The School of Greatness - 524 Dream Less, Do More, and Create Real Happiness with Mark Manson

Episode Date: August 16, 2017

"It's not the emotion that is good or bad, it's what you do about it." - Mark Manson If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/524

This is episode number 524 with number one New York Times best-selling author Mark Manson Welcome to the school of greatness My name is Lewis Howes a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur and each week We bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Tony Robbins said, whatever you hold in your mind on a consistent basis

is exactly what you will experience in your life. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We've got Mark Manson in the house, who is a self-help author, blogger, and entrepreneur. And his blog, markmanson.net, is visited by over two million people a month. He is also the number one New York Times bestselling author of the mega hit,

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k, A Counterintuitive Approach to Living the Good Life. He's also been featured all over and quoted in the press, including CNN, BBC News, Time, and so much more. And we dive into the counterintuitive approach to living a good life. We talk about the importance of saying no and why you should say no often. Also, why dreams are overrated. And I have a little bit of a debate here with Mark. How self-improvement and success are not the same thing. What to do with the problems that success brings. That's right, success brings problems. And why the character of your self-talk is what really matters. And before we dive in, I want to give a shout out to the fan and review of the week.

This is from Adalys Spride, who says, Woo-wee, a true display of great minds and ideas coming together. These interviews and insights will catapult you to a new, heightened level of your true unique greatness. So many tangible tools to implement into your life, business, et cetera, that will yield you results. You cannot afford to miss these and give yourself this gift today. Thank you, Lewis, for orchestrating this platform. Bravo.

So thank you so much for being the fan and the review of the week. If you guys want a chance to be shouted out on one of the episodes, then go ahead and leave us a review over on iTunes today at School of Greatness. We are less than one month away from the summit of greatness. Oh, my goodness, guys. We're getting so pumped up here at the greatness headquarters because we are putting together a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I'm so jazzed about just putting this together because I wish I was attending it, actually. The amount of individuals we have coming from all over the world are staggering. And the speaker lineup is just going to blow you away.

And always, we like to do special surprises. So things that aren't even on the site are gonna be happening that are gonna blow your mind. So if you haven't signed up yet, we've got about 100 tickets left. Make sure to go to summitofgreatness.com right now to get yours and I'll see you in a month. All right, let's dive into this. If you have read this book,

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k, then make sure to tag me at Lewis Howes on Instagram right now on your Instagram story with the link lewishowes.com slash 524. Have your friends swipe up to listen to it. Listen along while you're listening and let me know what you think of this. And without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only, Mark Manson. Welcome, everyone, back to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got Mark Manson in the house. Good to see you, man.

How are you doing? It's good to be here. I'm pumped. I've been learning about your stuff for a while now. You've been writing online for a long time. Amazing articles. You have an amazing website where you publish all your content, and now you have a new book out that is a massive hit already. A big New York Times bestseller. I think it's been on the list for how long now? Basically since it came out.

Basically since it came out. So like nine months, eight months? Nine months. Every single week or has it dropped off at all? Every single week. Every single week, nine months, the subtle art of not giving a f**k, a counterintuitive approach to living a good life. Make sure you guys pick it up right now if you haven't got it. We're going to dive into this and a lot more today. I'm super pumped about this.

You're good. Okay. Super pumped about this. We've got some mutual friends. You're not really out there publicly that much though, like on social media. You post your stuff, but you're not like- Yeah. I'm bad at that

i'm bad at self-promotion i'm not like i've just yeah my wife's always bugging she's like why don't you use your instagram account yeah you never do you have like 30 000 followers i was like oh yeah i should take pictures it's funny you're like well when i'm on the new york times list every week it doesn't matter right you don't have to promote it i guess when you write that great of a book it speaks for itself um very excited about this. Why did you decide to start talking about this? Why did you write a book, a counterintuitive approach to living a great life? And a lot of things you say in here, I want to get into because I'm like, huh, is it all true or whatever? So I'm excited about this.

I decided a couple of years ago, I really wanted to write a self-help book about this. I wanted to write, I decided a couple years ago, I really wanted to write a self-help book about pain. Because there's a lot of self-help books out there about positivity and growth and striving. And I wanted to talk about the sucky things in life. Yeah, yeah. You know? And I wanted to make an argument that, I guess, negative experience or negativity, it matters. You can't just pretend like it's not there. You can't just go through your life.

You can't just say positive thinking no matter what. Yeah. No matter how successful you get, no matter how famous you get, no matter how much money you make, no matter how awesome your relationships are, things are going to suck sometimes, no matter what. And you're never going to avoid that. And so kind of my starting point with this is like, all right, so let's talk about what it's like to have things suck. And how can we not necessarily get rid of that or solve it, but just live through it better, suffer better, basically. Suffer better. Do you believe we can end our suffering? No.

Why not? Well, I talk about it in the book. I make the point that pain exists for a reason. We evolve pain for a reason. If you think of a little kid touching a hot stove, like that's actually a really important experience. It teaches the kid, don't touch a hot stove anymore. Like that's dangerous. It's going to hurt you. Yeah, exactly. And so pain evolved to kind of show us like what's dangerous and what's not, you know, what can threaten us or what could harm us and what doesn't? So pain is not necessarily a bad thing. Like pain can actually be a very important and beneficial thing depending on the context and the circumstances.

And so, yeah, it's a necessity in life, I would argue. So I agree that pain is a necessity. Do you think that suffering is a necessity? I agree that pain is a necessity. Do you think that suffering is a necessity? Well, are you defining suffering as the meaning we attach to pain? I would say like ongoing pain. Okay.

Like, okay, you've touched the stove. You felt the pain for 30 seconds. Do you need to hold and be attached to that pain for the next day or week or month and be like, oh, I touched this thing. It hurt. I'm going to hold on to this pain. I don't think suffering is – it's not – so in a very broad – like just if we're looking at somebody's whole lifetime, yeah, I think so. Because there's always going to be some things in your life that – say a parent

dies or divorce or something. you know, say a parent dies or divorce or something like that is going to cause suffering. And I think it's okay for that to cause suffering. Like, I think it's normal. I would argue it's healthy for that to cause suffering because just the experience of loss, you have to, you have to be attached to that pain because it was such an important part of your life. to that pain because it was such an important part of your life. That said, I do think probably a very large percentage of suffering in life, probably a large percentage of the suffering that a lot of us go through is not necessary. It's self-invented or we create it to make ourselves feel more important or to make excuses for ourselves, things like that.

Yeah. Yeah. So I learned from a famous meditation instructor, Krishna Ji, who said that suffering is the obsessive self-centric thinking. And once we remove the obsessive self-centric thinking, our suffering leaves us. Yeah. thinking our suffering leaves us. So we can feel attached to this pain of a divorce or a loss in our life, and we're constantly thinking about ourselves, what we're missing, what we're lacking, what

we had once that we don't have anymore. But once we remove that obsessive thinking about what we don't have anymore, the suffering starts to end. Yeah. So I think it's a decision decision it's a choice that we can make in any moment we can hold on to that obsessive thinking and longing for years and be like i used to have this thing and now i don't have it anymore yeah i'm suffering or we can be aware and uh you know and say i'm moving forward yeah at any moment yeah i think there's

a healthy balance to being like you know not just moving on when someone dies in the next hour. Yeah. It's over. Yeah. There's a grieving and all the process. It's interesting because, you know, and I spend a lot of the book talking about this. It's not necessarily, you know, the pleasure or pain that's important. It's the meaning that we attach around it.

It's like, it's the story that we invent to kind of encapsulate it. And I think they're very healthy and positive story or I wouldn't say pot, like they're very healthy stories and meanings that we can create around our pain. And they're very unhealthy stories and meanings we can create around our pain. And there's healthy meanings and stories that we can create around our, our pleasure or our positive experiences. And there's also unhealthy meaning and stories that we can create around our pain and there's healthy meanings and stories that we can create around our, our pleasure or our positive experiences. And there's also unhealthy meaning, uh, and stories that we can create around our positive experiences. Um, and so, you know, kind of, um, the whole

crux of the book is like, you know, it's just all about that meaning. It's all about what, you know, what values are you choosing? Like, what, what are you, what is like the lesson you're pulling from all these experiences, both your good and your bad? Um, because that's what matters. You know, if you just look at feeling good versus feeling bad, your life, everybody's life is doing this all the time. Um, you know, what, what stays constant and what like kind of keeps you, your center of gravity, like going the right direction is that sense of meaning or that those values that you build for yourself. Yeah,

I agree. What would you say is the time where you suffered the most? Oh man, I guess I would say consciously, um, consciously, I think my first girlfriend, that first heartbreak,

that's the worst yeah um and and just the way it happened i mean she was cheating on me and i found out from like just this like one of her friends just picked up the phone was like oh man you need to know about this oh um so yeah that was devastating that but probably like so that was the biggest conscious pain biggest unconscious one would probably be my parents divorce but that's one of those things that you don't you know you don't realize till you're like 26 and in therapy and you're like wow this really yeah exactly yeah it's crazy how um our parents' relationship affects us without us even knowing it.

Yeah, absolutely. The things we do, say, mimic without us even being aware. Even if we don't think we're being like our parents, we usually are. Yeah. It's just embedded in our brains, I guess, right, in our memory, in our psyche, whatever it is. And I see myself doing this all the time. I'm like, all the things that I was like,

I'm not going to be that way my dad is my mom is yeah and I see like a pattern sometimes with me doing I have to stop myself yeah like who do I want to be yeah you know I don't want to be I want to be like my parents in some ways but not everywhere yeah every way and how can I reinvent the process of a better way a better, a better interaction with people than what I saw and mimicked as a child. So I definitely agree with that. You went on a journey. You traveled over 60 countries. You speak three languages.

You were in Brazil for a couple of years. Met your wife there. What are your languages? Spanish? Spanish, but it's really rusty. Really rusty. So Portuguese, you're better. Yeah, I'm better at Portuguese now.

And your wife, do you guys speak Portuguese a lot or does she speak English fluently as well? Oh, she's fluent in English. I'd say it's like 80-20 English-Portuguese. Yeah. Anything serious is in English. We flirt in Portuguese. Oh, really?

You're like, obrigado. Yeah. Very good. We flirt and talk shit in Portuguese oh really you're like obrigado yeah we very good right we flirt and talk shit in Portuguese really

that's funny because it's nice because like you'll be in a situation and it's like you know somebody like does something

and you want to say something but you don't want them to hear and so we just say it to each other we're like wow can you believe that guy just did that until they start speaking

to you in Portuguese and you're like I can hear you. That's happened a couple times. Really? Yeah. That's embarrassing. There was actually, the funniest one was we were in Brazil once. And we did like the worst Uber driver ever.

And my wife, like she was in a really bad mood. And she just like starts talking shit about the Uber driver in English. Like five minutes. No way. And then we get to the destination the uber driver turns around perfect english no accent it's like have a good night oh my gosh one one star rating this guy hates us oh my goodness wow yeah now why did you decide to travel to all these different countries and explore the world? I read Tim Ferriss' book back in 2008, I guess. Yeah, me too. Completely blew my mind, opened everything.

And I always had kind of a dream of doing an around the world trip or something. And it was when I read that book, you know, around the same time, I had a crappy day job and I wasn't happy with it. And I was young and I knew I wanted to do something on my own. And I read 4-Hour Workweek and it was like two birds with one stone. It's like, whoa, I can like- Travel and build a business.

And build a business at the same time. And so, yeah, I did that. Initially, I was just going to do it for a couple of years, but I kind of got hooked really and just kept going and going and going. Yeah. And how were you able to make money as you were traveling and fund this experience for you? Um,

initially I started with, I did kind of like direct marketing stuff. So a lot of like affiliate sales and, um, I was one of those obnoxious guy I was like spammy stuff and sure and I actually started blogging it was because back then back in those days it was like everything was but like blogging was like the big new thing huge yeah that's made 2009 yeah it's like if you if

you're starting an internet business you got to have a blog because that's like that's how you get traffic to come in and everything so i started i started a blog um just to like drive traffic to to some of my sites and and it it started to take off really and um yeah it turned like i discovered it took about two years i discovered i was a pretty crappy marketer like i don't sell stuff very well right And I was always broke and like struggling and trying to find like the next thing that would pay the bills. And then, um,

and then when I started writing, like things got a lot more steady and consistent. So, um, yeah, I just stuck with the writing. It's crazy, man.

Now you get what? 2 million, uh, visitors a month or is it more now from the book? I'm assuming. Well, it varies quite a bit. Um,

it's, it's interesting because the blogs, I feel assuming. Well, it varies quite a bit. It's interesting because blogs, I feel like the traffic is just going down on blogs because everyone's on social. Yeah. It's like more and more people aren't clicking on the link to go read a whole article. They'd rather read like a mini article on Facebook or Instagram. I feel blogging is in kind of like a recession right now.

Really? Yeah. It's across the board, everybody's traffic's kind of like a recession right now. Really? Yeah. It's across the board. Everybody's traffic is kind of shrinking a little bit. Mine's dropped maybe 20%, 25% in the last year. Wow. But I know people, it's dropped like 50%. Yeah.

People are struggling, I feel like. Yeah. If you're not constantly reinventing yourself, I think it was brilliant that you did this book at this time because it brought you even more mainstream credibility and continues to attract new people to your sphere of your audience and people checking out your site now or your social, which you're never on Instagram, so you need to be more of. But I think it's powerful because I think most people aren't willing to reinvent.

And you were doing the internet marketing spammy thing for a little bit. And if you kept doing that, you would have probably dropped off too. Yeah. But you found a way to reinvent with blogging. Yeah. And you stuck with that until you realized, oh, let me do the next stage. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. And I think that's always important. I was kind of in a similar spot. I was starting out in blogging. I was teaching LinkedIn. And I was like, eh, this is kind of dying.

And then I did blogging. Yeah. I did courses. And I was like, I felt like podcasting was going to come around. I was like, hopefully, you know. You're in the right space now, man. It was like two years before it kind of started getting big when Serial came out and everyone

else started to do them. So I was like, thank goodness I started early. But it's almost like now there's over half a million podcasts at least. So it's like, what's the next reinvention? I'm always looking for the next reinvention. Yeah, you got to. You got to keep looking ahead. And yeah, I think looking back at my career,

one of the things that I think I did well and I think most people need to do, you know, throughout their career is be very honest at like what you're good at, what you're bad at, and then double down on what you're good at. You didn't start doing video after you launched your blog. You were like, I'm great at writing.

It's working. Let me double down. Well, yeah. And I've tried video. I've tried. I even messed around, tried podcasting a few years ago. And I'm very honest with myself of like, is this something either do I have a knack for it?

Or is this something, is the learning curve something I'm willing to invest? Like, does it make sense? You know, so for like, for instance, with podcasting, I messed around with it, did a couple like interviews privately and played with like concept ideas. And as with most things, you go into it thinking, oh, this is going to be simple. And then you actually try it and you're like, wow, this is really hard. A lot of work.

And so I sat there and I'm like, well, this is going to be probably six to 12 months learning curve. At least. Yeah. It could take time to build momentum. Yeah. And is that something that makes sense

to invest in right now? Or I could just promote my book. Right, right. So the book won out. Yeah. So yeah, but it's hard to be honest with yourself a lot of times and just be like, yeah, I'm bad at this. Right, right.

I should do the thing I'm good at. Right. You talk about being honest with yourself publicly and why it's powerful. Why do you believe we should be honest with ourselves publicly? And what does that mean? I'm a big proponent of just vulnerability in general. My man. Yeah.

My man. And so that applies across the spectrum. So our private relationships, our public relationships, professional relationships, everything. And the thing that makes vulnerability so important and so powerful is that it creates a transparency and a trust between everybody involved. You know, when you're willing to expose your weaknesses or at least be honest about them, You know, when you're willing to expose your weaknesses or at least be honest about them, it helps people know that you're dependable. You know, it's like, okay, this guy, like I can trust something that comes out of his mouth. If you're trying to make everything like rosy and sound amazing all the time and maybe fibbing a little bit or covering things up or like avoiding certain topics, you know, people sense that.

And not only does it kind of prevent that trust from building, but it also, you know, it makes you seem like aloof. I don't know. It kind of just interferes with the depth of the connection. The connection can never like get beyond a certain depth. Like something's missing if someone's too perfect. Yeah, exactly. There's something beneath that because no one can live that way.

Yeah, yeah. The example, I use an example in my book. I'm like, nobody likes a yes man. And yet, if somebody's following you around just agreeing with everything you say, within a couple of weeks, you're going to be like, what does he want? What's his angle? He's trying to get something out of me. And, you know, so I have a chapter, it's called The Importance of Saying No. And, you know, and that's kind of my big point is like, you need to hear no and say no, because then people know

you're dependable. They know you're actually like, you know know you have your own identity and and you're not just like manipulating the situation yeah i think it's powerful to say no i say yes a lot to a lot of people yeah and then sometimes people just expect me to constantly say yes and i'm like no i can't do something and then they get mad at me yeah because they they have this expectation i'm supposed to do something for them all the time and i'm'm like, I'm constantly giving to so many people. I'm constantly promoting other people. I'm constantly doing so much that sometimes I got to focus on my own stuff too.

You know what I mean? Of course. And if you don't, then that will strangle your ability to give in the future. If you don't cut out that time for yourself and then nurture yourself, then you're not going to be able to be generous to others.

And I think if you say yes to someone when you don't want to, you're going to resent that person too. Totally. So say no so you don't resent people. Yep. Right? Yep. You also talk about, this is something I wanted to dive into, because you say you shouldn't

have big dreams, right? Yep. Why? Well, did I say shouldn't have big dreams? right? Yeah. Why? Well,

did I say shouldn't have big dreams? I think you talked about big dreams and how you can't be in the present when you have these big dreams. I'm trying to think of exactly. Maybe, maybe I don't have the same, maybe I'm not thinking clearly on it, but what are your feelings on having big dreams? Should we have them or no?

I think they're fine. I think dreams... So dreams I would put in the category of they're fine, but they're overrated. Dreams are overrated. Yeah. Why is that? Because I think a lot of times we use our dreams and our fantasies as a way of escaping what we're dealing with right now. And I think the other thing about dreams is it's actually very hard for us to know exactly what we want.

I can't tell you how many people I've met over the years that they're like, I want to run a business or I've got this amazing, they're like, I want to run a business, or I've got this amazing idea for a startup, or I want to make a ton of money. And you know, they have this big dream for themselves, and they start working towards it. And it's like, they make themselves like, it's actually making them miserable. Because the actual process of doing it is not what they enjoy. They enjoy the end., and what is actually happening is like, you know, they don't actually enjoy the hustle or taking the risk or doing the work. They enjoy what they think the benefit will do

to themselves, you know? So they're unhappy with a part of themselves. They're like, oh, if I could just like have an amazing startup and be worth like $20 million, everything would be great. But it turns out like they hate working on it. And, and so it just makes things worse.

And so, um, I think dreams are fine. Like it's, it's fun to fantasize, but I think it's, it's also important to just be honest about what dreams are, is that they're fantasies.

They're fun. Um, but a lot of them are motivated, or they can easily be motivated by the wrong reasons. And so I prefer to kind of take more of a present approach of like, okay, let's pay attention to like, how does this feel right now? How does the work make you feel now? How does accomplishing this task, like, how does that reflect on you? Like, how do you feel about yourself after that? Because I think if you pay attention to that, that's actually what makes great things happen in your life, is when you're, like, focusing on the day-to-day, you know, boom, this makes me feel good. That's what you get good

at, you know? Like, I never sat down, you asked me before we started recording, you know, like, did you ever think you were going to be a writer? I didn't, no, I never thought I was going to be a writer. The way I became a writer was I was doing all this stuff for my websites and I didn't enjoy about 70% of it. Right. And most of the part that I enjoyed or that came easily to me, that part of my work that I would sit down thinking, oh, I'll spend an hour on a blog post. And I look up and it's

been like six hours. You lost yourself in it. Yeah, like that was the writing. And so, I didn't even know. It was never a plan. It was never like, oh, I'm going to be a New York Times bestseller in five years. I'm going to do this and this. And it's like, no, it's just like, writing makes me feel really good. I feel proud of myself. I enjoy the process. And I can't wait to do it again. And so, you know, that's what you just keep hammering on. And the greatness is the side effect. You know, it's like, if you find that, then the success and all the accolades and stuff like that will come naturally. Like it will be the, you know, it will be the collateral. Right. Exactly. I, I, I hear you and I'm excited to talk about this because

there are so many people that tell me that they have these big dreams or what they want, but they're unwilling to do the work. Right. It's too hard to make it happen. They want the end result, but they don't want the 10 years of the process it takes to get there. And I have an exercise called the perfect day exercise where I have people say, okay, do you really want this? Walk through what a perfect day would look like for you, where you'd find the most joy, the most happiness, the most fulfillment in your entire day. Hour by hour, walk me through what does your perfect day look like?

What brings you that joy? So I try to get people in the mindset of, okay, dream like crazy big dreams. But make sure the journey and the process of spending 10 years to make it happen is something you love. Because it may take forever. The bigger the dream,

the longer it's gonna take usually. And if you go through your perfect day exercise and you're actually not excited to work 12 hours a day on something, then it's probably not the dream for you. Yeah. And it comes back to that honesty with yourself. Yes. The example I use in my book is for most of my younger life, I wanted to be a musician. And I had all these huge dreams and fantasies, you know, about being on stage and rocking out and like, you know, being like having this amazing album. And I mean, I had this dream for like six or eight years, like even after I started my business. You know, when I started my business, the first couple of years, I was like, oh, I'm going to do this to like make some money.

And then I'm going to go back and do the music thing. You know, in my head, it was all just kind of like a means to go back and do the music thing you know um in my head it was it was all just kind of like a means to the to the end that was the music and i got to my my late 20s or the second half of my 20s and i just i had to be like really honest with myself like because because i like i had friends who were back in music school and they were actually doing things like they were their bands were getting signed and they were like doing like doing studio gigs and they were playing shows and and i was like wait a second they're actually like out doing it you know like action i've been talking about it i've been sitting in my room for the last six years like saying you know what i'm gonna do one

day i'm gonna be a big musician on stage so like i had to be very honest with myself of like you know like i don't think i actually like this like you know because if i did i'd be doing it right you know i think i just like the vision of myself i i like i i like this fantasy that you know on stage but you don't like practicing for three hours a day right guitar piano or something or spending all my my money on equipment and like hauling it through rehearsals and you know seven people show up for a gig once a month yeah like years exactly like it just it through rehearsals and you know seven people to show for a gig once a month yeah like years exactly like it just it didn't happen no one cared about you you know so it was hard to let that go but i mean i think in hindsight that was i think i built that dream

that dream was like something that i kind of constructed when I was younger to get me through some hard times. And once I got older and I was actually committed to my business and my writing and other things in my life, I had to let it go. I had to be like, you know, this isn't serving me anymore. In fact, it's like I'm kidding myself.

And your mind space is somewhere else in fantasy land that you're not actually implementing and taking action on as opposed to putting all of your energy and mind space into the current passion or dream that you did have, right? Absolutely. And we only have so much mind space in a day, I think. Yeah. In our lifetime. Totally. If we're thinking about something else we're not working or acting towards, then we're missing out on what we have right in front of us. Yeah.

You talk about self-improvement and success and how they often occur together. But that doesn't mean they're the same thing. Yeah. So why do we assume they are? I think because they often occur together, I think a lot of us experience in our own lives when we have a breakthrough with ourselves, with certain belief or certain pattern in ourselves or we get over a fear, we see the external success in our lives jump up a little bit. And so, we just kind of start assuming that the two are the same thing, which is just, we do that about a lot of things. But it's not necessarily. I think in a lot of ways, you know, for certain people, it might be a breakthrough in their self and their self-growth might precipitate less success. Maybe they realize that the 80 hours a week they're working as a lawyer is the thing that's making them miserable. And so the breakthrough means giving up that career or giving up all that money or

giving up the status that comes along with it. You know, you get people who become very attached to material things, you know, or maybe they don't have their priorities or their attention in their life like aligned the way that it would be more healthy. And part of that growth requires them to step down a little bit and step back. And I think this is one area that, you know, it gets in the self-help world, it gets a little dangerous because it's fun to think about, you know, hey, you can have this huge breakthrough and make a million dollars. But a lot of times that big breakthrough requires you letting go, wanting to make a million dollars. So you get kind of this weird catch 22 thing going on a lot of times. Yeah. What would you say is a thing that

you're struggling with the most right now? Oh, you know, honestly, this, uh, you know, I'm so proud of how well it's done. Um, dude, the pressure, like the pressure of what, it's done, dude, the pressure. The pressure of what? What's next or what's, you know? It's, you know, we all like to, over the course of our career, and I think everybody's like this, anything you do, you know, the next thing, you always want to be improving. Of course.

You always want the next thing to be better. Yes. But you were like nine months on the New York Times list, right? So it's like, how do you top that? Yeah. And it's sold, I think it's the best-selling audio book of all time. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It sold a million copies in I think eight and a half months. A hardcover? Yeah. Holy cow. Congrats, man. That's huge. And so, yeah, I mean, it's like... That's massive. It is massive. But it's funny because now I'm... It's been almost a year and now I'm starting to look at, okay, what's the next project going to be?

How can I top this massive hit? Well, in my natural inclination, because this has served me for the first 10 years of my career, it's like, all right, what's the next step? And I'm looking at, and I'm like, you know, let's be honest, you know, the level of commercial success this book has experienced is something that it's like, it happens maybe two or three times a year in the entire publishing. Like, you know, there's maybe two, three books each year that do that, that do this. And as an author, the chance of you hitting that twice. Really hard. Yeah.

It's like, it's, you know, and so much of the book success is probably also out of my control. I mean, it's a great title. It's a great cover. It's a great timing of the world.

It's like, yeah, but all, yeah, a lot of it is the timing. Um, a lot of it is just kind of like where we are as a culture right now. I've had to be honest with myself that like, you know, Mark, it's very unlikely this is going to happen twice.

And then on top of that, I've got, you know, publishers, my agent, a bunch of other people who want to do stuff with me. And they're like, all right, you know, you did this. Let's do something bigger. Yeah, let's match it. Or like, hey, this guy just sold this many books for Harper. Let's bring him in to do this with us. And maybe our thing will blow up. It's really hard.

It's like the pressure is real, man. And so I've been kind of the last few months. You got to listen to your own book. Yeah. Don't give a fuck. I know. It's hard. It's so hard, man.

Because then you're like, well, I'm not doing as good yeah maybe i'm not as smart anymore if it's not doing as well right exactly so there's all these kind of like assumptions or you know i guess operating principles i've had for years now in my career and i'm having to like tear them out of myself you know kind of be like hey dude, dude, let go of that. Like that's not serving you anymore. And it's been hard. For a couple months now, I've kind of been playing mind games with myself, you know, just trying to get myself in the right headspace of like, you know, hey, it's all right if, you know, the next book doesn't have to be like this one or my next project doesn't have to like match this and being okay with that.

Yeah, I made a million copies in nine months. I think that's more than what Tim did for 4-Hour Workweek. Yeah, I have no idea. I think it took him years to get that. Yeah, it's... It's massive. It's insane.

And what about the audiobook? Is there more, how many downloads there? Or is that all encompassing all books? I don't know the exact number with the audiobook. But yeah, the Audible people told us back in the spring. They said it's the most downloaded book on the entire Audible site. Unbelievable. Get some nice royalty checks off of those right there.

I know what that's like. Dude, amazing i remember when i interviewed liz gilbert she had mentioned similar because eat pray love was like this massive yeah i think it was like 10 million sales or something and it was just it turned into a movie with um what's her name who's julia roberts julia roberts and she was like i had julia roberts playing me and it was just everywhere for years and she was like there was had Julia Roberts playing me. And it was just everywhere for years. And she was like, there was no way I was going to be able to create something that good. Yeah. Like, I had to kind of come to my senses that this might be the most popular piece of work I ever do.

Yeah. Type of feeling, you know? Maybe something. Which is hard. Right? You always want to think your best things ahead of you. And suddenly when you start thinking that it might not be, that starts messing with your motivation.

It starts messing with your identity. It's a mind f***er. And it's funny you mentioned her because she did a TED Talk about that. I've watched that TED Talk like three times this summer. Really? Yeah, because I'm a fan of hers. She's great. And I was talking to a friend and she's like yeah liz gilbert did a ted talk about like her life after eat pray love and how she couldn't like she couldn't write for like a year afterwards

because it was just this insane thing that she thought she had to live up to and so yeah i watched that talk a couple times and yeah it, it's real. It's hard. It messes with your head. It really does. And then all the people who are struggling right now. Yeah, they're all like, boo-hoo. Oh, yeah, you sold a million copies of your book. Get over it. It's so hard, man.

Well, that's the other funny thing, too. And I talk about this a little bit in my book. I point out, I'm like, problems never go away. Like Warren Buffett still has money problems. He still probably stresses out at night and worries about things, but nobody's crying a tear for Warren Buffett. And that's kind of the weird thing with success sometimes is, is success as amazing as it is. And, and as much as it can transform your life,

it brings its own stresses with it. You know, it's, it's like the biggie song, more money, more problems. Like it's, it brings its own set of problems with it.

But the thing is, is when you success problems, like not many people are going to sympathize with that. You know, like no, not many people are sitting around going, man, poor Warren Buffett lost $2 billion on that deal. Man, that must be really hard. Nobody's saying that. There's no sympathy for that.

The internal challenges that we face as human beings, no matter what happens, the more successful we become, we still have internal battles, challenges, stresses. With all the money in the world, all the friends in the world, all the power, there's still gonna be stress. If we don't know how to deal with our inner battles, then we're gonna be overwhelmed and we're gonna suffer. So it's a constant awareness of letting things go, of working on ourselves, I think, in a positive way where we can enjoy the process and where we're at no matter what's happening in life.

And it's a never-ending thing. Another thing I say is growth is not getting rid of problems. It's simply getting better problems. You never get to this point where you don't have problems in your life. You just trade in your problems for slightly better problems. That's basically what growth is. You mentioned in the book about if the problem is you're overweight or you're not healthy and then you go get a gym membership and you have to wake up early and you're sweaty all the time. And you're like you have a new problem.

It's like working out. But it's a better one. But it's a better one. You're getting healthy but you have this other challenge. Well, I have to get up earlier and I have to bring my clothes so I can shower at the gym and get to work on time or whatever it is. So it's like a different set of problems and challenges to get a better result though. Yeah, of course. How do we eliminate problems in our life then?

Or can we not? I don't think you can. I don't think there's such a thing as a problem-free life. And I don't think we would want to eliminate problems. Because I make the argument that it's that process of solving our problems or overcoming our problems. That's like the engine that generates happiness. And so when you actually remove problems, it creates its own special kind of misery. You know, like if you imagine like the rich housewife who just sits at the pool all day, like it, or, or the person who watches TV 10 hours a day, like it's, there's a lack of problems also creates, you know, it prevents that engine of happiness. Because, like, you need, like, the problems, you need the problems because that's what generates the meaning.

And if you don't have the meaning, then, you know, everything just feels pointless. And you're like, well, why do anything? I'll just go sit at the pool. and you're like, well, why do anything? I'll just go sit at the pool. And so you need that meaning. It comes back to what I was saying about the stories that we wrap around our positive and negative experiences. That meaning is what creates those powerful stories

that pushes us forward and makes us feel like our life is well lived. Yeah, I mean, if you have like our life is well lived. Yeah. I mean, if you have a trust fund and you don't, you know, make meaning with your life, you just live off the money of someone else. Yeah. It doesn't feel like you've done anything. Yeah. You haven't accomplished anything.

You haven't mattered in the world. You haven't contributed in any positive way, right? Yeah. Contribution is probably one of the most important things for us. Absolutely. Whether we're contributing to our family or our community or in a bigger way, having that contribution is powerful. Absolutely, yeah.

And so there are a lot of miserable housewives, right? Yeah. Who aren't... And trust fund kids. Right, trust fund kids who aren't choosing to use their intelligence, their talents to make an impact. Yeah.

And I think it's important to have that awareness that we should be trying to make an impact the best way we can. Yeah, for sure. Talk about the feedback loop from hell. How do we get out of it? How do we get into it and how do we get out of it? So the feedback loop from hell is a thing I talk about in the beginning of my book where we judge our emotions.

So, you know, a lot of us, and I know I was raised this way and I think a lot of people are raised this way. You know, I was raised that like certain emotions are inappropriate or they're just bad. Like what? Like anger. You know, you don't get angry or you don't show it or you don't, you know, don't be sad. Like how many times has like a well-intentioned friend or family member be like, don't be sad. Or you don't, you know, don't be sad. Like how many times has like a well-intentioned friend or family member be like, don't be sad. No, no, no, just don't be sad. And so I think what the effect this kind of has on us is that we judge these negative emotions. So we decide that

being sad is a bad thing, or being angry is a bad thing, or, you know, feeling guilty is a bad thing. And then a funny thing happens, because then we start feeling sad about the fact that we feel sad, or we start feeling guilty that we feel guilty all the time. Or embarrassed or whatever. Yeah, or we feel angry that we're angry, or we're anxious that we feel anxious all the time. And then it just kind of keeps spiraling. We're like, God, what's wrong with me? I'm always anxious. And it just keeps going and going and going. And so, I call this the feedback loop from hell. And the way you short circuit it is you stop giving a f**k. You stop judging the emotion. You know, sad, like the way, the only way you can get out of it is sadness needs to be okay. Anger needs to be okay.

Anxiety needs to be okay. You know, the question isn't, it's not necessarily the emotion that is good or bad. It's what you do about it. It's how you react to it. It's the meaning, you know, you wallpaper around it. Because all these emotions, again, coming back to like the whole pain thing, like all these emotions exist for a reason. Like they keep us healthy. They are natural responses. If somebody dies, be sad. You're supposed to be sad. That is part of your brain

and your psychology's way of processing it, digesting it. The more you judge or try to shut those emotions out, just the worse it becomes. What about self-talk? Yeah. What do you think about self-talk? Do you think it's important to have a positive mindset and to think positive things throughout the day, or do you think it's irrelevant to feeling happiness, joy, and making an impact? I think self-talk can definitely have an effect for people, both positive and negative. Like, I imagine if you're always telling yourself good things, you probably feel better.

And if you're always telling yourself bad things, you'll probably feel crappy. I definitely think that is true. I don't necessarily, you know, again, my big focus is on meaning. It's, you know, I kind of in the beginning of the book, I'm like, you know what, who cares whether we feel good or bad? Let's talk about like the meaning or the value that like underlies everything. And I think self-talk is one of those things you can get yourself into trouble through positive self-talk just as much as you can through negative you know what it comes down to is like how realistic are you being and like what is what is the quality of the meaning that you're putting on this

because i could have i could walk around being like i am the most badass mother in all of la you know like that girl wants me, that guy wants to be me. Like, you know, I can have positive self-talk all day, but that's probably not gonna have a very healthy effect. You know, if that's what I'm saying, you know, so it's the character of the self-talk is what I think matters.

And I think that gets lost a lot. Or it's something, it's more difficult to talk about that because I think so many people, they just want to, they want that quick hit of like, make me feel good. You know, like, tell me, tell me something to tell myself to make me feel good. And it's like, you can do that. But like, you really got to pay attention to, you know, what's the meaning and what's the identity you're building for yourself when you do that? What about belief? How does someone build belief in themselves then in order to create and take action on something like this?

Because I'm assuming you can't write a book this powerful and inspirational and meaningful if you don't believe in yourself. So how do you create belief in yourself? I've got a pretty backwards approach to this. It's probably going to be, be the opposite of, of you or most people you have on here. Um, which is, I don't really, I kind of just, I don't, it's none of my business whether I'm a good author or not. Um, I try not to think about it. Because again, what I notice is if I get led in the negative self-talk, that will hinder me because I start thinking like, well, I'm bad at this and I'm an idiot and I can't do this. But if I start wandering off in

the positive self-talk, like, oh, I'm the man, like everything I write is gold, you know, that also adds pressure and starts. And like, that's kind of what I was talking about. Like the problem with like, I don't like thinking I'm great at something. I know we're on the school of greatness, but like that also, it puts pressure on because now that's something you have to live up to.

And I just try to let go of all of that. I just try to say, I don't know if I'm good or not. I don't really care. I have these things that I believe are very important for myself and for others. And I just try to focus on that. You know, I kind of had an argument recently with my publisher about my next book. You know, like they were, they had, like, they had our. They're pushing.

They're like, this is what we want. Yeah. It's, it's like, they're like that girlfriend or boyfriend that's like already planned like your next six vacations. Oh my gosh. By like the third date. Like that, that was like happening with the next book. And I kind of freaked out i'm

like look this is not helping um i appreciate the amount of support you're giving me but like this is just making it worse like this is you know if every time i get an email like oh harper's like spending this and they're assigning this these many people your sales team like and then i sit there and i and like i go to like right i'm like man like pressure yeah i'm like yeah can we just get back to like like let me just focus on the ideas you know i i don't want to think about you know all that sort of stuff i i don't want to define myself right um by those sorts of things because one whenever I start to, you know,

like it starts killing my creativity. So yeah, I just try to let go of that. I've actually, I've got a section in the book called, jokingly, called Kill Yourself. Which is where I basically tell people to kind of let go of these narratives of them.

Like, you don't know how good like the funny thing about being good or bad at something it's all about where you're standing you know like you know somebody could be watching this and they'd be like man lewis house he's killing it you know and it's like from their perspective like the yardstick that you're they're using they can say that but then all you have to do is go get a different yardstick go like a warren buffett and he's like yeah or like howard stern or something and it's like oh it was house yeah whatever man like so it's it it's all arbitrary it's all where it's all invented

and um and so i try to just like let go of that and and and get back to like okay what is something that's like valuable that I can contribute? Like you were saying, what's an idea that I think is important, can change lives, can change my life? Write that. And then let everybody else decide whether I'm good or not. I don't know. It's none of my business. So what is your vision next?

Because you listened to Liz Gilbert's TED Talk a bunch of times. Are you working on new ideas? Or are you kind of like, let me just be in the present and enjoy the moment for the year or two that it's going to ride? Man, I wish I could do that. I wish I could do that. I wish I could just like – I mean, you're probably getting big advance offers for the next book. Yeah.

Because now you can kind of demand it and say, write the seven-figure checks. Yeah. I mean, listen, probably getting big advance offers for the next book. Yeah. Because now you can kind of demand it and say, you know, write the seven-figure checks. Yeah. I mean, listen, the money is great. No complaints. You know, I'm playing with ideas for the next book. I'm kind of exploring new things. I kind of made the mistake I made this year was I got a little excited. All that stuff you just said about big advance checks and all the promotion and everything.

I got a little bit excited at the beginning of the year. And I was like, yeah, I got this idea. Let's go. And what I discovered a few months later was I kind of put myself in a bind. Because what I discovered is like, or what I remembered is a big part of my creative process is coming up with like three or four bad ideas before I get to the good one and so I got a few months in and I'm like oh wait I think this is actually a bad idea like I want to toss the whole you know I want to basically start over from scratch right um and so that was kind of part of the you know telling my publisher my publisher, like, dude, back

off. Like, I need some time. I need some time to just suck for a while. Like, you know, like that's, that's, I think that's an important part of any creative process. Like you need to be able to fail without repercussions. You know, I told my editor, I'm like, look, like if I want to like delete a chapter or like rewrite an entire section, like I don't want to feel like I can't do that because I think it's important to feel like you can do that.

Yeah, and get back to doing what you do best, which is writing articles, doing research, sharing ideas, see what sticks. An idea sticks a lot and it shares by everyone. You're like, okay, maybe I can lean into this a little more, write a few more articles on it. Oh, now I've got the basis of my book. Yeah, absolutely.

I see you've been sharing a lot of the archives for the last few months. Oh, man. Called out. From the archives. Goody but oldie. Still relevant. I mean, it's all evergreen. It's not like it's timely or something.

It needs to be at a certain time. But you've got to get that traffic. Yeah, I know. Are you writing new content or new articles? So it's funny you bring that up. Now that I've gotten all that stuff resolved this past few weeks, I have been going back. I've been spending the past two weeks just doing blog content

and doing exactly what you're saying. Like, all right. Back to basics, man. Yeah, I've got a handful of ideas weeks just doing blog content and doing exactly what you're saying. Like, all right. Back to basics, man. Yeah, I've got a handful of ideas. I think they're pretty cool. I'm going to throw them up as articles, see what happens, see if it gets people talking, if people are really into it. So, yeah, there's going to be a lot more blog and online content coming over the next few months. That's great.

Which I feel really good about. I feel like everything is kind of balanced as being restored to the force. months. That's great. Which I feel really good about. I feel like everything is kind of balanced as being restored to the force. Yeah, that's good. Removing the pressure from the publishers, agents and all this. I mean, it's just, it's been a wild experience. Both, you know, on both sides.

Like it's just, it's surreal. Like it's- It's amazing, man. Some, like the good things that happen, it's completely surreal and it's just scrambles your brain. And then two weeks later, it's like pressure you've never felt before because the publisher is like, we're doing this and this and this. It's like, whoa, time out.

Right. What's been the craziest experience you've had since it came out? Well, apparently Chris Hemsworth is a big fan of it. I think I saw him. You posted a photo on Instagram of him holding it, I think. Yeah. So he posted it and it was completely unprovoked. He posted it on Instagram and Facebook.

And he wrote this like long thing. I mean, it was like he loved it. I mean, he was just gushing about it. And I was like, that's crazy. Like, how does that happen yeah you know um so that's that's been pretty awesome um getting stopped on the street yeah the first few times was like whoa yeah weird yeah really weird yeah um weird stuff like my dad was walking around with the book and somebody's like in a restaurant, like somebody like came up to him. I love that book.

Yeah. And my dad's like, my son wrote it. And the guy's like, yeah, whatever. That's hilarious. Wow. Yeah. So it's been- And I'm sure you got a ton of big press and features and all these different places, right? Yeah. I think the F word scared people off. Ah. Yeah. So it's been hit and miss in that arena, which is weird. You would think they would be jumping on the bandwagon.

It's controversial. It's funny. The only time it was mentioned in the New York Times, it was basically this old guy complaining about how many books have the F word in the title these days. And I was like, seriously? This is what the Times is running? Wow. But it sounds like it's been an amazing journey.

Yeah, man. A couple final questions for you. Talk to me about can anyone do anything great or meaningful from a victim mentality? Or is a victim mentality the quickest way to die? I think a victimhood mentality, I think by definition, yeah, you can't really. Because I think once you adopt the victim mentality, you are basically deciding you are powerless. You are saying like, this thing is happening to me, and there's nothing I can do about it. Like, to me, that's the definition of

a victimhood mentality, like deciding you are powerless. And so yeah, I think it's basically impossible. I think the first step to accomplishing anything, big or small, whatever, step to accomplishing anything big or small whatever um is acknowledging that you are in control that you get to decide that you there is this even if it's the smallest thing you know i can do this i can decide to work on this um and it's hard because that that requires taking on responsibility you know being like okay like this is my thing now. Like I have to do this. I think it's easier and it kind of worries me because I think our culture is getting lulled into this complacency of just being like, oh, all this horrible stuff's happening. But it's not my fault, you know.

So I'm just going to complain about it. And do nothing. Yeah. And it's like and do nothing yeah and it's it's like no you gotta take responsibility get out there do something take ownership absolutely yeah i agree i think there's a lot of people who are living in that victim mentality maybe not in all areas of their life but in some area of their life and they're like well there's just nothing i can do yeah i don't have the time i don't have the energy yeah resources it's like well you're not gonna do anything if you think that way. Yeah.

Yeah, totally. But if you can create it and say, I do have the time. Let me make it. Yeah. I do have the resources. Let me start asking people, whatever it may be. Yeah.

Well, and there are people that something terrible legitimately happens to them. Yeah. All of us, something terrible happens. Yeah. Like something, it's everybody, we all suffer tragedy and trauma at some point um but and that may be you know and you yes you may be a victim like in that moment when that thing is happening but you know a day later a week later a year later

10 years later like at some point you have to be like hey it happened but like what am i going to do now yeah you know what am I going to do now? What am I going to do about it? What would you say is your biggest fear moving forward? Just flopping at whatever I do next. Totally. Really? Yeah.

There's a funny thing, and I'm sure you experience this too. Like, anything entrepreneurial that you do, you always have this irrational fear that, like, it's going to be over. Like, you know, like, whatever the next thing is going to be, it's just, like, it's going to crash and burn and, you know, whatever. It's all going to be over. It's like, oh, this was just a fad or I got lucky or I was in the right place at the right time. And, and there's always like every entrepreneur I know has that kind of like lingering doubt in the back of their mind. Um, and it's, it's funny cause it just doesn't,

doesn't go away. Like my, my, my dad, he, he started a plastics business back in the sixties. Um, and he's still going now.

He's, he just turned 70. Wow. And I talked to him once and, and he's like, he's like, I've He just turned 70. Wow. And I talked to him once, and he's like, I've been doing this almost 50 years, and he's like, I'm afraid our biggest accounts are going to leave us.

I'm terrified of a lawsuit. There's a competitor could open up any day and do our formulas better. He's still like, yeah, it could all be over next year. But I think a little bit of that anxiety is useful. It keeps you on your toes. I feel like the way you will fail or have a failure

or not as good a success the next time is if you care too much about what everyone thinks. If you literally give a f*** about it and try to be like, I'm going to write it in a way that ple everyone thinks. Yeah. If you literally like give a – Yeah, exactly. And try to be like, I'm going to write it in a way that like pieces everyone. Exactly. As opposed to being like, no, this is what I believe. This is my counterintuitive feelings on this specific topic. Yeah.

Here's why. And you back it up. Yeah. I think if you were like, well, I don't care if anyone likes this. Right. But here's what's worked for me. Yeah. And here's what's worked for other people. Yeah.

And I'm going to write it in that style. I think it worked for me. Yeah. And here's what's worked for other people. Yeah. And I'm going to write it in that style. I think it'll do well. Yeah. So the soul art of not giving a F about relationships or money or whatever it is. I don't know. But something like that. Yeah. Or the counterintuitive approach to making money.

You know, whatever it may be. Yeah. Yeah. Give me credit for that next idea. Yeah. Royalty check. Yeah, exactly. Give me credit for that next idea.

Yeah. Royalty check. Yeah, exactly. Is there anything that you wish people would ask you that they don't ask? That's a really good question. It's one of those questions too. I feel like there is something. You don't know what it is.

I can't. I've probably done other interviews where I'm like, why isn't this guy asking this but like now that i'm put on the spot i can't think of it or is there anything that you really wish you got to share or talk about that you don't reveal i know you talk a lot about your vulnerabilities but is there anything that you feel like you wish people knew about you more yeah i i don don't know. I'm kind of an open book. I will say, like, I'm genuinely excited about your book. Thank you. I'm not just plugging you because I'm on your show.

I really am. I was telling you before the show, like, I took a stab at writing a book like this, like, five years ago. Because I come from, you know, I got my, my roots are men's dating advice basically. And, um, you know, so I ran like a men's dating advice site for a number of years and, um, and I worked with a lot of clients. I worked with a lot of men who were struggling. Um, I mean, they came to me cause they were struggling in their, with their relationships, but you know, a lot of times they're also struggling professionally in all these other ways.

And doing all the research back then, I came to a lot of the same conclusions that you do. It's a scary topic. It is, man. It's super vulnerable. It is. Because I kind of reveal all my weaknesses in every aspect of being a man for my whole life.

But I'm glad you're the right one to do it because like the reason i gave it up so i started it and you know i had a lot of very similar conclusions and and a lot of the similar points but it was i felt weird because i was coming from like my big mask as you would say like my big thing, as you would say, like my big thing, my big insecurity as a man was always around like, like I was like the party playboy, you know, like I was out drinking all the time. I was chasing girls all the time.

And that was my way of like overcompensating, like proving myself all the time. And so whatever I was gonna write was gonna be rooted in that. And unfortunately, like it's still just really like not socially acceptable, you know, and it's just not as like, you know, you coming from like an athletics background, coming from a business background, like those are much more, you know, and saying like, hey, like this is an issue that men deal with. Like this is something that I dealt with yeah you know when i was writing and

it was like hey i spent like five years drinking and just banging girls and let me tell you it sucked you know it just doesn't it didn't sound good and it wasn't something i wanted to like um it didn't feel like something that was gonna to really resonate with a lot of men or get the point across. Yeah. Well, yeah. Tucker Max kind of did that with his books, but it was more of him bragging about it, which did well. That's what sold it so well, right? Yeah, yeah.

And then when he kind of stopped bragging about it, it didn't do as well. Yeah. You know. Yeah. I mean, there didn't do as well. Yeah. In some ways. Yeah. I mean, there's still a judgment there. There's still like, oh, he's a sleazebag. How seriously can we take him?

And I didn't really want to invite that into my career. But I also just felt like it wasn't going to be as powerful. I also just felt like it wasn't going to be as powerful. I think what's going to make yours more powerful is the stuff around – because what you excelled in, the athletics and everything, that's the mainstream pressure that's put on boys. All the kids who are athletes who grew up and feeling that they couldn't show their emotion, that they had to be a man at an early age, they couldn't be a pussy or whatever it is, you had to just not feel pain, all these different things that hold us back from showing emotion, releasing certain things

that allow us to be vulnerable, allow us to connect with other human beings, that create more anger and resentment inside of us for a long term that we're unable to express it in a loving way or in a safe way, a healthy way, healthy way. Yeah.

We express it through fighting, through screaming, through punching walls and thinking that's like the manly thing you're supposed to do. Right. And I think I appreciate you saying that I'm the right one to talk about it. I just feel like a lot of guys could relate to someone who looks like me, who's been through experiences like me.

Yeah. As a jock-looking dude, you know, who played a ton of sports. Yeah. Who's, you know, built businesses and things like that. I think, hopefully, I'm going to be able to resonate to a lot of men. Yeah. That would never listen to an Oprah, a Brene Brown, a Deepak Chopra.

So hopefully, I have no idea. I appreciate you endorsing it because I'm excited to get it out there. I actually think a lot of women are going to buy it. Like tons of women are going to buy it. Yeah. Well, actually, so I self-published, so my dating advice book, it's called Models Attract Women Through Honesty. And one of the things,

like one of the biggest, I guess, like things that, I guess one of the things that makes me feel the best about it is I get emails all the time from women who are like, I bought this for my brother. I bought this for my husband. I bought this for my son. Because bought this for my husband. I bought this for my son.

Because he's having trouble, he's having relationship problems or he's having trouble meeting women. And there's a lot of scummy stuff out there. But it's like a woman reads it and she's like, yeah, this is what the guy I love or I care about should be reading. So you'll probably get a lot of that too. Yeah. We'll see.

Who knows how to do it? Did you have an idea that this was going to sell a million copies? No. We have no idea. It could be massive. It could be nothing. You really have no idea. I feel excited about it because I'm proud about being so open and

giving an amazing effort at trying to connect with people that I feel like are struggling the most, which are the men in our society right now, specifically with the challenges and our political leadership where there's a lot of controversy and all the hate crimes and everything. It's just like, where is it coming from? How can we move forward in a place of love and uplift all of humanity? That's my mission. Yeah. So I feel like it starts within, I had to look within myself first and say, wow,

there's probably a lot of men who are facing a similar challenge. Yeah, there are. I appreciate your support there. Yeah. This is a question called the three truths. Okay. You've written how many articles now?

Oh God, hundreds. I don't know. Hundreds of articles. You've got a New York time bestselling smashing hit with a million copies sold in the first year, which probably one of 20 people have done in the history of time in the first nine months. And let's imagine that you've achieved everything you want to achieve, which I know you don't have any big dreams. You keep it neutral, but let's say you achieve everything you want to,

and it's your last day for you many, many years from now. It's your last day. You're 100 and however old you want to be, and you've written many best-selling projects. All the content you want to write has been out there. You've done all the research. You've got all the answers for yourself. You've shared it with the world.

But for whatever reason, it's all erased. No one has access to any book that you've ever done or any article. Okay. And you've got a piece of paper and a pen to write down three truths, three things you know to be true about everything you've learned. And this is all that the world would be able to have to remember you by. Yeah. What would be those lessons or those three truths three man um no pressure no pressure

um yeah so i mean the first one that comes to mind is what really and it feels so cliche to say out loud, but it is a really profound thing. It took me a long time to realize is that really at the end of the day, the, what really matters is the relationships with the people in your life, you know, um, success, accolades, money, success, accolades, money, having fun. Like these are all great things. But if you don't have people close to you to share them with or to support or help support you, pretty much anything will eventually feel empty.

So that would be a big one. Second one I would say is that anything worthwhile is going to require some sort of sacrifice. And a lot of people, you know, everybody's heard that, and I think when people hear that, they think of it in terms of like, oh, yeah, sacrifice. Like, you got to work hard, and you got to stay at the office late,

and you got to like, and that's true. But I think there's actually a deeper and more difficult sacrifice, especially for our generation, which is to commit to something, to like make it meaningful and worthwhile and do it extremely well, become great at it. You have to be willing to give up

maybe other dreams or things that you want. You know, there came a point in my career where I was like, you know, this writing thing is going really well. You know, that was actually what killed my music dreams was the writing. Because it was like, the writing thing's going so well, I would be an idiot to like stop and like go start a band or something. Like, you know, and so I had to let it go go start a band or something like you know it and so i had to let it go i had to be like you know it's it's just not gonna happen um and and there

was a grieving process for that but it was like it was okay you know i moved on yeah um and so i think that's kind of that's the sacrifice is like as you especially as you get older you have to like realize that there's just some things that you're never gonna do and that's okay like we all have to decide that at some point um third one uh oh my god your last truth the last truth that Mark Manson will ever leave behind. I don't know, man. Just don't give a fuck. Yeah, don't give a fuck.

I don't know. Vulnerability, a lot of stuff we've been talking about. Yeah, yeah. I guess you always have, you always, you can always choose. Like you always have the power to decide. You always have the power to decide like what something means. You always have the power to decide you always have the power to decide like what something means

you always have the power to decide what to do next there's no situation where you aren't empowered in some way yeah those are great I love those well I want to acknowledge you Mark for constantly reinventing yourself being open and vulnerable and

taking the time to write something that matters to you. And I'm so glad that it matters to so many other people as well. But just your commitment to constantly doing the work. You've been doing this for years now. And you're seeing the results come through. It's amazing. And I'm super excited for you. So I want to acknowledge you for your vulnerability by constantly opening up

and showing other people how they can open up as well because I think that's one of the most important things. It's not trying to act like you're better than you are or more important than you are or perfect. By doing work that matters, it's really meaningful.

I acknowledge you for that, man. Make sure you guys get the book. We have one final question. Make sure you get the subtle art of not giving a f***. A counterintuitive approach to living a good life by Mark Manson, the mega hit. And where do you hang out online the most since you're not really on social media that much? But where can we connect with you and say hi and tell you how amazing this is? really on social media that much, but where can we connect with you and say hi and tell you how amazing this is? So my website, markmanson.net, got all sorts of articles and cool PDFs and eBooks

and stuff. So check that out. And socialmedia, facebook.com slash markmanson.net. I actually do post there and there will be new stuff posted. No, your Facebook's great. You're posting. Yeah. Mark Manson net on Facebook. And then if you want to come to my Instagram and once a month, you'll get something and see a picture once a month. Very cool, man.

Well, I'm excited for this. And the final question for you is what's your definition of greatness? Definition of greatness. for you is what's your definition of greatness? Definition of greatness, I would say is feeling that it's one of those things that's like, I have it in my head, but I got to get the right words to like, I would say my definition of greatness is simply the experience of living your potential. Having an idea or a vision and then actually bringing that into reality. Whatever it is.

It could be hosting a PTA meeting. It could be writing a bestseller. It could be starting a business. It could be tutoring your kids. It's having a vision for yourself and for the people you care about. And then actually like realizing that. That's what I would say. Love it.

Mark Manson. Thanks, man. Appreciate you. Thanks. Boom. Shakalaka. There you have it.

If you enjoyed this, tag me on your Instagram story right now, at lewishouse on your Instagram story. Take a screenshot of this podcast on your phone or take a photo of it if you're listening to it on your computer and tag me at lewishouse with the link lewishouse.com slash 524. Also, the full show notes, the full video interview and other information about Mark's book is back on that link. Again, lewishouse.com slash 524.

Let me know what you thought. Share it out on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, all the places. And again, let me know what you think. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. And I hope to see you in less than a month at the Summit of Greatness in Columbus, Ohio, with some of the biggest and most inspirational speakers in the world. It's going to be mind blowing. It's going to be about a thousand people from all over the world coming together to learn how to continue to dive into their own greatness. I hope to see you there. Make sure to give me a big hug. Say hi to me when you're there.

It's going to be a blast. And like Tony Robbins said, whatever you hold in your mind on a consistent basis is exactly what you'll experience in your life. I hope you guys are holding powerful things in your mind consistently, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you.