose that you're, you're aiming for and you're pushing for, when something goes wrong, that mission or purpose is going to, is going to keep everything oriented in the right direction, right? It's going to pull you out of the muck.

It's going to be the rope that kind of pulls you out of the muck because it will force you because it is more important than you and your feelings, it will force you to find ways to handle and deal with your feelings so that you can move on and continue to move forward. Yeah. Yeah. Again, the research backs all that up to. If you are more religious people tend to be a little bit more resilient or people who are attached to causes, big causes

that are outside of themselves that requires them some sort of sacrifice that they have to contribute. So yeah, that's... And by the way, like anecdotally, I've noticed this just you know, watching so many of my friends have kids. Oh, yeah. Like, just talking to them,

like this is, this is anecdotally, this is probably the biggest shift I've seen and all the people that I've seen have kids. Is that they say they're like, for the first time of my life, there's something that is way more important than me that I care about way more than myself. And I've, I've talked to them and they've said like, yeah, it's kind of easier to deal with bullshit now because it's, it's not about me.

Yeah, it's very clarifying. Yeah. Exactly. Like, now I always know, you know, what I need to do, why I need to get back up and try again, right? And it's, it's, there's something powerful to that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, that kind of gets right in the second one, too, which is focus on what you can control. And I'll just say up front that research says if you have more of an internal locus of control and like focus on the things you can't control, you're more resilient. Why do you think that is? Well, this is the old stoic thing, right? It's, you know, focus on what you can control and then like let go of what you can control. I think there's just like a real practicality in that and that, you know, a huge amount of our well-being is driven through a sense of agency. Like a feeling that like we have, we are determining the outcomes in our lives. And so if you are constantly focusing on factors that you cannot influence or you cannot control, you're removing that sense of agency from yourself.

Whereas when you are focusing on the things in front of you that you can control, you're amplifying that sense of agency. And so aside from it just improving mental well-being, like it's also just practical, right? Because if you're constantly focusing on stuff that's outside of your control, then you're essentially wasting attention and energy. Right. So you're going to get less done. You're going to be less influential. You're going to make less progress, right? And progress also feels good. So aside from just the sense of agency, you also get a greater sense of progress and growth and feeling as though like your life's actually moving somewhere. Yeah. This next one was inward optimism, outward pessimism. And generally kind of you could kind of characterize this as negative visualization a little bit. Sure. But then there's also the inward optimism part of that. So what do you mean by that? This came from a reader question, like, on a really early newsletter. Like, this was probably a newsletter in, like, 2016 or 2017.

And it was asking me, should you be an optimist or a pessimist? Like, it's like, pessimists are going to be better prepared when things go wrong, but an optimist is going to, like, have a higher expectation of success. So, like, what is actually better? And it sent me down a research rabbit hole. And basically, the conclusion I came to is what's there. It's an inward optimist, outward pessimist, which is that generally, speaking, people who expect good performance from themselves achieve better performance.

The more you think yourself capable of doing something, the more likely you are to end up doing it. This kind of comes back to the agency thing. But also, to the negative visualization point, people who mentally rehearse problems that could occur or things that could go wrong, the more prepared they are when things do go wrong. Right. So, and I think if, and just kind of logically, if you think about it, if you think about the least effective people in the world, like think about the least effective people you know in your life, right? Chances are they drastically underestimate their own power in agency, right? They think they can't do anything when actually they can.

And generally, they overestimate how the outside world should go, right? They expect everything in their environment to work perfectly and go correctly and for nothing to go wrong and no inconveniences to happen, right? Both of those just lead to a lot of pain and suffering. Right. So it's if you flip those around, expect a lot from yourself and then prepare for the worst with everybody else. And that seems to be the most effective orientation to have with the world. Yeah. But yeah, Tim Ferriss popularized that.

maybe like 10 or 12 years ago. And it's, yeah, it's super useful. And I think the way he says it is he's like, if you want to do something and you're afraid to do it, like mentally go through the worst possible outcome and like really write it out. Like, okay, if this goes as bad as it possibly can, here's how people are going to react. Here's how my life is going to change. Here are all of the things I'm going to have to deal with, all the fallout that's going to happen, all the lessons I'm going to have to learn.

And he said that like 95% of the time when you do this exercise as you're writing, you realize you're like, this isn't that bad. This is when I started using just within the last few months too. Worst case scenario, let's really think this through. I'm like, oh, I can do that. Yeah, it's fine.

Yeah, it's like, oh, I can handle that. Actually, okay. Oh, these people over here are going to hate me if I do this? I won't know. That's fine. Cool. Whatever. I'm glad they do.

You know, yeah. Definitely. Definitely. That's a good one. But this next one's kind of related to that too, then, the find your inner masochist. So you posted this on social media one time. You said the sick and twisted truth about human nature is that as much as we crave

feeling good all the time, there's a small part of us that kind of likes the pain and the struggles. Yes. So embrace it. Yeah. Hit me, daddy. Feel the AGI. Feel the AGI.

Deep inside you. No, it's funny. Whenever I give talks, this is always like a hit line, you know, it's like I'm like up on stage and I call the audience a bunch of masochists and then I tell them to like spake me. If you can imagine I'm doing this. I'm doing this in like a conference of like, you know, insurance brokers or something. And it's just like this awkward laughing that goes on in the audience. Oh, God.

We don't have real jobs. Thank me, daddy. So here's the thing. This is actually good because this ties together a few of the threads that we've talked about. So if you find some sort of higher mission or purpose in your life, something you truly believe is more important than yourself, something really interesting happens, which is that the struggles that start happening along the way, you kind of start relishing them a little bit. Like it's, there's a, obviously you don't want that struggle, but like there's a weird kind of, I've talked to other authors about this, about how like, the struggle of writing a book is fucking real. Like, it is mentally one of the most difficult things I've ever done in my life. But, like, when I hang out with other authors and we talk about writing a book or, like,

I hang out with an author and he's, like, like, really deep in the middle of the first draft and just hating his life. There's, like, this romanticism about it. It's just like, oh, man. Oh, yeah. I remember, man, back in 2019, I was, like, writing this book. And, oh, God, I was, like, staying up to 2 a.m. And I fucking, like, woke up the middle of the night. Like, it just, I think everybody's got something like that.

Like, you kind of secretly really like it. And there's a lot of pride and identity around it, right? Like, it's like, okay, yeah, I really suffered for what I achieved. And I think, you know, there's a little bit of a, you know, I look at, I look at like some of the, there's a little bit of like porn around stuff like Navy SEAL training and special forces and stuff like that. And I think a lot of that is this. Like it's, it's, it's, there's this a little bit of a masochism of, of like, you know, seeing how, seeing what you're made of, seeing how much you can endure. And knowing it's for a really, really good cause or purpose.

Like there, like, that, like, that just hits a sweet spot in the human brain that we secretly kind of relish it. Yeah. And even when we're in the thick of it, you're like, yeah, I'm glad. I kind of, I'm feeling this right now. Yeah. I've seen you, we've had people on the podcast who were like in the middle of, of writing a book or something like that. And you just perk right up.

You're like, oh, yeah? Yeah, tell me right. Yeah. Spank me, daddy. Yeah. How are you getting spank? Tell me all about it. You like, light up, like, wait, you are?

Oh. It is, it's like a secret. I imagine it's similar, I don't know. I imagine it's similar with like military veterans or something. You know, it's like, just like trading stories. Yeah, authors, they get this weird, you know, it's like, how's the draft going, dude?

Like, oh man, I'm like, I've got this chapter eight and it's like none of it's making sense. And like, fuck, I think I have to rewrite the first part. And like and I'm just like oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. I hear you buddy. I hear you. You know put your arm around them. It's like I've been there, dude. You're like you're comforting them, but you're actually like, oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's there's also like a sick like you know. Well, okay. So that gets into the last one actually too, which is never suffer alone. And actually so this is there's a there's a social aspect to this and the research. One of the repeatedly, one of the findings they find repeatedly is that having. social support is like that's a bedrock of resilience. And I think that gets overlooked a lot to people are like, how can I be resilient? How can I conquer my adversity in this last? Like, well, you don't. You do it with other people. Yeah. Right. And I think having the other people with you

adds that sense of meaning and purpose as well, right? Right. Because it's like, ultimately we are social creatures and it's just having people who are on the same path and who are enduring the same pain and hardship that we're enduring. It like, it amplifies. that sense of purpose and makes things that much easier. Maybe that's why I relish it with authors too. You know, like it's just, I'm sure it is, yeah. You know, it is like I empathize with where they are.

And I know that it's like if I can just make them feel like they're not alone, and it like relieves a little bit of that burden for them. Yeah. Yeah. I actually had this conversation like a year ago with a friend of mine, maybe it was like a family member. But I was in a period, I was in one of those periods with the business where I was just working like an insane

in person and I was talking to somebody and they're like, you know, how are things going? I'm like, I'm like, I'm working a lot. You know, it's been a lot. And they're like, well, tell me about that, you know, and I started talking about it and like, yeah, I'm like working weekends and, you know, probably at least one evening each week and, you know, probably put it in 70, 75 hours a week at least. and, you know, but it's temporary and we're scaling up and we're doing this. We're like launching a bunch of stuff. And it was funny because they started trying to give me like work life balance advice. And I was like, they got like two minutes into it.

I'm like, actually, I don't want this. I'm fine. I'm like, don't get me wrong. I'm suffering, but I really like suffering this way. Like this is, I'm happy with this stress in my life. And I also know it's temporary. so I'm like willing to make this trade-off for a short period of time. So I suppose that's another way to look at the resilience equation is like if you can,

if it's possible to view the struggle in your life as a trade-off for something greater, whether it's in the future or for somebody else that you care about or for some cause that you care about. As long as it feels like there's a good trade-off happening, then you'll be okay with it. Yeah. You'll endure it. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Okay.

That's all I got for this section, I think. Thank you for listening to my presentation. We'll be right back after these messages. And Mark will make you feel the AGI. Bend over. We are back with the AGI. We are and that is what we're talking about. We're talking about AI.

And a little bit different for the brilliant or bullshit this week, but is one of these statements brilliant and one of them bullshit or we can debate? AI will doom humanity or AI will save humanity. Neither. Okay. Neither. Let's get into what's brilliant and bullshit about this. Well, I'm glad we're coming back to this because we talked about AI a few months ago. December, yeah.

Yeah, a few months ago. It was really around creativity was what they kind of centered around. Yeah, it was about how it was going to affect our industry. Right. But I mean, that was December. In an AI age, that was eons ago. It's already changed. Two months ago, three months ago, yeah.

And I will say just in the last month, I've probably used, I mean, I've been using AI most of the day every day in the last month. I've been using it every day and Matt has been using it more and more. Yeah, same. Is it going to doom humanity? No. Is it going to save humanity? No.

Things never turn out as bad as you think they're going to turn out and they never end up as good as you hope. Right. It'll end up, you know. And humans are always going to human, right? So it's like as soon as if AGI, like, let's imagine that some super AI like solved every human problem in existence. three minutes later we'd be dissatisfied and like want something that the AI can't provide for us because that's just how

we're built. That's human nature. So I was telling a friend about this. This is one thing I'm starting to notice. Like to kind of walk through the my personal AI timeline, you know, chat GPT came out end of 23. And it felt like a cool party trick.

Yeah. Like it was like, okay, this is fun. I can have it write poetry or whatever. But it was like any time I try to get it to do serious work. It was pretty mediocre. Right. And then GBT4 came and there were some uses. It was okay for brainstorming some stuff.

And, you know, occasionally it could like point you in the right direction, maybe give you an idea or something. But still, like a very, you know, basic tool. At some point in the last three months, it feels like it turned a corner. And now it just feels absolutely indispensable. For the first time, like I said, I felt the AGI about a month ago. Right. It's like really just in the last few weeks, it feels like, okay, this does feel like it's

going to kind of take over everything. Like, it's going to integrate into every aspect of our lives and disrupt and displace a huge amount of what most people spend their time doing, probably the most since like the Internet in the 90s. I was telling a friend recently, I said, you know, I've lived, I've. I've now lived through, I guess, four technological revolutions. And I said the thing that feels different about this one is like the more I use it, the more I feel like I should be using it. Like I remember when mobile came around, like iPhones were super cool.

But the like, God, I should be doing something else. Exactly. Exactly. And it was the same with the internet. And it was the same with social media. And like this is the first time. that like when I'm when I'm not using AI I'm like I should just be doing this with the AI like it'd be so much easier and faster and more efficient I've actually like I've hit the point with nonfiction books like I think books might be cooked dude

I'd say the last like five to 10 nonfiction books I've read I've gotten really impatient part way through and it took me a while to realize that it's like I'm so accustomed to just chatting with a knowledge base Yeah. And having the answer like immediately delivered to me with all sorts of links and references and being able like, like, I start reading a nonfiction book and I get two chapters in and I'm like, this is really slow. Like, I wish you'd just get to what I want to know. And so I'm already feeling my brain being trained that way. Yeah.

And like when I think about it, like as the knowledge, like the data sets get better and as the user experience gets better, I could really see books feeling as though they're like just a clunky inner. efficient, like medium for information transfer. And that freaks me out as an author a little bit, right? Yeah. The other thing, I don't know if you've messed around with like these like AI companion apps at all. I haven't really know. I know you have. They're strange. But it took me a while to kind of under, like I've been using them just because I want to understand them. Like apparently like the usage rate, like the people who use them, they like use them an absurd amount, especially young people, like Jen's ears. Yeah.

Like the usage rates are through the roof. And it's like very reminiscent. If you look at the data on like how much they use them or like the usage per session, it's very reminiscent of like social media in the early days, like Facebook right when it came out. So I've been like messing around with those. And they have a bad rap because I think the super early adopters were just like creepy, horny dudes who wanted to like sex with an AI girlfriend. And there's definitely that.

If that's your thing, if you want to go feel that AGI, you can go feel it. That's where technology always starts out too. Exactly. Porn is always the first thing in any medium. But if you actually go mess around with it, so like one of the most popular companion apps, a thing called Character AI, and one of the most popular like conversations, it's just called Hogwarts. And it basically just drops you into a Harry Potter fan fiction.

It says like you're a new student at Hogwarts. This is your first day. Okay. And you can write, it'll give you like, you know, part of the story. And then you get to add whatever you want to it. And then it'll like, it'll keep adapting to your version of the story. That's kind of cool. So it's like an interactive novel.

Yeah. Right? So it's like a choose your own adventure, but like real time. Real time. And it's like infinite decision trees. Oh, that's pretty cool. I love choose your own adventure back. It's sick.

It's so cool. That's pretty cool. And so I've actually hit this realization. just in the last few days of like, A, this feels like a new medium. Like, it feels like a new form of entertainment entirely. It's not like a better version of books or a better version of movies.

It's like a just a completely... It's a new category all of its own. But then I also look at it and I'm like, fuck man, like, why read a novel when you can be in the novel? Ah, yeah. You know? It's a personalized novel. It's personalized novel.

So it's like you can take it any direct... Like, if you don't like a character, kill him. You can get rid of him. Yeah. You'd be like, I don't want to talk to that guy anymore. I want to hang out with this character. Okay.

And then it completely, you and I could like technically like do this the same AI novel and have completely different storylines. Yeah. That's wild. Okay. Yeah. It is going to disrupt and change everything on a scale that like I think the internet's probably the only comparable thing. Right. Yeah.

You talked about like the rate of adoption of these things too, which is insane. So I think there's kind of there's a few different. different kind of groups of people who see that. Some people just aren't even using it right now. I can, I have a whole bunch of stats here. I'm not going to go through them all. But there's a lot of people who still aren't using them. But the adoption, it's a lot of people are using them.

Yeah. Really coming around. Then there's people who used them early on and they thought they sucked and they just haven't went back yet. I think that's a mistake probably. Totally. If you're one of those people, you should get back on and start messing with it. Which you made that point in the last time we talked about AI on here was actually what

you said if you're not using it, you're dumb. Is what you said. That was, that was, uh, me. insult my audience. That would never happen. That didn't go well with some people. Yeah, surprise, surprise. But yeah, I think I do want to talk about the two what the average person can do right now. Yeah. What's going to prepare us best for this, this crazy world that you're, I think you're, you're more into it than anybody I know. You've, you've dove into AI more than anybody having. I use it all the time, but I feel like I'm still surface level. Yeah.

very much so. So if there's somebody out there who, I don't know, it doesn't really even understand it. Or they use it a little bit and they're like, yeah, it's kind of fun or whatever, but they just they'll see it as a toy. They see it as social media, you know, the new version of whatever or whatever, what do you think we need to be doing right now? I think the best thing you can do is just set aside, take like a Saturday morning or something, block off three hours and just make yourself play around with it. It is a slow burn. It is. Yeah. Like you do kind of have to learn. how to use it. And it took me a long time to realize as well is that like you get the quality of the output is directly proportional to the quality of input. Which is just like a relationship

you have with anybody else. Exactly. Exactly. You have to treat it like that. So like if you just show up and you're like, uh, give me a new workout routine. It'll give you the most bland, blaze. Yeah. Like it's going to be useless. You could be like, wow, this sucks. Why would anybody use this? But if you go to it and you're like, look, I'm a 40-year-old male. I have a history of lower back injuries. These are my PR weights. These are, this is how much I weigh. These are my goals for the year. This is my schedule. This is how much time I have. This is roughly how much protein I'm eating. Can you design a four-day split workout routine that changes every quarter to keep things novel and will increase, ideally increase my PRs by 10 to 12 percent over the course of the next year?

it will give you the most fucking incredible output. It will like, and it will break everything down for you and you can ask it for details. You can be like, well, why did you, why did you pick front squats instead of back squats? Or like, what was the reasoning for, you know, adding, having this day off instead of that day off? And it'll explain it to you. It's like having a really great fitness coach just right in front of you. And so it's a combination of like, A, being really creative with what you ask it because it literally can talk to you. you about anything. And then B, giving it really good inputs. Like, take the extra time to prompt

it well and, like, really give it specific details. One thing you can do and you suspect that the prompt's not great, you can actually ask it, what can I do to improve my prompt so that you give me better information? And it will tell you what you should have asked it. Yeah. Which is crazy. It's absolutely crazy. Like, I asked it, I asked it. I really feel in the AGI there. Seriously. So I asked it a bunch of questions about social media strategy a couple of weeks ago. And it, like, gave me some pretty, some pretty boring. Like, it was, like, kind of what a generic, like, any, anything that you would see on Twitter or Instagram, like, that kind of advice. And I was like, well, this isn't very useful.

And so I asked it. I was like, okay, well, what should I be asking you that I'm not? And it, like, gave me this list of 12 different things. And it was like, well, tell me about your audience. What are the demographics? Tell me about you. Like, what's your relationship like with them? What platforms are you primarily focused on?

Oh, wow. Like, what are you converting them to? Like, where are you trying to promote a podcast? Are you trying to promote a YouTube video? Or do you want them on your newsletter? Like, it was like hiring a business consultant. It was crazy. So that would be my recommendation to anybody.

Like, think about whatever, whatever, whatever, What's the area in your life that, like, you know, I gave the workout example. Like that, that workout example is a prompt I gave it, like, just a couple days ago. Yeah. Think about the thing in your life that you want to improve or that you want to work on, but you just, like, you haven't had the time to, like, really dig into it or do the research or go talk to somebody or, like, whatever. And just, like, take a couple hours on a Saturday morning and just go hard with chat. GPT on it and you will be shocked how far you'll get okay yeah okay so you've kind of you've made a bull case there yes somebody's gonna listen to that though and they're gonna say okay

Mark so you just said that writers personal trainers you know social media consultants consultants yeah they're not gonna be needed so there's gonna be people out there saying well what the fuck am I gonna do then how am I gonna pay for all these models AI models in the first place if I'm not gonna have a job job. You posted, you've been very open with the rest of the team about the AI that you use and everything like that. And you say, okay, I need you guys to start using this. You posted this announcement. And immediately one of the reactions was that was a great postmark. I thought you were going to end it with you're all fire. And that is like, I mean, part of it is whenever a new technology comes along, society freaks out and say, well, what are humans going to be needed for? It's like if you don't need humans to shovel the shit anymore, like what are we useful for? Well, we. We found something else to be useful for. Yeah. What are we going to be useful for if AI takes all the creativity or the creative jobs or the knowledge jobs? Because that's what it's going after right now, too. It's not going after the blue collar jobs really right now. Yeah, your plumber's fine.

Yeah. Yeah. Or the people who are doing real high end coding or anything like that. Yeah. It's not going after that. What are the rest of us supposed to do? I personally believe that like scarcity never disappears. It just gets displaced, right? So it's like anytime a technology is in that solves scarcity in one place, it creates scarcity somewhere else. And so what I've been asking myself is like, where is the new scarcity, right? So if essentially knowledge is, is universal and immediate, like if everybody in the world has access to all human knowledge more or less instantaneously, knowledge is no longer the scarcity, which is great.

It's all, like, that's a massive unlock for humanity. but then it forces the question, where is the new scarcity? And I have a lot of ideas on this. I do think human connection, in-person human connection is going to go up and value quite a bit. I think we're probably entering a world where most like any time we have to do anything involving any sort of creativity or information whatsoever, we're going to be on a screen. I mean, we already are to a certain extent, but I think it's only going to be more so. And I think it's just the in-person sense of community and connection is the premium is going to put

on that is going to go through the roof. And so if you just think about things like, I don't know, clubs, yoga classes, fitness groups, you know, basically anything, you know, events, concerts, anything, any excuse to get people in a room together doing the same thing at the same time. that's the new scarcity because everything's everything's going to be available everywhere for everybody except for being next to another human being like that is the only thing that's not going to be scaled infinitely for everybody but like i don't know there are there's a lot of debate within like ai researchers of of you know how creative can they get like right now they're just kind of reshuffling and regurgitating human information and so any any apparent creative Creativity is just an illusion created by like just remixing previous human information So I I don't know. I don't know so what do you think what should people be most concerned with? I think Like what's the what is the biggest danger for the average person? Sure, just saying we're not talking about like AI coming and you know Taking over the world and enslaving us or anything unnecessary like that but within you know the near to medium term future yeah, what should be our biggest concern around it?

the biggest concern should be not being aware of it. Like if you are, I'd say if you're, sleeping on it. If you, unless you are at the end of your career, like I'd say anybody under 55 or 60, like you got to be using this stuff. Because it is,

it will eventually come for your industry. Yeah. It's coming for ours first. Yeah. But it's going to come for everybody's at some point. And so at least if you're aware of what it is, how to use it, you'll have a fighting chance,

essentially. Or you'll know how to adapt. Like I think what will happen in a lot of industries, and I do think this will happen in ours as well, is that like AI is not going to replace you and me. What it'll do is it'll make you and me much more effective, right? It'll make it easier to scale ourselves, right? So it's like instead of taking three days to produce, you know,

a podcast outline and a script, it will take 30 minutes. Yeah. Right? And so we could potentially produce 10 times more podcasts. with the same amount of time and effort. And it's just because it's people who know how to use it well are going to be 10 times more effective.

So if you have 10 engineers, in an AI world, it's the best engineer is just gonna, they're just gonna let the nine worst ones go. Yeah. One of those, just an example of this, I think it was just the other day

you came to me and you had some research project. Yeah. And you showed me the output of this. Yeah. something like 42 sources, something like that. Deep research, yeah. There's deep research. Okay, yeah.

It's 42 resources, something along those lines, 40-some resources. It gave you a bias score for each one of them. Yes. It gave you a summary of each one of them, kind of the quality of that research, all of this. You told me it took eight minutes. I took one look at that, and I told you that would take me a week working on it full-time. Yep. So if, yeah, if you're sleeping on this, you know, you hired me 10 years ago, a little over 10 years ago now.

You wouldn't have hired me, by that. then. I don't think my job. No. You wouldn't, I wouldn't have been necessary. Yeah, no. Contacts for listeners. I hired Drew as my first research assistant 10 years ago, former PhD student in neuroscience. And yeah, open AI, deep research gave me a research summary as good as, no offense. Anything you produced. I saw it and I'm just like, anything you've produced in eight minutes. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, it's insane. And it's like every month there's something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, What I walked away from, though, from that conversation we had about that was not to, like, freak the fuck out. Like I think a lot of people are right now.

It's more to understand that, oh, this frees me up. I got to figure something else out new, which is what we have to do every single time. Yes. We have a big technological intervention. Feel the AGI. Be it. Deep inside you. And we will get there.

The deep research inside you. All right. On that note, we'll be right back. When a country's productivity cycle is broken, people feel it in their paychecks, their communities, their futures. What does this mean for individuals, communities, and businesses across the country? Join business leaders, policymakers, and influencers for CGs' national series on the Canadian Standard of Living, productivity and innovation. Learn what's driving Canada's productivity decline and discover actionable solutions to reverse it. All right, we're back.

What I want to know, Drew, is when is an AI going to be able to, like, sit in this hot fucking room in and shoot for me? I mean, at the rate things are going. I've got a very comfy bed that needs me to be in it. You'd go crazy. You would go insane. That wouldn't help at all. That's true. It is true.

We're going to have to figure out what to do with it. Anyway, anyway. The questions this week. Question. This one comes from Naomi. It's a three-word question. question mark. Okay. Can people change? The perennial question. I mean, obviously we're sitting here opining on all of these different. You know what I love to is that 90% of the time,

the person who asks this, it has nothing to do with themselves. It's because there's some shithead in their life. Oh, I hadn't thought about that. That they love and care about. I hadn't thought about that. And have like run their run out of patience and they're just like, is there any point and still trying? This is, it's a simple question. It's a, it's a very deep and complex answer. Literally thousands of years of philosophy and science going on is, yeah. My personal view is that it, well, first of all, it defines, it depends on how you define a person. So there are certain things that generally don't change, right?

There are certain kind of inherent personality traits. Okay. that don't really change. They'll change a little bit over the course of your entire life, but like on a day-to-day, month-to-year basis, they don't really shift a whole lot. So like if you are a very detail-oriented person, there is probably not a world where you are not a detail-oriented person. If you are an extremely extroverted person, there's probably not a world where you're not

an extroverted person. There's a handful of personality traits that seem to be just kind of baked into us. through some combination of genetics and upbringing, that by the time we're an adult, that's just kind of who we are. And we have certain tendencies and proclivities and preferences that just don't really go away. So there's that. There's like that component of it. That said, our beliefs can change.

Our attitudes can change. Our behavior, sure, shit can change. Our thoughts and ideas can change, right? So it really depends on what you mean by a person. So there are a number of things about them that are probably not going to shift, but those things are not determinate, right? Like, I can be a very detail-oriented person or I can be like a morning person. That's a preference. That's like a predisposition towards something.

There are some people who are predisposed towards addictive behaviors. There are some people who are predisposed towards antisocial behaviors. There are some people who are predisposed towards being very altruistic and selfless. but those are predispositions. Those are not, those don't determine your thoughts, beliefs, and behavior. The thoughts, beliefs, and behavior can always be shifted. They can always change. A subversion of this question or sub question that is another version of this question

that's maybe even more important is, can a person change if they don't want to change? Oh, okay. Yeah. To that, I would say no. That's a more interesting question too. Yes. So sub-question B, can a person change if they don't blow? believe they can change.

I would also say probably not. So there's like a few prerequisites, a few beliefs or mindsets that are like prerequisites to change as well that like if you don't want to change

and if you don't believe you can change then nothing else arguments, environment, incentives, nudging, like none of that other stuff is really probably going to matter a whole lot. And then I guess there's

The third sub question, which is like, can someone change because another person made them change? And to that, I would also say no. You think that's what they're actually asking? Potentially. Oh, okay. I've just noticed that it's a tendency for people. I've just noticed it over the years. I mean, they're hard of that.

Occasionally, I will run into people who are like, can a person ever change and they're referring to themselves because they've been trying so far. They're struggling and they've been in a bad spot for a long time and they're feeling kind of hopeless. But like, in my experience, nine times out of ten, it's somebody who there's, it's either a partner or a family member or a child who like, they've just, they're like at their wits and. Yeah, they're at, they've tried everything. They don't know what else to do. And the tricky thing about those situations, too, is that it's, like, often, it's our best attempts to help a person change or make a person change is like subtly enabling their ability to not change. Right. You get those

codependent relationships that yeah totally yeah because there is a certain like ultimately for a person to change there needs to be it needs to feel as it needs to feel like a good trade off to change right you'll never change if it feels like a bad trade off like I'm not going to become a new type of person if I feel like the new person is worse off than my current version of myself right And so what often happens is when when a partner or a family member or a caregiver is constantly trying to fix things in the person's life or like help them figure their shit out, they are suddenly re they are subtly reinforcing to that person. Well, if you change, you're going to lose all these perks and benefits that I'm giving you.

Like you're not going to be able to stay here for free anymore and I'm not going to like drive you to work anymore. I'm not going to like help you deal with your, you know, whatever. anymore. And so unconsciously that like removes incentive for the person to change. So it's a tricky, it's a very tricky thing. If you have somebody in your life who you really wish they would change, there's it's a very subtle dance that has to take place. Like if you're supporting them, you have to make sure that you're supporting them because they want to change themselves and they believe they can change themselves.

And if they don't believe those things or if they don't want to change, then your attempt to convince them to change or support them in change, it's very, very likely it's going to backfire to make things worse. Yeah, I think the guests we've had on here who have struggled with addiction,

I think would tell you something very similar, both on the codependency side, but also on the side of recognizing that tradeoff you were talking about. Yes. That, like, they needed that rock bottom. They needed to find that rock bottom to see that trade.

off. And so you can't, I think it was Novak, Brandon Novak, who said, you know, I wouldn't have wanted anybody to rob me of that process. Yeah. You know, and that's that process of finding rock bottom. Yeah. Which is painful to watch from the outside. I remember reading Ritroll's book and one of the things that impressed me the most was his parents. Oh. When he was like deep in his throes with alcoholism and had just gone to jail and all this stuff, he like went to his parents' house or something and they shut the door on them and they said don't come back till you're sober and it's got it had to be the hardest thing to do as a parent I can't even imagine like I remember reading that I were caved yeah I remember reading that and I was like god damn cold shit props to his parents

man like yeah really props to his parents that like that's that's incredible because I think most most family members are not able to do that right and and that's why you see all the enabling and the yeah yeah totally yeah you um latched on to the word people in those three. I lashed on the word change. Like, what do you, what do you actually call change?

Oh, interesting. What is the definition of change? Interesting. So that's why the simple question has all these little rabbit holes you can go down. And I thought, well, what do you mean by change?

Yeah. There's, there's, there's, can you change your personality? You kind of, you alluded to that as well. Can you change your identity?

Like, I'm a loser, you know, can you change that thinking. And then, you know, there's all this like around things like self actualization, you know,

that the humanists came up with. We appear to have this drive towards change. Yeah. And that we're seeking it, but is it actually, what constitutes change in any of that? Because a behavioral change, if this is the environment changes and you didn't do anything about it. But yet you change your behavior around that. Is that change? Is that real change?

Is that the kind of change you're talking about? I mean, you've changed your behavior. Sure. This is a really good question. Because I run into this, especially with like the woo-woo crowd out here in L.A. There's so many people I know out here who, you know, they do all the, their spiritual spiritual journey stuff and retreats and seminars and have a shaman and a guru and psychedelic, you know, the whole nine yards.

And every time I see them, they like swear on their life. This is something else that they're completely transformed. They're like, oh my God, Mark, you wouldn't believe. I went to Costa Rica and I did this whole like shaman thing and like I'm a completely transformed person. And then I ask him like, okay, cool. Well, like, how's life going? How's business going?

How's, you know, your relationship going? And it's all the same shit. It's all the same shit. And I'm like, okay, so what changed? And I think that it's a really, it's a really interesting question because, and maybe, maybe I'm wrong. But like, my bias is that if you, if your behaviors are the same, I don't think you really changed. Like you, it's kind of like it's putting lipstick on a pig, right? Like, you don't, you could see your life differently, but if your behaviors are the same and the problems are the same, then in my mind, you haven't really changed.

So I guess my definition of change would be behavioral driven. Or I would actually say it's problem driven. So like, it'd be one thing. And this has happened a couple times. Like some of these people, like, they'll come back from their like whatever, whatever retreat. And they'll be like, you know, I thought this was a problem in my life. But now I've, I actually see that it's not, you know, or that I've changed my perspective or I've shifted my values and I'm okay like, you know, with whatever. So if the perception of a problem has shifted, then I would say that is a change, right?

So the behavior around a problem changes or the perspective around a problem changes, I would say that's a change. But yeah, if neither of those things have changed, then... Yeah, you'd be hard pressed to say you've really changed it for one of those two things. Your mind hasn't changed your behavior hasn't changed to both. Well, and I think this is, this also ties into, because I think what a lot of those people experience, and this is actually a common knock on therapy as well, is that what is probably changed is their perception of themselves, right? Right.

So it's like I could go to a therapist, you know, so this used to be the big criticism of like, like Freudian therapy, right? It's like you can go to a therapist and you can like learn all this crazy shit about your childhood and all this, how your mom was actually kind of a terrible person

and all this stuff. But then you still have to go back to your life and all the problems and dysfunction in your life it's like still there, nothing's changed, you haven't done anything differently, right? And so like that was always the big criticism of like that old school Freudian stuff. And I think there's a little bit of that

in the self-help world, you know, it's like people will go, they'll go like do some sort of do a bunch of psychedelics and lay around. Yeah, meditation. Meditation, whatever. And they'll get some sort of insight into themselves and like a greater understanding of like, oh, this is why I'm this way. Or like, this is why I always feel like this. Maybe I should chill out. But and I think that insight to them feels like a profound change when really it's just a change of self-knowledge or self-perspective.

And I guess by my definition of change, if the problems are the same and the behavior is the same, then like nothing really changed. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think you've changed in your life? And you can't say your health stuff because we already know about that. That was going to be too easy for you. What do you think you've changed?

I can give you an example for mine too. I'll just give you a quick example of one I thought of. Sure. I've become much less reactive in my relationships, especially. Yeah. Things that used to set me off, I've been able to like be more mindful and catch myself. Yeah. Be like, okay, what's the best?

reaction here. Things that come up now that would have just like sent me off earlier. I've been able to really like really step back and be like, okay, what's the best for the relationship here? Not what's the best for my little ego boost that I mean? I really do think I've been able to do that. And that's just been within the last couple of years, honestly, last few years that I've gotten a lot better about that sort of things. To me, that feels like a big change. Yeah. And I think it's also reflected outwardly as well. Yeah. So has that caused you to behave differently in your relationships? Yeah, 100%. Oh, yes. Oh, I mean, yeah, I feel just so much more like secure in my relationships now too, whether it's friends, romantic, whatever.

Sure. Where I can kind of step back and instead of being so judgmental. Yeah. Like I really had to work on that though. Yes. I felt like that was a change for me. And it seems minor in the moments, but then you step back and you're like, oh, that changed the whole trajectory of a relationship or that, you know, I look back on moments

that I had where a relationship fell apart or something and I point to certain moments and I'm like, oh, I would have just handled that differently. It probably would have the whole relationship. could have gone different. Yeah. So yeah. I think this is probably a good insight is that I think at some point in the last five years, I had the insight that like I have a novelty addiction in my brain.

And that is driven most of my bad decisions throughout my life. It's driven a lot of good decisions as well. But it's most of the poor decisions that I've made over the years or problems that I've created for myself over the years. It's been driven by that constant need for novelty and that constant, dissatisfaction from it. And so that realization, that realization by itself, I did not change, but that realization sparked change by me being much more conscientious about like taking fewer trips, saying no to more

business opportunities, focusing more on showing up for friends, you know, being more consistent in like my community and the people I know. And like, you know, it's, it's a conversation like my wife and I've been having a lot the past two years because I think she and I are just both kind of bad at it. It's like, show up for a little thing. It's the stuff you're really good at. It's like, show up for the little things. Like, they add up and they really matter. And those are the things that Old Mark would be like, well, that's boring.

Like, that's not novel. So, you know, let me know when there's a wedding or something because then I'll make time. Right. But then it's like, I've got like some cool trip or I'm going to go. do this thing in Dubai or something, you know, and like, and I wouldn't be there. And I think it took enough, like, I had to age enough to, like, pay the price for that. You know, you have to go through enough of life and go through enough years to see the accumulation of all those small decisions and realize that, like, oh, okay, I actually kind of fucked myself here. And, like, a lot of the

problems that I'm experiencing today, it's a result of, like, lots and lots of small bad decisions over the course of the last five or ten years. And so I'd say the last two years has really been me trying to correct that. And I'm trying to be like way more conscious and focused on where I spend my time both in terms of people and then also in terms of like endeavors or hobbies or whatever. And yeah, it's like sometimes I get sucked back a little into the novelty vortex. You know, I can like feel like. Well, you're never going to change that. Exactly. That's a perfect example.

Like that desire for novelty, it's never going to go away. I'm always going to have that. What changes is my ability to manage it, right? It's like the behavior that it produces, the output that happens in terms of like my behavior and my beliefs and my commitment. So that's probably been the biggest one. Yeah. And that's kind of where I've landed on all this too, is that those are, there probably are things that aren't going to change or at least not change very much about you, but the way those are expressed. Yes. Can be changed. It's kind of like,

how do you channel your introversion or extroversion or your novelty seeking versus your comfort seeking? Yes. Like, those can be changed. And I think so many people get mixed up because they try to change the disposition. Like they try to change their person. I want to be a new person. Yeah. They're like,

I don't want to be an introvert anymore. Or I don't want to be an anxious person anymore. Or I don't want to, you know, need so much of a routine anymore. And it's like, sorry, but like, if that's how you've always been, you're probably always going to be that way. Like, it's funny. And it's like, I think people resist that idea. But I have actually found that like if you can kind of state at point, like, I've had conversations

with people before where like they've kind of come to me and they're like, man, I'm an anxious mess. I'm really having a lot of problems. Like, how do I deal with this? And I'm like, well, you know, tell me about, tell me about it. How did this start? How did it? Well, it turns out they've always been an anxious mess, their entire life.

Right. And they're just like, I'm sick of it. I don't want to be this way anymore. And I'm like, well, I got bad news for you. Like, you're an anxious person. That's just life. Like, everybody's got a thing. You know, some people struggle with anger.

Some people struggle with depression. Some people, like, I'm a depressive person. I fall in the depression, I think, much easier than most people. Yeah. My wife is a very anxious person. She worries about stuff much more than most people. You were saying that you get triggered and fly off the handle. Like, you know, some people get angrier much.

easier than something like we've all got our thing and it's like you don't change the thing you change the reaction to the thing yeah yeah yeah and uh yeah that can be very it's a slow process it is a slow process i think the other thing about change you have to um just be willing to accept and sign up for is the just the slow grinding nature of it yes what else are you going to do though too you know like that's that's life yeah yeah yeah all right i would ask for the wisdom of the week but the last time you gave us that. I don't have any dirty jokes. No more Willie Nelson jokes.

I don't know. No Willie Nelson jokes. All right. Wisdom of the week from Maya Angelou. I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it. That sums up a lot from today. Well, the AGI has penetrated us all of this episode. Until next week, please like and subscribe the episode before we all lose our jobs.

and sign up for the weekly newsletter, which is not written by AI. It is a, every Monday I send out one idea, one question, and one exercise to help you have your next breakthrough. It's at markmanson.net slash newsletter. Feel free to email us questions at podcast at markmanson.net. And I guess we'll be back next week. The subtle art of not giving a fuck podcast is produced by Drew Bernie. It's edited by Andrew Nishamura. Jessica Choi is our videographer and sound engineer.

Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.