The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 92 - How To Find Out EXACTLY What You Want To Do In Life: Mark Manson

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

What do you want to do with your life? Does your answer change if you remove the idea of getting status, respect and admiration from it? In this moment Mark Manson explains how to find out what you ACTUALLY want from life. Mark discusses how you need to ask yourself honestly why you want what you want, instead of what everyone else says you should value. Because chasing this inauthentic idea of success with only leads you to dead ends and dark places. Listen to the full episode here - https://g2ul0.app.link/mVt7Zig7hob Mark: https://www.instagram.com/markmanson/?hl=en https://twitter.com/IAmMarkManson?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor Watch the Episodes On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEO/videos

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. I was watching your conversation with Tom tom bill you and i found it really really interesting and important because one of the things you talk about when we're talking about you know deciding what you want to do with your life whether it's a business or you're gonna be a pickup artist or whatever it is is this the importance of asking the question why and in the

society and culture we live in especially one that's so driven by comparison where your values are almost being handed to you by Instagram and the Kardashians. Like this is how, this is what you should value. Like I almost, I've almost felt, I remember one day a kid came up to me after I did this like big talk on stage and he said, I want to be a public speaker.

And he was like 17. And you're thinking, but you've got nothing. What are you going to talk about? And really what he's saying is like he doesn't want to be a public speaker he wants the admiration he thinks public speakers get probably because he's insecure yeah and and so many kids including myself as a young kid we don't actually know what we want we have no fucking clue but what we probably want is not to be insecure and get laid like at the heart of of it. And the pursuit of that, as you've described, takes us down a dark alley to the wrong place,

usually a dead end as well. So how do I figure out what I actually want in my life without it being Kardashian noise or Instagram? Like what does, what do I want and how do I find out? I think, so it's a tricky thing, right? Because again, I think you kind of have to get it right. It's like the relationships. You need to get a couple wrong before you know how to get it right. And I think it's the same in pursuing a career or finding a purpose in life. Like you need to get it wrong a couple times because we're experts at tricking ourselves. You know, it's like that kid, he wants admiration, right? But if you ask them in his head, he's like, no, no, no. I'm just really passionate about communicating with people. I love people. You know, it's like, we all do that to ourselves. We all like, we find the admirable narrative

to kind of explain what we want in the world. So I think you need to go through, you need to hit a couple dead ends. You know, it's like that kid, he probably should go get on stage and give the speeches and get the applause and then realize that the applause doesn't solve anything, that he's still just as insecure as he was before. Because then once he does that, then he'll be ready to ask that question of like, why do I want to do that? Like, why am I really doing this? It's almost a question you have to earn in a lot of ways. And I feel like a lot of people, they just want to start there.

And it's like, no, no, no, you have to like, cause look, we're all like the Kardashian thing, right? Like the reason that stuff is so popular is because we're wired to value it. We're wired to want status. We're wired to want to be beautiful and sexy. And we're wired to want to impress others. Like that's never going to go away. The question is, is like, what do you want once that is kind of removed from the equation? But I think mentally to be able to remove it from the equation, you have to try to get some of it first

and see that it doesn't work, if that makes sense. And what did you come to learn for yourself? Once you got that stuff, you had the money, you had lots of success in the field with pickup artistry and you tried all of these things and you tried the cars and what did you come to learn that you value? Well, I had an interesting experience in my career, which we were joking about it before we went live was like, I kind of had this realization. So I started the pickup stuff

when I was like 21, 22. And, and then I started coaching and like teaching dating advice, um, probably when I was like 23, 24. And I got to like my late twenties and I, it suddenly, it started to dawn on me that like, this is cool now, but in like five years, it's going to be really creepy. You know, like it's, it's one thing to be a 25 year old. Who's like taking a bunch of dudes out to like talk to girls in a club. It's very different to be like a 35 year old guy who's taken out a bunch of dudes to talk to 20 year old girls at a club. Like it just, it's a much different look. And I also just realized, I'm like, I don't want to do this forever. Like this is fun, but like I, this is actually not fulfilling in any way whatsoever. Like I need to find what my next thing is going

to be. And during that period, when I was doing all the dating relationship advice, I started to realize, especially like a lot of, a lot of clients, a lot of guys who hired me, you know, I take them out to the bar and we'd talk to some girls or whatever. But after a year or two, I realized like what these guys really need is a therapist. You know, it's, it's their problem. You know, they're good guys. Like they're, they're smart. They're, they're like, they've got a good job. Um, they're sure they're a little bit nervous talking to a girl, but like, who isn't? What really, what they're, most of their problems were is like very deep seated insecurities, emotional issues, and they hadn't dealt with it yet. And so the last couple of years I did that job, I would kind of just take the guys to the bar as an excuse and then sit down with them and

be like, okay, let's like, what's really going on in your life? You know, like, like let's get into why do you feel so insufficient or, or unworthy of, you know, dating her or talking to her or whatever. And so I, I kind of realized that like, you know, what I should be writing about is this stuff. You know, the, the, like the, the three best first dates are like how to get her to reply to your text every time. Like I was writing stuff like that back then. Cause it, it got traffic and it, it would, it would get sales, but I'm like, that's not what people actually need. That's not what they need to hear. What they need to hear is kind of this deeper stuff, uh, about self-esteem and self-worth and vulnerability. And so I made that decision to pivot into that, to stop being

the dating coach and actually start writing about personal development and emotional health, because that's something I knew I could be proud of and I could do for the rest of my life. You know, you, you, you can be a 50 year old, uh, talking about those things and it's still like something you can hang your hat on. Like, but I never would have gotten there if I hadn't done the dating coach stuff. If I hadn't kind of been obsessed with the, like, yeah, let's go to the club and like, try to get laid. Like you, that's the entry point. Right. And then you find the deeper stuff along the way and that's your that's your sort of now your professional um value i guess the one of the things you value professionally but in terms of like holistically when you look at your whole life what are the

things where the values at the heart of mark that allow him to be you you know, fulfilled, stable, and, uh, yes, sustainable, like the sustainable values that you think can last you because of these values, I will be somewhat, you know, content and fulfilled for the next 30, 40 years holistically. Gotcha. So, I mean, the answer, it's going to sound really banal, but it's true. I think probably the biggest one for me is honesty and not just honesty with the people in my life. Honesty is a standard that I hold everybody, all my friends and everybody I work with too. But it's also something I hold myself to being honest with myself I think generosity is one that I've discovered

again it's one of those things that when you do make all the money you do make a buttload of money you learn that it's so much more fun to spend it on other people than it is yourself it feels so much better and it means a lot more

it creates those really powerful moments that you, you do remember for the rest of your life. Whereas the Lamborghini, you forget about. I need two seats, right? Yeah. You only got one ass.